R.I.P. Bonzo

One of the world's best drum solo ever, by one of the world's best drummer, who was a member of one of the world's best bands.

Bonzo's Montreux (studio) Album: Coda

John Henry Bonham (31 May 1948 – 25 September 1980)

Mage Music 21: The Devil Made Me Do It

Have sympathy for the devil, for he does not exist...

How many times have you read that rock & roll is connected with devil worship?  How many times have you read that Stairway to Heaven involves satanic backmasking?*   Black magic is scary, isn't it -  especially when it’s the music you love that is delivering the soul-eating content.  But, ahem…

I know this will break some hearts and maybe crush a few cherished beliefs (or fears), but the truth is that there is no such thing as Black Magick.  For that matter, there’s no such thing as White Magick, either.  I will wait while you wipe the tears from your eyes.

Magick Is Not 'Just Like Magic'

Quite early on I posted that Magick is not about stage shows or illusion, but rather is about transformation of a Mage’s personal reality through supernatural means or through knowledge of occult laws.  The word “occult” means, among other things, “hidden”.  In the case of Magick - although a lot of people like to believe that this means secret - in fact it just refers to the fact that the unknowable of the infinite is hidden from finite human senses.  A Mage is a person who can access the normally unknowable through use of a process incorporating desire, focus and ritual.  No tricks, no illusions… just Reality.

How simple it would be if all a would-be Mage had to do was sell his/her soul to the devil to gain the power of transformation, but alas, it isn’t so.  In fact, Magick turns to seem an awful lot like <gasp> work.

Yes, Magick is Work

I’m fond of definitions because they help us to stay on the same page when we're trying to communicate.  So let’s start with the definition of work: "Activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result”.  This is, of course, a human-centric definition that includes not just the common tasks humans do in everyday life to bring home the bacon, but also the process and end result of an artist's or Mage's efforts (e.g. the work of Picasso or Beethoven, the Works of Aleister Crowley).  Not only that, but the word is used in physics to describe the transfer of energy in the known (to humans) universe - and in Magick it describes the same process in the hidden universe.

Work describes the process of change, regardless of what it is applied to.  Work requires energy - a basic law of the Universe that there is no way around.  It is also a law - and mystery - of the Universe, that although energy appears to be consumed, it is actually never used up.  It only changes form.  From the human-centric point of view of life on this planet it can be said that all things eat, all things are eaten.  Who's doing which matters to individuals involved, but the sum is no energy loss. It takes energy to live - one must eat to live, to live means to change (for example: repairing, replacing, growing cells), which means consuming energy.  Even the sun consumes energy as it burns its own gasses - but that energy is put out as heat and light.  No gain, no loss, just change.

You are there... somewhere

In metaphysical terms - Magick - work is the same.  The exchange of energies obeys the same laws of the Universe.  A Mage has the ability to affect how the energies change in the Universe, and thereby brings about change in the Mage's reality.  The core/central concept to Magick - and life - is that it is all transformation of energy.  In the Big Picture, the Universe knows that everyone who's eating is going to be eaten eventually so it doesn't ultimately matter much about the details.  So far, no devil involved here.

You Say Tomatoes, I say …

Bad boys are not evil boys. 

The notion of good and evil is a human one, used for convenience's sake so we can make sense of what each other is talking about.  These words are descriptions of our preferences, not about the actual properties of the things we’re describing.  A “good” thing is something a person has positive feelings about; a “bad” thing is something a person has negative feelings about.  Unfortunately, humans have a tendency to take the descriptors for their internal preferences and transfer them to external reality.  It doesn't make any difference.

A fact of life is that in a zero sum universe everything has a duality about it:  What’s good for one thing may be bad for another.  When a zebra is killed by a pride of lions, it’s “bad” for the zebra but “good” for the lions because they need to eat.  Nothing lives forever – death is not “bad”, it’s just something humans don’t happen to like very much, although studies of Near Death Experiences (NDEs) now challenge even that point of view.

Human preferences aside, the change from living to dead, from here to there, from young to old, from silence to guitar solo is ultimately just work, the change of form of energy.  When Mages change the nature of their own reality, that’s just work, too, even if we put a capital W on the word.  There is no law of the universe, like that of gravity (okay, okay, I know it's all theory) for good and evil.  Just look once more at that photo of our small, lonely planet Earth, then turn around and look at the next nebula over.  Human preferences only apply when there are humans present.  And thus while there is energy throughout the universe, there is no good or evil there.  That means that there is nothing intrinsically good or bad about a Mage's Work since Magick is a process for using the energy of the Universe, which itself is neither good nor bad – it just is.

Humans: Tool Users

What Mages or musicians or mathematicians plan to do with their work is something else entirely.  It’s all about intent, that is, why they are doing the work and what the desired outcome is.  A surgeon uses a knife to slice open a person to save a life; a murderer uses a knife to take a life.  The good or bad is not in the tool but in the intent of the tool user.  The gift of Lucifer was that of knowledge, symbolized by light.  We know Jimmy Page to be a deliberate and exacting musical artist - it can be no accident that he chose The Hermit, bearing light, to represent him in The Song Remains The Same. If this isn't a clear message about intent, then what is?

Intent is part of the Magickal process; the Mage’s intent is what determines the outcome – and it is up to the individual impacted by it to decide whether it is good or bad, black or white.  Devils?  Demons?  If they exist at all, they are the outcome of a Mage’s choice - not the source of the Magick.  Angels?  Fairies? Beauty, after all, is in the eye of the beholder.

And that, my friends, is why we all should have sympathy for the devil, for aside from human choice, there is no such thing.  Aside from human intention, there is no evil.  There is only energy of the Universe that Magickal processes use to perform work.  Whatever flavor of Magick it might appear to be, Magick is much, much more than the little labels humans give it.

[Note: Backmasking is a recording technique in which a sound or message is recorded backward to convey a subliminal message.  Ironically, Led Zeppelin isn't one of the groups listed as backmasking satanic content in Wikipedia’s list of same.  And even more ironically, the one song that is constantly cited for backmasking of satanic content everywhere else is Stairway to Heaven - the only song of Led Zeppelin's other than Houses of the Holy that has anything in its title containing spiritual words (good or evil).] 

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Future post:  Hmmm.  I'm thinking maybe it's time to talk about alchemy.  But I might change my mind between now and next week.

♫

This playlist: A little bit of naughty, then to heaven and beyond.

YouTube Playlist - The Devil Made Me Do It

Individual Songs 

1969  Led Zeppelin The Lemon Song (studio) Album: Led Zeppelin II

1975 Led Zeppelin Custard Pie (studio) Album: Physical Graffiti

1976 Led Zeppelin For Your Life (studio) Album: Presence

1977 Led Zeppelin In My Time Of Dying (live) Cleveland

1971 Led Zeppelin Stairway to Heaven (studio) Album: Led Zeppelin IV

1979 Led Zeppelin In The Evening (live) Knebworth August 4 1979  (Jimmy Page's every note here seems to be the cry of a living animal!)

1986 The Firm Dreaming (studio) Album: Mean Business (I'm not a Paul Rogers fan, but Jimmy Page's guitar work here is a nice close to this sequence of songs)

Sept. 21 Press Conference

Audio on Soundcloud of September 21, 2012 Celebration Day press conference with Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones or download directly [16.2 MB]

(These links also appear on the Celebration Day tab, above)

Mage Music 20: Let's Celebrate!

The O2 concert is coming!

To me, any day I can listen to music of Led Zeppelin – or, more specifically, Jimmy Page – is a Celebration Day, but I've been really, really happy with the news that finally the 2007 Ahmet Ertegun Tribute Concert, featuring a reunited Led Zeppelin (with Bonzo’s son, Jason Bonham, on drums) will be available in movie theaters in October and on DVD in November.

The movie opens on six continents (apparently not in Antarctica) on October 17, 2012 and you can check to see where online at the official Led Zeppelin website. Some locations are already offering tickets – I’m sure that getting them early is a good idea because although there are 1500 theaters world-wide showing Celebration Day, there are millions of Led Zeppelin fans. Just like the O2 show, there will likely be folks who want to get in who won’t be able to get a ticket. Me – well, the nearest theater is a couple hundred miles away so I might have to wait for the DVD.

The DVD (and other formats) is scheduled for release November 19.  I hope I can order in advance.  I'm thinking I might need to order multiple copies, because... well, just because.

Till October – or November – there’s the Led Zeppelin: Celebration Day DVD/movie trailer to tide you over and to whet your appetite.

I’ll be posting info as it I learn of it on a page of its own here on the Mage Music blog that I've created just for that purpose (check out the tab at the top of this page) so it’ll be easy for you to find.  Plus I've posted some stills from the movie trailer.  You might want to bookmark the page.  Heck, it's my own blog and I've bookmarked the page!  CLICK HERE

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Future post: I'll be returning to regularly scheduled programming next weekend, I promise!  Meanwhile, use the links below to listen to the studio versions of the setlist for the O2 concert.

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YouTube Playlist - Studio versions of O2 setlist plus the Led Zeppelin: Celebration Day trailer and also studio version of Celebration Day.

Individual songs (in the O2 setlist order)

1969 ‘Good Times Bad Times’ Album: Led Zeppelin
1969 ‘Ramble On’  Album: Led Zeppelin II
1971 ‘Black Dog’  Album: Led Zeppelin IV
1975 'In My Time Of Dying' Album: Physical Graffiti

1976 'For Your Life'  Album: Presence
1975 'Trampled Under Foot'  Album: Physical Graffiti
1976 'Nobody's Fault But Mine' Album: Presence
1973 'No Quarter'   Album: Houses of the Holy
1970 'Since I've Been Loving You' Album: Led Zeppelin III
1969 'Dazed And Confused'  Album: Led Zeppelin

1971 'Stairway To Heaven'   Album: Led Zeppelin IV  

1973 'The Song Remains The Same' Album: Houses of the Holy 

1969 I Can't Quit You Baby' Album: Led Zeppelin

1971 'Misty Mountain Hop'  Album: Led Zeppelin IV
1975 'Kashmir' Album: Physical Graffiti
1969 'Whole Lotta Love'  Album: Led Zeppelin II
1971 ‘Rock And Roll’ Album: Led Zeppelin IV

Led Zeppelin: Celebration Day movie trailer

Cinema opening: October 17, 2012 Tickets on sale October 13

DVD release: November 19, 2012 Sales info will be posted here soon as it's available

Note:  This info and updates are also posted on a permanent blog page HERE or just click on the tab above

ARE YOU EXCITED YET????

MAGE MUSIC 19: Magickal Mystery Tour

“An embarrassment of riches...”
~  Dave Lewis From a Whisper to a Scream: Complete Guide to the Music of Led Zeppelin, p. 68

Mage Music 19

This post is I guess a placeholder to give me a bit of time off from doing any serious thinking (or writing) about Mage Music.  The reason for the songs I chose for this week's playlist?  Each of them shares these things in common:  1) The Magick in these songs gives me a shiver in me timbers when I hear them; 2) because they're all different, you know that the vocalists and other musicians aren't where the Magick is coming from; 3) they show how, even over the span of 40 years, Jimmy Page's gift never wavered; and 4) the tone quality that Jimmy Page puts in each and every song is beyond outrageous!

♪

Future posts:

• What is Magick and what is it doing in my music? 
• The YOU in Mage Music 
• Guest posts coming up, too!

♫

YouTube Playlist - The Rover and more

Individual songs

1970 Jimmy Page & John Williams, Baby Who's Driving Your Car (studio) Page's home tape recorder Sept. 02 1970 - (from jimmypage.com)

1975 Led Zeppelin,  The Rover (studio) Album: Physical Graffiti

1988 Jimmy Page & Chris Farlow,  Prison Blues (studio) Album: Outrider

1988 Jimmy Page,  Liquid Mercury (studio) Album: Outrider [Recommended listening but not on YouTube- buy Liquid Mercury MP3 at Amazon.com] 

1993 Page & Coverdale, Absolution Blues (studio) Album: Coverdale/Page

2008 Page, Jones & Foo Fighters, Ramble On (live) Wembley Stadium, June 2008

Mage Music 18: Fetching the Magick

Ritual is the glue that holds the Magickal process together...

Mage Music 18

Black Dog
artwork based on NASA image
click on image to enlarge

Like everything else associated with Magick, Ritual is simple, but it’s not easy. Just for openers, there is more than one flavor of Magick. There is no one Magical path that is the sole truth of things. There is no good or bad Magick, either – Magick is what the Mage chooses to make it, since Magick is a process and tool of the Mage, not an independent thing in itself. The Power that the Mage accesses using Magick is the infinite energy of the Universe, which is not owned by Magick, the Mage, a demon, an angel or any being.

Even within one flavor of Magick there are many possible rituals that can be used by a Mage to achieve the desired outcomes. The ritual can be from any number of possible sources or it can be created by the Mage. The same ritual can be used over and over again or can be changed from time to time. Always, however, the risk exists for putting too much emphasis on the ritual’s form rather than its function. More on this in a bit.


Ritual: The Abracadabra Part

Ritual is the visible, external part of Magick. It’s what people see in the movies and read about in books and, if they are uneducated about Magick, it's what they think Magick is all about. Not so.

Ritual is the action that is used to bind the desire and will of the Mage and provides a focus for long enough for the Mage to access and open to the energy of the Universe. It’s the unlimited and infinite energy of the Universe that makes changes in the reality of the Mage... if all the component parts of Magick come together just right.

There is no Power in Magick itself, since Magick is a process not a thing. There is no Magick in a magic wand or in a secret word or symbol – if any of those things seem to contain Magick, it is only an illusion, a seeming that comes from the Mage at the time of use in ritual. Don't believe it? Well, a non-Mage can go to a magic store and buy the most arcane, most talismanic object - but outside of Magickal process by a Mage, the object will be just an inert thing. Think about this: Jimmy Page told Brad Tolinski in 2010 that the iconic outfits that our favorite Mage Musician wore on the 1977 tour were “more than just stage clothes; they were talismanic”, yet I doubt anyone who put one of those dragon suits would suddenly gain the Mage Music abilities of Jimmy Page. That's because....

Magick isn't in the objects or the ritual; Magick is a process that provides a framework for a flow-through of purposeful and directed energy of the Universe. It isn't easy to do this - and it's not an immediate cause-effect, either, which is a good thing when you think about it. One moment of inattention and a demon pops through!  No, it is fortunate for reality as we know it that immediate cause-effect - a wave of a wand and an Abracadabra - is not how Magick works.

Focus 

I mentioned in discussion of the use of a Mage's will how hard it is to sustain powerful desire and a conscious awareness of purpose for any meaningful length of time. For most of us, a moment or two is pretty good. For a Mage, minutes - many of them - may be needed to bring about the desired changes in Reality. There probably have been humans who could sustain the desire and awareness for long enough solely through their own will, but for most Mages, ritual is the tool that allows them to do the job.

Good ritual, through the use of stylized, formal actions performed sequentially, focuses the mind and emotions so that distractions are prevented and the primary desire and purpose can be maintained. Good ritual draws in and binds the senses and ensnares conscious awareness in order to align the mind, body and soul with the desired outcome. It is the loss of awareness and surrender to the desired new state - existing in the changed reality before the change exists in reality - that is the key to the ritual of Magick. Shamans dance and chant or dream, priests use prayer, Mages use Magickal ritual - all do so to surrender to the process, to step out of themselves and into the new state and to sustain that altered existence until it becomes the new reality. For some Mages, the form of ritual - and the surrender - is to music:  Mage Music.


Form vs. Function

The form of ritual provides a framework for the Magickal process that creates a familiar pattern.  [Note that if the pattern is achieved, then the ritual isn't improved by increasing technical expertise of performance, since it is the familiar patterns themselves that tell the receiver what kind of information to expect.  Jimmy Page has often been criticized for sloppy technique, but technique is secondary to content for a Mage Musician.]

The formula for ritual is pretty standardized:  There's a beginning, middle and end.  Each kind of ritual has its own pattern-within-pattern.  With Magick (and Mage Music) the ritual pattern looks approximately like this:

• Preparation - Sets the desire and will, repeated so that the body/mind/soul are prepared (theme, riff) 
• Invocation - Losing self in order to put the desire and intention of the Mage out into the Universe and to thereby become aligned with the change that is desired (solo) 
• Close - Gratitude and creating the path to return to end of ritual (return to theme)

The function of ritual is essentially that of prayer (in the sense of spiritual communion), the object of which is to transform the Mage and thereby transform the Mage’s reality.

Ritual in itself is a catalyst, meaning that it brings about change while itself not being changed. Ritual is simply a component in a process that brings about/transmutes the Mage's reality, via desire and will, into a new reality. The need for the Mage to be able to surrender while maintaining the highest and most powerful levels of desire in full purpose and awareness means that during the sequential moments of ritual, what it looks (or sounds) like is secondary to the change it brings about in the Mage's reality.

No quality of musical performance, however skilled, will bring Magick to the music without the Mage’s purposeful immersion in the ritual.  The technical skill of a Mage Musician is less important than the strength of emotion, the purity of desire and the power of will used to perform the musical ritual.It can’t be faked and it can’t be emulated – Magick in music can only be created and recreated each individual time and only through the efforts of a Mage.

Fortunately for Mage Musician, audience has a function in the ritual.  We provide energy.  When we recognize the the ritual pattern and the quality of the music that carries Magick, when we feel the Magick we are transmuted along with the Mage and our feedback helps power the Mage.  It is the Mage Musician, however, who always does the fetching for us.

  

♪

Future post: Magickal Mystery

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YouTube Playlist -  Black Dog

Individual songs

1971 Led Zeppelin  Black Dog (live) Osaka (pre-album performance)
1971 Led Zeppelin  Black Dog (studio) Album: Led Zeppelin IV 

1971 Led Zeppelin  Black Dog (live) Knebworth
1973 Led Zeppelin  Black Dog (live) Madison Square Garden
1975 Led Zeppelin  Black Dog (live) Earls Court
1979 Led Zeppelin  Black Dog (live) Knebworth
1993 Page Coverdale  Black Dog (live) Osaka
1995 Page Plant   Black Dog (live) New Orleans
2007 Led Zeppelin/Jason Bonham  Black Dog (live) O2