OM ~ Cabaret Sauvage, Paris 3/6/10
OM ~ Al Cisneros (bassist, formerly of the Doom Metal Gods « Sleep ») & Emil Amos (drummer, also with the mighty Grails) ~ are my kinda band. Imagine if John Paul Jones, Geezer Butler, Bill Ward & John Bonham went on a journey around Kashmir & smoked far too of the local greenery & ended up in some mad Tantric monastry in Shambhala & decided to do a concert.
That is what OM sound like to me.
Cabaret Sauvage is an unusual little venue. Designed to look like a decadent wine coloured circus tent & ring with the psychedelic lights twirling & moving around the roo, it made for quite a heady spectacle in itself. One could feel quite intoxicated witout the use of stimulants. Perfect for OM.
The band came on & within the first song had fucked their speakers. Technical problems seemed to plague them throughout the set, yet they quietly got on with fixing them to the sometime abuse of the French audience.
Yet once the band kicked into their stride everybody just fermez-ed their bouches & let the music wash over them. Just seeing all those heads bobbing to the musicianship of Al & Emil was a sight to warm an old headbanger’s heart. There were plenty of those moments.
Y’know the ones.
Where the band is just giving it all & the audience is totally absorbed in the music. Those moments. When the world has lost its grip on your throat, even for a second, & in that second there is something that may approximate a feeling of freedom. Maybe.
They played their tunes including the spacey “Meditation Is the Practice of Death” , “Bhima’s Theme” & of course the 10 minute plus Doom-y Bass & Drums fest that is “At Giza” & we as an audience were left happy & achey of neck.
What more could you ask for?
~By Jason Michel~
An Interview with Rat Scabies by Barry Collins
later Barry Cain at the Champion pub recently (thanks for the tip Cocktails) for a chat about his interest in the history and mystery of the Holy Grail and Rennes-le-Chateau…….It’s not unusual for rock star’s to have hobbies – flying planes,
racing cars, model train sets even. But a crusade to find the Holy
Grail -that’s a bit special isn’t it. How do you go from drumming
legend to Grail hunter?
I’m stuck with it ’cause of my parents. They’d been on a tour of the
Rennes-le-Chateau trail, after the TV programme by Henry Lincoln from
’71 or ’72, so I’ve grown up with it all around me. I’ve always known
the story really well: the priest, the missing treasure and the curse.
When I left the band I had this idea for a film script, I renewed my
interest in it again, I started writing it all down, once you do that
you find out new things. You get to talk to people, they tell you
stuff and it just ends up taking over.
Would you say it’s taken over your life now?
There’s a lot of it in my life now. A lot more than I wanted.
How would you describe a layman’s or beginners guide the Grail Mystery?
The trouble is there’s about three or four different interpretations
of what the Grail is. Even if you want to the beginners guide that’s
hard work, but to summarise – it’s either the cup used at the Last
Supper that caught Christ’s blood at the Crucifixion. Or the other
extreme is when it’s happiness beyond being satisfied with your life.
You’re content, you’ve got to Arcadia.
Do you need or have to have any spiritual or religious belief to be involved?
Well that’s my problem, and why I don’t really go for the cup of
Christ, I’m not really a Christian I’m an Atheist – so, for me the
thing of it being a spiritual awareness seems a bit more likely.
Is it a physical grail or an analogy to something else
I know where there’s about three physical grails.
What fake or genuine ones
It only needs one to be genuine. But, the thing is they all say they’re genuine.
Do you think it will ever be found?
It’s the journey – that’s more fun than arriving.
What about Dan Brown has he been a help or hindrance to Grail hunters?
He’s quite good at writing crime fiction – but pretty much everything
in the Dan Brown novels has already been said by someone else Henry
Lincoln etc. What’s good about it is, people read it and gave them a
different take – that it’s good to question the physical version of
events. I don’t necessarily buy into the whole Da Vinci, Mary
Magdalene thing – because if that is the Last Supper and that is Mary
Magdalene sitting next to Christ then actually they’re a disciple
short..
Does your research spin into other areas?
Oh yeah, you end up in Egypt or scaling a pot hole – in a lot of ways
that’s why Rennes-le-Chateau is the important place. There’s a lot
other belief systems. There’s a lot of new age Tibetan gong banging
goes on down there, holding hands at midnight. But at the same time
there’s people watching flying saucers coming over the nearest
mountain ranges – not that I’ve seen any. Anything that’s left bank
can be found down there
Is there an British equivalent to the area?
Glastonbury’s pretty close – there’s a few places around the world.
Joshua tree in America where weird things happen
Do you look for lines or links between between these locations?
No, the thing is any two points make a straight line. People can
whittle a shape out of most things.
It’s like the constellations isn’t it how do you make a bear or plough
out of that.
I think human consciousness probably evolved around the same time
somebody ate mushrooms and was lying there looking at the sky
You’ve got children, what’s their take on the mystery and Dad as a Grail hunter?
They call it Rennes-le-Shithole.
Do they get involved?
They quite like the place, some of them, because it’s beautiful – they
like going down there and hanging out.
How do you do your research – old bookshops, libraries, the British museum?
Everything really. Visit a lot of old churches and castles. A lot of
reading, various ideas . I end up with a lot of symbolism. A lot of
similar things keep re-appearing re-emerging. Before people could read
and write that was how they signposted something. Rosslyn chapel’s
like a book full of them. Have you been there?
No, but it looks incredible.
The amazing thing about is Rossalyn is the way built. It’s brilliant.
there’s no cement holding it together. It’s just perfectly cut lumps
of rock. Some people have said it’s a showcase for the Masons. There’s
a great deal of debate about it. The version I heard was it started
out as Templar building but The Masons took it over.
Where have you met the most oddbods and bizarre characters Grail
hunting or drumming with The Damned?
Grail hunting. The first thing I realised was: just because I don’t
believe it – doesn’t mean the other persons wrong. So when somebody
tells me they’ve floated down a mountain side. I don’t believe it –
but it doesn’t mean they haven’t managed to do it. There’s also a lot
of one-upmanship and everybody wants to be the one with the latest
theory and to have found something that nobody else has discovered.
Do you get splinter groups and spin offs?
No it’s much more basic belief level than that. Like minded people
stick together, so the ones that are a bit Sword and sorcery or get
naked round a fire at midnight tend to go off for a ding-dong. I
prefer practical things you can see, touch and smash a window with.
Any misconceptions you’d like to clarify?
People that try to debunk the theory of Rennes-le-Chateau and Saunier.
The rest of it’s pretty much up in the air. You do get a lot of
opinions.
You’ve made the trailer – what’s next?
Romo – To try and get it commissioned, although we are continuing to film.
Rat – A lot of the people involved like Henry Lincoln are knocking on
a bit now, so it’s important to get them while they’re still warm.
There’s been plenty of good feedback on your style as presenter?
I find it really hard work. I’ve got a memory like a sieve. I’ll pace
up and down for ten minutes over three lines.
Have you ever had a moment where you’ve thought what am I doing here?
The part in the trailer where we’re going down the mines – it doesn’t
look anything like as rugged as it was. The floor is incredibly fine
quicksand – and rocks with a lot of quartz in there, when the water
comes through parts break off and it becomes like shards of glass. So
you’re either sinking or cutting your feet. And every fifteen feet
there’s a sandbank – so you have to drag this dingy over quartz,
crystal and sand – there’s five of us in a two man dingy after the
third bank the dingy’s leaking.
Is there anything you’d have done differently?
Not really. I never really expected to find anything all I wanted from
it was the good stories.
And that really helps, because everytime you talk to the villagers
they’re a bit cautious. As soon as you say you don’t want to do a book
about Geometry or UFOs they come round to it. By the time you’ve got
end of a second glass of wine they start telling you stuff off the
record. There are conspiracies down there – the whole village is in on
something. You get to a certain point in a conversation and they’ll
suddenly clam up. You get to too close to a certain subject and they
change the topic.
Some of your earliest gigs where at the Mont De Marsan festival, which,
geographically isn’t that far from Rennes-le-Château. Do you feel
you’ve come full circle and are the French more tolerant too
‘outsider’ ideas?
Hmmm, not full circle, cos I was already Rennes aware when I joined
the band, and to be honest I doubt if the French have become more
tolerant to anything, other than the tourist trade
Your Grailhunting adventures have led to a book and film . Would you
be tempted with working your stories and experiences into an album?
I have already include some esoteric (UFO’s in this instance) material
in my music, anybody interested in listening should check out the
track “Floydian slip” on my Myspace page Rat Scabies Grailhunter. In
the meantime I’m trying to hustle up the cash to buy some new
recording equipment so I can resume work on Sauniere the musical..
Are there any tunes or tracks that make you think of your experiences?
Flipron’s Raindrops Keep Falling on The Dead – it could really
summarise Saunier and his housekeeper’s relationship. Even though
Flipron knew nothing about it they’d written a perfect background to
this part of the story.
So an almighty thank you is due to Rat and Romo for making this meet
happen, and to Barry for an evening of trading trench tales from the
punk-wars with Rat. Which, is one of the most heady spectator sports
you could ever wish to sit in on (although almost all are unprintable
here)..
Rat Scabies will return with some drum talk at a later date…
This interview originally appeared in Dave’s blog : http://planetmondo.blogspot.com/ Monday, March 8, 2010
You can see the trailer for Rat Scabies’ Grail Adventures here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igha_pZ9Y68&feature=player_embedded
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