Monday

I Got An Orgone Accumulator..

It seems like almost everything i'm interested in i've gotten into through music somehow. Whether it's clothes, photography, stupid haircuts, or skateboarding, they've all had a connection to rock n roll for me, and helped me become the multi-faceted smorgasboard that i am today.
For a while my preferred style of music was rockabilly, and that got me into old cars and motorcycles, (seeing the Stray Cats posed on the cover of "Gonna Ball" with those Harleys will do that), and they're two things i'm still obsessed with to this day. (And yes, that's the Airline Diner in Queens, just like in Goodfellas..)



And the hard rock band UFO had been one of my favorites for some time (after "borrowing" one of their records from Jimbo Wallace of Rev. Horton Heat, who i roadied for, for a short while), and i got into them because the Cockney Rejects wore their T-shirts in photos on the back of their records. SUBSEQUENTLY, i liked the UFO album covers, which were designed by an art team called Hipgnosis, and this exposed me to a whole new world, this time of art from the 70's.



Another case of connecting - the - dots comes from Motorhead, everybody's favorite band, and as everybody knows, Lemmy played bass in a space rock/hippie/stoner rock band (before that was really a genre) before Motorhead called Hawkwind. Hawkwind has a style that goes from heavy groove based songs (Brainstorm - eleven and a half minutes long!) to dreamy weirdness (Space is Deep) to short tight songs that almost could be confused for '77 style punk at times (Urban Guerilla, Ejection) except they were recorded years earlier. Alot of great rock and roll, just dont expect it to sound too much like Motorhead (except for the song "Motorhead", which Lemmy took with him when he left the band).

To continue, Hawkwind has a song called "Orgone Accumulator", which is about an Orgone Accumulator, and it made me wonder just what IS an Orgone Accumulator, and how can i get one? Of course, you might not care about an "Orgone Accumulator" until you've heard the song, so take a TEN minute break and listen to it here, with us, right now. Please.



Dr. Wilhelm Reich was an Austrian psychoanalyst trained by Sigmund Freud, who believed that the universe was filled with a cosmic energy called Orgone, which was responsible for effects as diverse as weather, gravity, and human emotion. The term orgone took its root from the word orgasm, which both Reich and Freud took to be the fundamental expression of psychological health. His views were disagreeable to the Nazi party, and before it got too hot he fled to Norway, and boarded the last boat to the US before WWII broke out. Later, in the U.S. he encountered mixed acceptance- his focus on sexuality was offensive to the conservative American public, but intrigued such countercultural figures as Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs, who, famous for both his writing but also heroin addiction, claimed that sitting in his home built orgone accumulator would ease his withdrawal symptoms.

Reich invented several devices such as these accumulators and cloudbusters that supposedly would cure cancer and other illnesses and affect weather conditions. The orgone accumulator is a basically a large box, made of organic materials that absorb orgone energy from the atmosphere, for therapeutic effect -



....and it works like a giant vacuum cleaner that sucks up good energy and compresses it into whoever's sitting inside. Cloudbusters are another one of Reich’s devices, used to facillitate changes in weather. A series of pipes lined up next to each other, aimed at the sky like some kind of anti-aircraft gun, they supposedly could manipulate streams of orgone energy in the atmosphere, controlling the weather by causing rainclouds to form and disperse at will. There are several videos on Youtube of these in action - there isn’t much scientific data to legitimize these things, but as I watch the videos, I find myself wanting them to be real.



Hawkwind isn't the only band that wrote a song about his work - Kate Bush's song "Cloudbusting", off her album "Hounds of Love", is based on "A Book of Dreams" by Peter Reich, Wilhelm's son, and tells his father's story. Here's the video, starring Donald Sutherland..



Wilhelm Reich and his concepts were quickly denounced and he and his students were seen as a ‘cult of sex and anarchy” by the popular media. He was investigated several times for communism and was jailed after violating Food and Drug Act laws forbidding interstate shipping of orgone related products. One day before he was due to apply for parole, he died of a heart attack.



A sad demise for this man, but he's still got thousands of followers, and scientists recently have begun to re-evaluate some of his theories, conceding the possibility that not all of his concepts were mere quackery and mystical weirdness. And of course he's memorialized everytime someone aims a cloudbuster at the sky, or everytime someone sits in the accumulator, or plays Hawkwind's song at high volume in an Aston Martin Lagonda...

Next week we'll discuss more conspiracy kookiness such as chemtrails, contrails, and HAARP, so be sure to check back in for that!

-KM

UFOs Are Real, Baby..

Wednesday

ROISIN DUBH




Tell me the legends of long ago
When the kings and queens would dance in the realm of the Black Rose
Play me the melodies I want to know
So I can teach my children, oh

Pray tell me the story of young C£ Chulainn
How his eyes were dark his expression sullen
And how he'd fight and always won
And how they cried when he was fallen

Oh tell me the story of the Queen of this land
And how her sons died at her own hand
And how fools obey commands
Oh tell me the legends of long ago

Where the mountains of Mourne come down to the sea
Will she no come back to me
Will she no come back to me

Oh Shenandoah I hear you calling
Far away you rolling river
Roll down the mountain side
On down on down go lassie go

Oh Tell me the legends of long ago
When the kings and queens would dance in the realms of the Black Rose
Play me the melodies so I might know
So I can tell my children, oh

My Roisin Dubh is my one and only true love
It was a joy that Joyce brought to me
While William Butler waits
And Oscar, he's going Wilde

Ah sure, Brendan where have you Behan?
Looking for a girl with green eyes
My dark Rosaleen is my only colleen
That Georgie knows Best

But Van is the man
Starvation once again
Drinking whiskey in the jar-o
Synge's Playboy of the Western World

As Shaw, Sean I was born and reared there
Where the Mountains of Mourne come down to the sea
Is such a long, long way from Tipperary

Friday

Quiet at Nite


Drum tracks done.
Guitar tracks done.

Spotted this one leaving the studio at 1am on Wednesday...

Saturday

THEN and NOW...

6th Avenue just below Waverly Place THEN...


AND NOW...

Sunday

Driving in Style with L.A.S....

For the discerning motorist, living in style goes far beyond a nice jacket, or the right shoes. A pair of gloves, a nice pair of Carrera sunglasses, and a Fine Automobile round out the package, but still a question remains - which car best suits your persona? What's your "thing"? Are you a rocker? (Camaro) A fake rocker? (Fiero) Are you an Ivy League fraternity prick? (MG) A fashionista? (Fiat - Fix It Again Tony) How about a gay man? (70s Corvette) Or a hot chick? (70s Corvette).



Keith Moon drove his Cadillac into a pool, Marc Bolan drove his Rolls Royce "cuz it's good for my voice" (but died in a Mini), Little Alex and his droogies drove a stolen Durango 95, and Klaus Meine and Rudi Schenker from Scorpions love to drive "fast German cars like Porsche und Mercedes on the Autobahn at 100 miles per hour" (160 km).



Karl Monroe, of Lost At Sea, prefers the Aston Martin Lagonda. Reviled by some as "hideous" and "absurd", this over 17 foot long (only 4'3" in height) luxury V8 cruiser came straight out of the future in 1976, and featuring pop-up headlights and computerized LED instrument display, was able to cruise comfortably with four passengers at over 140 mph. Designed by William Townes in the "folded paper" style (rolling origami), all were hand-built, and absurdly expensive. The V8 engine was inefficient, and produced only single digit mileage. The digital display (first ever in a car) was unreliable and the headlights didnt pop-up when they were supposed to. But these are minor details.


Over 17 feet long!



It's only 4'3'' tall.



This was Evel Kneivel's...





We highly recommend getting one, if you have the means...