Laurel Canyon,
California: "Why fear death? Death is the most beautiful part of life."
Such were the strangely sage words of a cackling skeleton pictured in the
bottom left corner of a Hawkwind album circa 1972.
Death and its fine shades seem to mean quite a
lot of different things ÐÐ good things ÐÐ to Guy Blakeslee, the chief
guru/guitarist/singer of L.A.'s heavily blues-bruising, mind-expanding
band-lifestyle-experience we've come to know as Entrance. We will approach
these varied layers of doom and decay in just one minute, but first, note
that Entrance can and should be pronounced with the emphasis either on the
first syllable, so you get the effect of, you know, walking through a door
of perception; or on the second syllable ÐÐ En-trance ÐÐ so you're, like,
fully baking under the glorious light of the revealing science of pure
TONEÉ
Anyway, I recently sat
down for a little chat with Blakeslee at the giant oak roundtable in the
middle of his wondrous hippie hideaway deep in the mystical woods of exotic
Laurel Canyon, a cavernous crash pad cascaded with guitars, drums, cruddy
old keyboards, bongos, shakers, florid and creepy art, several ashtrays and
assorted teapots. We're in 1967 or thereabouts, and enjoying it immensely.
Blakeslee wanted to convey something about
music, who and what it's for and what it's like playing it, and what the
effect of hearing it might conceivably be ÐÐ how it might make you want to
live. These issues come up because Entrance specializes at least in part in
a kind of raging and scary howl-music (not goth) that seems to confront
him and you and me with fearsome, unnameable demons last conquered
successfully only by the most righteous and real of our early Delta-blues
croakers. It's just that to play "the blues" remains an authenticity
challenge in these semi-enlightened times, let's say, no matter who you
might be.
Blakeslee's from
Baltimore originally, played in punk and metal bands on the local scene as
a kid, moved to Chicago to play in other bands, then came out West a couple
of years ago to seek his fame and fortune, kind of. He got this wonderful
house among the trees primarily because his landlord is a musician too who,
like Blakeslee, also plays guitar left-handed, without the strings
reversed. "I didn't even have money to buy dinner with," says Blakeslee,
"but he's like, 'You wanna live here? Here's some blankets.' "
That above info is not just trivia, I don't
think. It says something about the sort of good karma that Blakeslee
radiates, this sort of very sincere desire to dig deep into his music, to
savor experience, to transcend this life in wickedly hailstorming aircraft
hangar-size masses of electric guitar and warlock-banshee voice.
Hmmm. That left-handedness has something to do
with the reason that Blakeslee's blues- or folk- or Indian classical- or
avant-jazz-imbued guitar workouts, as heard on his latest CD, Prayer of
Death (Tee
Pee), or live onstage, sound so extreme, so different, so unclichéd, so
uncorny, so liberating.
"I play right-handed guitar backward, without
the strings reversed," he points out, helpfully. "Elizabeth Cotton is one
of my favorite blues folk artists, and she played like that; Dick Dale
plays like that too; Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain started like that, but
they ended up switching the strings into the standard way."
Thus he comes up with very odd approaches to
chord voicings and melodic phrasing that consistently have a warping effect
on the listener, as in actual physiological response to the tone
combinations produced through heavy amplification (or just a ratty old
acoustic), but then time-warping over eras and styles as
well . . .
Flashing back a bit: On or around September 11,
2001, Blakeslee decided that he'd had enough playing in other people's
bands, that he was destined to do his own thing. Those 3,000-some-odd
people dying like that caused him to have some sort of awakening. He's been
digging at it ever since, deeper, deeper. He doesn't know where it's
leading, he just knows he's got to dig and dig, then dig some more. He
knows this because he acknowledges that he himself is someday going to die.
Nothing to get bummed out about, really, he
says. The blues people of ancient lore knew what it's all about. One might
refer to it as "The Intensity."
"What strikes me about the old blues artists
that I started out trying to learn from is that even in a totally quiet
setting, with just a person and a guitar and their voice, they're somehow summoning
an emotional transcendence. And that speaks to you even if you don't know
why."
And, he says, that kind of going beyond can emit
from surprising sources. "I've been really into Fleetwood Mac a lot
recently, because of the way Stevie Nicks' voice sounds to me ÐÐ it channels
this other level of emotional vibration that sounds supernatural. It's not
like screaming or smashing into things; it's just like she opens her mouth
and it just takes you to another world. She's somehow tuning into something
and bringing that to the audience."
Yeah, it doesn't matter what the genre of the
music is; it has more to do with an artist's intent or belief or integrity.
And sometimes it's a matter of pure tone ÐÐ your body and your mind respond
whether you want them to or not.
Blakeslee wasn't so much into the blues or any
kind of roots-folk music growing up. "When I was in high school and
college, it was the DIY culture ÐÐ music more like hardcore metal and punk.
Now, genre names like that don't mean as much, but back then it did."
The punk or even metal aesthetic is another DNA
strand pervasive in Entrance's searing, cathartic performances, I venture
to say.
"I think the aesthetic or ethic of that is something
that got carried on in my style, totally. When I would go to shows when I
was really young, there'd be like seven people there, and freaking out ÐÐ
not like some violent energy but some kind of release. That seemed to be
the whole point, to the people in the band and in the audience. Just
totally freaking out! [Laughs.] You know, energy that was sometimes not normal. It should
be about some kind of escapist energy transmission, or something that is
above and beyond your normal level of energy."
In other words, whether he's playing traditional
folk songs or really loud rock, when Entrance performs, he's baring his
soul, and you, listener, just might do the same.
Not quite dead yet: Interesting how, when you
look at the blues as the building block for about 90 percent of popular
music, deep down there's this undercurrent of bleak, doomy darkness. And
how this, perversely, is a happy fact.
"Old-time Appalachian music had its gospel side
to it, just like blues did," says Blakeslee. "All this definitely tied into
the church; their mothers taught them the good way to think, then they'd go
and play in whorehouses. A lot of old gospel music isn't about what you
read in the Bible, but about death, your awareness of death, and that's a
pretty psychedelic concept to me."
When he hears such music, its spirit, Blakeslee
becomes aware, he says, of a cosmic consciousness of life and death and
wanting to do right because he too knows he's going to die. He likens the
effect to a sort of mystical concept, an occult concept.
"Everyone dies and everyone has to live until
they die," he observes, with a faint grin. " 'Prayer of Death' is a
Charlie Patton song, but the song that I wrote with that title is not that
song. His song is about meeting his mother and brother and sister in some
other world. 'I'll see you there when I get there.'
"Events
that have happened in the last six or so years in this country ÐÐ those
events were planned to create fear, which they did. The fear of death is
hanging over our heads right now. Yet it's muted, and muffled. The word
death isn't being mentioned in blogs. But addressing death ÐÐ talking about
it ÐÐ is psychological liberation. It's not going to keep you from making
the most of life."
