MAYAN FACTOR GEAR NOW AVAILABLE

The Mayan Factor functions as a solid cohesive unit throughout the entirety of the album, creating an immense sound that is both forceful and calming. The direct result of this dynamic in the band is that "44" is truly a journey album. Backed by expansive tribal leanings with flairs of progressive earth rock, the album slowly yet surely transverses from track to track along a smooth continuous path, never allowing the listener a chance to get lost in disjointed songs or compositions. No track stands out among the rest; they all contribute to the overall sound and concept of the album instead of diverting attention away from it by relying on one or two songs to carry it. Each song is a treat all in itself, interacting not only with the listener, but with the other songs as well.

What makes The Mayan Factor so unique in the modern rock world is their ear for completeness. Whereas other bands attempt to pursue several different ideas within the same album and inevitably end stifled by their own creative force and left with a premature work of art, The Mayan Factor have perfect timing and are able to set their listener on a sonic journey through a multitude of landscapes and return full circle with a satisfying conclusion. "44 leaves no ends untied and never has an unfulfilling moment, as every aspect of the album is fully fleshed out and appropriately closed. As the final moments of 'Self-Storage' wind down, one can only applaud the craftsmanship that The Mayan Factor employ over the hour long adventure.

• Buy this album

  author: Chris

  I def recommend u buy this album and go see this band live!!! You will be glad u did!!! They will be at Fletchers on September 7, 2007. Be sure your there u wont want to miss it!!!!

• author: Ryan

  The CD is awesome, I can listen to this CD all the way through and not skip one track. It's lyrics are deep, vocals and instrumental are outstanding. The Mayan Factor has changed the way I think of music.

• author: travis

  Unbelievable - some time ago i heard "warflower" in an german underground disco - loved this song and ordered the cd here - 5 days later i had it in Germany - wonderful CD and a very good service from cd-baby Greetinx from Germany

• wonderful music

  author: gabi

  a wonderful cd. my most favorit song is warflower.

• complete

  author: steve

  the cd had the perfect mix. a great piece of art.. the lyrics- touching. the beats- fit to tie. one of the best! in concert, by far one of a kind. Great!

• Amazing cd by an amazing band

  author: Chris

  This cd is fantastic. I first heard tracks from this album a few years ago and LOVED them, but I never ordered the album, what a mistake. I am glad I now own it and I am hoping to own the newest one soon. My only complaint is that the case was cracked, but that was most likely the fault of shipping and it is an easy fix, thank you!

• unbelievable, i have never heard anything like these guys before!! truly a unique an talented band!!

• Awesome

  author: Matt

  Awesome album! I heard the songs on myspace after someone recommended this band to me. As soon as I heard them I bought the cd. Great stuff.

• author: skip(downstairs)

  this cd is good. when i first heard a few songs from it i said im giong to buy it. so once i listened to it all the way through i was thrilled. this band has those elements that just make you want to listen to it over and over.

• Nice band and...

  author: Alex

  Very good album!

• WOW, awesome everything!

  author: Eddy

  great melodies and awesome dark deep lyrics. you won't be let down by this band!

• WOW!

  author: Geoff Jeffords

  Words cannot describe how great this CD is. I can't stop listening to it. A must own for anyone who likes music!

• Wow!

  author: Telza

  Now officially the second best album I own! Something new and refreshing, cuts down on what can only be described as a screaming noise that the majority of today's music churns out. Wonderful use of acoustics; this is the only album I've heard that has a 'rockish aztec' feel to it. Beautiful in every sense of the word.

• Sheer brilliance!!!

  author: Froggy Pie

  I was told to listen to Beauty and The Beast - it was so good I bought the album !!!!!!

• entrancing and emphatic music for people who love music.

  author: T Mc

  In Lake 'Ch is a rediculously good debut from The Mayan Factor. Its songs are, indeed, trance-like and brooding, but carry with them an emotional touch of tenacity and energy. Songs vary from the slow and droning to the upbeat and funkdoobious. The vocals change from song to song, or movement to movement, but somehow they still hold together with connected continuity. Unfortunately, towards the end of the disc some songs may sound repetitive. The good news is, repitition of a good thing isn't something one need complain about. Good song writing, beautiful music, and rythmically addictive percussion are all contained therein. Do yourself a favor. Buy it, mugs.

• masterpiece!

  author: Ryab Pendergast

  What an amazing cd!! These guys know how to make music unlike the stuff you hear on tv and the radio, which is all crap. These guys should be making the big bux!! I can't wait to get a hold of their new cd when it releases.What a psycedelic ride.

• Hypnotic and Haunting and Tingles the nerves.

  author: WyrdSister

  This album is one a friend first heard and told me to hear! I heard, I loved, I bought and I listen, and listen and love every second. The balance of acoustic with percussion overlayed with the rock riffs is a wonderful musical fusion. It is Hypnotic and Haunting and Tingles the nerves. You just have to have it!

• Fantastic CD, I listen to it all the time!

  author: Frank Tippett

  Great new band! My son turned me on to these guys, he heard them live at a club in Baltimore on Federal Hill. I can't wait for their next CD!

• Awsome Cd! so glad I bought it

  author: Greg

  This Cd rocks... I first downloaded going to pieces from www.roundtablepresents.com and loved it so much I had to have the cd... the cd isn't exactly what I expected from hearing going to pieces.. but none the less it rocks... it hasn't left my cd player since it came in the mail... Great job!!! hope to catch a show next time you guys play in south central PA http://www.innergband.com

• One of the best CDs I've bought all year!

  author: Josh J.

  In Lake 'Ch is an absolutely wonderful debut album (as far as I know) from The Mayan Factor! I discovered them as the Artist of the Month on ThePRP.com and have since downloaded their full album illegally, but loved it so much that I absolutely had to get the CD. The album is excellent and it's one of the best I've purchased this year. I can't wait for further work from this group because it will undoubtedly be up to par.

• It's like candy for your ears

  author: Adam

  Simply put this album takes rock to a new level. The use of acoustics is phenomenal. When tied together with the lyrics this album brings forth emotion that is rarely found in today's mainstream.

• Unbelievable

  author: Ryan

  The cd is a perfect mix of rock and feeling. Each song brings its own unique message to the cd as a whole. Unbelivable that these guys are not a bigger hit, their music clearly comes from the heart.

• Brilliant, Brilliant & Brilliant

  author: Marc Boos

  tired of hearing linkin park? where every track sounds like the previous? just buy this cd! melodic progressive rock at its best. every track is an unique experience!!! so just buy it, it´ll be worth it.

• Wonderful

  author: Liz

  Saw these guys only once, loved them. Went to see them again this year and they had to cancel the show, I was so bummed, I wanted to get the cd that night from them. Broke down and ordered it online. I LOVE IT! So full of feeling, so real, so glad I finally got a copy of it! Don't know why I waited so damn long. Great Cd guys!

• The acoustic / rock feel and that bass sound make this an amazing album

  author: Beverama

  Never heard of them before CDBaby and boy am I glad I listened to this one. The rapping doesn't work as well as the other numbers but what an album. The mixture of acoustic, rock and that bass sound is something worth savouring. Well worth the 5000 mile trip to England!

• Great Band to see Live

  author: keeplaxin

  The CD rocks and they are even better live. I saw them with Tantric and they blew me away. I had never heard of them before but the have a new fan for sure. Buy this CD. One of the best local bands in Maryland.

• I Like it Lots

  author: Luis Jr.

  I really enjoyed this album very much. The first five songs are incredible. I'm not so fond of the raping toward the end of the album, but regardless this is a great album. I will be looking forward to more on this band.

• Very refreshing, they have the guts to do something different and make it work.

  author: NytCrawlr

  Love the entire album from A to Z. This is a much needed refreshing change in music for me after getting tired of all the nu metal drudge out there that copycats everyone and their brother. These guys have talent and are going to go far if they stick with it. This is the best album I have heard in a long time. If you like experimental and want a refeshing change I suggest you try In Lake' ch you'll get what you wanted I promise. :)

• Simply amazing. A must-listen, a must-own. Musical paradise.

  author: Brad

• Allegorical Dream

  author: Elite Processing

  Art worthy of the quote at the END of our introduction.

• just incredible

  author: Will

  just an incredible release. must have for any fan of any kind of music. you wont regret it

• author: mitchell

  amazing. words can not describe. "tune your hearts to the heart of the mayan factor."

Moaning in the Gloaming..:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Copyright 2007 Holly J. Banks

Chet Atkins, after a fruitless two minutes tuning his guitar before the audience on Austin City Limits, yea be sayin': "It took me about twenty-five years to find out I wasn't very good at this part of it, but by then I was too rich to quit". 

——Nightmares and Dreamscapes © 1993 by Stephen King, Signet. 

I was knocking around the backyard smoking my pipe trying to get cool and wondering what it was all about.  At 2 a.m. my niece Tiffany was rushed to hospital and gave birth a few days early to a 7-pound, 12-ounce boy with a mop of curly blond hair.  I was happy but depressed.  What is his life going to be like when he is as old as I am?  This stinking country has turned against its people and its principles and has been going downhill in a runaway roller coaster since the Revolution except for freeing the slaves, and it could not even do that right.   

            My clothes weighed on me like when you step off a plane in the tropics.  With $300 utility bills and war criminals that will not suffer punishment in power, nor their –lickers, I tend toward depression.  The crickets sawed their opinion, tree frogs in the bush down by the shed mocked.  They remind me of politicians, tree frogs.  You shine a light at a spot where you hear a peeper, the frog has moved to the opposite side of the stem.  They will have you going in circles trying to beam them.  Hey! I have done it.  Politicians are like things found under rocks in damp places.  Expose them to the sun and they disintegrate.  They, as they say, go to pieces.

Swift movement

Back standing on the concrete-slab porch overlooking the field, the gathering gloom stabbed by angry lightning bugs, katydids barking obscenities, I smoked and tried feeling better.  I figured I could go without utilities, food and water, DVDs and music, but never an essential like tobacco.  Mosquitoes ensured I did not enjoy myself.  There was something that I was supposed to do, something important, somewhere I had to go.        

Suddenly a tumult, drumfire cannonaded me back to the present unpleasantness.  Chuck threw the second conga, protected by a high impact space age canister, into the rear of the 2000 Chevy S-10, the rugged bed liner absorbing the abuse.  He called in the deepening gloaming (that's some fancy poetical talk to lighten up this piece) inviting me to the 13^th Floor with him.  He called up from the yard earlier but I did not hear him.  Like Zarniwoop in the book Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy, I had been on an intergalactic cruise in my room, listening through headphones.  I'm sure you know what that's like.  Did I want to roadie the gig at the delightful 13^th Floor in the venerable Belvedere?

The 13^th Floor

August 3, 2006

Digital date: 2006-8-3

Mayan date

 The 13^th Floor

1 E Chase Street, Baltimore, MD 21202-2526

http://www.mdhs.org/Library/baltarch/Page5.html

            Cruising through the Baltimore twilight was sweet.  I am seldom out at this hour especially not in ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Blue Crab City.  My first visit to the 13^th Floor was back on 10 22 oh-2 after a rehearsal.  I was privileged that night to be invited into the club, honored to drink a shot of Patrone tequila (the official Mayan Factor tequila) with The Mayan Factor.  Tonight, my second visit.  It's the kind of place you do not want Donald Trump to hear about because you will no longer be able to afford going there.  

Lugging heavier equipment than mountain climbers do, we rolled the unwieldy conga canisters past stinky dumpsters in the service area.  Wheeling into the rickety service elevator, which we saw from the entrance, hot and hotter as we arose, it creaked more than a praying mantis with arthritis.  Banging and booming the difficult canisters through my host's management suite on the 12^th floor, the service elevator went no higher, we squeezed into a vertical people transporter up to the 13^th Floor.  The button for the 13^th Floor had no number.  Hotels have a thing about 13^th floors.  They seldom number them.  Unlucky.  Check out Stephen King's 1408 in Everything's Eventual, Pocket Books, 0-7434-5735-8.  Helped Chuck set up.  It thrills me to step on stage, even for a twinkling.  Then I got down to the serious business of the night, sampling their beers. 

Opened in December 1903 as the Belvedere Hotel, the two towers stand stolid.  They seem to mean something worthwhile, but not without taste.  (Lookin' back, right?)  The 13^th Floor, clad in plate-glass, affords a marvelous view.  They ought to sell postcards of that view.  I have not seen it by day.  The view of a city at night works strange magic on me.  Leprous, steady state lightning bugs, sodium-vapor lights blare like pink-orange gems in the heads of venomous toads, an artificial light, an enforced substitute for the real thing, eating your skin.  Reflection by Cancer Light!  Great title what?  Waste, dirt, decay, crime, no dignity, no honor; I felt a lonely nostalgia, a hopeful hopelessness.  How to ever reach them all, a culture with no purpose but to consume and lay waste Peoples and the Earth. 

Loyal Mayan cultists had assembled.  Her Majesty Blue Crab City's UPL, Uncrowned Poet Laureate Bryna Carew Shaw, attended by Sir Anthony Salemi, whose device is E=MC², her main squeeze and our resident mathematician and physicist (lately he has been studying atmospheric physics).  I asked Tony why he decided to study such deep shit.  Digging the music, he quipped, and sum up my feelings this night: "I figured maybe I could get famous saving people's lives instead of killing them". 

Maria with the sweet face who works at the Post Office decided to do everyone a favor.  Meg, whose significant other is none other than dynamite Mayan drummer Matt Toronto graced the place, also Amy but without Gene Gregory who is soloing at the Ram's Head.  He has been soloing around town besides working on a CD.  Tony introduced me to his little brother who hulks over him like André the Giant over Little Beaver.  The urbane Coop, accompanied by yet another pretty babe, was generous with the pleasant chat, and the glad hand. 

            Chris Smoker, former label manager for fabulous Fowl Records and Don DeOliveira faced the place with their manly mugs.  Don scorches lead guitar for Live Alien Broadcast recently reunited.  He writes most of the music, Jeff Jones, lead singer, most of the lyrics.  Their newest CD, Ordinary, available from Mothership Records http://mothershiprecords.net, is great stuff.  Check it out.  Beam me up, baby; Mothership presents The Mayan Factor's CDs In Lake 'Ch and 44 as well.  They got good taste over to the Mothership.    

The first performer was a fellow with a laptop.  I think he had a flattop too.  A flattop with a laptop, roll them bones 'n' gather them stones.  He presented a nexus of disjointed and cacophonous noise of various length segments, and the performance was too long.  Mid performance, a voice boomed.  A music aficionado sought to guide the young fellow aright, using his outdoor voice.  "You need more melody".  Yep!  The Moose turned out.  Eric brightens my day.  I admire his attitude.  But he is an unfortunate fellow, in a way.  I commiserated with him and could see his problem.  Yes, he has been "cursed with sexy good looks".  Poor guy.  I do not want to belabor this but Eric spent six weekends in jail on that DUI charge.  When did you hear of a war criminal or murdering cops pulling that kind of time, or any at all?  However, fart in a restaurant and see what they do to you.  

            Alas, seeing my old friends did not lift my depression.  Bad News Bears, Ban News Night.  I could not shake it.   Taking a professional musician as one who plays for pay, Kevin has been professional 16 years.  Sarge said, "Holly, I am no longer going for the lottery ticket.  I am just in it for what we can do around here."  A lump caught in my throat.  It came from way down deep.  What Sarge said made me sad.  I do not want Kevin to give up, or any of them.  I gave the first fellow with the laptop the automatic five points for having guts enough to get on stage and perform, and another to encourage him for a total of six, but he was a bit too conceptual for the audience that night.  

Next man up was armed with a laptop as well.  He gave us electronica, more of a DJ scenario.  Electronica is like your cosmic music, but too dancy to be true cosmic music.  It depends on  who interprets what is being aired as to what they call it.  Electronica: synthesized music for home listening: synthesized dance music that is written for home listening rather than purely for dancing to; according to the Great Encarta, second only to Mighty Wikipedia, God of Facts. 

            That last gig at Fletcher's I scooped?  Some slimy thief stole Brian's top-shelf laptop from the Green Room.  In it were his and Jolynn's honeymoon plans.  They were planning to fly to St. Lucia Island, a sovereign nation off Venezuela, in September.  They have been saving for years.  If I had a laptop?  I would chain it to my wrist as government couriers do attaché cases. 

Bill, an acquaintance, pointed out the large steel sculpture at Penn Station to the south.  I did not know that building until then but I should have.  Penn Station, I remembered.  It was from Penn Station that I left for the army 44 years ago, a head full of bad wiring, ideals so simply erroneous that now they make me blush.  The huge steel sculpture is shaped in the fashion of a man.  It has a neon heart.  Man! What a great title: Neon Heart.  The neon heart turns from blue to red to blue....  It does not blink.  This is as close to real as you can get.  From the plate-glass clad 13^th Floor you "can see for miles and miles and miles", etc., as The Who sang.  I used to think that I could do that from ground level.  Maybe everybody should be like Ron Livingston in Office Space and not quit work exactly, just quit going. 

When I was young and dum and full of cum

I thought that I was free

Free enuff to strut my stuff

But not free in dignity.

——Semolina Pilchard, Rosanne Seldon's Book of Mildewed Romances.

The Mayan Factor was electric (Get it?) as usual.  Ray Ray puts all of himself into singing his songs, as well as writing them.  He lays himself on the line.  They all do.  They are great musicians, dedicated, hardworking, talented.  I never fail to be inspired after hearing them, especially live.  There might yet be some hope.  Maybe things are in transition and we just gotta wait for shit to happen and the Apocalypse will put the screws to the evil motherfuckers?  According to the Mayans that is just what is happening.    

December 21, 2012, the Great Cycle ends, and begins. 

I pray nobody dedicated to helping others and/or dedicated to legitimate art gives up.  I hope all good people everywhere, I mean it; make it... and through the End Times.  Remember, I beg you, the truth of the ancient saying, that the end is not always to be seen from the beginning.

On the way home to my chagrin I remembered what it was that I should have done.  I was supposed to have visited my niece in the hospital.  Shows what worry can do for you.

Remember my friends, in the old parlance, I shit you not: Brevity s the soul of shit.

Ciao for now my pal and/or gal

(2007-5-18)

10/22/2

The Mayan Factor

Copyright 2002 Holly J. Banks
cyberspider@comcast.net

One word to describe The Mayan Factor is haunting.  A listen to any song and you will never forget it.  To hear either their melodies or Ray's lyrics is to be renewed.  Together they blend into an irresistible force of inspirational creativity.

The pendulum swings.

I heard them play at Paloma's, 15 West Eager Street, where they host open mic night.  I attended a rehearsal at their studio on North Avenue.  There's warmth here.  These guys like each other.  Magic! melding of personalities, styles and influences.

The Mayan Factor has depth.  They are sincere.  These guys eat music.  They preparest a table before you, a bracing musical feast.  Folded into a thick velvet steamroller are rock and reggae, psychedelic and rap, space music and folk.  Whipping the batter is Matt's tribal drumming.  You'll not sit still.  You will undergo a paradigm shift from what music was to what music is becoming.

I looked out the window to the corner of Howard Street.  I thought it was the music but the clock had ended long ago at 8:27.  The Mayan calendar ticks down to 2012.  Ten... nine... eight...  Hey! these guys are going somewhere.  An internal voyage of discovery.  The rocket is fueled.  The fuse is lit.  Reserve your seat now.

The Mayan Factor!

1/8/3

In the Studio with The Mayan Factor

Copyright 2003 Holly J. Banks
cyberspider@comcast.net

The old medicine no longer works

The Mayan Factor is inspired and free.  I expected Marchand Studios, south of Glen Burnie, MD, to be sterile, dry and uncompromising like much of the music made in such places.  Marchand Studio dovetailed with the spirit and warmth of The Mayan Factor.  Nobody was isolated in a booth but Matt Vegas.  Matt was in a glass room with sliding glass doors but he's percussion.  This was the studio for guys who, except Matt, play barefoot to be closer to the Earth.  Expansive, furnished and with that comfortable lived-in feel, it took the edge off the cutting-edge appointments.

Frank has a lava lamp.

High tech meets prehistoric organic

The control room with its mixer, computer, monitor, stacks of CD burners, CD players and electronic jiggery-pokery overflowed into another room.  It reminded me of the cockpit of the space shuttle.  Frank thought he had a take.  One-handing a span of toggles he faded it out precisely and played the song back over speakers so sensitive I had to look to see if Ray Schuler was still singing and playing rhythm guitar.  He wasn't.  Nor was Kevin Baker still layin' down that bad-ass bass, Brian "the Mayan" Scott warping us out of and into fourth-dimensional time/space with his psychedelic guitar, nor was Chuck Jacobs on congas luring us back to time primeval far from the scream of our polluted, disenfranchised, congested, coagulated, brutalized, asphalt Hell!

Like Mayan hieroglyphics the changing arrays of varicolored blinking lights on the mixer, and colored bands on the monitor, each graphically representing a sound track, contained information if you could but read it.  Frank could.  He studied the bands of color, the peaks, valleys and saw-tooth formations of colorful oscillating lines and then, having heard it once, he cut and pasted bands of color like we cut and paste to a clipboard without having to hear the soundtracks again.

Organic songs for the End Time Drill

Bridging the abyss of unreal to real, the spiritually dead to the vital, these guys are genuine, their warmth contrasting with the vapid corporate chill of modern culture.  Living samplers, each man engulfs a smorgasbord of musical styles but they never tack anything on because they can do it.  Their music wells from the wellspring of their souls.

Every time I compose a song I commit suicide.  Ray Schuler.

The old medicine is dead and with it spring.  The last tricks have been tried, the last tapestry of their lies woven.  The system is corrupt.  The system is bankrupt.  We await the wall to fall.  Turn your ears to the new dispensation.  Turn your hearts from the grave.  Tune your hearts to the heart of The Mayan Factor.

2/5/3

Live at Fletcher's

Copyright 2003 Holly J. Banks
cyberspider@comcast.net

Friday, January 10, 2003

Something Mayan, something real

Behind a picket of candles, enshrouded by pearling curls of savory incense "Baltimore's newest band of the mystery schools", The Mayan Factor, opened for Product and Suzi.  Product and Suzi are great bands.  They are going places but the night belonged to The Mayan Factor.  The Mayan Factor crackled with energy.

Mosaics in stone, mosaics in sound

Frank Marchand (on tour with The Almighty Senators and The Pretenders) engineered sound for TMF.  Mayan walls, made of intricately cut stone blocks some so massive we can't move them today, are constructed without mortar but a razor blade cannot be slipped between the stones.  The Mayan Factor scintillated with songs finely wrought as Mayan walls.  Music is the most direct form of communication.  Painting, sculpture, even speech has to be interpreted, translated, run through the filter of a mind.  Music delves straight to the soul.  You feel it instantly.  But for music to be music you have to make it out.  We heard their melodies and Ray's intelligent, heartfelt lyrics were not lost.  Balanced, TMF blew us away but we were not trampled beneath the iron hooves of wild decibels.

Mosaic tiles tell stories in vain, lines and designs misty as rain

Something is on the wind.  Something deep the Gestalt stirs.  The Snake is awake!  The Mayan Factor gives us a glimpse into another reality, a glimpse into the truth.  FREE YOUR MIND!  WAKE UP!  The sands are running low.  Trapped in time we want FREEDOM.  Crucified to the hands of the clock the dynamic flow of Orgone energy is dammed and damned by those that own and run a dying culture.  We are boxed, brutalized, betrayed and threatened.

The Mayan Factor! a breath of fresh air on the polluted wind.  Harbinger of the hurricane, the Whirlwind of Rectification.

The last song faded into the past, absorbed by the fabric of time/space.  When I discovered I had forgotten my watch my reaction surprised and frightened me.  I did not care.

4/1/3

Who Are the Mayan Factor?

Copyright 2003 Holly J. Banks
cyberspider@comcast.net

The pyramid, one of five Pythagorean perfect solids, is the most stable form.  Numbering five, The Mayan Factor, Baltimore's newest band of the mystery schools, is not a house of cards.  Like a Mayan pyramid (pyr-a-mid, fire in the middle) their inspiring compositions are layers of cake, plateaus of creativity raising the House of Music to ethereal heights.

To build a solid house you need a firm foundation.  You do not build on sand.  You build on rock!  The Mayan Factor is a mature band that creates original music for mind and body.  TMF is not a cookie-cutter band molded of 100% grade-A police state approved plastic looking for approval (money).  They've got something to say and they say what they think!

The Prophets of the Dawn of Correction

Kevin Baker the business mind, with his boss bass is both bass and boss.  Laying the groundwork with bottle-bottom bass the main Mayan is a rare breed, a soft spoken man with the prompt of command in his voice.  When Kevin asks somebody to do something in his amiable soft-spoken way people do it.  To do otherwise might hurt his feelings.  Low key, high power.

Ray Schuler, the cute one everybody's worried about.  Lead singer and rhythm guitar Ray's the man with the plan, a stonecutter roughing out the blocks with his rhythm guitar.  The tortured artist writes most of their material but each adds of his talent and of himself, running Ray's original ideas through the mill of four distinct personalities.  Ray's admirable goal is to write songs that do not repeat.  Go to it Ray!  We'd love to hear them.

Brian "The Mayan" Scott, lovable, warm-handed craftsman, affable and precise as a jeweler or sculptor, Brian is the finisher smoothing and polishing the megaliths.  His original lead guitar laces the layers together with psychedelic threads of gold and silver stitching the fabric of space/time, embroidering a musical lamé.  Brian could pick licks for the gods.

Drummer Matt Vegas, about as wide as he is high, solid as rock, openhanded and generous Matt pounds the heartbeat rhythms of work on those skins, without which there would be no schedule, one woe would tread upon another's heels so fast they'd follow.  Imaginative, the arranger, Matt is up-front yet he likes to joke and is maybe just a little wacky.  They say all good drummers are just a little wacky.  Matt is a very good drummer indeed.

The irrepressible Chuck Jacobs, serious about life, personable Chuck, the guy every body wants to know, is not afraid to fail but hates losing.  Dependable, the steady workman tattooing the congas and other percussion, polishing this towering edifice of sound, of mind, of sound mind, with timed touches of hide.  Chuck brightens the gigs with candles and incense as well, he is what Mayan means.

Sometimes 1 + 1 = 2+

                  The Mayan Factor, a combo of five unique personalities, talents and tastes that compliment and augment forging a music greater than the sum of its parts.  New music for the new millennium, intricately wrought and dedicated to the proposition that those who are "good" are soon gone.  Braving a loathsome wind atop the Ziggurat of Love shouting unto the world: "Yes, there is another way!  There is another way!  There is another way!"

The Mayan Factor.

5/27/3

Almost Time

Copyright 2003 Holly J. Banks
cyberspider@comcast.net

You gotta know when to bet.  You gotta know when to get.

From the ocean's edge they hack inland.

                  Corporate rock has managed the impossible.  It has stewed the opposites of plenitude and void creating a chill.  Along the beaten path we find ourselves ensnared in the thorny vines of their commercial jungle and simultaneously in a house of mirrors reflecting a reflection of their reflection, ad infinitum.  Where is creativity? Where the bold prophets saying what must be said because it's true?  There is nothing of the musicians in their previously digested unchallenging pap, regurgitated political propaganda projectile-hurled by the beautiful people.  It is the aural equivalent of photo realism, devoid of life, the artist kills his soul for technical skill.  They are owned my friends: empty notes!  The message is not listen to us, our music and our lyrics, but see us! be us! buy us!  We are for sale to the highest bidder!  Yes, follow us and The Great Gray Stone Faces will see you and like you.  Monkey us for we are the hip! the cool! the now! the happening! the Nazz! or become a freak selling pencils from a tin cup.  Come unto us and we will receive you and relieve you, of your wallets and your dignity.

(Britney Spears is not a real person.  She was grown in a pod in a corporate basement.  They are growing more of them now, even as I write.)

The buffalo migrated to the happy hunting ground.

The delusion is that it's safe on the beaten path.  It is! for the Great Gray Stone Faces who herd us there, yea, even they impervious to compassion, suffering, want, waste and certainly taste: Easter Island unchained!  Beaten paths are ambushed, strewn with booby traps murderous to the will.  The trodden trail, a down escalator to Hell.  The price of admission? your soul.  They welcome us with open arms, gushing praise, but don't ask for the rest room.  In America there is no place to poop.

The zoo is loose.

Their chains are on the wings of our hearts, our dreams of Freedom.  Follow no footsteps.  Join the brave off the beaten path of no return, a circle to emptiness.  We take a leap of love.  It is a heap big leap.  We are in the quagmire.  This is zombie country.

Bear traps everywhere and not a drop to drink.

Lost in the stifling heat of their musical morass we thirst for water from a mountain stream but are given an insipid soup to quaff, a lukewarm wishy-washy, namby-pamby, enfeebled music with whimpering sans testosterone lyrics that is loud but not proud -- a music squeaky clean but the Great Gray Stone Faces are devilish.  There is a hint of manly freshness; of compassion, honesty, courage to make their pabulum seem forbidden fruit.  Ergo, the simulated squeezing of the testicles.  But not too much, nothing bold because it makes suits squirmy, jittery, army ants in the pants.  Out of the box, lost in their Green Hell, afraid, nightmares beset us.  But something new this way comes.

The missionaries are in the pot.

We need pathfinders, intrepid and resolute.  Blazing trail takes a compass, a map and machete; guts and a sense of direction; the intelligence to see the truth, the guts to follow it; a sense of self-worth; belief in where one is going and the balls to get there.  Such a band is The Mayan Factor.  Above the whing and whang of machetes we are allured by tribal drums, and congas quicken our pulse.  A bass guitar thumps rhythms of the heart smashing the chains of repression.  The lead guitar, an electronic Quetzal, loveliest of birds, calls from the mythic past the lost and betrayed, the brave and the bold.  The chant of the shaman weaves thought patterns designed to give and not to take, to nourish and not suck blood like the leeches of capitalism.  Tickets are on sale here also, but not the musicians.  Not tickets to a stall in the mall, but tickets to Peridon, Bliss City, Eden, El Dorado, Shangri-La, Shambala, Agartha, Cibola, Golconda, Quivira...

The Golden Apples of the Sun.

                  Hacking from the Jungle of Despair we stand panting, drenched and bleeding, cloths in shreds on the Blue Grass of Dreams.  Before us gleams a golden pyramid.  Perched atop the golden pyramid Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent, the culture bearer spreads his wings and speaks yea, saying: "Welcome my prophets, I thank you.  Welcome all to Rehoboth, succor after the desert of the surreal.  Come forth my children and rest.  Your weariness slough off.  Refresh yourselves.  A feast is spread before you.  The cups overflow.  Here we live as people, not demographics.  Enjoy."  And with that the Rainbow Serpent is gone.

Blaze trail with the Mayan Factor.  Musical balm for the new age now!

????

6/30/3

CD Release Doubleheader

Only Better

© 2003 Holly J. Banks
cyberspider@comcast.net

Those fortunate enough to attend Fletcher's on the evening of June 14, 2003, The Mayan Factor's CD release party (In Lak'ech, Mothership Records) will never forget it.  Sound for the affair was engineered by Maestro Frank "The Punisher" Marchand.

sublux slugs a homer

First at bat was sublux.  One could not find a better opening act for The Mayan Factor than sublux.  The bands complimented each other.  Having heard their promo demo disc I was pleased to meet Greg Scelsi, electric bass, from whom I bought their EP Nothing That is Still for the amazingly low price of $5.00.  Six songs at 48:40 minutes it's worth twice that.  (I also scarfed up a sublux bumper sticker.)  An intellectual band bridging the gap between space music and rock, a gap the begs bridging, their music is introspective without being somnolent.  The sonic mobiles they build in your mind, ethereal yet edgy, spark visions.  Their music would be great on soundtracks.

Don't miss sublux.  Give their CD a listen.  See if you don't get pictures in your head!

www.sublux.net

shiznic mac daddy

Stepping to the plate The Mayan Factor: grand slam home run!  The Mayan Factor singed the fabric of space/time with new material and new arrangements of old material.  The Mayan Factor jammed!  The Mayan Factor sizzled!  The Mayan Factor galvanized!  The Mayan Factor rocked! flaming guitars! bleeding drums! rocketing vocals! machine-gun congas!  Rock 'n' roll!!!!!!!

I've never heard a band sound better!  They were exciting!  Batting a thousand, they wrought a change.  Prying us from time and bleeding from wounds we climbed down from the clock of our crucifixion and forgot both clocks and names.  The Mayan Factor, making the world a better place one note at a time.

the game ends

The Mayan Factor bowed to thunderous ovation.  The pretty girls dancing left with their guys.  The band unplugged.  The crowd thinned.  The band was whisked to an all night party at the Tattoo Cafe in a white stretch limo.  Kevin: "I've had six CD release parties and this is the first time that the last thing I remembered when taking my guitar strap off was putting it on."

Awaken from the nightmare, Humanity dawns!  The cycle nears completion, the sands run low, the twilight of despair fades as the New Dispensation legs over the horizon like a big fat orange beach  ball Sun.  Until overwhelmed, many will choose to be veiled, fogged in the ignorance and arrogance of a system bankrupt and long past dead.  The sheep will stagger blinded by sunspots, the revelation of justice and unchained compassion.

Today prophets, fidgety in hair coats, locust and honey fed, cry in the wilderness: "Do not throw in the towel.  Do not surrender.  Cast the dice!  Cut the cards!  Kick into the sewer your false gods be they ever so raggy, flush the sludge of corporate insanity, the yoke of mindless acceptance hurl into the fires of purification.  Keep the faith!  Time and tide pass away!  The underground shall become the overhead and Humanity shall yet stand upon the ziggurat of love and cast its seed unto the stars!"

Something wonderful had passed, an emptiness was left.  What the future holds we don't know but let it be known far and wide, from basement to penthouse, that The Mayan Factor was among the voices in the wilderness crying.

A hopeful candle lingers in the land of lullabies

Where headless horsemen vanish with wild and lonely cries

Robert Hunter, from Days Between

The Mayan Factor!

<o:p> 

7/31/3-9/25/3

Waterford Digital Studio Revisited

Copyright 2003 by Holly J. Banks
cyberspider@comcast.net

Late, Chuck called inviting me to a recording session at Waterford Digital Studio but I hesitated.  It would be exciting to be there when the guys laid down a fresh batch of Ray's transcendental songs for their second CD.  But I'd been in a depressed and nostalgic mood for days, longing for the days of my youth when I could lie to myself: the days of Buddy Holly, Buddy Knox, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, Author Alexander, Johnny and the Hurricanes, The Isley Brothers, The Shirelles, Little Anthony and the Imperials, The Tokens, The Drifters, James "The Flame" Brown, Elvis.  Not to mention doo-wap.  The days when all around where I live was forest and fields and old-timey gas pumps stood around with their fingers in their ear and winters were cold.  It was dark and I had the blues. That's the kind of mood I was in.  It's hard to say no to Chuck.

Baltimore sparkles like El Dorado looking north from The Key Bridge and 695 South, ten thousand points of light but frigid and empty and lonely and like I felt despite family and friends.  I knew of the ongoing misery and injustice that built it and sustains it and wondered how long it would last?  One thing I do know, it's not permanent.

"Moody and brooding without being depressed": theprp.com

Waterford Studio was rockin.  I met rap artist Nokio who is managing The Mayan Factor.  Down from New York, he travels with his family and like The Mayan Factor he's close to family and friends.  Nikio's father served two tours in Vietnam.  It was a pleasure meeting him.  It's great to meet people out of the cube.  There was a good feeling around these folks.  There was hope here.  I could feel it.

Frank "The Punisher" Marchand, owner, recording engineer, secretary, receptionist, chief cook and bottle washer, acoustics expert and the guy who sweeps out the place at night was at the helm of his new mixer.  There's a reason Punisher posters glare down from the wall and Punisher action figures are busy about the place.  Frank is exacting.  He demands perfection, which is why he is sought out and praised by serious musicians and people in the business.  The Mayan Factor is as exacting as Frank and they get on well producing TMF's unique brand of music.

TMF performs a musical alchemy.  They give us the skinny and make us move without clubbing us with it.  Beneath the mask of complacency we are forced to wear contented as Carnation cows, in the debris of justice and things worth living for, far below the mirror of the times where rage and frustration smolder there is a stirring, the snake is awake, and The Mayan Factor has the stopwatch.  The sands run low.

Reality check

Freedom in America has always been a convenient fiction, the rich regarding Freedom as privileges they grant unto us as long as we're good little boys and girls.  We wince like children in an orphanage or prison before a guard smiling like Jaws holding its belt.  Saddling us with guilt the corpulent and flatulent have us jumping like dogs for a bone, afraid to say or do anything because they might make it worse, that they'll let us know that even more of what we thought of as rights was illusion.  Mayan Factors, it is going to get worse.  They are working fang and claw to make it worse 24-7.  Now they want to arrest people as terrorists on the mere word of the cops.  After 911 the politicians raved saying the terrorists attacked freedom.  If they wanted to attack Freedom they would have attacked someplace else.  Then, without pause, they screeched that you should express your patriotism by spending your money.  Think about 911 and think about that last statement.  They hauled the remains of the dead to the dump in dumpsters.  That's what we mean to them.  We've lost our dignity.  Now consider that when the World Trade Center was attacked on February 26, 1993 the weapon was cyanide gas.  The plot was uncovered and the head of BAFT was notified.  Its reaction was, paraphrased: No, wait until they set it off, then we've got them dead to rights.

The baft and Arab terrorists fired the cyanide gas bomb but the detonator did not work properly.  Nonetheless six were murdered and more than a thousand were injured.  Federal demons were willing to murder thousands of you to keep you safe.  To them you burn a village, and its people, to save it.  It's known as scorched earth policy.  Their feces is more important to them than any of you.  We are regarded by the government and its enforcers as the civilian population of a conquered country.  Anything the rich do to you in their war to save you is justified.  Now consider that 4,000 Israeli nationals worked in the World Trade Center and they all stayed home that day.  It's not rocket science people.  It's called a conspiracy.  You are expendable.  Indeed, the government loathes and detests you.  Oliver North designed the concentration camps under Reagan.

It's not us Mayan Factors, it's them.  Our problems are not our own.  The government is a monkey on our back.  One major government, fifty state governments, hundreds of local and municipal governments all armed to the fangs and unchained.  Despite what conservatives rant they're all the same, they're all owned by the rich for the rich.  Many of our state governments, and some of our local governments are larger that the national governments of foreign countries.  The government is a 500-pound gorilla on our backs, pounding us on the head.  It is the curse of our lives and the ruin of the Earth.  The government commits the crime; we the people serve the time.

Take a deep breath

Being around all those creative people was good therapy.  It must be Hell not having principles or purpose under the present dispensation, which is not chiseled in stone and leagues from stable.  Firm foundations are built on stone, not sand, the Mayan knew this.  Like all the ancients they built to last.  They did not last.  I'd heard great new songs, transcendental but accessible, provoking but not preachy or didactic.  Recon gave me bad memories.  On the outer beach of time and space The Mayan Factor leaps into the future with each new cut.  I can hear symphony orchestras performing their material.  Their music bridges genres like the Allied Army rivers across Europe a long time ago.

Cool morning, the stars were brittle diamonds in the night sky crisp.  I felt better when I left sighed.  The 500-pound gorilla scampered off to peel a banana with its feet or do something obscene to itself with a greased banana.  Despite it all there is hope.  My spirits were uplifted.  Refreshed I remembered these marvelous lines by Robert Hunter, once lyricists for Jerry Garcia, poet, troubadour: "A hopeful candle lingers in the land of lullabies, where headless horsemen vanish with wild and lonely cries."

I could lie to myself again.

10/27/3

Open Mic Night at Mojo's

Copyright 2003 Holly J. Banks
cyberspider@comcast.net

Mona tried to tell me

To stay away from the train line.

She said that all the railroad men

Just drink up your blood like wine.

An' I said, "Oh I didn't know that,

But then again, there's only one I met

An' he just smoked my eyelids

An' punched my cigarette."

Oh, Mama, can this really be the end

To be stuck inside of Mobile

With the Memphis blues again.

Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again

Bob Dylan

We ain't gotta ticket to Peridon.  The government gave us a one-way ticket to Hell so it's great to occasionally jump train.  I did so Monday, September 18th at Mojo's formerly Tattoo Café, 4825 Belair Road.  You want to be renewed? open mic night 9 PM until features a smorgas-broad of local talent and all of it great.  Bear in mind, I give six points out of ten to anyone with guts enough to stand up on stage and perform before others.  Every act deserved to have their CDs on the charts, or at least be standing in the wings preparing to burn 'em.

Regulars at Mojo's, Monkeydog rocks!  With its combination of original tunes and covers, some of them old favorites, all performed with enthusiasm and gusto, Monkeydog makes it easy to tell when a band loves the music and when a band just loves the scene.

             The incense smoke was thick when The Mayan Factor took the stage.  All the artists brought fans but it's The Mayan Factor that packs Mojo's like they do Fletchers.  They are the buzz on the Internet and have fans in Spain, Belgium, Russia, Ireland, Germany, Sweden, England and places like Missouri where you gotta show people shit.  TMF sizzled laying down their complex yet accessible compositions -- a late-Beatle characteristic -- delivering a downbeat message without being preachy, dogma leavened with charisma, their music is transcendental.

Ever a band with a conscience Ray sang his new Iraqi Freedom backed by Brian Scott on his new custom made PRS guitar.  Brian's PRS is unique, the only one like it in the world.  Ray does not mince words but his recent work has freighted an increased load of social concern and opposition to The Beast.  (The Beast regards mere questioning as opposition.)

What goes around comes around

Cycles begin where they end by definition.  Left alone Nature is a cycle.  Just feed it sunlight and leave it undisturbed and it blooms Earth the paradise it was before humanity went crazy after the example of the Elohim (the gods) a.k.a. Nifilim (those who stepped down) a.k.a. the Anunnaki (those who to Earth from heaven came).  We are born, we live, we die.  We begin dying the moment we're born, actually before; like cutting grass, even mowing it you know it's growing.

Seek for thy noble father in the dust;

Thou know'st 'tis common, all that lives must die,

Passing through nature to eternity.

                        Hamlet's mother Gertrude

Hamlet Act 1, scene II, lines 71-73.

And the Elohim said, "let us create an adam (Earthling) and we will bind our image to him.                                                              Sumerian creation poem.

             Our ears drank delight when the fabulous Kip, a devotee of maestro Michael Hedges and his classical guitar, took the stage.  I've heard Kip before.  Kip improves like wine.  Ladies and gentlemen! he plays with one hand! one freakin' hand! walking the neck of that magical lute baby up and down with fingers wearing musical shoes.  There are many ways to make music with a guitar, harmonics for one, Kip knows them all.

Sweet Tess accompanied herself on amplified acoustic.  A little woman with a big heart as defined by her lyrics, underscoring her original compositions with a strong and clear voice.  I glimpsed her walking away after the show was over, guitar on her back, big as herself.

Food without nourishment

Corporate creations ain't got no chemistry.  Leaving us cold and empty, at most with a desire for more, but feeling part of the scene, part of the groove.  They will never change if not challenged but they control the means of distribution.  The larded gentry do not believe in cycles.  They believe in death.  They believe life is death, death is life and have fashioned a culture of death.  Witness the aversion to the color green.  Green is the color of life but people equate green with death because mold, not a plant and possibly an animal, grows on dead things as part of the recycling process.  Check out the living and decayed that Hollywood squeezes out.  Nature is the enemy of the rich on a one-way street of materialism.  The instant gratification nation, peopled by the waste race.

Talent is a resource

 Corporations do with talent what they do with the ecology.  They rape the ecology and return nothing spiritual.  (Spiritual values as opposed to religious values.  Religions are not about spirituality.  Religions are about the acquisition and use of  power.)  Using what they take for ill, to gratify artificial desires like a flash in the pan, corporations do likewise with talent.  They take without nobility or scruples.  Despite their hype the purpose of a corporation is to make those that own it richer.  Corporations exist to exist, without love for people or regard for the sacredness of life.  People are their fodder, the Earth their toilet.

Entertainment corporations take our money and our talent and pushing everybody else aside give us aural swill and naked asses.  The giants of the recording industry provide neither opportunity for original artists nor choice.

Some guys named John

Some guys named John brought home the caboose, fellows like you know but with a desire to communicate artistically, to step outside the box and reach souls across the void.  They appeared solo then together.  They were the last on because they were the last to sign up.

With freebooters it's about the music.  They sing with heart, maybe they are just hungry.  Though The Mayan Factor wishes them all musical success, if that's what they want -- popular music needs their success -- I hope they always stay a little bit hungry, like a whetstone honing the cutting-edge of the cutting-edge.

As the Age of Experts dissolves in a puddle of sludge, all the Apocalyptic Poets, sing sweetly out of key.

             Give Mojo's a visit Monday's 9 PM until.  Hey! Guinness drafts $2.00.  You can't beat that!!!

11/19/3

October 27, 2003

Something Beautiful Happened at Mojo's

Copyright 2003 Holly J. Banks
cyberspider@comcast.net

God is dead.  Nietzsche.

Nietzsche is dead.  God.

Brian the bartender's brother was accompanying himself on amplified acoustic when I helped Chuck carry in the congas.  Ported a Guinness draft up the tight-winding stairs and watched Brian Scott, Big Erik and Dreadlocks Tony play the winner at pool while I enjoyed a Cohiba Republica Dominicana.  Chuck tuned all the televisions to NFL Monday Night: wall-to-wall football!  Ray sat next to me on a couch wearing a floppy leather Bob Dylan hat and reading Open Mic Night at Mojo's.  Bryna and a friend chilled.  It's encouraging that people appreciate my work.  Thanks folks.  It's disheartening being a voice in the wilderness crying against the hurricane.  It's not that I'm crying a warning.  Commence au festival, I say.  I just want good people to make like the good shepherd and get the flock out of the road.

More I try to like the larded gentry.

The hook from Hell

Back at the bar where the drafts are cold and delish the multitalented Gilmore, drummer for Monkey Dog, who also has his own band, backed himself performing his own compositions.  The further from corporate control the closer to the truth and Freedom.  The people are the source.  The music should never drown out the lyrics, not that Gilmore's did.  They were right-on.  Art and writing are identical at the core, both carry messages.  Art is communication.

A tall man from California politely took his seat and snugged his guitar into his lap.  I suspected something right away.  Joe was friendly.  Joe is of Hindu extraction but speaks pure southern Californian patois.  In his clear and well-modulated voice unto us he spake yea, saying: "Despite what they say, Satan kicks butt.  Let's hear it for our dark lord."

We cracked up.

Joe sang his own songs as open mike artists mostly do.  Maybe it's me here in The American Twilight but I detected influences of Buddy Holley, Bo Diddley, Roy Orbinson with much of his own.

My friends, I remember long ago when winters were cold.  What it was really like.  No nostalgic bullshit! the truth!  That terrible rock 'n' roll! singing! dancing! having fun! hair! beer! kissing! Negroes! using language! words! words mind you, words!  What they said about Elvis is still not fit to print.  You wouldn't think someone would be capable of such contortions.  You'd need a troupe of monkeys copulating with a herd of politicians to perform such contortions, which were the monkeys would be anybody's guess.

                  It's always what we do, never what they do.  Not their endless atrocities and brutalities but the waltz, ragtime, that crazy art, radio, comic books (you should read about the Senate Kefauver Hearings), the rock and the roll-never what they do.  We owe them nothing!  I say let the country die but let the people live.  Let us live in the Freedom we deserve for having been born.  And that goes for everybody.

I don't think about time.  You're here when you're here.  I think about today, staying in tune.

                    John Lee Hooker.

Joe was joined by Nikki (not Nikki Resnic).  Nikki sang the blues and she sang the blues well, a welcome treat for someone who likes to vary his beat, his rock diet.  Her voice rising and falling she sang her well-structured songs saw-toothed with pain, crying for the wronged, the hurt, the persecuted but this babe ain't no wimp.  The singer has character, dignity, there is strength despite betrayal, love blooming in the frigid midnight of hate, hope brawny on the Plains of Desolation.  Her lyrics are frank and she's got the pipes to pitch them, and a set of lungs to match.

Nikki and Joe sparked an enthusiastic response.

Tony: "Here! try these on your congas."

Chuck: "You can use sticks on 'em?"

                  Let me tell you about the beautiful thing that happened.  Nobody told me about this.  I did not see it coming.  The stage was cooling from the performers that had gone before.  Tony moseyed up, adjusted the strap of his djembe (a conga like drum), slung it over his shoulder.  He tapped idle rhythms, random beats, the beats progressively taking form, not really going anywhere.  Musicians drifted onto stage, partying, fooling around, getting in tune, a ride and crash from Matt.  Kevin plunked his bass, Gilmore and Gene from Monkey Dog tune up, others, the number would swell to nine, diminish, swell.  Ray sang, it was a full house, jokers wild.

Tony whacked his djembe with authority and we were swept away.  The fellows were off and running.  Genesis! without rehearsals! music springing full-blown from the hearts and talent of these musicians.  Bouncing Peanuts Tony calls his impromptu ephemeral ensembles.  Dreadlocks flying, jumping all over the stage, it's a wonder he didn't break his hand.  Musicians came and went depending on beer supply.  Joe played five string bass.  Freedom Jam buttering the Toast of the Apocalypse and wouldn't you just know it?

We are a country of archivists.  No matter what it is it must be archived: filmed, snapped, drawn, painted, sculpted, sung, rhapsodized, acted, talked and/or written about.  From baby's first steps to first kiss to a cereal box on the breakfast table fifty years after; from a three-day dead dog in a Dog Day road, a six-inch white perch to an onion cellar if it's in the Universe it's fair game.  The musicians drifted off as the beer ran out.  Tony put his djembe away.  Here a unique and beautiful thing happened and not a recorder tracking sound, not a camera to be seen.  I heard the wind whistling across the Plains of Desolation.  It was sad.

Time can bring you down, time can bend your knees.

  Eric Clapton.

The Mayan Factor are the kinds of guys you see at work and wonder what they do when they get home.  They cast down their shackles, stomp on their clocks, grab their instruments and become The Mayan Factor.  Straight from work Ray wore his tool belt, the tools symbolizing TMF's attitude: Work hard, play hard and don't tell us what to do.  These latter-day New Age prophets crying the inevitable unto Babylon the Whore, keep us jumping to The Downbeat, jumpin' to The Fall.

If there is a Great Spirit and if the Great Spirit is good, i.e., if morality is law binding as the laws of physics, then it can be no other way.  If one ignores the laws of physics and steps off a ten story building the conclusion is inevitable.  These religious guys got the Apocalypse all wrong.  It ain't bad and those skeletal horsemen have engraved arrows for those that preach God on one hand, and wave flag with the other.  The response has been passionate for Ray's new Iraqi Freedom.

"Don't you know any happy songs?" Big Erik yelled.

Happy songs are for happy times.  Imagine how ridiculous it would be to hear even one happy song with no wrong in it.  When you write fiction at least two things must always be pending.  One can be good and one can be bad, both can be bad, but if both are good your story sags.  Think about it.  It's tragic!  Crazy huh?

I woke up this mornin', had a benevolent feelin' in my head

I woke up this mornin', had a benevolent feelin' in my head

I ate a nutritious breakfast, and lounged around in bed.

   Backwards Blues, Boz Bozeman.

How much of that do you think you could take?  No artists will make it singing happy songs and people need to be reminded.  It would seem odd here in the American Twilight, the Dawn of the Apocalypse.  Nikki is on stage, not Pollyanna.

"Good evening ladies and gentlemen, we're Monkey Dog," Gene Gregory said.

Cheers.

                  "We've gotta'", aside to Gilmore the drummer, "What's that new thing we've got?  Oh!

"We've gotta web page.  Check it out."

http://monkeydog.net/

Rockin' Monkey Dog is another band of the people by the people and for the people down around the nitty-gritty where life is real and counts.  Doesn't mean we are discourteous thugs.  Doesn't mean we have to be eatin' down around the ham hocks either.  We should be greasin' high on the hog, usin' mint toothpicks and fartin' through silk.

There's no avoiding The Last Hand.  In 1876 Wild Bill Hickok was dealt his in a Deadwood South Dakota saloon: he held two aces and two eights.  Motherfucker wasted 'im from behind.  If one is sick one will never recover until one admits one is sick.  If one admits one is sick, then strives to recover, except for The Last Hand, one is handed the deck, is dealing, and the odds have shifted in favor of the dealer.  Go out shooting regardless.  God helps those who help themselves to a meal of deep dish Freedom with chocolate, syrupy walnuts, coconut, whipped cream and a big fat ol' blazing red Maraschino cheery on top.  Otherwise the sniffles can kill.

Reality is best served straight, no chaser.  I said that.

Hasta la vista, baby!  The Governor of California said that.

12/31/3

December 8, 2003

Mayan: 12.19.10.14.17  3 Kalan 5 Mak

http://www.pauahtun.org/cgi-bin/gregmaya.py

Mojo's on the à Gogo

Mammy Needs a New Pair-a Shoes.

Hash!

Copyright 2004 Holly J. Banks
cyberspider@comcast.net

Tombstone Blues

Well, John the Baptist after torturing a thief

Looks up to his hero the Commander-in-Chief

Saying, "Tell me great hero, but please make it brief

Is there a hole for me to get sick in?"

The Commander-in-Chief answers him while chasing a fly

Saying, "Death to all those who would whimper and cry"

And dropping a barbell he points to the sky

Saying, "The sun's not yellow it's chicken."

Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited

http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/tombstone.html

Icy snow was piled along the curb making leaving the truck dicey.  Patches of ice made footing hazardous but I slid one of the bags against the open door and pulled a conga into Mojo's in its wheeled case -- a high-tech futuristic impact-plastic can on rollers -- and lugged Chuck's gear to the stage, the tripod for his congas on my shoulder reminding me of the bipod for a 81 mm mortar, but chrome.

Kevin was chatting with Michelle, blonde pigtails, black suit black beret, two years out of Chicago, does PR work.  Kevin means what he says and is determined to keep The Mayan Factor real, as noncommercial and close to the roots as possible, with the clocks ticking down to 13.0.0.0.0 or December 21, 2012, C.E., when the Great Cycle ends and another begins.  It is the Mayan Apocalypse, the apocalypse of apocalypses, from Babylon to Hollywood all go bye-bye no come back.  (The Great Cycle is 5,125 years or 5,200 tuns.)  The guys still play shoeless to be closer to the Earth but they wear socks: Baby It's Cold Outside.  (Words and music by Frank Loesser, from the MGM film (1949) "Neptune's Daughter".)

http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/

Picture/7379/gnwsong32.html

Michelle thinks the band should include photos, bios and information about instruments in their CD.  Kevin says no, that it will detract from the music, negative responses will be elicited because of dissatisfaction about the kinds of instruments they play, hairstyles, too much attention to clothing.  Kevin wants the music to speak for itself and I agree but Michelle has a valid point.  People don't identify with instruments or even music per se, people identify with people and it doesn't hurt to grease the wheels of commerce a bit.  Alcohol is good for that.

Hey! friend, where you goin' with that $2 for a Guinness draft in yo' hand?

I said, hey! friend, where you goin' with that $2 for a Guinness draft in yo' hand?

I'm goin' down to Mojo's on Monday night to listen to a rock 'n' roll band.

I said I'm goin' down to Mojo's on Monday night to listen to a rock 'n' roll band.

Unabashed Commercial Blues

The Legendary Blind Cantaloupe Holly.

Project X, a.k.a. (also known as), Dreadlocks Tony's Bouncin' Peanuts: Bryan the Mayan Scott, Chuck, Ray, Dave of Monkeydog, Tony banging on the skins and Big Erik with his 92/3  fingers on sticks.  There must be a law that says no photos, videos or audios because again an energetic and entertaining music consumed our lives then trailed off into space not a note recorded.

Big Erik is a meat cutter.  He was cutting meat for hamburger and didn't see where his finger was.  He severed his right index finger from the tip to the first joint.   Severed fingers can sometimes be sewn back.  Erik's couldn't be sewn back.  I forgot why, but it's healing well.  Erik said: "Trouble is, every time I get an erection my blood pounds and my finger throbs with pain."  We wondered why he was shying away from the ladies.  He's popular too.

Gilmore is intense, he sings with passion.  He sang his new "I Let You Down", an instant favorite.  People usually sing a version of "You Let Me Down" but Gilmore's perspective is broader.  He's in the reality business and he's not pulling punches even for himself.   See the review of his CD.

We were disappointed that Monkeydog did not perform as a band.  Gilmore (their former drummer) and Matt Toronto (yes, our Matt) are forming their own band and will be working with Frank "the Punisher" Marchand of Waterford Digital Studios.

We're anxious to see what they come up with.  Gene of Monkeydog was at his entertaining best.  He sang his own compositions and covered Tom Petty's "Mary Jane's Last Dance".

http://www.lyricsfreak.com/t/tom-petty/138497.html

Chuck whistled and pointed front row center.  "Yo! Erik!  Take your position."  Erik's a great cheerleader with a big voice.  Thunder sounds like a whisper by comparison.  His attitude about his accident is upbeat although he's casting about.  On sick leave he doesn't know what to do with himself.  He takes a drive in the mornings and except for the evenings which are filled with friends and music he's bored.  We were uplifted by the Mayan Factor.  Their sparkling originality and consummate ability enables them to, when necessary, deliver a downbeat message but leave us wanting to hear it again.  Dreadlocks Tony Salemi played drums

Bouncing Peanuts, a.k.a. Project X, was nex': Chuck, Ray, Bryan the Mayan on acoustics; Gene and Dave of Monkeydog, Gilmore, Tony on skins, the black rapper from Oracle the Historical, and a tall fellow in black overcoat and black beret who had relieved Erik when Project X played because of his throbbing finger played sticks, tambourine and sang.  From the cacophony of chaos, tuning up, order jelled in unrehearsed rhythmic cycles and nobody recorded a note.

Oracle the Historical is a unique rap duo.  Not because one man is white and the other man is black, but because of the message.  Much needed, long overdue, hopefully their message will not be yet another voice crying in the wind.  In rap the music recedes to the background and the singer and lyrics are foregrounded.  Their lyrics are from compassionate hearts.  Dramatized with kneeling and other theatrics their lengthy and complex songs were sung in perfect sync and pitch.  They sang of the fate of the abandoned child, the unwed mother, the unwanted and the oppressed, the battered and bruised.  Oracle the Historical bled for the victims of modern maturity in this the sophisticated advanced and enlightened America.  They sang for the victims of those that believe they can do anything they want to do just so they don't see anything wrong with it.  (The  greatest patriots that ever lived, Stalin and Hitler, believed that as well.)  On-the-line socially responsible lyrics without being boring, this was my first live rap and I regretted not having $5.00 for the CD.  The black rapper wore an evenly divided black and white visor backwards and upside down.  It's a great symbol perhaps a logos maybe a sign.

I apologize I can't catch everybody's full name.  Ed regaled us with Christmas songs and songs of his own.  He has a clean style of playing, masculine delivery, clear lyrics.  Monday night, the tractus rodentia looming like the Sword of Damascus.  Another great evening at Mojo's was over too soon.

I ran my arms through the shoulder straps of a bag-pack, squatted and sat the heavy tripod on my shoulders then grabbed a weighty bag with my left hand.  I was at the door when Big Erik called.

"Hey Holly."

"What?"  I turned around.

"Don't eat any hamburger for a while."

"Thanks."

That was why.  I lugged Chuck's gear out into the cold.

12/22/3

One for the Road

(There's no talent like local talent.)

Copyright 2004 Holly J. Banks
cyberspider@comcast.net

Brian served me a tasty Guinness in a glass, not a plastic cup.  I knew this evening was going to be special and that proved it right there.  Maybe it's because we drove around looking at the Christmas decorations before making the scene?  And the evening turned out special, although I did not know why until the present, until the very moment I began to write this journal page.  We had a death in my family recently.  Maybe that accounted for how I felt?  My computer crashed.

Andy, the owner, a musician himself, engineered the sound.  Kevin stopped Andy at the kitchen door.  Andy was setting up the stage, returning with a standup mike.  You've noticed how singers get right up on a mike, finger the mike like it was a saxophone, make love to the mike from different angles?  Kevin and Andy talked five minutes and Andy talked into the mike pantomiming song the while.  It was fascinating and sad.  Andy was unaware he was doing it, misses the days he performed.  I was mellow and in that mood The Mayan Factor puts me in, melancholy, yet somehow, despite all logic and experience, hopeful.  That feeling of loss, regret, but of what?  Youth? otherwise it sucks, then you die.

Wearing his dew rag The Fabulous Kip took the stage with his magical guitar.  Every composition was soundly applauded.  You've heard about the dinosaurs -- dinosaurs were warm blooded, the pterodactyls had fur, the raptors feathers -- having two brains, one in the head and the other at the base of the spine?  Each of Kip's hands has its own brain.  He fingers with his left hand pressing the stings onto the neck with force enough to sound the note without plucking, while of its own volition his right hand strums chords, strikes harmonics (those chimelike sounds) and plucks bass notes with deliberation.  This is the third time I've seen Kip perform and I'm always fascinated.  Why these people haven't been signed to standard rich and famous recording contracts is testimony to these wicked times.

Ray appeared solo and played two songs so new the ink was still wet on the paper.  Only one was titled and that was "I Forgot My Name".  In fact, he borrowed a pen and worked on them sitting at the bar.  They were well received in their rough form.

A big-armed man named Phil rocked.  His chords were full, he sang with gusto and he sang Christmas songs, a treat.  Despite the fact that we drove around looking at the lights, I'd forgotten what season it was.  As usual the holidays were having no impact on me.  Do you find that incredible?  Consider this: The propaganda mill starts the Christmas selling after Halloween.  White Marsh Mall was gearing up for Christmas by November 17 when Chuck and I saw "Matrix Revolution."  By the time Christmas arrives it's been so normalized that I shuffle it to the background.  It reminds me of the difference between the baseball and football seasons.  The baseball season is stretched like a rubber band ready to break.  The Orioles will play 162 games this season.  The Ravens will play 16.  The Orioles play over ten times more games than the Ravens.  Thus the intensity of the football season.  Football games are focused like a magnifying glass burning a hole in paper.  That's why MS&T Bank Stadium overfloweth (not to mention their coffers) that and because the Ravens are winners.  And so are my beloved Blast, who will play a mere 36 regular season games.  Don't miss 'em!  The Blast don't sass they kick ass!

Gilmore has a magnetic stage presence and I was glad to see him again.  Besides songs from his CD "same old street" ($ecret $ound $tudios, Baltimore), which is among my favorite CDs, he performed I Let You Down, a tune about people beating up on themselves for things that are not their fault (part of the national guilt complex).  Gilmore and former Mayan drummer Matt Toronto are forming a band.  There are ruffled feathers, but Matt will be missed.

Gilmore108@yahoo.com

www.gilmoreband.com

Gene Gregory, formerly of Monkeydog (Alas, it's official, Monkeydog is dead.) gave a performance that fit my mood like a glove.  He sang some oldies, and oldies, through sad ears, brought a wave of nostalgia, but again, I am only nostalgic because way back then I could lie to myself.  But there was something more.  Gene sings with devotion and seemed romantic, bigger than life, under the colored lights, the smoke blanket level with his neck, separating him from us mere mortals.  Gene's performance resonated twice over because of my familiar and strange mood.

The Mayan Factor took the stage for the longest set.  Chuck "Always-the-Right-Touch" Jacobs sported a festive Santa hat.  (Reminded me of the movie "The Fabulous Baker Boys," staring that goddess Michelle Pfeiffer).  Speaking of hats, I got the first Magic Hat No. 9 drawn from a fresh keg.  It makes my mouth water just thinking about it.  I met Dan Angermeier, Mayan's new drummer.  His last group was Imbue whose CD, "ritual in bloom", produced by Frank "The Punisher" Marchand (Waterford Digital Studios).  Imbue is a Goth group (They painted their faces.) and as a Goth group "ritual in bloom" holds surprises.  Dan is a great drummer and an experience drummer with his own style.  Ray sang his newies, which sounded great with the band behind him.  They got a big hand after each song.  Everybody got a big hand after each song.

Big Erik, a.k.a. Loud Erik, a.k.a. The Moose, a.k.a. Old Nine-and-Two-thirds, a.k.a. Erik Singleton, has his finger out of the bandage.  He's still off work but adjusting.  Being off work is driving him nuts.

It was great seeing many of my new friends before the holidays.  I'm going to miss them.  I knew this visit to The Mojo Cafe was special, but I did not know why until now.  It was my last visit.  The fellows have moved on to other gigs, and looks like I'll never be at 4825 Belair Road, again.  If there was nothing else about Mojo's, Andy featured $2 Guinness drafts on Open Mike Nite!  And Brian knows how to draw a draft.

Love to all!

Good luck Mojo's!