I first met pimp/musician/rapper/producer/poet/martial arts instructor and drunk Reverend Spook something like two years ago in the old disinfo.com Java chat room — before it was replaced by the current meebo travesty as a sop to our indignation as denizens of that beautiful & sacred space which had been removed from the main site altogether for some months. Spook first introduced himself to me as a Christian rapper. Christian rapper? I didn’t know where to look.
But we hit if off and it soon transpired that this Reverend was most definitely not of the orthodox persuasion, being closer in spirit and morality to the charismatic & corrupt head of an ecstatic sex cult — a lucrative path he may well decide to pursue in the future. But more than that, I began to realise that he had given himself up body & soul so that every part of his being radiated and vibrated in the worship of Eris; and still does, even though he knows it for a near certainty that this will be the path to his eventual moral and physical ruin. Spook has transformed his whole Self into a temple of discord and is not merely inviting disaster upon his head, but positively begging for its arrival.
In fact for me the man will always remain, first and foremost, a pimp. But a pimp not only in the profane and materialistic sense of the word — commonly understood as a filthy criminal, the ultimate misogynist and exploiter of women, and a completely unrepentant transgressor of society’s taboos — which he is; Rev Spook is also a spiritual pimp, coldly and without any hint of sentimentality, yet compassionately, *always* compassionately, guiding his students towards spiritual self-realisation. So that here he was: an ascetic given over to bouts of extended fasting — at least until his food stamps arrive — and to performing spiritual exercises of terrifying rigour, yet who also had (and would likely be tainted in the eyes of many by his) intimate involvement with the sex trade.
This combination of the gutter, the sordid and the venal, with the holy and pious as embodied in the person of the Boddhisattva Pimp (Spook’s own coinage) resonated deeply with me. It also brought to mind the teachings and practises of the Indian school of the Tantriks; the Tantriks and their empirically derived philosophy being an endless source of fascination for me. I very quickly became convinced that Guru Spook was definitely onto something with this purity through transgression shit.
But, more than this, to me his example seemed to point to something that has also been articulated in numerous other eastern philosophies: the paradox that to really open yourself to and to truly appreciate the discord and uncertainty that plays an integral (and some might say *the* central) role in our existence as finite Earthly beings, you need to lay the ground so to speak, by putting yourself through the most arduous discipline & asceticism.
And yet this is just one aspect of the Rev’s contradictory chaotic Erisian self — admittedly the aspect I latched onto most strongly because of my own inner needs and inadequacies, ok and like most other men (whether they care to admit it or not) I think pimps are really cool. The other main facet of Spook’s personality, and the one which I have always been most palpably aware of, is his tendency towards extreme romantic infatuation, to the point of obsession — especially with regard to a certain young woman who I also first came to know via disinfo.com.
However to my limited understanding, this extreme dependence and reliance on the other, this devotion beyond reason to another human being, seemed completely inconsistent and at odds with the Boddhisattva Pimp’s philosophy of unaffected and disinterested nonattachment. Alas, I am only just beginning to realise what little right I have to make such comments given my own lowly and deplorable state of almost complete (non blissful) ignorance. Such thoughts only interfere with true understanding, as Spook himself has demonstrated to my edification on many occasions.
I knew Spook as a musician and composer from the start of our friendship, but I was hesitant from the first when it came to actually sitting down and listening to his music, which felt somewhat disloyal. I was scared I might be disappointed, or more accurately that *I* might not be up to the task of appreciating it or comprehending it myself: that, as has been so often the case recently, I would end up being the disappointment. Plus, I don’t really like or listen to rap, Spook’s chosen genre.
Nevertheless it turned out that I needn’t have worried too much: as powerful and as rich as the music that Spook and his regular musical collaborator & partner in crime, the genius Dr Tedley (who fortunately has the requisite piety and scientific training be able to successfully channel certain chaotic energies that have the power to annihilate most other people) create is — and regardless of the genres they decide to lay waste to — it still offers the diligent and sympathetic listener a way in.
Together, Spook and Tedley are disturbingly prolific; in fact together they are capable of startling, mercurial musical feats. Finding themselves on legendary label Some Bizarre as GL1TCHG0R3 this year they released Gearball as a first major volcanic statement of intent; a record with its own mythos, invoking the beloved Eris as well as the truly terrifying spectre of Mr Twinkles, created as a means of helping the bewildered listener navigate what on first hearing seems a pure noise overload.
The more you listen though, the more accustomed you get to the noisy discord, gradually overcoming your initial uneasiness and after your head stops groaning a bit, the more you realise that this is a record utterly dripping with sensuality, the soundtrack to some savage orgiastic black rite; the music is dense and liquid, pulsating and throbbing and utterly saturated with sex and lasciviousness. Following on from Throbbing Gristle, Coil, Merzbow, Oval, Maurizio Bianchi, Autechre, Scott Walker (tilt + after) and the Aphex Twin, GL1TCHG0R3 makes music that is so attuned to our squalid, noisy, and dissonant times, embracing everything we strive to ignore and to filter out, that it sounds as if it was beamed directly from some future dystopia. It is in fact an affirmation of NOW.
And there’s more to come…With his Heartfuct project, Spook invokes the spirit of pre-war Blues magi Charley Patton, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and Robert Johnson, fashioning a form of raw devotional music that is painfully vulnerable, foresaking any kind of musical or poetic artifice to create something that is simple and religious in tone. In addition their sacred/profrane Aleister Christ Project is directly intended to be used in Magick rituals…and there’s a lot more holed up in their vaults. A few weeks ago I sent a few questions via email to initiate the interview we had planned to undertake for a while. Below I have posted the results of the ensuing series of back and forth emails that were sent.
Anas: Please introduce yourself/How would you best describe yourself ?
RS: “hmmm??? – tough one, uh, let’s see my real name is Patrick Chauncey, born in St. Augustine, Florida, oldest city in the US. born in 1977, son of Richard and Miriam Chauncey, two fuck sots who should have never been able to breed – but they did and i’m their first mistake, there’s one more, his name is Brian, my younger brother. anyways i usually introduce myself as ‘Patrick’ and i’m a kung-fu instructor first before anything else. it’s been a few years since i’ve been introduced as ‘Spook.’ – the name originally came from my first ‘producer’ Marvin Harley of UDP records… cause i was ‘light skinned and scary.’ not the guy you wanna meet in a dark alley at night he used to say. So the name just stuck and became my handle. yeah, i’m white, and i’m 31 and i’m about to drop a hip-hop album unlike any other. no. this isn’t something i just decided to do one day cause i thought it would be cool. i’ve been freestylin’ and writing poetry since i was 14. music is therapy for me. it keeps me sane. i’m a free man today because of music.
Anas: Explain the use of the eye imagery you use in the artwork for your projects? Eyes are said to be the mirrors of the soul. Does the use of the eye imagery relate to this?
RS: yes, there is a method to our madness. the ‘eye imagery’ has to do with everything from ‘The All Seeing Eye’ to the ‘Pineal Gland’ in your head – to darker more disturbing things that really do no good for me to discuss because they’ll only make it so far thru the “oh, thats your personal-opinion” filter most people keep strapped to their frontal lobes. “those who know – don’t say.” it does no good. like the old saying… “i can point the way for you – but you must walk the path yourself.” i will however tell you this: in the GL1TCHG0R3 mythos, the Gearball, Mr. Twinkles, is the eye of Eris. the reason she plucked out her eye and cast it into the great star ocean was to seek out and discover the origins of our wonderous sounds. She heard Dr. Tedley and Rev. Spook’s first tune together: “Ode To Eris” and was deeply pleased and at the same time quite distrubed that someone would actually take the time to honor her with an ‘ode.’ hehehehe.
Anas: I asked about eyes being the mirrors of the soul because we’ve had discussions before about the use you make of mirrors in certain initiation rituals, for want of a better description. On the other hand, and again in relation to this, you’ve mentioned the manifestation of ’worm’-like entities in many of the hallucinations you’ve experienced. I was having trouble understanding Blakes poem ‘o rose thou art sick’, but we had an interesting conversation about your interpretation of that rather obscure poem (see below). Are these worms, archetypes, and a sign of initiation into higher mysteries? And how does your use of mirrors relate to scrying?
RS: I donot know everything about the worms, so my answer is thus: there is the unknown and the unknowable, you can map the unknown thru trial and error, but the unknowable is unknowable. a great part of these worms are ‘unknowable’ – we cannot yet study them thru any devices such as microscopes or radio telescopics. so all we can know of them is what we experience thru the trial and error of skinny dipping into the unknown. two explanations i have aquired about them so far are thus: i have experienced them as seperate entities that taunt me into giving them attention that they seem to feed off of. fear is their favorite food in this experience. and also experiencing them as being myself. turned inwards upon myself, like a many headed ouroboros. here’s an ancient picture that depicts this experience very well: much of what they are is still a mystery to me. but i do know for a fact that interacting with them is a necessary bardo. The use of mirrors has to do with using your own eye’s reflection as your yantra. By simply starring into your eye (either one, it doesn’t matter.) and using the pupil as your center point of focus will bring you to a place where you can see the worms yourself without having to induce the experience with drugs. All you need is privacy, darkness, a candle between you and the mirror, (not for hocus pocus reasons, the candle is just for the greater effect of natural illumination and the small spark of light it will reflect in your eye which makes an even better focal point than just the black dot of your pupil.) you wait, patiently, shutting down your internal dialogue, and drinking plenty of water. It normally takes anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour for it to take effect which is why so many cultures use power plants of some form or another to speed up the process.
“Our hearts are like a mirror that reflects what is pictured in the Tablet of Fate. But, even in sleep, thoughts of worldly things dull this mirror, so that the impressions it receives are not clear. After death, however, such thoughts vanish, and things are seen in their naked reality. Dear friend, your heart is a polished mirror. You must wipe it clean of the veil of dust that has gathered upon it, because it is destined to reflect the light of divine secrets.”
Imam al-Ghazali.
Anas: how important is Discordianism in your work and in your life? What do you do to maintain your relationship with the goddess Eris?
RS: hahahahahaha. how important is Discordianism in my work? – well, being a true Discordian i’d have to say it has no importance in my work at all. There is NO ‘importance’ in anything you or i do – or ANY God for that matter. and there is NO Goddess but Eris. and there is no Eris but Eris. 23 Skidoo! – OHM MANIPADME 42! oh, and what do i do to maintain my relationship with the goddess eris? – absolutley nothing, our prayers are like: “Fucksake! – Shit Happens!” or chanting 5 times to ourselves: “STOP TRYING TO CONTROL EVERYTHING!” – “You are not your fucking khaki’s!!!”
Anas: LOL, most people have less personality than their khakis anyway. During your youth you lived what from your descriptions comes across as a very uncertain and extremely unstable, if not downright dangerous, existence. Speaking as an armchair psychologist, I assumed that that would have led in adulthood to a desire for stability and order. And yet you embrace chaos, not least in your art — where I originally assumed it was a means of pursuing inner stability by given your demons full reign artistically. Is this somewhat due to your immersion and training in the practise of the Oriental martial arts, with its basis in Daoist philosophy?
RS: yes and no. i don’t necessarily ‘embrace’ chaos, i’ve just excepted there’s no use in fighting it. like in the new Coen brothers movie “No Country For Old Men” where the deputy asks the sheriff: “this is some mess huh?” where he replies: “i reckon so, if not – it’ll do til the mess gets here.” – such is life. now that may not make much sense to you so i’ll say it this way: you can go thru life hoping and praying and attempting with all your soul to acheive some ideal and never get it and be left in the fog of regret and resentment and unfulfillment. or you can except the unpredictability of life and roll with the punches and still not achieve anything save for the peace of mind that comes with knowing you’re fucked no matter what you do.
Anas: give me an overview of your philosophy of the Boddhisattva Pimp, and how it brings together the work of Iceberg Slim and the philosophy of Buddhism
RS: as simple as the man says: “always keep ya stash in ya stomp” – such is mutha fuckin life yo. you keep that stash in your stomp. just like i stated above: “Those who know – don’t say” just read the damn book and if your smart enough then try reading it from the scientific premise of micro-cosm/macro-cosm. (as above – so below)
Anas: I assumed that the relation between Pimpism and Buddhism was related to the doctrine of nonattachment – in particular to the master/guru/pimp’s maintaining a steely, cold, and (seemingly) cruel attitude towards his charges; ultimately under the sincere and profound understanding that the master knows best and that his is the most compassionate way. But what I love about you and your work is that you yourself are led by your heart and your emotions — we’ve spoken before of this dichotomy between the aspiration towards inner calm through discipline and the mastery of one’s emotions and sentiments, and your enslavement by your heart and your tendencies towards the obsessive pursuit of romantic love. Do you think that these are twin poles that it would be futile to even move towards attempting to reconcile?
RS: futile to try and reconcile? yes. Hail Eris! and remember the pimp is really the whore’s whore. so its the same in everything. what is a teacher without a student? and what is a student without a teacher? as in nature, the two polarities are always chasing the others tail, but the universe is tricky; it’ll do anything to keep two particles from touching. but thats not the point. thats what i mean by just giving up. you cant stop the chase, and you cant win it. so you just give up trying and go with it and except your fate already. like the ancient Egyptian saying: “once you have accepted inevitable death you can finally begin to really live.” alot of people think im very obsessive, and dangerously die-hard romantic. they often ask me things like, ‘how can you say you understand and are enlightened on the subject of non-attachment and inner peace when you allow yourself to get so fucked up over matters of the heart?’ …
i have come to KNOW that romantic love is one of the many heads of Maya, illusion. i know that it is a trivial thing when placed next to any state of heightened awareness.
i have truely accepted this within myself, but by doing so ive also come to realize that my ‘earthly’ life is very very short and while im here, why not indulge in the illusion that is the most fulfilling of them all. some would say that it is too dangerous so you must discipline yourself to avoid it at all costs….
“Whoever does not draw near to God as a result of the caresses of love is shackled to Him with the chains of misfortune.”
i leave my self open and vunerable to the 9 swords of a womans love, and i will fall very very far into Daath (the abyss between Tiphereth and Kether), but i have attained the hermetic-knowledge of soul ressurection. so i can indulge and be destroyed and have the fear of being destroyed, but i have the security of knowing that at anytime i will i can dismiss the illusion…
so yes, i can appear to be completely crushed, and as in a very recent situation – truely be so. – but i allow it by my own choosing, and know that i can recover if i so choose. so i dont fear it so much or see it as a distraction, all the heavenly yak yak that the buddha’s spit out is wonderful but they themselves dont see that by completely denying that part of themself that they too are just falling into another extreme.
Siddhartha went thru the very same thing actually – but people seem to skip over that part of his story
Anas: Change of tack. Musically who are your biggest influences, and who are your biggest anti influences– musicians whose example, perhaps their fakery, and inanity, antagonises you into creating the music you do?
RS: as far as GL1TCHG0R3 goes, it’s straight up – cEvin Key AKA: Kevin William Crompton. my hip-hop influence list is just too insanely long so i’ll chop it up some: the first rap i ever heard that hooked me in was Mr. Scarface of the Ghetto Boys’ album “Mr. Scarface is back” that fuckin album was the shizzle, like The Chronic was the bomb of it’s day. let me see if i can keep it down to just two others… ok next: the RZA of Wu Tang (Bobby! Bobby!) and Mos Def. – really though, all kinds of music inspires me. i mean, i took my ex to go see the Oregon Mozart Players last year and that had an intense influence on alot of my GL1TCHG0R3 tunes that followed after. now music that antagonises me… man, hahahaha – ok… here goes, i love Jethro Tull, i despise Lynard Skynard, i dig Ministry, i love every single song by Download, Brighteyes and Against Me! i never cared for Marylin Manson, Faith No More was boring, the Scorpions were the shit, Aguilera should switch to porn, Gwen Stephani should team up with Aqua, and mother-fuck Elvis! he was a thief and a fake, which reminds me – No Limit Records…. yeah i said it, and fakers in general and their commerical jingles drive me to fantasize of serial murder.
Anas: Aguilera should definitely make the switch to porn; I saw these adverts for her perfume and she has that insatiable look in her eyes. Seriously I think it would be the best thing for her own contentment as well: debasing herself on camera would be the truest, holiest, thing she could do. But aside from the hip-hop, I hear a lot of industrial/experimental/electronic influences in your music, e.g., Merzbow, Oval, Coil, Throbbing Gristle, Autechre. Sonically it’s what gives your hip hop stuff in particular the edge. To what extent did these dudes influence you and to what extent did you and your collaborator, Dr Tedley, come up with that sound independently?
RS: alot of people ask me if the artists you mentioned plus a zillion others influenced me. the truth is: i’ve never even heard of Merzbow or autechre, i’ve heard a handful of tunes by Oval and Coil. never cared much for Throbbing Gristle. Skinny Puppy, Download, The Teargarden, Gaston Zirko and my friend Jeff Ring are the biggest influences in my experimental music. i listen to a handful of muscians, most of what i listen to is GL1TCHG0R3 – if there’s something we want to hear we just make it. The music I grew up on mainly was Cash Money Records AKA ‘The Hot Boys’, Skinny Puppy, Danzig and The Exploited. the origin of the GL1TCHG0R3 project started in a topic by Benjamin Davies in the Church.0v.iLL group: groups.myspace.com/illchurch titled: “real glitch music.” we decided to do a track together for the hell of it and i was so happy with what we did i made a special music page for it, then we just kept going. Dr. Tedley was already friends with Ben’s ‘Empty Boxes and Rooms’ page, i can’t remember who asked him to collaborate first, me or Ben. but either way it led to ‘Ode to Eris’ – then ‘Gearball’ and ‘Mr. Twinkles’ soon after Stevo Pearce of Some Bizzare Records stumbled upon our page somehow and fell in love with ‘Mr. Twinkles’ and ‘Gearball’ – so he signed us. an old friend of mine, Gerald from my New Orleans days contacted me and very much wanted to be apart of the group, so i said ok. but later Ted and I felt we needed to streamline things a bit, especially if we were going to be a signed band we needed our shit tight. Ben said he didn’t care about getting signed or getting paid, so there was no problem there. Gerald on the other hand was quite peeved at our decision to cut him. He was never readily available to do work when we needed him, and his life was very unorganized so we took the necessary measures. We had a brief falling out, and then later made amends.
Anas: Of all the music of yours that I’ve heard I love your Heartfuct project the most. Your heartfuct tracks are really raw and honest— with a real purity of intention and emotion. You call it emotronic music, but most of the Emo I’ve heard is rather contrived and doesn’t have the authenticity and directness of your stuff. How much of an influence was Emo on your music and in fact on your life?
RS: well, as Ted and I have tried to explain before, mySpace has a limited choice of genre’s for you to select as your tags. so I chose what I thought was most appropriate. Emo? yes, i admit, i like alot of it…. well maybe not alot, like I said, I love Brighteyes. and I even listen to The Used sometimes. contrived? you must be listening to the wrong shite. lol. you think my music is direct? wow, thanx. uh, i kinda cant help it i guess, in someways im not that imaginative so i just end up getting straight to the point instead of trying to take some kind of tragic tale and turn it into a pretty painting. fuck that. i just lay it out like i feel.
Anas: Finally, I hear your solo album is being released soon, and that you’re featured on a major new Some Bizzare comp. What else have you got coming up?
RS: we have our GLI1TCHGOR3 album “Gearball” out right now, and besides having a track on the new Some Bizzare Double album and my solo album comming in August titled: ‘Bigspirit’ – there is the little known fact that Oregon finally has a hip-hop mixtape comming out featuring the states best rappers and i’m on it. you can check the details about that here: Oregon State In Emergency / track titled: ‘Turn That Shit Up!’ (i made the music, i do the chorus and the second verse.) other than that Ted and I are currently working on a soundtrack for a new horror movie in the makes called: ‘The Hatman’: http://www.myspace.com/hatmanmusic
now all that being said:
(here’s an example of using the micro-cosm/macro-cosm formulae superimposed upon the ‘concrete’ philosophy of ‘Pimp’ by Iceberg Slim. again – the truth of non-attachment; i suspect most people won’t be able to follow this {proof} but oh well.)
O Rose, thou art sick. = “simply put: life is a sick game.”
The invisible worm,That flies in the night = “Shai-Hulud, the great worm, the many headed hydra that is The Wormz Beyond the Vortex”
In the howling storm:
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy: = “refering to the great worm again as the ‘howling storm’ – the great whirlwind, tornado, i.e Lo-Phi / 4d spiral force, and it as an entity has touched down in the center of your human soul, or Anahata Chakra, and has made all within free & visible and by doing so has also made you vunerable. opening then the gate that leads down the path of ‘The Crux.’ the Jesus Syndrome.”
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy. = “saying that the ultimate enlightenment of The Crux Path is dying as a human, the death of the ‘persona-man’ / rending the veil and revealing the ‘sick game’ that is existance.”
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