Crossing the Line (The Other Side)

Such a week of wonders--from genesis to revelations, global tribal incantations, new skeins for the old ceremonies, stone fresh waters hauled up from an ancient well (drink the long draught down)...

Beginning Thursday up at Yale--me alma mater/nourishing mother--"my old school" (when you put me on the Wolverine/Up to New Haven)--Battell Chapel in point of fact, nestled at the corner of Elm and College Street, where hmmm lessee some 37 years gone by I saw a pre-Mahavishnu John McLaughlin play a transcendent solo acoustic set of devotional music accompanied his lovely ladyfriend's hypno-tamboura drone...a miracle of inspiration then to me inside that holy sacristy, revisited once again stepping cross the threshold of old dreams transfigured into this same chapel again for Yale's Second Annual Conference on Line-Singing--presided over by the warm and wise renowned jazz musician/ethnomusicologist, my former professor/mentor Willie Ruff (another one of the Good Guys)--who as I've mentioned in a previous posting taught one of the best damn courses I took there on Afro-American Music which for our term project requirement sent many of us in ragtag tag-teams into several New Haven inner-city schools to spread the Word to the youngfolk, with astonishing results (I remember us throwing an entire 5th grade classroom into frenzied paroxysms of joy and dithyrambic abandon upon our playing a recording of Manu Dibango's "Soul Makossa", which forced the teacher to lay her weary head down on her desk until the tumult subsided)...

Willie had marshalled there three disparate congregations representing/still practicing the ancient a capella call-and-response Protestant church tradition of line-singing--an eerie, beautiful vocal tradition originally intoned in Gaelic, originating out of the Scottish highlands, exported to the New World, and chanted for centuries thereafter by the descendants of African slaves in the Deep South, by white church goers in remote corners of Appalachia, and in a recent finding that was elucidated and amplified on at the conference by my dear friend Prof. Hugh Foley, carried on to this day in rural Oklahoma churches by small groups of Creek Indians who conduct their services in their native language...

And verily beginning at 10am last Wednesday did these choirs demonstrate amazing similarities and disparities in their approach to this ancient sacred ritual of line-singing, the likely forerunner and well-spring for gospel music, blues, and beyond...

After some introductory remarks from Willie, the Sipsey River Primitive Baptist Association of Eutaw, Alabama, immaculate and elegant in their Sunday best finery (the Reverend decked out in an amazing iridescent red suit), shone forth with a stirring and splendid hymn, their elder/reverend "repeatin' the line repeatin' the line repeatin' the line" (Van Morrison explaining the origination of his exhortatory, gospel-inflected jazz-improv approach to r&b--remember "you breathe in/you breathe out/you breathe in/you breathe out" in "Beside You" from his "Astral Weeks" album?--check out the excellent television bio-documentary "One Irish Rover", where Van Morrison does a similar kind of line-singing repetition performing with Bob Dylan acting as the respondent, singing the title track)--the right reverend leading his congregation into moaning swells of emotion, mighty clouds of knowing-ful joy reverberating straight up to the organ loft and filling the church, some of the older Sipsey Primitive Baptist women breaking into hoarse shouts and holy-roller type ecstatic testifying: the unknown tongue extending, and retracting...

Next up, under the gentle but commanding guidance of Willie Ruff, the Indian Bottom Old Regular Baptists of Southestern Kentucky, upright and dignified and exhibiting a cool gravitas, did a similar sacred hymn which unlocked once more the floodgates of emotion among transmitters and receivers (I saw one of the male Old Regular Kentucky congregants actually weeping listening to the voices of his black brethren across the aisles during their introductory song)...and I myself was moved to tears by hearing these Kentucky Old Regulars limn the sacred text with the "high lonesome sound"--that nasal twang as first described/identified by New Lost City Rambler/ethnomusicologist John Cohen inherent in the grain of the voice of many Appalachian singers such as his discovery/protege Roscoe Holcomb; indeed, indigenous to much bluegrass music--and that high lonesome sound vibrates that spiritual tuning fork within me, and gets me everytime, much like the deepest blues...

And then the 20 members of the Hutchee Chuppa Indian Baptist Church, ultra-friendly folks none the worse for their 2 day chartered bus journey up from Oklahoma, began to sing, with Hugh and his son Nakose joining in--and to hear their beautiful, mournful, almost dirge-like chanting and wailing, profoundly primordial and pouring forth from the hearts of this Creek Indian nation congregation, hit me where I live, broadside my soul again... a ghostly emanation summoned up from the fathomless depths of this Indian congregation and hanging there in that chapel atmosphere like a revenant, an almost visible spectral aura of suffering and redemption, a transmission from another world and another time that spoke eloquently of spiritual longing and transcendence..."strings in the earth and air", sung in the the Creek language, their beautiful voices made the original prayer words seem mysterious and not of this world, not at all "Christian" in the conventional melodic sense...but it was! (See a sample here.)

Howard Lamar, former president of Yale and an expert on the history of the American West, next gave a fascinating talk about the Indian presence and tradition at the university...

and after lunch, Hugh Foley delivered one of the best and most informative lectures I've ever attended, a fluent and discursive narrative about the historical foundations of Creek line-singing basically coming about due to the Removal--a shameful episode in the history of this country, the forced migration in the 19th century of the Creek Indians living in the Southeastern US to the Indian Territory of Oklahoma--a/k/a the Trail of Tears...and accompanying the Creeks on that Trail were Baptist missionaries of Scottish descent...

Hugh also made a forceful case for Creek Indian Line-Singing, which dates back to the 1830's, as being--possibly--the earliest truly "American" music, partaking as it does of both African, European and Native American traditions (he might also have included the Middle Eastern Jewish cantorial tradition of migratory chanting, which flourished during the Diaspora). Creek Indian Line-Singing as the original American fusion music, forged in the white hot crucible of the Melting Pot.

I couldn't stay the full two days of the conference, unfortunately, and thus did not get to visit the Beinecke Rare Book Library where some of these original Creek hymnals dating back to the 1830's reside (along with the Gutenberg Bible--and the 1640 Massachusetts Bay Colony Songbook, the fist ever book published in America--the forerunner of all American hymnals)--but I was so knocked-out privileged to hear this music live--and hearing these three choirs all sing different versions of "Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah" in their different styles and melodies, is an experience that will linger in my heart forever--resonating as it did with my own affinities for blues and the poetic spirit (check this profile on my own work, from the latest issue of DownBeat here).

It was definitely some of the bluesiest music I've ever heard. For more info check this account from the Washington Post.

Had some good times up there with Hugh and his son (took 'em to Pepe's Pizza on Wooster Street for the best pizza in the known universe--Nakose brought the box home as a souvenir)...and also hung with Joey Hendel, ace Gods and Monsters trombonipulator/soon to be graduating Yale senior, we chowed down at the famous Louis' Lunch neo-log cabin, where they claim to have invented the hamburger (and where they won't allow you to put any condiments on their precious patties either--they don't need any, in truth, they're so succulent), not far from the little house since disappeared where Jeff Bewkes, Bill Moseley, and Jimmy Angell once ruled the roost...also very near the pad where Bob Rubin and Tim O'Brian once lurked ("The Buzz-On Boys")...

Meanwhile late at night on a stroll through the Old Campus where the annual tapping of Yalies for various secret societies was in full fine feckless sway out on the surrounding streets (blind leading the blindfolded, literally--a little too close to real-life geopolitical events these days, for my taste), I poked my head into Linsley Chittenden 101, mock English Tudor classroom by day/sanctum sanctorum of filmic phantamagoria back in the day from dusk till dawn, wherein I used to operate my weekly horror film society "Things That Go Bump in the Night" in the early 70's with Bill Moseley...and as I surveyed the scene of our past crimes and glories, cell-phone affixed to ear with Bill actually on the line all the way from the coast, I gave him an eye-witness you-are-there description on the current state of our old joint... revenants' reverence pour la recherche de la temps perdu ("In the marble halls of the charm school/How flair is banished!")...

Back to NYC via Metro-North...

and the following night I taxi'ed all the way up to the Bohemian National Hall again for a most exquisite dramatic japerie in the form of a production of Carlo Goldoni's spirited Commedia dell Arte masterpiece "Servant of Two Masters" ( guess whom they might be), as performed by the National Theatre of Prague--and featuring the most amazing actor, Miroslav Donutil, as Truffaldino, a peerless, rubberfaced tummler and clown prince on a par with Zero Mostel at his best, reminscent too of Salvo Randone's Eumolpo character in "Fellini Satyricon"...taxi'ed up there with my old friend Kenny Hurwitz, formerly of Human Rights First and now a lawyer with the George Soros Foundation...good on-the-fly translation into headphones helped us both immeasurably, especially enjoyable was the reception afterwards where I met the Czech Minister of Foreign Affairs Karel Schwarzenberg, who along with Ambassador Martin Palous, his lovely wife Pavla, Czech Cultural Center supremo Monika Koblerova, Czech surrealist painter/madman Franta, and our friends the artists John Bowman and Ann Shostrom made it a perfect spring night to remember...

Monday night I caught the rising young British act The Noisettes at the Mercury Lounge, my Side Salad Records labelmates in the UK, signed to Motown her--and--they were awesome, no lie!!--an ultra-high energy exploding nebula of a psych-pop power trio fronted by Shingai Shoniwa, a compelling and charismatic skinny black female ball of fire who played bass and guitar and possesses an impressive vocal range and great sexy moves...their drummer and lead guitarist Dan and Jamie respectively play like men possessed, like clockwork marionettes on ritalin (the drummer locked himself in the house for a year and a half woodshedding--and he sounds like it, he was all over his kit, pummelling it like a fiendish prize-fighter)--their music had flashes of the good old Brit-wave, with glimpses of some PJ-ish pajamarama, some Poly Styrene-ish X-Ray vision, some Pauline Murray penetration, and a little Lene Love-itch--the crowd was the usual New York too-cool-for-emotional display bunch at first, but the cheers kept building, getting louder and louder during their set as the band went from strength to strength, finishing with their great new single "Scratch Your Name (Into the Fabric of This World)"--go see them, asap--they are really something else (and really really nice, sweet folks)...

And last night--what can I say, but that the incomparable, legendary Patti Smith once again took NYC by storm, effortlessly, in a multiple set night at the Bowery Ballroom debuting her new album of covers, "Twelve"--her band was loose and basically unplugged, and all the better for it, as Patti, the poet as valkyrie, possessor of one of the most authentic, resonant, and indelible voices in rock 'n roll history, beguiled and seduced with irresistible new twists on The Doors' "Soul Kitchen" (a slow-burner that got everyone hot and sweaty), a spontaneous romp through Lou Reed's "Perfect Day" (not on the album unfortunately), and finished with a definitive revisiting of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit"--Patti was in her element, totally relaxed, in full command and in great spirits, rapping away and goofing on the crowd and warming to the mass love and good cheer coming back at her in copious waves from the full house, content to subsume her poetic genius for the moment in other folks' words and music...

but under pressure from the crowd she finally busted out a raging "Free Money", with Lenny, J.D., Jackson and co. galloping along right beside her, right there with Patti the shaman, the high priestess/ heirophant, in a breathtaking performance that galvanized the crowd, shook the rafters, and transfixed me--as in New Haven--my ears stand up when I hear that sound--the sound of human struggle redeemed (redemption songs)...she got the way to move me--the way the best music always moves me...connecting the power of the word made flesh with music as trance-formative ritual...the way sacred (and let's face it, occasionally profane) rituals can manifest epiphanies...infinite ripples on the surface of the water, drawn from an ancient well (anna livia plurabelle)...

repeatin' the line repeatin' the line repeatin' the line...

xxLove

Gary

When you're alone, and life is making you lonely...

you can always go-- "Downtown"!...an excellent zip-code, a wunnerful weltenschaung, a spectacular new movie produced written and starring Joey Dedio, a canny bi-coastal thespian and running buddy of my onetime protege Vin Diesel, which premiered last night at the Apollo Theater with a free screening...and a gritty, searing no-holds-barred account of homeless people surviving on the mean streets of Manhattan it was, excellent cast sparkling through the on-screen schmutz throughout, particularly lovely young Latina actress Flora Martinez and former gamine the veteran French trooper Genevieve Bujold...last time I was up at the Apollo was many many moons ago to see the Beastie Boys get boo'ed off the stage (triggered by Mike D's ill-advised comment/falsetto'ed JB impression: "The Apollo Theater!!! Ah feel jus' like James Brown!!...Please Please Please Pleeeeeeez!") --which caused a shit-storm of scorn and mass obloquy to rain down on the Boys' heads from the unamused patrons of colour there, Beastie boys bolting off the stage shortly thereafter...

Downtown on the Bowery Friday night Gods and Monsters played our collective heart out with a white-hot set sparked by the last-minute surprise appearance of Jerry Harrison, who was in town taking his daughter round to look at colleges...Ernie rustled up a keyboard for Jerry to play from Jonathan Kane at the eleventh hour-- and we slam-dunked maybe the best most intense and powerful set as ever we played as a 5 piece. with Jerry laughing and loose, on message and on fire, we premiered quite a few new songs as well and I will tell you that the set ranked up there as one of the top 5 greatest Gods and Monsters hits since I started the group in 1989...the walls of the Bowery Poetry Club shook, the stage threatened to give way, Jason Billy and Ernie and I were inspired to new heights of instrumental madness and derring-do with Jerry there to goad us on--and hey you can check a clip of us live performing our new anthem "Swamp Thing" on Youtube, which you can view here--taken from our forthcoming new live at CMJ CD/DVD which Jerry is putting the finishing touches to with a 5.1 surround sound mix, show was filmed last November at the Bowery Poetry Club--the new disc should be out in the fall, stay tuned...

Other fun stuff: Monday night met up with one of my oldest and dearest pals tres erudite film and music critic/savant and all around Good Guy Glenn Kenny (one of the certifiable Knowledge Brothers--had a whole column named after him in fact: "Ask Glenn!"), and his radiant bride of nearly a year Claire Elizabeth at the good old Cafe Loup (nee the Bells of Hell, former 70's rockrit watering-hole--cue "Hell's Bells" as sung by Mae Questel in the 1934 pre-Hayes Code nearly nude Betty Boop toon scandale "Red Hot Mamma")...good to relate that Glenn more than survived the recent bloodletting at Premiere magazine and indeed is happilly thriving at Premiere Online, big guy was full of good cheer per usual and gossip galore, just back from the Sarasota Film Festival and soon off to Cannes (where Elli met Brian...but that's another story)...Claire looked even more smart and beautiful if you can believe it than when she marched down the aisle last summer to the strains of "Our Love Is Here to Stay" as performed by yours truly... and it sure as hell looks that way--congratulations Glenn!

... had a delicious dinner up at my pal the Czech UN Ambassador Martin Palous' luxurious townhouse/official Czech ambassador's residence last week, pretty incroyable 5 story upper Eastside domicile replete with swimming pool, sauna, mirrored bathrooms galore (apparently a swinging 70's former Japanese brothel bought by the shrewd Czech govt. for a song some years ago and nearly completely refurbished)--not to mention an elevator, butler, cook, roof garden, garage: a 7 storied building to die for--and a day later I went uptown to the east 80's for a Czech fashion show at the Bohemian National Hall, a benefit for Unicef, where lovely semi-nude multi-hued models of colour strutted their stuff draped in diaphanous eleganza courtesy of crack Czech designer Libena Rochova of Studio LR to ominous doomy electronica in the elegant desuetude of the old Hall itself-- and where in the back in a side room myriad homemade dolls were on sale the proceeds of which were going to Unicef-- including a fetching doll called "Eve" complete with dreadlocks and curly pubic hair (not the real deal, of course... but as they used to say about Beatlemania, "an incredible facsimile"--wooly bully, indeed--those naughty Czech designers!).

The Czech National Theater--one of the finest theastrical ensembles in the world-- is appearing onstage at the Bohemian National Home starting this weekend--and you should make it a point if you're in New York to be there...

Bye for now!

xxLove

Gary

PS The great Czech madman, poet, and Plastic People lyricist Egon Bondy, whom I wrote about back in October (check the entry titled "Bondy...Egon Bondy") just passed away, there was an excellent obit in the Times which you can read here.

PSS and Sopranos fans, please check out Virginia Heffernan's blog here.

PSST and go see "Grindhouse", if only for my pals' Bill Moseley and Udo Kier's cameos in the fake Rob Zombie "Werewolves of the SS" trailer in the middle...despite what you may have read, I think Robert Rodriguez's "Planet Terror" was the superior film of the diptych--I count his "Desperado" and "From Dusk Till Dawn" as among my alltime favorites (so he's had some duff films since then...this one's a real return to form)..."Death Proof" was fun-- but why did Tarantino feel free to exempt himself from the fake film glitches and dirt-marks that lovingly marked the other film and trailers? Because his stuff is Art--and the other contributors, not?

A bit high-handed, that...

Going for the Godhead (Lift the Bandstand!)

Gary gets a Big Hug from the original Po from the Teletubbies outside the temporary Teletubbies Store, Bleecker and West 10th Street, NYC

photo by Andrew Marks | click to enlarge

What an AMAZING week of really different kind of musical performances...some different shit, for sure...and yet, despite the radically disparate nature of each project (electric Indian heavy dub-groove mashup vs. heavy metal transmogrification of 19th century Austrian composer Anton Bruckner), somehow-- really similar--insofar as the 2 projects I'm so enthusiastic about here both partook heavily (drank the long draught down) of the ecstatic, the transcendental, the spiritually immanent-- qualities I seek in all the variegated sonorous trajectories pursued to date (limbs gone out on, you might say)--including excursions into 1930's Chinese pop, radical Jewish music, avant-garde rock, jazz, folk, blues, and beyond...

First up was the performance debut at Joe's Pub, the wonderful plush nightclub/boite carved (in part) out of the former 80's screening room/ theater in Joseph Papp's imposing Public Theater space, of a new ensemble consisting of myself on electric guitar and fx along with my friend the Indian world music star Karsh Kale (tabla and percussionist extraordinaire, vocalist, electronic dubmaster organizer, all-around impeccable musician--check his solo albums on Six Degrees), the hypnotic, charismatic Indian quawwali singer and harmonium player Vishal Vaid, and genius electric bassist/producer Yossi Fine, who's played with Lou Reed, Bowie and many other greats...

and I must say we truly WRECKED the joint at 9:30pm last Saturday night in front of an absolutely sold-out house... and then did it again, maybe even better (some did say) at 11:30pm to a pretty darn nearly sold-out house, that included lots of friends like the Rubin Museum's Tim McHenry, Invasion Group's Steve Saporta, insane-in-the membrane fox Shaista Hussain and comix maven Gus, my guy the newly appointed Soros Foundation's legal eagle/3rd world corruption roto-rooter-outer Kenny Hurwitz, my other mainman, Cineastispumanti imbiber (drink the long draught down, again) Richard Porton, composer Lukas Ligeti and galpal whose name I shamefully forget--sorry!--, BBC music producer Allison McGourty, Karsh's wife Anya and her lovely daughter, fetching Kate DeRosset, and myriad gorgeous and hip multi-kulti/ multi-coloured men and women,...it was quite a magic night, we played as one with very little rehearsal, both Karsh and myself each bringing his own compositions to the table which we distributed equally amongst the guys...

The evening began with Karsh and myself playing in an acoustic duo format of tabla and acoustic guitar, and then we were joined by Yossi and finally Vishal...and the whole thing started throbbing and pulsating and wailing like some wholly holy Karnatic carnal carnivale... until-- ASCENSION...ending on a particularly awesome, eerie synchronistic close at the end of the first set when Karsh and I faded out in precise sympathetic unison, beat for beat, my guitar emanating a tremelo'ed pulsating pattern I set up and sustained, eventually decaying and dying away exactly at the same time as Karsh faded on tabla with the same pulsating pattern, yes o my brothers and sisters we were rockin' in rhythm...really such a pleasurable sonic throwdown/r. u. ready to rock experience-- I LOVE playing with these guys! Just wait till you hear us :-)...

And then it was up up and away after very little sleep once again, outward bound on a plane to Montreal, where my old friend the crafty and amusing intellectual tummler Sandy Pearlman was a'waiting..and after lunching at the famous Schwartz's Hebraique Deli (their "smoked meat" sandwich--Canadian parlance for pastrami--is a killer--literally, cholesterol city...but what the hey), I got down and dirty at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University where Sandy is a Distinguished Fellow, and plugged in my '66 Strat--the better to test out the Marshall and Vox stacks Sandy had assembled for my delectation in order to shatter eardrums and minds, as I was earmarked to perform my Bruckner Fantasia the next day for his and Music School Dean Don McLean's graduate and undergraduate students, who'd signed up for Don and Sandy's jointly taught course entitled "Bruckner and Heavy Metal" (yes, Virginia, there is an elective eclectic electric affinity here)...

Sandy confessed to me during this trip that he was inspired to make such a connection between mittel-European highbrow orchestral composition and the blasphemous in-your-face noise skronk of heavy metal (a term Sandy can lay claim for coining in one of his great early Crawdaddy Magazine essays) upon hearing me perform Wagner excerpts on my '64 black Strat at the old Knitting Factory in the late 80's... and both Sandy and the witty, jovial Don (a don of Dons--a very nice guy, a sharp intellect, and an incredible ear--and a scholar of both the Second Viennese school, Alban Berg being his specialty, and Slayer-- the school is lucky indeed to have him as their Dean) together make a very persuasive case for Bruckner being a major precursor to modern headbanging round the world, what with the massive armory of 19th century orchestral wood and metal weaponry the guy marshall'ed/stacked at his disposal...and the dramatic, spiritually uplifting, emotionally fraught (some would say almost frightening) method in which Bruckner chooses to fling these instruments' imposing sonic impasto around on the surface of his architectonic scores with their luminous, glow-in-the-dark integrated vertical harmonies, in such transfigurative and transfixing masterworks as his 8th Symphony ( a/k/a "The Apocalypse")...

Sandy and Don had suggested I retool fragments of the 4th movement of this particular sublime composition and reforge them in the smithy of my Fender's friendly-fire...

and so did I spend many long man-hours over the last few months working out suitable arrangements of the major themes and subtle harmonic stratifications inherent in this movement so as to suitably capture the repeated fusillades of galloping staccato'ed unison passages, cascades and cannonades of stark, declarative minor key cadences/motifs (fate knocking at the doorway to hell--the sturm und drang und clang of the Alpine reaper)...and I did not disappoint these students, receiving sustained applause and much enthusiastic feedback, plenty of intelligent questions abounding at the conclusion of my performances for the graduate seminar and undergraduate courses... I added many brooding electronic ruminations/improvisations throughout along with the requisite metal flash and filigree, faithfully reproducing the needle-point lacework and cleanly articulated skirling lines of the original--my template was Wilhelm Furtwangler's definitive 1944 live recording with the Berlin Philharmonic of Bruckner's 8th Symphony, in which, in several lulls and passages of quietude within the 4th movement, you can actually hear the distant guns of the Russian army approaching the gates of the city-- and, in a return to my Beefheartian past, I learned and transcribed the parts to guitar by ear, memorizing them sequentially as I attacked this monumental edifice (a real scream of stone), without benefit of score--the stuff sticks better that way (better get hit in yr soul)...and I now truly know this piece, "from the inside"...

Stephane Giroux, from the Canadian national television network CTV, was there with a crew to film it, and I hope to have a clip of some of my performance up on my website soon...it was really quite a gratifying and thrilling experience, I loved learning and playing such rapturous, impassioned, "byzantine" music (literally--composed at the end of an empire, with appropriate scales and references) ...it haunts me still, the swooning second major theme is running through my head now as I type this at 3am, indelibly burned in my brain...

and after much convivial hanging out with Don and Sandy at some of their various wonderful Montreal restaurants (the swordfish at Mythos and veal a limone at Il Cortile especially is highly recommended if you're planning a trip to Montreal, which I urge you forthwith), I was very sorry to leave so soon...I love Montreal!... such great feng shui/world-in-harmony up there, just a step across the border...

And what do both these two musical worlds have in common?

Well... I remembered up in Montreal that once upon a time I used to run into Sandy quite by chance at screenings in NYC in the mid-80's when he was fresh off of his Clash producing spree tussling with those British punk icons on their "Give 'Em Enough Rope" album--and met him, guess where?-- in that very same Public Theater space that is now Joe's Pub, where I'd just hit the heights with Karsh Kale and co.--met him at a screening of Jean-Marie Straub and Daniele Huillet's great film of second Viennese school kappelmeister Arnold Schoenberg's modernist opera "Moses Und Aron", wherein Schoenberg, a former convert to Catholicism, firmly declared in this work his adherence to his Jewish roots in a desperate attempt to warn European Jewry of their impending doom under the Nazis before fleeing to Hollywood...and at a screening of "Alexander Nevsky", where Sandy and I both went into paroxysms of awed astonishment at Eisenstein's adroit visual deployment of massed batallions of idealized Teutonic Knights, in tandem with Prokofiev's glorious score...

(No, that's not it!)

But I would say: that the thing that unites both my leap and total immersion in the bubbling cauldron of Bhangra-beat, and rapid ascent into the blue empyrean of Bruckner on wings of purest metal, is nothing less than a bred-in-the-bone shared imperative/impulse to Go for the Godhead...to storm the reality asylum...to ride the tide of the redemptive and healing force of the universe, Mother Music...a/k/a, the Big Note...

Call it the Shekinah...or Shiva...

"You know what I mean..."

Happy Passover/Happy Easter/Happy Rabi Ul Awal

xxLove

Gary