The End to Financial Tyranny Part 2
by nielskunze on February 28, 2012
Part 2 begins with a great deal of drama and intrigue.
On Wednesday, December 14th, 2011 at approximately 3:30pm– a mere two days after publishing Part 1– David Wilcock received a threat of torture and death if he was intent on pursuing the Financial Tyranny story. It was a threat which, apparently, David took very seriously. He then received information that his best protection would be to publish the rest of the story as quickly as possible without holding anything back, essentially relying on publicity to shield him from such threats. David immediately joined his friend and colleague Kerry Cassidy on live radio to explain the entire situation. Here is that broadcast:
This is definitely one of the most bizarre radio broadcasts I have ever heard. I have a great deal of respect and admiration for David Wilcock, but the interview begins with David blubbering like a frightened schoolgirl. It takes considerable time for him to pull it together and explain the situation. I mention this not because I’m trying to insult David in any way, but rather I think that the whole performance adds credibility to the tale. I personally don’t feel that David was acting; it was very real to him.
Then we add the element of the Anonymous caller who is there to reassure David that “the right people” have been notified and that he will be forcibly protected. Anonymous affects a brutal Irish accent as a means of disguising his voice as he insinuates that he is calling from somewhere off-world. It truly is a gem of a show and I highly recommend you listen to it and reach your own conclusions. I have chosen to take it at face value.
Quite the introduction to Part 2 indeed! The article then goes on to explore “the nature of the enemy” and an enlightening bit of colonial history.
The folks within the Dark Cabal (those ultimately responsible for threatening David’s life) are portrayed by David as individuals living lives of misery, abuse and coercion… both giving and receiving thereof. Psychologically they are deeply damaged human beings who are largely incapable of feeling or expressing empathy. Many suffer from Stockholm Syndrome whereby the abused is utterly loyal to his abuser, even oftentimes projecting an unreasonable love for the abuser– much like battered wife syndrome.
The creation of such a cabal looks to the ultimate payoff being the ability to create unlimited money out of thin air and thereby dominating and effectively ruling the entire globe– through a carefully planned and executed agenda spanning hundreds of years. Yikes! We’re right in the middle of the conspiracy now!
In order to create limitless fiat money, first you need to control the world’s gold– to essentially eliminate the competition. One of the major covert reasons for World War II was to plunder all of the world’s gold. All of the major players in the war were fed the lie that war was a necessary evil which would eventually lead to the greater good once all the economic power was consolidated. Many promises were made to bolster the hidden agenda; none of them were kept.
One of the biggest secrets in today’s history lesson is that there are about 2 million tons of gold in the world. This is more than 10 times the amount known in the open market– a significant discrepancy. Asian interests have the legal claims to approximately 85% of that gold. Over a period of millennia, through trade and secret mining operations, most of the gold was accumulated in China under the control of the Dragon Family, or the Kuomintang, or now we are given a third name, the Elders (the name by which they refer to themselves).
The Elders are reported to live in a remote mountainous region of China which is highly inaccessible. They are highly evolved, peace-loving, and very long-lived. They are proud and up-front about their off-planet origins. Apparently, in recent history there have been 5 separate bloodlines of off-world origin which have all risen to prominence as the monarchistic rulers in their respective regions throughout the world. The Elders are one of them.
Now we fast-forward to September 2010, when the Elders sued the Federal Reserve at a secret world court within the Banking International Settlements (BIS) system. In December 2010 they won a settlement for 286 trillion dollars. Yup, that’s a “holy shit!” amount. This case is completely separate from the lawsuit described in Part 1. With the court finding in favour of the Elders, the Elders then issued orders for the Federal Reserve to pay up and surrender their control of the world’s finances or else the Elders would enlist the help of their off-world allies to systematically destroy and dismantle the Fed’s plans for world domination (NWO).
So where the hell does this 286 trillion dollars come from? The short answer: centuries of investment of the Elders secretly building up America as a strategic rebellion against the monarchistic rulers of Europe. The Chinese Elders financed early America well before 1776 when they were first established as an independent country. As the English East India Company was busy invading Asia in what is now referred to as the spice wars, the Asians were secretly shipping large amounts of gold to America as a future investment. The gold was used in the Americas to back their currency creating a powerful new economy which could compete with the Europeans. The Asians expected that once America was well established as a world economic power, they would get their money back with interest.
Another form of investment made by the Asians was the sending of workers to America to successfully complete the transcontinental railroad system. At the time, these workers were most often referred to as Celestials. History has remembered them as “coolies” or slaves. They were highly skilled workers who could accomplish far more than their American contemporaries. Once the railway infrastructure was mostly complete, Asian immigration was vehemently discouraged through racist legislation, the name “Celestials” was changed to “coolies”, and the workers were deported.
By 1911, the Elders had figured out that they had been screwed. They saw the writing on the wall as the Europeans pushed to establish the Federal Reserve within America which they achieved in 1913. The Fed had no intention of paying anything back and the Asians knew it.
With the BIS settlement in 2010, it is widely acknowledged that the whole thing has to go public soon– most likely by this spring (2012). The Elders have the full support of the Chinese military. All of this makes many people in high positions very, very nervous.
The full transcript of Part 2 can be found here:
This was originally published by David Wilcock on December 18, 2011.
To continue on to Part 3 click HERE.
And for supporting evidence for ET credibility click HERE.
The End to Financial Tyranny Part 1
by nielskunze on February 27, 2012
Introduction:
“Look Ma, I’m a journalist!” Here’s one more thing I never really anticipated doing… so now I’m a journalist. After urging fans and followers for weeks to check out the mammoth article on David Wilcock’s site DivineCosmos.com about The Trillion Dollar Law Suit to End Financial Tyranny, I have decided to make the 400+ page piece a little more palatable for my own readers. I’m going to chunk it up into bite-sized pieces offering a brief synopsis of each section. My intention is to provide a mere summary which hits the main highlights in each of the parts which David has provided. I will not provide the extensive references which support the original article. I will, however, provide the link to David’s site where links and references are provided in abundance for the curious and thorough investigator. I’m just trying to provide you with the gist; it’s then up to you to dig deeper if you feel so inclined.
The Trillion Dollar Law Suit
The story first broke in June of 2009 in a Bloomberg article describing the seizure at the Italian border of 134 billion dollars worth of US bonds. The story then briefly streaked across the mainstream media on the Glenn Beck show later in 2009 where they discussed how large a seizure this actually was. There are only 4 countries on Earth which hold more US bonds than the seized 134 billion. Whatever was going on here was undeniably a huge deal. And then the story suddenly all but disappeared. The mainstream media ignored the hell out of it.
Subsequently it was picked up by Benjamin Fulford, a Canadian journalist stationed in Japan. Fulford seemed to have the inside scoop on the whole affair but his cries for justice didn’t gain much traction until November 23, 2011. On that date a 111-page legal complaint was filed with the US District Court for the Southern District of New York which is now verifiably a part of the public record. Dan McCue of The Courthouse News Service has written an article detailing the case. The named plaintiff, Neil F. Keenan, representing The Dragon Family is suing for 1 trillion dollars. The defendants include among others The United Nations, the Italian Prime Minister, the head of the U.N., the Office of International Treasury Control, and other ambassadors, financiers, and heads of state.
In reading the complaint, we find out that The Dragon Family currently holds bonds having values ranging in the many of thousands of trillions of US dollars. Yes, that’s right; I said thousands of trillions of dollars… all duly registered within the Federal Reserve system! What the hell is going on here? Apparently, the seizure of the 134 billion in bonds was part of an elaborate sting operation in order to initiate the lawsuit with the primary goal of bringing to light the existence of these outrageous quantities of US bonds. We also find out that there is a 117 (now 130) nation alliance behind the law suit in support of The Dragon Family.
Where did all the money come from? Initially, the information to answer this question has come from Ben Fulford in an interview he did recently with David Wilcock. The whole 98-minute interview is available as a podcast and has been transcribed on David’s site. All of the historical information provided has subsequently been vetted by David’s own investigations. So let’s examine some of the highlights…
This portion of the story begins with the establishment of the Federal Reserve in the US in 1913. The definitive work on the establishment of this nefarious private banking cartel is the book by G. Edward Griffin, The Creature From Jekyll Island. In short, the agenda of the private banking families controlling the Federal Reserve was to control the issuance of currency in all countries of the world. In 1912 approximately 600 wealthy and influential industrialists who adamantly opposed the Federal Reserve proposition boarded a ship to discuss their deep concerns as they sailed across the Atlantic. The ship was, of course, the Titanic. The private opposition to the Federal Reserve was conveniently eliminated on April 15, 1912 when the Titanic sank. That, it seemed, scared the piss out of then US president Woodrow Wilson who signed the Federal Reserve act a year later. Presidents Wilson, Eisenhower, and Kennedy spoke of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the people. They tried their best to issue warnings.
In their covert bid to control the world, the banking cabal built up Japan enabling the Japanese to invade China in an attempt to plunder China’s vast gold reserves during the 1930s. As a result, vast shipments of gold made their way to the West in 1938 as China spirited away their enormous treasure (to keep it from the Japanese) in exchange for 60-year US Bonds. The vast quantities of Asian gold were held off-market (secretly) with various agreements (promises) put into place that would ensure that the West would use the treasure to modernize and develop Asia and Africa. These promises took the form of Bretton Woods in 1944 and the Hilton Green Memorial Treaty of 1963. By 1955 as the Cold War had settled in, it had already become clear that the West had no intention of keeping any such promises. The gold had been essentially stolen.
President Sukarno of Indonesia was the legal signatory to all of the “stolen” money. Sukarno met with President Kennedy extensively during the early sixties trying to liberate the funds in order to modernize the rest of the world. Kennedy devised a plan to defeat the Federal Reserve which involved the issuance of a silver-backed currency as an alternative to Federal Reserve Notes (dollars). A few days after revealing his plan in conjunction with Sukarno, President Kennedy was shot and Killed. Within a few short years Sukarno too was driven from power in his own country.
So the Fed basically stole all the gold, making fake promises to assure the Asians. When Asia tried to wrest the gold back, key players were quickly eliminated no matter what office they held. Asia lacked the military might at the time to do anything more about it. They’d been screwed.
The Bretton Woods agreement expired in 1994 and the bonds which were originally issued in exchange for the gold became due in 1998. So in 1998, the Kuomintang sued the Fed to get their gold back. An international court ruled in favour of the Kuomintang and the first shipment of gold heading back to the Asians was scheduled to occur on September 12, 2001. I trust everyone recognizes the significance of this date. The gold was on deposit beneath World Trade Center Building 7. It has never been recovered.
So what we essentially have here is two separate economic systems in the world. There’s the one we’re all familiar with which fills the economic news throughout the world on a daily basis. And then there’s the one which we’ll call the “Black Screen” economy in which quintillions of illicit dollars have been created through the covert trading among international central banks of monies based upon secret gold which the rest of the world knows virtually nothing about. Now, when quintillions of illicit dollars start showing up in the “real” economy, the books no longer add up. And that’s where we’re at… a level of fraud and deceit which has never even been imagined at such a scale before!
The Keenan lawsuit is attempting to create the legal basis to open the covert economy to the world, to reveal what kind of outrageous funny business has been going on behind the scenes for a very long time.
Here ends my summary of Part 1. The full transcript with references and links can be found HERE. This portion of David’s article was originally published on December 12, 2011.
Click HERE to continue on to Part 2.
Collapsing Paper Mansion
by nielskunze on February 16, 2012
Little Sparrow flies to heaven
Through the crack in a broken sky
Ballerina lets her soul out
‘Cause she knows that she won’t die
Dance like planets ’round the stars
That Little Sparrow loves to fly
Ballerina flies to heaven
Through the crack in a broken sky
Paper mansion falling down…
Robin flies up to the mountain
And hears her children’s hungry cry
Little Sparrow flies from heaven
Through the crack in a broken sky
Paper mansion falling down…
Little Sparrow gathers eggshells
From the Robin as she dies
Little Sparrow and the Robin–
Together they fix the broken sky
When the Government Went on Strike
by nielskunze on February 5, 2012
German police join the people!
As the Piscean Age drew to an ignominious close,
An air of discontent among the populous arose.
At first just the few who failed in commerce to compete,
And then the many too disillusioned gathered in the street.
They aimed their derision at their society’s upper ranks,
The policy-makers and schemers who “worked” for the banks.
Presidents and prime ministers couldn’t fathom the fuss
Until the people shouted back “You were to represent us!”
Well such men of prestige just shrug and care very little
And send their henchmen– the police– to go stand in the middle.
Their task was quite simple: to keep the rabble at bay…
But then what to do… when they just won’t go away?
For their dreams had been stalled and their hearts had been wrenched,
And now their insurgency was more than entrenched!
Skirmishes and riots began to dominate the news
As many tried to explain “We’ve got nothing to lose!”
Unresolved it continued… day after day, night after night,
Until the bodies in uniform grew weary of the fight.
Tear gas and flash bombs and full riot gear aside,
It was the silencing of reason by which they could not abide.
More than a few malcontents or a symptom of the times–
“This protest has merit,” they said, as the cops crossed the lines.
The voice of self-righteous tyranny had grown much too loud
That even the cops chose to join with the crowd!
That left the top officials at a bit of a loss,
For control seems so empty when there’s so few left to boss.
But they weren’t done yet, and it was only a little scary…
The government called in the full might of the military.
Ordered to remove shelters, tents and pavilions
The soldiers said “No!” and joined the civilians.
Now the government, you can imagine, was thoroughly confused
By the waning of power when such power’s abused.
Was there some historic lesson that our “leaders” had missed?
And who had planted flowers in their raised iron fist?
Were the masses unhinged, irrevocably deranged?
Or had the rules of the game suddenly changed?
“So you want change,” they sneered. “We’ll see what you’re like,
When your illustrious leaders all go on strike!”
So full of themselves, they honestly thought they were needed,
But illusory power makes even morons conceited.
They stepped down from their offices in their white ivory towers,
And were shown rather quickly that they had no special powers.
Anything they could do the common man could do better;
He’d just do what was necessary without government fetters.
A tapeworm is no leader– a parasite to be sure,
And by starving the host, the host finally grabs at the cure.
The People learned to care for themselves and stand firm,
And refrained from ever feeding again that government worm.
Now you might think it’s resolved and the People are singing…
But truly we know that this is just the beginning!
A Biographical Journey Through My Music Part 3 Seeds of Magic
by nielskunze on January 20, 2012
From a highly troubled youth, through a drunk and disorderly adolescence and young adulthood, I had been mostly a lost soul. Poetry, music, and a few good friends kept me going through hidden bouts of deep despair. I moved from Calgary to BC, and for the first time I felt at home on this Earth. I had been out of school for several years already and I knew that I wasn’t interested in going back. School, and really all of mainstream society, just wasn’t a good fit for me, but I realized that I was only happy when I was learning. So I made a commitment to always continue to learn. I became a voracious reader, a self-educator.
It was upon that backdrop that I met Shane. I have a song that my current bandmates know only as QC & the EF. The “EF” part stands for the Essential Friend. Shane is that essential friend. The cosmos sent him my way at just the right moment, under just the right circumstances. We were both ripe for something totally new in our lives. We both worked at the same resort and I occasionally dropped by his hobbit-hole accommodation and usually found him singing along with Eddie Vedder to Pearl Jam’s Ten. It sounded pretty good to me, but most people sound alright singing along with their favourites. I showed him a few of my newest songs. He learned some of my strange lyrics and gave it a shot. Holy shit! He had a real knack for finding great melody lines. My melodies, as you may have already noticed, pretty much just follow what the guitar’s doing because I lacked the confidence to allow my melodies to stray too far from the rhythm. (I found singing and playing guitar at the same time difficult.) Shane just naturally and effortlessly led my simple melodies out into uncharted territory. And with him singing, I could focus and work on my guitar playing.
Here’s a version of a song I still consider my “signature” song. Notice how Shane replaces my monotone with a nice early effort with these vocals.
I still didn’t have serious thoughts about forming a band. Shane and I agreed to host a Jam Night at a local pub, playing mostly my originals with a few covers mixed in. We were playing a rendition of All Along the Watchtower with some goofball who’d just moved to the Valley grooving along on bass. I didn’t catch his name and I didn’t care. “We don’t need no stinking bass players!” I didn’t say it out loud, but that’s what I was thinking.
Well his name was/is Ian… and I’ve got to admit that he really knew how to play bass. He is the main reason Missing Peace ever became a band. Ian has a way of insisting on things; he won’t take no for an answer… and he eventually found the right words to sway my opinion in the direction of becoming a real band. It was something like “You’re the song-writer. We’ll be working on your songs. Just wait until you hear them with a full band.” How could I say no?
We started out as the Dharma Bums– a name we would have to eventually relinquish to our American counterparts whom had already released a couple of albums under that name. There were some early personnel adjustments when we realized that our drummer couldn’t go on tour due to family obligations, and the other guitarist was also a predominantly rhythm guitarist like me, so he was replaced by Cory, our lead. With the line-up settled and functional we began gigging. Here’s an early cover from a gig in ’95… Ian’s influence all the way.
The cassette was just taking the front end mix directly from the sound board. The high end clicking on these live songs is actually just static on the tape. Pretend you’re listening to vinyl. This next one was the very first song Cory showed me when he joined the band. I remember thinking to myself when he played it for me “That’s impossible.” Well here it is live, a very early version as Shane hasn’t even worked out the lyrics for the verses yet. Just the choruses are set.
I’m the “other” guitar… a little sloppy coming in, but we settle in alright.
So it turned out that Ian was right. It was pretty special to hear the songs I’d written played by a bunch of “professionals.” I had never imagined my work morphing into something so… so… well, cool. Here’s another one from our earliest recording sessions… the sessions with the fake drums.
I had to practice my ass off to get that intro down! And then I’d still fuck it up half the time when we played it live. Why do I write shit that I can’t play? …’Cause it forces me to get better!
Just one last one from those sessions, this is a song written by Shane. It turned out that Shane easily became just as a prolific song writer as me. Cory was chomping at the bit to “heavy up” our sound… at least he got to rip a decent solo here.
One excellent outcome of this session of recordings we did with Wayne (producer) was that Shane really learned how to harmonize with himself given the chance to multi-track his vocals… something which served him well on the album a couple of years later.
And this is a live version of another of Shane’s. I think we rocked it out pretty well for a band in its mewling infancy.
Although I have only scratched the surface of the archives at my disposal, I think I’ll leave it at that… for now. That is at least an introduction to my/our beginnings in musical dabblings. It has meant everything to me– this incredible journey. And it just keeps going!
I promise that I will take you on a few gigs with the boys in the near future. There are stories– goddam are there stories!– from our adventures on the road that you just have to hear. Of course I’ll mix in a few more audio snippets to make it just that much more real. This is fun for me… I hope it’s fun for you too.
And to finish the tour I’ll leave you with a full band version of the song from the February newsletter video
Handful of Sand.
A Biographical Journey Through My Music Part 2 Early Collaborations
by nielskunze on January 20, 2012
Part 1 was very egocentric… it’s all me, me, me. But Then, being a teenager is mostly about discovering and defining who you are, so no apologies.
Here, in Part 2, I will share the beginnings of my musical circle growing wider. I would like to begin with a tune which although written and performed by just myself is more outwardly focused than the previous introverted wallowing. It is genuinely centred in gratitude.
Now that’s one you can play for your mom! It was written for an “older” couple who were always very generous to us young folk.
Next we move into the territory where I bring aboard other “musicians” who were keen on crafting some original grooves. This song is a small excerpt from another epic which actually never got finished. The project was called Twenty Minutes, referring to the final twenty minutes of life on Earth before we blow the whole planet to smithereens. I guess why I never finished it is because I always knew that it wouldn’t actually come to that. But here’s a nice little bit which survived with additional vocals by my high school buddy Chris.
The little telephone bit at the beginning of that one was just me trying to be all “Pink Floyd” or something…
Now we move on to The Burning Katz. The name of the group came about when we were listening back to one of our first efforts and Gerald said something like “Geez, that sounds like a cat that’s been lit on fire!” We all had a good laugh and the name kinda stuck.
Now those are some inspired lyrics! We certainly didn’t want to get too pretentious and get all “deep” and shit.
What The Burning Katz were doing was definitely centred around humour and copious amounts of alcohol. The only real instruments we ever used were guitars. Tupperware and beer boxes made up the percussion section. Sometimes for lyrics we would grab an old Dr. Seuss book and just use that. Check it.
Okay, 25 years later and that one still makes me laugh! And here’s another that is very, very difficult to take at all seriously.
It doesn’t get any drunker than that!
So admittedly, this section has contained very few redeeming qualities. It is presented here precisely to be laughed at, for we were definitely laughing at ourselves the whole time. The laughter was healthy… the rampant alcoholism… not so much!
Click here for A Biographical Journey Through My Music Part 3.
A Biographical Journey Through My Music Part 1 – Creativity as Therapy
by nielskunze on January 19, 2012
I’ve decided that I’m going to share with you the whole deal.
Among artists, especially those selling their wares, there is most often a directed effort at presenting to the public only the most polished and refined offerings… and keeping the obvious “abortions” well hidden from public scrutiny. This is a perfectly reasonable trend when constructing an image for oneself. If I was focused on producing just such a deliberate musical persona, I certainly wouldn’t share with you what I am about to.
Make no mistake… in many regards these are my abortions, or at least, many of them are. Nevertheless, I harbour great affection for them because they served me well in desperate times. These are the projects which kept me sane– assuming that I am sane.
There is something decidedly magical and distinctly human about the act of creation. To bring forth an expression of oneself, revealing hidden aspects which may have otherwise remained obscure even to the creator himself is liberating and growth-oriented by nature. I have always encouraged creativity in all forms among my fellow human beings. And that is the primary motivation to show you my warts… and to defend their special “beauty.”
As an introduction to my whole musical escapade let me begin by stating that I did indeed receive guitar lessons from the age of ten until the age of twelve. As I was approaching my thirteenth birthday, my music teacher decided that it would be most prudent to have a discussion with my parents about my progress… or lack thereof. In a nutshell, she told my mother over the phone that they (my parents) were essentially wasting their money as I had little to no natural musical ability. Bummer! I quit, and my guitar gathered dust for a few years.
Now, 13, 14, 15… these are the years when a young man’s life tends to get infinitely more interesting… challenging… exciting… poignant… confusing… and just plain difficult. Stupid hormones! Issues of sexual orientation battered my psyche until the ripe old age of twenty-five when I finally conceded that I was gay. As you ask yourself the same question daily for more than a decade, arriving at a different answer each time, you tend to go a little crazy… unless you have a tool for eventually finding your way through…
So let us begin the musical odyssey with a little number which allowed me to express my frustration, keeping in mind that it is rather quite excruciating to be in love and not be able to tell anyone of the fact.
And another speaking of the same troubled love.
I suppose that I should mention that the bulk of these recordings are lifted from very old cassette tapes… we’re talking the 80’s here. Another motivation for sharing them in this format is that it has forced me to transfer them to a digital medium instead of just waiting until the tapes are completely unplayable and thus losing the entire archive of my past.
Returning now to our narrative… My inner world during my teens was definitely dark. I was head over heels in love with my best friend and certain that I couldn’t safely confide that most poignant reality to anyone. I played myself as the victim, for why in the world would I ever choose this for myself?! It was precisely this kind of thinking which led to this next tune which explored and lamented the Cartesian Determinism I wallowed within. This is actually the very first song of my own I ever recorded.
Listening back to this now, I realize that this is one of the very few songs in which I used a guitar pick… something I very rarely do anymore. The very first line I sang the wrong line and just immediately started the song over. My rule back in those days was that if there was only one glaring mistake it was pretty much a keeper.
Sometimes the songs weren’t at all personal in terms of lyrical content. Sometimes it was just the tone or the theme that expressed my youthful angst. This song is lyrically one of my darkest, telling the story of an old west family starving to death in their prairie home after father got killed in town in a gunfight.
Some of my musical endeavours were not so much songs as what I like to refer to as audio collages. They feature a lot of spoken word superimposed upon musical background. It was Jim Morrison’s American Prayer that convinced me that this was okay to do… I just didn’t have the Doors to back my poetry up… yet.
Okay, this is where it gets weird. My first audio collage was a thing I called Trials in Dementia. I sat down in front of the tape deck with eleven pages of bizarre poetry which questioned everything about love… and how it has a tendency to drive young people absolutely bat-shit crazy. I had also gotten my hands on a ridiculously cheap keyboard with sampling capabilities. My directive to myself for the project was to record an improvisational montage for the entire eleven pages over the course of two days. Here are some of the most noteworthy excerpts. Oh, and there is definitely a strong language warning for these (the fourth one, The Folly of Dementia, in particular)… clear the children from the room before playing them!
TID The Haunting
TID Never Free
TID Call to the Lizard
TID The Folly of Dementia
TID Unfinished
Now wasn’t that lovely? The completed project ran a full 30 minutes… I got a lot of shit off my chest!
I did one other epic poem project in a similar vein, but this one was only nine pages long. It was called Silent Streets: Images of the Abstract. The poetry was written when I was seventeen after having the most vivid dream about a crystal city in the centre of the Earth. I submitted this epic in grade 12 for an English assignment. My teacher gave me 80% on it which I thought was a bit stingy. I mean how many high school kids are writing 9-page poems about crystal cities and such? Just a couple of brief excerpts with a slightly cleaner sound…
Growing up I always considered myself an atheist; sometimes I’d even go so far as to characterize myself as an anti-theist. Religion had always presented itself as an exercise in hypocrisy. Nevertheless an inordinate number of my songs and poems had God popping up in them… Stupid God! Later in life I adjusted my stance on the whole religion thing, but I can still proudly say that I’ve never in my life been to a church service. This next song has a rather inflammatory title; I fully realize it. It was very intentional at the time I wrote it, but please remember I was just a kid.
And this one is about a convict who finds Jesus on death row. I had already mellowed my stance at this time.
I’m going to finish off this section (Part 1) with a link to a song which I refer to as my “coming out” song. It’s a bit of a fast-forward as it involves some of my bandmates which makes it appropriate to lead us into the next section.
Bar Bands and Cover Tunes… Yuk!
by nielskunze on January 8, 2012
One day I woke up and found myself belonging to an original rock band named Missing Peace. (Actually, originally we were The Dharma Bums, but that name, it turns out, was already taken.) Beyond the usual air-guitar posturing and screaming along with the lyrics of my adolescent favourites when I was a teen, I had never considered that I might one day actually wind up playing in a band. I was way too shy… conservative… untalented… (insert derogatory adjective here). I well remember that first time I was on stage performing with my new band at the local pub– which was packed way beyond capacity– and I reflected to myself “Holy shit! How in the world did I ever end up here?” It was exhilarating and more than a bit surreal.
I have no regrets whatsoever… but I gotta tell ya, being a bar band pretty much sucks! Once you leave the comforts of your own hometown and all the rabid screaming fans who adore you for no good reason at all, playing random bars out on the road is disheartening to say the least. Now, some of my readers may have long ago concluded that I hate ACDC because of some unflattering remarks I’ve made in the past (see “A Typical Gig: There Never Was“). I really have nothing against them boys or their music… but their fans…Oy! The typical outspoken ACDC fan is a total douchebag whose taste in music reveals itself in the stale-cigarette-and-beer/vomit eruptions spewing endlessly from their mouth in the insistent and flagrantly repetitious utterance of “Play some ACDC.” No, and I’ll thank you to kindly fuck off!
Being in a band is awesome when you get to play your own original music. You get to be an actual artist, sharing your creativity with the world– okay, maybe not so much the world as with the tiniest of shit-holes willing to pay you more than a burger and a coke (beer is extra). But the bar scene doesn’t appreciate artists or even artfulness. Art is something to be scraped unceremoniously from your shoe should you have been unfortunate enough to have trodden upon it. And we were certainly trodden upon often.
The typical bar crowd has a set of priorities. First and foremost, they’re there to get shit-faced. Next, they’re looking to get laid. If that doesn’t pan out there’s always pool, keno, or pinball. Whatever the band is doing makes the list somewhere well below “I gotta take a piss… again.” We are background noise to an agenda that gets played out religiously every Friday and Saturday night in countless bars the world over. They want the background to be familiar, so they can say to their drink/partner/pinball machine “Oh, I love this song!” Unless they’ve heard it at least a thousand times before, they will never say it about one of our tunes.
I hated playing cover songs, but they were the unsavoury reality of bar life. You had to do it if you wanted to get paid. Sometimes we’d slip in a few of our originals in the nastiest of towns by telling them that “This one’s an obscure Neil Young tune,” or some such suitable lie.
Now, having laid the groundwork of my discontent, I present to you the following cover tune. It too is from the live Whitehorse tapes and is one of my favourite Sabbath tunes…
Shane’s “heavy metal” scream brilliantly treads the thin line between tribute and mockery… You decide where he lands…
Now, if the crowd has warmed up to your version of Black Sabbath, perhaps even nodding their heads in frantic syncopation, then it’s time to pull out The Beatles. Everybody loves The Beatles! Maybe they’ll even dance… maybe…