I went to Wonder Valley Experimental Music Festival and saw God.

 

And goddesses. And saints. And sinners. Pretty sure Queztalcuatl also touched my forehead. Beams hitting third eyes. Gorgeous early April Mojave day time sun. Like perfect. Hail fellows well met, yes, it's a lovely day for a hike. Interact with the desert. Let it speak its language, so subtle yet so attainable, to you. Careful with that wind gust, Eugene. Well at least you've got hiking boots on. 

Spent two days driving, one half day hiking and the other half listening to many Experimental Music projects. Most of them from the Los Angeles area, a handful from the San Francisco Bay Area. A wide array of sounds heard. Each has their recognizable dynamics and codes and subtexts ("your Hanatarashi t-shirt tells me things, as does that other act's singing bowl). I flashed again on how Noise and Experimental musics are truly Folk Forms of the most vital sort. During the drive over to Twentynine Palms, I listened to  earlier Folk music on a disc of songs by anthracite miners. It's on Folkways, go and find it, very much worth a spin or seven. A lot of peoples' worldly concerns are the same now as when they were when they were miners. Totally different granular details in most cases, I get it. But, still, people are out in the world making decisions, some of them very complicated in any number of manner. Some of these people will turn to sound making, just as those that came before them had chosen. Damn straight, it's a human need. A lot of us need it to cope with the rest of it all. Who knows, maybe it is all a distraction from more pressing concerns as we navigate our subjective mortal passage. Still, a lot of us choose to remain within its thrall, if thralls are what use distractions to ensnare the human consciousness. And would you believe that Disaster Amnesiac just spelled that word without a spell check? It's God's truth. Turning back to the need for cope, and how people often use music as a means for doing such, I still posit that Noise is a living Folk Form. Don't know if it's the last or the penultimate (thinking about Apocalypse porn here, and what will post-Apocalyptic people use for music makers?) Disaster Amnesiac does know that I saw and lot of cool weirdos and listened to their music at the Palms Restaurant in Twentynine Palms on an early April day and evening. 

If you've read this far: y'all should go over there next year. If you see me there, let's talk about ontology or whatever subject that you're feeling at that time.