Wednesday, April 14, 2010

More Butter, Please



Butter opened for Hillstomp at the Badlander on Friday, April 9, 2010. Their confidence is growing to match the strides they have made with their music, and their fan base is expanding. Their performance this night ignited the crowd, and set the mood for a barn-burning event. KBGA directed the affair, which used the entire Badlander/Palace complex. There was music upstairs and down, socializing in the Central and Golden Rose, gambling in the Savoy, and some consumption of alcoholic beverages here and there.


Lisena sang a song (and the lyrics won't be repeated here), which made the hair stand up on my arm. It wasn't the song, but the intensity Lisena poured into it.


The duo of Hillstomp are regular and popular visitors to Zootown, from Portland, Oregon. They play funky, hard-driving blues, and R.L. Burnside is in their repertoire. This night the crowd was so thick, I couldn't move to the other side of the stage to balance photos of both musicians. I'm pretty sure this guy was having a good time.


Previous posts of this blog, and sets on flickr, have earlier coverage and images of Hillstomp. There are more images of Butter from this night on flickr.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

ZACC Basement Underground Outpost

When Reggie asked where the photos were from the performance in the ZACC Basement on February 27, 2010, I thought surely I had posted something, but no...don't see it. Here is Reggie, with his light, performing with Shramana. He thinks I should give him equal time with Caitlin just because he writes the band's material, but what can I say, when Caitlin looks like this?


Reggie is my friend, and he's very photogenic, too, but in this case I'm going with my dirty old man instincts.



Dave Johnson has had a band named Bridgebuilder for 13 years, although he was the only fixed member for those years.



Some hard drumming announced the Thug Nasties.

These cats know how to have fun. Somehow I had never seen them before, and became an instant fan on this night.

Overall it was another excellent night in the ZACC Basement. This venue is consistently displaying the newest sounds in the rawest basement setting to a growing crowd of fans.

It only took six weeks, but now that event is covered, and there are more images on flickr. What do you think, Reggie?


Reggie...?

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Happy Birthday, Cybele

April 4 is the birthday of Magna Mater, as the Romans called Cybele, an ancient mother goddess. She originated in Turkey, and her followers spread though-out the Middle East and over to Rome. She was a prototype for later goddesses such as Hera and Juno.

Today is also Easter. Unlike Cybele's birthday, which is always on April 4, Easter is all over the place. Originally linked to Jewish lunar cycles, Easter occurs on the first Sunday, after the first full moon, after the vernal equinox. The word Easter comes from Eostre, a minor fertility goddess in the grand tradition of Isis, Ishtar, Astarte, Aphrodite and Venus. The animal symbol for Eostre was the rabbit, which became the Easter bunny. In short, Easter is another Christian theft and renovation of pagan concepts. It seems paradoxical, since Christians scorn paganism as barbaric.

The concept of a murdered god being resurrected, was old and often repeated before the Christians wrote their version for the Bible. Being patriarchal, the entire Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition has reduced the role of women in its retelling of ancient myths and legends. The mother goddess usually played a part in the resurrection of the heroes of yore. For example, Isis restoring Osiris is an early, and common, version.

Christianity doesn't represent any improvement over Paganism. In fact, much is lost. Christianity has lost connection with the cosmos, mother earth and timeless cycles.People pay close attention to dates, hours and minutes, rushing around to tax cycles, seasonal fashion pitches and new annual models, demanding heat when cold and cold when hot, rather than acting in accordance to nature.

Here we are in 2010, on the biggest holiday of Christianity, and big time Christians are all over the news. The Pope has announced that humanity is in crisis and deep change is necessary to save us all. It is attempted misdirection away from the sexual predations of his minions. His idea of change is we all quit thinking for ourselves and follow him and his obsolete organization to the grave. My idea of change is everyone who calls themselves a Catholic abandons that bloated bastion of medieval superstition, and accept the fact we live in the 21st century.

I'm still thunderstruck by how people claiming to be Christians can whole-heartedly support war, murder, torture, bigotry, and prejudice. It also amazes me how supposedly intelligent people can watch Fox propaganda and believe they are getting the truth. I wonder what the percentage of overlap is.

A ranking Cardinal said faithful Catholics would not be swayed by all the gossip about sexual abuse. He's probably right, since the faithful seem to think ritual, imitation cannibalism, during mass, contributes to the spiritual life. That sacramental rite was distilled from a first century pot luck, known as agape in Greek. Every body in the church met and shared whatever food they had to make sure no one went hungry. They also shared common property, being early communists, as well as Christians.

OK, I got that bit of peevishness out of the way. I ranted in the previous post in support of gay rights and gender equality. I went off half-cocked with the wrong time on the city council meeting. The Missoula city council will discuss the anti-discrimination bill on Monday, April 12. We wouldn't need anti-discrimination bills or hate crime legislation, if so-called Christians would act like real Christians.

That last statement leads to a question: What is a real Christian?