Viral Emissions

I am at home in Cincinnati. I am part of a Nocturnal Emissions tribute show that is going to happen at the Southgate House. In fact, I have to go to a meeting in the parlour of the Southgate House to discuss the show with other people involved. My friends Paul Bartley, Andrew Hissett and I will be performing one of cover versions of a Nocturnal Emissions song. Inside the parlor we talk about the logistics of having the Nocturnal Emissions tribute.

Then my wife and I are sitting on a park bench talking to a guy named Adam who works at the library with me. I call him Adam West, though I’m thinking of Herbert West. He is talking to me about the Nocturnal Emissions tribute show. He says, “You guy’s sounded good. Especially your keyboard part, the pattern you copied from my keyboard.” Images of going to his apartment to copy some code from his keyboard into my Korg MS2000 fill my mind. I am excited about the feedback.

It seems there was a tribute CD put together as well and a book. Nigel Ayers has come into town for for a release party associated with the cd/book. I am at the release party. People are talking about the book. Andy Hissett and I flip through it, really surprised by some of the contributors, such as Metallica, and other even more mainstream people. It is laid out in a very graphic, collage style. I point at the cover and say, “It looks like it was designed by R. Crumb” the famous comic artist. Adam is quick to point out that it wasn’t R. Crumb but another “crumb” who draws in a similar style and may even be a pen name of Crumb’s. Inside the tribute book is a book of R. Crumb’s comics about roots / blues / country musicians. I want to buy a copy of the tribute book. There are two versions. One is an oversized folio and is signed by Nigel Ayers. The other is octavo sized. I look at the octavo: it is made up of loosely bound cards, flexi vinyl discs, and other bric a brac. The folio is the same, but the flexi discs in it are so oversized I don’t think I’ll be able to put them on the turntable. So I decide to buy the small one and ask Nigel to sign it for me. It’s twenty bucks.

Then Nigel and I get to talking. I tell him I want to review the book for Brainwashed, “after I’ve had time to sit with it,” I say. He understands. I explain to him, “I reviewed your Nightscapes album.” He seems appreciative.

The book is held together by elastic bands going through a hole in one corner of the hard board. Holding it, it turns into a bracelet, made up of over-the-counter style drug packets, pill holders, the kind that are cased in plastic and foil, that you have to punch the foil out to get to the pill. This is an accessory that Nigel made to come with the book. Nigel says to me, “I’m a multimedia artist. I don’t limit myself to specific forms, only to what needs to be created.” He is a writer, musician, video and visual artists.

About a year after this dream I finally got in touch with Nigel. I shared the dream with him, and then I asked him if he would do an interview with me. The interview is finally done and is up now on Brainwashed.

I’ve also reviewed his recent album “In Dub Volume 1,” and the ‘zine he produced between 1990 and 1999, “Network News” which is now available as a print-on-demand trade paperback.

This dream also inspired some of my own work in another area. After having it I begin to obsess over “multidimensional art”. Last winter I’d planned on writing a Manifesto of Multidimensional Art, or MOMA. I wrote some notes down, but nothing came of it, and yet the idea and desire to write it never left my mind. Somehow, at the beginning of March I was infused with an upsurge of inspiration (Thank you Mnemosyne). Once I saw the way to structure the manifesto -in the pattern of the Qabalistic Tree of Life- writing it came easily. It is now available in the Spring Equinox edition of Silver Star: A Journal of New Magick. Shade, the editor, also published my poem Earth Goddess.