HITCH-HIKING GALAXIES IN TIMES AND SPACES
Perhaps a sensationalist title, but this topic has really occupied a lot of my friends and me for a long time, and repeatedly. In 1968, I was 13 years old and I still remember vividly when the older students met for the first demonstration: in the high school auditorium, sometimes supported by the teachers or met with sardonic comments, the boys with long hair, the girls with wide skirts, loose blouses, and no bras, flowers and Indian jewelry all around, banners reading “Down with the capitalist pigs, make love not war…etc.” Megaphones, guitars, flutes, pot lids…etc.” Here we go, get rid of that shit. Stones, Beatles, Hendrix, etc. And now? A really big question mark? No, as expected, capitalism has absorbed everything, absolutely everything, and is trying to colonize our brains and souls via smartphones and the like. It’s almost worked. The perverse thing about the whole tragedy is that we all supposedly know what’s wrong, and not only do we know what’s wrong, but we also know many possible solutions. But we stubbornly refuse to save the world, or have we asked the wrong questions? I don’t remember who it was, but a clever philosopher once said: if there is no feasible answer to a question, then the question is wrongly posed!
Anyway, before we go: my reply to this question is very clear: music will save the world
So, maybe this world is not the world we should save, according to Paul Eluard, maybe we should go to ” the other worlds inside this world”?
Honestly, I’m tired of constantly thinking about the desolate state of this world; I’ve been doing that for far too long. Long story short: for my 70th birthday, I received a sweat lodge as a gift through a few coincidences. Boom, that was it. Not that I wasn’t familiar with the ritual practices of the Native Americans, I practice almost every day, but this sweat lodge made me realize that I had forgotten our cosmic origins, our embeddedness in an endless universe. I mean, you should always be aware of that. There’s so much more than evil capitalism, the shitty internet, brutal wars, and so on. We are cosmos! So I came back to two of my favorite books: Surfers of the Zuvaja by Jose Arguelles and Jamie Sams: Dancing the Dream – 7 Sacred Paths of Humanity. Both are deeply rooted in the traditions of Mexican and North American natives and emphasize our “cosmic being” very clearly. In this PONYXPRESS, I have included excerpts from a lecture by Jose Arguelles; I strongly recommend reading the two books mentioned above.
Todays music: not to forget to say, actual music is getting better and better. It seems to be a kind of trend: you can’t say anymore this is rock, this is pop, this is techno, this is whatever, this is Arabic, this is African………no more genres, no more borders………it is just good music! I almost feel sorry for all those who always listen to the same genre. They miss 99% of the party!
So, definitely, todays music:
The intro to the PONYXPRESS is still Art Jackson’s atrocityn from their live CD “Live in Europe 1975” with the song “BIRDS ON FIRE”.
After it is again Francesca Albanese, the UN’s rapporteur on the Israel genocide in Gaza. This genocide is not over, there is a so- called peace, but reality is telling, it is out of the mainstream- media only. Francesca Albanese is my actual favourite politician, she is not a revolutionary, she does nothing else than to insist on the given laws. But this is the reason that she is banned now. Trump, Putin and all the other fascists ruling the world can do what they want! As every war this genocide is a money- maker………
First song is a well known oldie, maybe the younger than 50-ones don’t know, cause they don’t know how to rock’n roll. GIMME SHELTER by the ROLLING STONES, stumbled recently on it at the end of a TV- serie, never realized how good this song is. This was when Mick Taylor was playing the guitar, the STONES had never been that good after Mick has left the band.
The Rolling Stones sing “Gimme Shelter,” but once again, we humans are too stupid to accept the protection that the Earth and the cosmos offer us. Instead, we exploit the Earth, wage wars, and commit all the other follies and cruelties.
Live from 1972: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJ2Ue2ImT98&list=RDyJ2Ue2ImT98&start_radio=1
Second song is of the HOLYDRUG COUPLE of Santiago de Chile which is one of my favourite psychedelic bands, great Pink floydish-guitar, get ready for a spacy trip. Song is “ANCIENT LAND” from their EP with the same name: https://theholydrugcouple.bandcamp.com/album/ancient-land-ep-2, you’ll find it also on their first output “AWE” : https://theholydrugcouple.bandcamp.com/album/awe
We stay in South- America, heading over to Mexico with an awesome underground- music- scene, one of my alltime favs is LOS LICHIS. One of these bands who play pop-covers or freaking out noise, but absolutely unique and perfect, here is their Krautrock- driven “LES VAUTOURS-version ultralichixxx” from their “THE GIANT LICHIS” -CD : https://loslichis.bandcamp.com/album/the-giant-lichis
The next song is by the PIDGINS. The duo from Mexico City plays with traditional chants and rhythmic patterns of old trance rituals, creating their own unique musical language. The song “THIS SIMPLE HACK TO FIX YOUR STOMACH” is from their first CD REFRAINS OF THE DAY VOL 1, released in October 2023: https://pidginsmusic.bandcamp.com/album/refrains-of-the-day-volume-1
The Mexican underground scene is large and diverse; one very unusual band is NIGHT TOILET, who can only be found under this name on Discogs. On Bandcamp, they can be found under a name consisting solely of bars, horizontal and vertical lines: |▄___▀▀|||_____▀▀| They process feedback and all kinds of frequencies generated by certain arrangements of recording and playback devices. The song “LESE.SEIVE” is from their second CD: ETIOPIA.PLAZA.DE.LA.TRANSPARENCIA, from 2023.https://nighttoilet.bandcamp.com/album/etiop-a-plaza-de-la-transparencia
Also from Mexico, but from Monterrey, are LOS LLAMARADA. They’ve been around for 20 years and have just released a new album on C/SITE-RECORDINGS: DEEP DARK VAST. The title says it all. The band has returned to their experimental punk roots, using analog technology, at home, with a four-track machine, no edits, no overdubs—that’s exactly what experimental punk should be. The featured song is “SOMETHING IN MY HEAD”: https://csiterecordings.bandcamp.com/album/deep-dark-vast
Next song is from “THE UNIVERSAL CONGRESS OF” of Los Angeles with them I’ve had the pleasure to organize at least 5 gigs in the independent club I was involved in the 1990ies. We had so much fun with them, one of their gigs was totally sold out, this was insane, we never had 350 people( average was 80 people) at one gig. After we were done and super happy. Todays UNIVERSAL CONGRESS OF is of their first CD JOE BAIZA AND THE UNIVERSAL CONGRESS OF, song is “CERTAIN WAY part 1”, released on the famous SST- label in 1987: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIlWfaZGlCs&list=RDvIlWfaZGlCs&start_radio=1
After the first musical block, we hear JOSE ARGUELLES with excerpts from his answer to the question: “HOW TO SAVE THE WORLD?” This is very interesting to me, as I am quite familiar with Native American customs, rituals, and crafts, and I find the fundamental concept of the ancient Mayan calendar, although foreign, yet somehow very significant. I believe it holds the key to our current crises, cause we have forgotten, especially over the last 30 years, that we are cosmic. If I’m honest, I still spend too much time on fucking screens hoping for the cure- all miracle popping out of the screen. This will never happen as Arguelles is pointing out, the cure-all miracle is within us. Just drop in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4ykgl5F1e4.
Jose Arguelles is also very much into the arts in generally, especially into music, and so into ancient middle- american flutes. Usually he is playing a song before beginning a lecture.
Second music block is some new records I came acroos during the last months and weeks. There are real great outputs, as I mentioned above music is getting better and better.
First 2 songs within the second block is from THORN WYCH with her AESTHESIS- lp released by the HOOD FAIRE – label which is focused on experimental- psychedelic folk in the UK. A very, very interesting label! I came across THORN WYCH by accident, while surfing the experimental folk on bandcamp, I noticed a cover- photo of a woman sitting on a mattress with a stringed instrument in her left hand and a kind of violin bow in her right hand. Okay, so far so good, but this type of violin and bow are made from wild-grown wood, and so they look. I myself really enjoy building wildwood furniture and Moroccan bass guitars and flutes from river reeds, my interest was immediately piqued. In fact, if you go to THORN WYCH’S website, you’ll see all sorts of “crooked and askew” stringed, percussion, and wind instruments. First song of THORN WYCH’s AESTHESIS is “OUT OF THE EATER CAME SOMETHING TO EAT”, second song of THORN WYCH is “THE BLUE ROSE OF FORGETFULLNESS”. Here you have a link to a quite interesting interview of FOXY DIGITALIS with THORN WYCH: https://foxydigitalis.zone/2025/01/15/the-soil-trees-sing-an-interview-with-thorn-wych/
Next 4 songs are of SCORCHED BOGON released by BURGAN TRIANGLE TAPES. When it comes to SCORCHED BOGON I’m getting always almost speechless. The duo of Michael Schlitz and Timothy K.Brown is labelled as lo- fi psychedelic rock. It is but it is much more. This is exactly the kind of music that thrives on what it doesn’t play: the echoes, overtones, interferences, etc. The musicians let their instruments PLAY… maximum intensity with minimum effort. Whenever I listen to SCORCHED BOGON, I don’t listen to any more music for the rest of the day… and my wife always asks me, “What’s wrong with you?” Here are the first four songs from SCORCHED BOGON’s latest release. Each song on this release is almost exactly two minutes long, or rather, it simply cuts off after two minutes. I don’t know why. The release is called DUST OF THE FLAME, and the songs are HS1, HS1 to HS12. Highly recommended.
Next one is a new release of one of my alltime favs SANAM of Beirut. They released SAMETOU SAWTAN last September. And once again I’m almost shocked by the seriousness with which the band approaches their songs. This is simply amazing music, without any sensationalism. Tradition and modernity flow seamlessly together; SANAM tells me so much about the Middle East. Sandy Camoun’s voice and Farah Kaddour’s buzuq will become part of music history. The two songs by SANAM are: “HAMAM” and the title track “SAMETOU SAWTAN,” which means “I heard a voice.” Go here: https://sanambeirut.bandcamp.com/album/sametou-sawtan.
This is a great video about SANAM performing at London’s CAFE OTO in September 2023: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAiu-CfwzXU
Next up is the Iraqi-Belgian band USE KNIFE and their latest release ETAT COUPABLE. As the title ETAT COUPABLE suggests, the music on this release can be heard and understood as a profound critique of the nation-state and racism, and the stereotypes associated with them. The two songs featured today are: “DEMAIN SERA MIEUX” and “IRAQUI DRUM SET”. Go: https://useknife.bandcamp.com/album/tat-coupable
Jose Arguelles is concerned with the flawed understanding of time in Western societies. The fantastic band MASSACRE, led by Fred Frith, addresses this issue musically on their 1981 jazz-punk-noise album KILLING TIME. Today I’m not playing the title track “KILLING TIME,” but rather the incredible “CORRIDOR,” simply because I saw Fred Frith play the guitar intro live. It sounds like Jimi Hendrix on ten times the dose of LSD! Fred Frith was actually playing his electric guitar with a hand broom! Go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mN15ZCV3rjE
The conclusion today was immediately clear to me when I had the idea to make a show about Jose Arguelles’ “How to save the world?”. It could only be Jamie Branch’s “TAKE OVER THE WORLD”. The song is from her fantastic album FLY OR DIE OR DIE FLY OR DIE ((WORLD WAR)), Go here: https://intlanthem.bandcamp.com/track/take-over-the-world
Now I’ve to release this show, liked it very much to do it. Never was aware so much of realizing something is to release it………..to realise………..to release
O.k., this was another episode of RADIO JAVALI’S PONYXPRESS- SHOW, my name is Michael, comments are very welcome on the mixcloud or send an email to disappear@anche.no.
Thanx for listening and eatyoursmartphone!
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