Dimetia 13 - 108 Sacred Stages

To close out 2018 here's something special and a bit obscure. the neo-psyche band Dimentia 13.

Dimentia 13 released their first album in 1985 and released five albums while they were active. Hailing from Ohio they were similar but separate from the Paisley Underground bands of the time with influences closer to Syd Barrett, Robyn Hitchcock and the 13th Floor Elevators. Trippy lyrics and lots of fuzz guitar.

Fronted by Brad Warner who wrote the songs and on the early albums played most of, or all of the instruments. In the early 80s Brad was the bass player for the hardcore punk band 0DFX. When that band had run its course Brad went back to school, formed Dimentia 13 and discovered Zen. In the 90s he moved to Japan to teach English and went on to work for the company that gave us Godzilla and Ultraman. At that time he also became an ordained Buddhist monk in the Soto school of Zen. These days he leads Zen meditation classes, gives talks and writes books on Buddhism and Zen and plays bass in the revived 0DFX.

This is a collection of demos, outtakes and live tracks from his band Dimentia 13.

01 108 Sacred Stages
02 Hey, Maharaja!
03 Fog Camouflage
04 Truth
05 Weight
06 Innocent Anemia
07 Somebody Stop Me
08 In The Past
09 Snow Is Falling
10 Twice The Speed Of Time [Demo]
11 Can't Stand Still
12 All Is One
13 Mr Blood Clot
14 We Are
15 Mesmerized
16 Get Me Outta Sing Sing
17 Lucifer Sam
18 Do What You Will
19 God Part III

Reality Notes

I discovered Brad Warner through his books on Buddhism. If you have an interest in that kind of thing, I highly recommend them. His writing style is very accessible and personable and helped clarify many misconceptions I had about Buddhism in general and Zen in particular.

After reading his first book, Hardcore Zen, I found his website. There he would post articles and pictures of dinosaur books. He also posted some songs from his music career. The first ten songs in this comp came from there. The rest of the songs can be found on YouTube and are mostly live tracks and a couple of outtakes.

Tracks 14-17 come from a 1988 T.V. appearance on a Chicago public access show called Friday Club. Each performance was separated by other content so I edited the songs together to seem like a continuous performance.

Snow Is Falling was originally released on the various artist Christmas album put out by the record label he was signed to Midnight Records.

Can't Stand Still is an outtake from the album Flat Earth Society produced by Glenn Rehse of Plasticland.

Mr Blood Clot was released on a Flexidisc given away with an issue of the British psych mag Freakbeat.

God Part III is a more recent live solo acoustic performance of a song from the album Flat Earth Society.

I found the cover pic online and added the text.

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Melancholia - Volume 5

I think of all of the non-themed volumes, this is my favorite.  What makes this compilation slightly unique is that it is the first and only comp in the series originally made from dubbing cassette to cassette. It was made at a time when I was between buying vinyl and not yet buying CDs. Because of this, this is a good cross sample of what I was currently listening to at the time whereas previous collections were a mix of new discoveries and old favorites. There is still that mix but everything was purchased around the same time.

At the time this was complied I was working at a restaurant where on my breaks I would go and sit in the dinning room and chat with the other workers. We had a jukebox that played three songs for a quarter and I would always play the same three songs; Free Fallin' by Tom Petty, The Flame by Cheap Trick and Almost Hear You Sigh by the Rolling Stones. I'm not sure why the Stones song didn't make the comp but it should have. I must have run out of room.

01 Tom Petty - Free Fallin'
02 The Rainmakers - No Romance
03 Jimi Hendrix - The Wind Cries Mary
04 Heart - Love Alive
05 Ringo Starr - It Don't Come Easy
06 Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Feel Your Love
07 Love and Rockets - So Alive
08 Tracie Spencer - Imagine
09 Ziggy Marley & The Melody Makers - Tumblin Down
10 Vanilla Fudge - Ticket To Ride
11 David Crosby - Tracks In The Dust

12 Cheap Trick - The Flame
13 Nazareth - Love Hurts
14 Belinda Carlisle - Mad About You
15 Guns N' Roses - Patience
16 Indigo Girls - Closer To Fine
17 Tin Machine - Amazing
18 Eric Clapton - Please Be With Me
19 Living Colour - Broken Hearts
20 Ike & Tina Turner - River Deep Mountain High
21 Paul McCartney - Distractions
22 Prince - Mountains
23 Enya - Orinoco Flow

Reina del Cid - Sunday Mornings With...The Originals

Here is a follow up to my Reina del Cid post a couple months back. This one focuses on the original songs they performed for their Sunday Mornings With... series.

I culled these 23 songs from more than 50 tracks. These folks are very prolific and continue to release a new song each week. Some are covers and some are originals.

Many of these songs have yet to appear on an album. I did my best to determine which songs were originals. It was usually declared in the video title or description and in some cases during the intros on the video itself. If any of these are covers they did a great job of making them their own.

01 Library Girl
02 1970
03 Let's Begin
04 All Time Low
05 Giving Up
06 Hold Me Before I'm Gone Forever
07 Blue Sky Armageddon
08 Sister, Don't Cry
09 Ferdinand
10 Million Girls
11 Runner in the Sun
12 Honey from the Bee
13 Woolf
14 O My Baby
15 Pretty Lie
16 Shot 'em Dead
17 Edge of the Universe
18 Soul Mines
19 Burn Out
20 Common Man
21 Queen Hazel
22 Up the Creek
23 Seasons

Reality Notes

I continue to be enamored by this band. Great songs and great musicianship. Always tasteful and never overstated. If you feel compelled to show your support they do have a Patreon page. This seems to be a common method for independent bands to fund their work.

I had a lot of material to choose from so I focused on unique tracks that have yet to find space on an album or were very different from the album versions. Many of these are song sketches that were either further developed or maybe even dropped for one reason or another but everything here is worthy of sharing.

Melancholia - Volume 4

This edition is my least favorite. Not because of the track list but more because of the time it was done. At the time of compiling I was living with my brother to be closer to the band we had. I lived in one city and everyone else lived in another. My records were in storage so I made this from my brother's stack of records. While we have some overlap in our tastes he leans toward more heavy stuff than I do, so finding songs that fit the Melancholia feel was a challenge. Of all the volumes in the series this would be the easiest to trim to fit on a CD.

The one song of note is the Pink Floyd song Grantchester Meadows. Long before I had any albums of my own my brother played this song for me. It was the first all acoustic song I remember hearing and I remember being very stunned by its simplicity. I used to sneak into his room when he wasn't home and play this song a few times then sneak out. I still find the song hauntingly beautiful and I'm sure it had a lot to do with my preference for more acoustic based music.

Side A
01 Montrose - Rich Man
02 Ted Nugent and the Amboy Dukes - Sasha
03 Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Lend Your Love To Me Tonight
04 Pink Floyd - Grantchester Meadows
05 Angel - Flying With Broken Wings (Without You)
06 Steve Howe - Ram
07 Missing Persons - Surrender Your Heart
08 Bruce, Lordan, Trower [BLT] - It's Too Late
09 Joe Walsh - Tomorrow
10 Pete Townshend - Evolution
11 KISS - Beth
12 Doobie Brothers - Listen To The Music

Side B
13 Captain Beyond - Sufficiently Breathless
14 Alice Cooper - You and Me
15 Neil Diamond - Be
16 James Gang - Spanish Lover
17 Grateful Dead - Dire Wolf
18 Saxon - Northern Lady
19 Steve Vai - Junkie
20 Tommy Bolin - Hello, again
21 Harry Chapin - Flowers Are Red
22 Yes - We Have Heaven