Lucifer Rising Recollection #1
(Note: Posted last month)
As reluctant as I am to post any type of blog, I thought it would be a nice change of pace to actually share some of my experiences with you regarding the Lucifer Rising recording. Which you can download HERE
This blog segment will run until Friday. After that, I go do whatever a Christopher does. I hear this weekend is the Death and Resurrection Show. I may go catch the matinee.
Whilst sitting restless through the twilight of yet another mundane Ontario winter, I was fretting what I should do after `Smoke and Origination.’ Since touring that kind of music would only serve to kill me infinitely faster than the usual stress and air toxins, I needed to go back into the studio. Dick McWhiskey’s Hockey and Hoagie Tavern (a smoke free establishment!!) will have to rely on Emergenza bands to fill their Thursday nights instead of yours truly. Surely the scene weeps.
So the question remained: Should I go right back and finish the acoustic EP? Work on some classical stuff? Sing on a shit reality tv show?
Make a terrible video to support `S&O?’ Develop a well deserved drug habit? Buy a new mountain bike?
Fellow Canadian who tried to live the dream on TV. Yep, still an imbecile.
Hard decisions to make as a musician in this mercurial field of diminishing returns and atrophied skill sets.
The Back Story
I searched for a few years (on and off) for the elusive Jimmy Page Lucifer Rising Soundtrack. It was a sort of personal unholy grail as an Amateur Led Zeppelin Bootleg Enthusiast. The tales that were spun about it and its composer could surely fill volumes of `rock evil’ that Jack Black will inevitably plunder for his films.
The initial search was quite frustrating: All the bootlegs I found and that were forwarded to me by colleagues were the same music, but it couldn’t possibly be Jimmy’s work.
A) The music was way too psychedelic.
B) The guitar playing didn’t have the Pagey style.
C) The instruments described by Page in interviews regarding what he did were not in this soundtrack. I heard no tabla, the ye olde Magick Bow on guitar, tibetan chants or the use of the ARP synthesizer
Eventually what I discovered is that most copies floating around with the Page name is actually the work of Bobby Beausoleil; his version of Lucifer Rising was used for the final edit of the film. Since most bootlegging companies are usually enterprising diseased rats, they would append Bobby’s soundtrack to various Zeppelin bootlegs and outtakes to make a quick buck.
Bobby Beausoliel
Bobby is an interesting character and deserves a sidebar in this recollection: He was a member of the Charles Manson family and Bobby did go to jail for a murder. I have read countless versions as to why he went to jail including the murder of a drug dealer who used lethal strychnine in product Bobby bought. There’s several sordid gossipy tales about Bobby’s early time with Kenneth Anger. I haven’t the patience to research the fact from the fiction. No matter what is fact or fiction, I’m sure either one will prove to be equally fascinating.
Bobby’s score of Lucifer Rising was composed and performed entirely in prison with other cell mates. There would be delays with the soundtrack due to cell mates being transferred to other facilities and maybe, just maybe, because it was…I don’t know….prison?
I would loathe to think one morning waking up all amped to cut a Mellotron track and getting inconvenienced by a shank to the neck thanks to a Hispanic member of the White United Front (WUF) who thought I looked a tad `Jewey.’
I salute Bobby and the adversity one must face having a multi-track studio in prison and a cute bum. As much as I make light of the situation surrounding his creation of the soundtrack, I respect his ability to pull off what he did in prison.You can find more information on Bobby Beausoleil, his work, his marvelous adventures with Chuck and Kenneth on the internet somewhere.
While doing research on Lucifer Rising and making sure no one else had a stab at this soundtrack, Bobby’s soundtrack was part of an ACID contest project where fledgling music people would recreate portions of the sountrack. So others have honored his work in the past through various channels.
Discovery and First Impression
On a lark, the dead one I’m sitting on, in February 07 I got the bug again to try to track down the ever elusive Page version. Several sites had his version. They key word is `had.’ Looks like they got taken down over time. After several torrents, file sharing, secret codes written on rest stop walls and dealing with men with pork pie hats and questionable moral fiber, I finally found Page’s soundtrack. Before I go on with my impressions of what I heard, I’ll give what my preconception as to what I thought it would sound like:
I thought it would be like the intro to Zep’s `In The Evening’ but a complete Satan-fest filled with backward messages and hidden chants that if uttered in real life would bring forth a raven haired stripper with 70’s bush and engorged breasts that shot out a mixture of blood of stillborns and heroin all the while sucking the life force out of you leaving you a dessicated carcass a la Eddie; like many writers seemed to describe it over the years in a roundabout way. Oh, and red glowing eyes.
What I heard was somewhat akin to what I described above.
The extensive use of the tambura/tempura and ARP synthesizer were unlike anything I have heard in Page’s body of work. It’s very erratic and jarring the way the melody lines come in and out of the drone. But there is a definite melodic motif you hear over and over through out the piece. Without seeing the movie Lucifer Rising, the music allowed me to imagine basically everything mentioned in the last paragraph. The shakey tabla performance courtesy of the magic fingers Pagemeister has a certain endearing yet sinister quality to it. The sampling of Tibetan Chants was a very innovative and bold move at the time. (1973 - long before new agers were using it as a `healing’ quality to their compositions) Overall one of the creepiest pieces of music I have ever heard. Heavily in part due to the history surrounding it and its composer.
How the public even has a copy of Lucifer Rising is alledgedly due to an enterprising member of the OTO who managed to get an early screen copy of the Lucifer Rising film with Page’s music synced up. It was extracted and has been dubiously sold and bootlegged since the 80’s.
Jimmy Page Lucifer Rising Album as released by Boleskine House Records. It’s on blue vinyl, contains 23 minutes of music and was sold for $666 (rumour)
I have to use the word `alledgedly’ a lot when it comes down to `Lucifer Rising.’ The consensus reality and legend of it are so mashed up. But that’s half of its charm. To spread disinformation is merely part of the process.
Stay tuned for another exciting installment of questionable grammar tomorrow.
Leave a Reply