statues of goblins and gargoyles

good morning ~

(click the link / church sign to listen)

My Big Breakstatues of goblins and gargoyles

today’s track is really just me fucking around with the random midi settings in Logic and having a great time

Friends Meeting - my band with m. geddes gengras - finally rides again this weekend for two excellent gigs in da Hudson Valley

on Saturday we’re playing the Future Sounds of Nature in Oak Hill - I’ll do a solo set, ged will do a solo set, and we’ll also rip together, should be sick! and the whole festival is definitely worth checking out, Friday too

on Sunday we’re hitting Opus 40 with a similar vibe right after the mushroom foraging walk - if it’s nice out, we’ll play outside and if it rains we’ll move it indoors to the spooky workshop, either way it’ll be a sick hang:

On Friday we went to church and had a really sweet time hearing songs sung by humans in a big stone building. Great acoustics, battery-powered candles, a baby grand piano on rolling wheels that rang like bells through the space. A torrential rain cracked open right as we were about to begin, so everyone who came in was sheepishly soaked to the bone. tj did one song about working with folks in the dementia ward and how you should never try to pull someone out, you should always try to meet them where they are. "I can be anything you need" - this one really gets me. A lot of good hugs at that gig, feels good. Not wanting to set up a tent in the rain, we hightail it over to New Jersey to our budget hotel but the place is super sketchy, the room is unclean, and there are multiple visible bloodstains on the comforter. For maybe two minutes Gracelee and I try to pretend its cool but ultimately we end up falling asleep in the blasted air conditioning of a Hampton Inn down the road.

In the morning I enjoyed our time at Wegman's tremendously and then we made our way to Sparta. Our wagon cart loaded up, we passed through the ye olde toll gate and thus into the rave, already in progress at New Jersey's premiere LARPing facility, fading wooden signs and statues of goblins and gargoyles scattered alongside the path. As we passed by the swimming pond, the happy sounds of splashing and partying echoing off the opposite shore, we hear a poetry reading on the breeze. Everyone we encountered was well settled in and a little partied out - they had fun on Friday, apparently.

We found our crew nestled together within the wooden fence of what appeared to be the campground's jousting arena, destroyed shields displayed above the dais. Soon we baked and got baked in the sun and sat stoned, contented, and nearly totally mute on a folding blanket by the water while someone floating on a barge tooted beautifully on a flute. Swimming felt profoundly great, the water cool and full of plant life, old reggae records spun under a pop up tent.

As dusk came in there were some predictably beautiful performances - Nailah Hunter's harp, drone, and voice loops were serene and severe, the plucks of her instrument weirdly appropriate for the Ren Faire vibe of the grounds. Bendik Giske blew us all out of the water with his perplexingly sensual sheets of saxophone - normally circular breathing doesn't strike me as sexy in any way whatsoever but he was rolling his hips around in the hazer cloud, his breathing audible, a shade of Lost Boys, everybody loved it.

Max and I managed to grab tacos before the festival ran out of food entirely and after a quick recharge back in the jousting ring I was ready for some proper chunes, so Gracelee and I went and shimmied to the sounds of x3butterfly. Their set leaned very heavily into dubstep nose hair rattling sub frequencies, felt like we were being shoved off the dance floor each time something dropped. But they deliciously switched between half time breakdowns and double speed bangers, which made the set extremely fun to dance to. Plus whatever combination of things I had ingested - caffeine, THC, CBD, tacos, relaxation - made everything at that hour feel VERY INTERESTING.

Midnight: we unfold our picnic blanket in a patch of grass and sprawl out, our bodies heavy under the weight of heaven. Joy Guidry's set begins with a vocal sample delicately holding a sustained chord while underneath swells of sub bass resonate in our sternums. Soon there is bassoon, unbelievably beautiful sounding, the tones clear and piercing, woody and breathy, bouncing off the trees as the leaves shimmer in the wind. I will admit that I doze - there was much dozing this year - but I am drawn to attention again and again by Guidry's artful choices. Her bassoon wanders from what would be the safe, comfortably harmonic counterpart into stranger, more dissonant territory, never quite giving you the space to let your guard down. Readings and recordings of voices further puncture the reverie - this is outdoor music to lay down to, sure, but it's also a deeply felt purge, sharp at times.

Jake Muir's set to follow was less of a live performance and more of a DJ set - he played some phenomenally beautiful music, including this slinky, repetitive synth jazz thing that I can't describe any better than that. But a deep chill had set in while I laid out in the open and I knew I had to go dance. The idea of warming up among other people's bodies sounded so, so nice to me, so I left Gracelee curled in her sleeping bag (she would end up staying there all night - she is the queen of the grove).

My scene reporter's perspective breaks down here - there is video evidence of my being awake at 5:30am, but I've lost the sequence of events. I did fall asleep on a wooden bench on the dance floor at one point. My cousin emerged from the haze to kindly offer me ketamine at another point ("I'm good, thanks!" - the advisory email from the festival organizers on Saturday morning that, despite all the testing and protections, someone had still overdosed on Friday (and survived) has probably ended any interest I had left in recreational powders). Eventually I crashed out in our tent for 90 minutes or so, doublewide sleeping pad all to myself as the sun rose.

Sunday broke out into full fledged sun as the rave zombies continued dancing with just their shoulders on the lawn with the outdoor stage - the guy DJing simply would not stop, a game of chicken to see who would end the party first. We didn't stay for the exciting conclusion - we simply hugged our dopamine deprived friends and rolled our cart out of medieval times.

But what about you? Are you taking down a flagon of ale in the Dragon’s Heart Tavern? When was the last time you went to church? What’s your swim count for the summer so far?