MOON MADNESS!
5 months ago
– Fri, Aug 02, 2024 at 10:39:46 AM
I am a lunatic. I became aware of the moon energy when I was a young teenager. The hippies around me characterized the moon as this calming, mysterious feminine energy. I responded to the manic, crazed energy that I was feeling from the Moon. It didn't feel overtly female or male, just weird. One of my first tattoos was of a moon & I got a sun & moon over my elbows much later. I had this moment when I was 21 or so about the band Opeth talking about the band Camel. Opet is the name of a city on the moon in Wilbur Smith's novel Sunbird. Camel's best album is called Moon Madness. These breakdowns of the themes of each box are supposed to give you added context & understanding that will add to your game. The vibe is weird.
I am enough of a follower of Robert Anton Wilson & Karl Jung to not overlook a good coincidence! Just prior to this I was having a drinking party with my friends & we wandered outside to find an abandoned lot full of goats eating down all the weeds, the moon was full & talking to me.
Here is my review of Moon Madness from Die Wurst 4.
1976 - Moon Madness
Moon Madness is my favorite Camel record, mostly because I’m a Lunatic, & it falls into this conjunction that happened with me & the moon in 1998. I think musically Mirage is actually my favorite, but Moon Madness holds the dearest place in my heart. My favorite song on this is Air Born & the opening flute riff gets me every time. Dreamy & romantic like the moon, Moon Madness is like drinking a psychedelic syrup & pushing through the thick, viscous veil of time & space to living in a converted living room entry closet.
Another thing that was hiding in some dark corner of my brain was a scene from Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure, where the Camel with wrinkled knees keeps being called into outer space to join his family of camels, he is mental. I thought this was a dream until I looked it up on YouTube almost thirty years later. Now It's part of my initiation process for people. I decided that he lived on the Moon, then the band Camel has this record, too many coincidences!
Also one of my favorite hardcore techno tracks in 1992 was Trip II The Moon by Acen. I am really into techno & grew up listening to everything from Industrial, Acid House, New-Beat, High-NRG to Trance.
If you go further into the Moon, one of the first (& best) movies is Le Voyage Dans La Lune (1902) by Georges Méliès in 1902. It's silent so go ahead & play Camel with it.
Finally, HP Lovecraft used the moon in his stories frequently. Here is his poem "What The Moon Brings". He also uses the moon in his Dreamlands stories. There is a link between the moon & mental issues ("lunatic" coming from the latin for moon, "luna"). That & associations with the supernatural (the moon as a dark counterpart of the sun) give it a place of great prominence in the Gothic tradition. Lovecraft draws heavily from this.
More on the actual box soon!
x SEAN
