Hello friends,
Last night I bore witness to one of the most aggressive "love bombs' I'd ever seen in the park across the street from the record store. The sky was as dark as could be, but various lanterns, projected rainbows and a twisted glowing obelisk (which one drunk man would not stop referring to as a "nuclear whale penis") created all kinds of brightness. As I downed whiskeys, local musician's Larry Yes and Tousaint Perralt took the stage.
Larry is famous for his intense dedication to promoting the word "love". He does this through countless songs and literally thousands of paintings that portray the word scrawled over and over. Portland has commissioned Larry to paint the word "Love" all over it's walls and concrete ground. One time a friend of mine asked Larry's wife, "what's it like to wake up next to a rainbow everyday?" I find his art baffling, but welcomed.
As Larry and Tousaint crooned a song about how love is the only thing that is real and time does not exist, a hundred people on bikes rounded the corner with a ten foot tall L-E-D light display of the word "LOVE". It flashed aggressively in front of the record store as a crowd dressed as unicorns, rave kittens and Goblins (?) sauntered around it in the street. Pre-pandemic, this display would have been an eye roller for me. Portland was rife with party buses, bike mobs, and roaming gangs of "fun" people having "fun". Many times did I round a street corner to find hundreds of dancing and prancing "Keep Portland Weird" zealots blocking my path. I've smiled at them, gave a thumbs up and then briskly walked in the opposite direction. I have to admit, there has always been a part of me that was jealous of their exuberance and ability to give themselves over to the glitter and the rave beats. I never had that in me. For the past two years, the only street parties I've seen were massive protests. While the protesters displayed many of the same halmarks as the "Keep Portland Weird '' street partiers...plenty of unicorn costumes and rave beats - the direness and intensity of why they were in the streets gave them new gravitas, at least in my eyes. They were the only party in town, but they were protesting Black people being murdered by Police Officers and displacement due to gentrification. 
Now here again were the partiers with no agenda beyond spreading the word of "Love". It was the first street party I had seen in a long time where there was no fear of teargas, billy clubs, Oath Keepers, Proud Boys or Two Percenters (or whatever those fucks are called). I looked around at the scene and shocked myself by starting to openly and uncontrollably weep.
I'm not a crying man - in fact I only cry maybe once a year or two. I'm not sure why I chose this moment to break down. I suspect it's because it was the first time Portland felt like it did before the Pandemic. It was a time warp.
I suspect we are all in for a good uncontrollable weeping. When it comes, let it come. We have all sustained monumental amounts of trauma over the past couple years. My way of dealing with these times has been to become, even more than usual, a work machine. I chop wood. Then I chop wood. Then I chop some more wood. The shed is overflowing, but still I chop. I can count the few days I took off work over the past year on two hands and these days were not enjoyable. I could not relax into them. I longed to get back to work even though I was exhausted.
But, we are all gonna have to stop and take stock sooner than later. And, if it takes a giant L-E-D "LOVE" parked in front of the record store flashing while the unicorn dances around it to get me back in touch with my emotions a little, then so be it.
...and, we got the records! I truly believe that music helped get me through the past couple years as much as anything. Music, and friendships. The pandemic found me excited about records to a degree I had not been since I was a teenager.
Despite supply chain problems, price increases and manufacturing hold ups, Mississippi Records is soldiering on and putting out a ton of releases in 2022. We are still beyond excited about music. Available this month are -
- A NEW LP by the great SE Rogie - The Further Sounds Of SE Rogie . Absolutely beautiful palm wine music from Sierra Leone.
- The stunning Los Golden Boys - Cumbia De Juvnentud featuring : cumbia, twist, rock n roll, pachanga, and more styles. For fans of Cumbia and garage rock - this is your dream come true record. - Michael Hurley's long out of print classics Armchair Boogie, Hi Fi Snock Uptown and Blue Hills. - Dead Moon's In The Graveyard and Trash and Burn - The Cairo Records triple LP magnum opus Do You Believe It? - A vastly improved version of Abner Jay's Folk Song Stylist LP. 
.....and in March we'll have the long awaited Dead Moon LP - Destination X
We've also moved the "After The End Of The World Festival" to mid June. Check the Hollywood Theater website for tickets to see the Sun Ra Arkestra, WITCH, Lonnie Holley and more (!). For those outside of Portland, you might want to consider a trip here for this epic week.
I have a book recommendation here too. I suggest everyone reads The Dawn Of Everything, A New History Of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow. It's all about how the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. It's helped me find a way forward and I hope it can do the same for you.
Keep your stereo cranked, keep reading books, and walk in the sun whenever it shines. Hope is patience with the lamp lit.
It's a long way to the top if you wanna rock and roll,
Eric 
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On February 17th, Mississippi Records will be showing "The Secret Life Of Plants" at the Hollywood Theater, a documentary with the potential to change your life. 
When I first saw The Secret Life Of Plants as a kid, it confounded me with how much its ideas contrasted the version of science and history they fed me at school. According to my teachers, American and Western culture in general was hyper advanced, transcended the savagery of nature and was just getting better and better as time moved on. Contrastingly, according to the film plant intelligence was evolving as American intelligence was devolving at an alarming rate. After much ruminating, I decided The Secret Life Of Plants had a more truthful perspective than the LA Public School System. De-evolution was everywhere around me. The final nail in the coffin on trusting the authoritative version of history came when I read Howard Zinn's People's History Of The United States. But, it all started with thinking of plant intelligence in a different way. I was already a consistent D minus on a good day student. The Secret Life Of Plants and Howard Zinn made me a D Minus Student with an agenda. My hate for school was now political instead of just lazy. 
These days middling liberals like to wax nostalgic about a time when people valued "truth" in America. Yet, this country is founded on fake news and has been ruled by cults with crazy ideas since day one. America's first wave of propaganda claimed seceding from Britain was a gesture towards freedom and equality, when in fact it was a power move by rich white male fucks who wanted to stop paying taxes on their slave earned wealth. In the end Liberal's longing for the days back when the news told the truth and the government was humane is as absurd as the conservatives who want to "make America great again." So, what do you do in a world dominated by false information designed to keep the rich in silk underpants and the rest of us constantly in a state of fear of change? I don't have an answer, but perhaps the truth bending documentaries of Waylon Green contain them. They are compelling counter narratives. Waylon's directorial debut is as good as it comes - the terrifying/shamanic tunnel scene in Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory - 
Waylon's Hollywood resume at this point was only as the screen writer on "The Wild Bunch", a short documentary about Las Vegas night life and directing a couple short PBS nature documentaries. Waylon claims the director of Willy Wonka, Mel Stuart, saw some homemade art films and nature footage he had shot. Mel loved it all and designed the infamous tunnel scene around the material, bringing Waylon in to "guest direct". That's Waylon in the scene, with the caterpillar crawling across his face. Because he didn't think it was right to make an actor suffer through such a grotesque experience, he took the bullet. A year after his debut, Waylon premiered his apocalyptic full length insect documentary - the Hellstrom Chronicle. This film postulated that insects and humans are natural enemies competing for dominance of the planet.  You can watch the whole movie here on youtube The film starts with the line - "the earth was created not with a gentle caress of love, but with the brutal violence - OF RAPE." Then, a volcano erupts. After that a visibly shaken Professor proceeds to break down how humans will lose the battle for global dominance to insects. According to the film, we will die out and insects will thrive because of the weaknesses created in us by love. It's easily one of the bleakest movies of all time. For the next six years Waylon worked on his follow up to the Hellstrom Chronicles, The Secret Life Of Plants. The movie is based on a popular book that was dismissed in it's time as pseudoscience. It's an epic tome on the subject of psychobotany, the tagline reading "A fascinating account of the physical, emotional, and spiritual relations between plants and man." 
Somehow Waylon roped Stevie Wonder into the film project. This was at a time when Stevie was the best selling R&B/soul artist in the world, coming off his masterpiece Innervisions. President of Motown Barry Gordy hated Innervisions, dismissing it as "too weird." He almost refused to release it. When the record came out it was a huge seller. Stevie knew he now had the upper hand over the conservative lameness of Barry and he could release whatever he wanted, no matter how weird. 
Stevie next wanted to do a project that spoke of his progressive philosophies about the natural world. In soundtracking The Secret Life Of Plants he found the perfect vehicle. He spent the next three years recording the score, carefully timing the music to the stop motion photography in the film. He could not see the footage, so he would have a friend describe it as it was happening and he would then compose to their description. 
Paramount studios funded the film only because of Stevie Wonder's involvement. After seeing the final product they dismissed it as a disaster and halted it's release. Meanwhile, Motown was desperate to get new Stevie product on the market to follow up on the success of Innervisions, so they released the soundtrack as a deluxe double album with a huge booklet without the film ever coming out. Once Barry Gordy heard the record, he cut the planned initial pressing of two million copies to just one million copies. Soon after it's release Barry was quoted as saying that was still nine hundred thousand too many copies. The film was barely shown in theaters and the soundtrack bombed big time. Stevie moved on to making more hit records and Waylon retreated into writing hacky films, including Robocop 2. Coming in at just two movies, Waylon's filmography is a stunner - the most negative nature documentary of all time and the most positive. The Hellstrom Chronicle comes from the Hobbsian perspective - human life was nasty, brutish and short until we transcended nature to become civilized. The Secret Life Of Plants takes the Rousseauian stance - humans were born in the beautiful innocence of the Garden of Eden and then corrupted by becoming civilized. The truth is, of course, much more complicated. Waylon planned a sequel to The Secret Life Of Plants titled "The Cosmic Life Of Plants". I'd like to think this film would have reconciled the two contrasting points of view in his first two documentaries, or better yet transcended them both. Instead of "The Cosmic Life Of Plants", Waylon went on to write the pilot to the TV show Law And Order. I'd guess two hundred million more people have seen Law And Order than The Secret Life Of Plants. Still, Law and Order does not have a single painfully long interpretive dance scene, it does not have any stunning stop motion photography of plants doing their thing, it does not explain how earth bound plants communicate with other plants located in the deep reaches of outer space and it did not change any kids lives. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ |
Brother Theotis Taylor March 17, 1928 - January 18, 2022
“Always do the best you can” by Cyrus Moussavi
The great spiritual singer Brother Theotis Taylor passed away last month in his hometown of Fitzgerald, Georgia. He was six weeks shy of 94.
His funeral was held on January 29, a historically cold day for south Georgia. Temps dropped to the 30s, but a large crowd still gathered outside at Henderson Memorial Chapel, masked and shivering, to celebrate a life of music and hard work. Family traveled from around the country; Brother Taylor was the eldest of six siblings, the father of eight children, grandfather of 23, and great-grandfather of 30.
People outside of Fitzgerald know Theotis Taylor for his remarkable music - his rolling piano and sublime falsetto. He once played Carnegie Hall and the Apollo, but he never considered himself a professional musician. He saw his work as a spiritual practice, and the vast majority of his playing took place at churches within 50 miles of his home. He made a distinction between commercial gospel music and his own spiritual music - between music as performance and music as contact. Before recording, he spent days in prayer and fasting until the spirit hit. At that moment, he’d turn on his reel-to-reel recorder and burn through entire tapes. “Dad didn’t even get going til the 8th or 9th song,” his eldest son, Hubert, would say. He never used notes or lyrics.
Despite this direct line to the cosmic, Brother Taylor dedicated his life to earthly pursuits. He lived and worked close to his birthplace on the Ben Hill / Irwin County line, establishing a farm, raising a family, tending a flock of beloved goats, and building his church - the Community Tabernacle. For most people in Fitzgerald, it’s his hard work and faith, far more than his music, that he’s known for.
From the family’s obituary at the memorial:
“Elder Taylor served and worked in this community as a custodian at the First State Bank of Fitzgerald (17 years), Fulton Federal, The Community Bank of Fitzgerald, The First Baptist Church, and Fitzgerald High School. For many years he farmed and harvested turpentine with his father and his son, Hubert Taylor. He also owned and operated Taylor Landscape and Lawn Service. Many locals called him ‘The Piano Man’ because he also tuned and restored upright pianos.” 
Meeting Brother Taylor, hearing him sing and speak, and collaborating with him on a record was one of the greatest privileges of my life. It’s amazing and reassuring to know that someone with his depth of talent, faith and integrity lived in our meager 21st century. Though his album with Mississippi was released more than four decades after he first recorded the tracks, he always said its arrival at the height of the pandemic was “just in time.” He lifted many people with his voice, all over the world, when we needed it most.
The music from the record played on a loudspeaker during the funeral ceremony, the crowd singing along to “If I Could Just Hold Out Till Tomorrow Comes,” his biggest local hit. Later, Brother Taylor’s grandson, CJ Blount, played guitar and sang in a familiar floating voice that rocked the congregated, caught on the cold wind, and echoed through town. Thank you for the sunshine Brother Theotis Taylor.
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