You can’t be afraid of the internet.
Right now my brother’s girlfriend is in
Thailand, where she paid what I assume is a substantial portion of her
available money to go to a place where they teach you a lot about yoga. I guess
she wants to come back and teach yoga to a bunch of Starbucks-sipping, Lululemon-clad
rich white ladies in a firmly Western tradition. But the yoga school she’s at,
being in Thailand and everything, wants to talk about spiritual enlightenment
and meditation and karmic cycles and all that hippy bullshit that’s technically
more a part of “yoga” than cute outfits and national chain yogurt smoothie
retailers. Us Westerners like to bulldoze all that worthless crap on our way to
life’s best parking spots.
Seriously, though, she’s got to sit through a
bunch of nonstop lectures, and she’s in the middle of Thailand and she doesn’t
know anybody and her glassy-eyed cohorts are driving her a little bonkers. I
feel for her. If I spent the amount of money she’s spent to go to all the way
to Thailand, I’d want to enjoy myself while I was there, not be brainwashed by
a bunch of ancient Eastern wisdom. Plus, the yogic tradition is based in India,
so who are these Johnny-Come-Latelies in Thailand to lecture US? In retellings
of this person’s saga, the word “cult” has been invoked.
…And here comes the internet.
Did you know that Jim Jones’s People’s
Temple, of 918 people dying all at the same time in 1978 fame, put out a gospel
album in 1973? I didn’t until the internet told me today. And guess what? The
whole album is ON the internet. Goodbye afternoon.
1. “Welcome”
Okay, this is awful. This is an awful thing I
am doing. I’m not even… this is not fun or funny. This is just… why? Why am I
doing this? Those children. Dear god.
Much better. A good old fashioned upbeat
burner of gospel joy with some funky breaks and decent musicianship. Piano’s a
half-measure late, hanging on for dear life. “Hanging on for dear life.” Oh
god. “Cleanse us with your power,” oh. No no no no no.
3. “Set Them Free”
Sweet sweet imperfect soprano lead vocalist
singing lyrics of freedom with undecorated clarity in the heartbreaking
tradition of the The Langley Schools Music Project cover of “Desperado.” This is haunting.
Seriously, this is haunted. Like the VHS tape from The Ring. Capable backing by the band.
The earnest incompetence and funk/soul
combination of this song would make it a perfect candidate for one of the
Numero Group’s “Good God!”
releases if not for the fact that everybody involved in this organization fed
poison Kool-Aid to their children before taking their own lives. I can’t. I…
5. “Hold On, Brother”
I know this is about Jim Jones’s vision of an
egalitarian society of perfect human love that dissolved into a nightmarish dystopia
of paranoid delusion in Guyana, but I’m going to treat it like a pep talk for
my decision to listen to this entire album, and it’s just what I needed. This
is how they get you.
6. “Down From His Glory”
THIS is something I can get behind. I grew up
Unitarian. Our choir was… not… funky. Our choir was a real cavalcade of the
willing. When I think of church music, I think of music in the safe, boring New
Christy Minstrels tradition of plain, unadorned singing, with some occasional showiness
in attempted operatic directions, and maybe a weird recorder or a dulcimer.
This guy is giving this hymn the good old Unitarian try. I like it because I
don’t have to take it seriously. I don’t have to think about all those people.
Oh my god. All those people.
7. “He’s Able”
Waltz time is underrated. There’s a lot of
unexplored territory there both for punk ragers and for hinky little funk rhythm
guitar lines like this one. It’s a great delivery method for any message.
Delivery method… poison…
Fuzz guitar found its way into EVERYTHING
back in the day.
9. “Because Of Him”
Some real watery trumpet on this mid-tempo
number. I want this to be over. When I first clicked on this I was like “yesss,”
but this is just so, so awful. And the YouTube comments. “Ha ha ha,” most of
them. At first I was fascinated by this artifact of creepiness, but now I’m
just tired and sad. This is just a regular shitty private press gospel record
you’d find in any flea market in the Midwest and see the weird pictures and go “Oh
man that is HILARIOUS,” and then take it home and play it and it’s not good or
interesting in any way. It’s just regular people with regular lives, and this is
a snapshot of a time they tried to be something more, and put themselves on a
record for posterity, and over time were eventually relegated to a forgotten
corner of a failing nostalgia-based business, where they are now nothing but a
punchline, or worse, a fetish object, for jerks like YOU. These people are dead
now. All of them. All of them at once.
10. “Simple Song of Freedom”
This is the one where some of Jones’s
creeping insanity bleeds out. The only YouTube I could find has that horrific
image of dead bodies on it, an alternate cover used for the unconscionable 1993
CD reissue, which also includes Jim Jones’s excoriatingly hideous last sermon.
The lyric “700 million people are in misery,” and the gist of “being left alone”
to practice religion in peace are particularly difficult things to listen to
given the context of this otherwise perfectly acceptable Byrdsian Christian
rock. I can do this. I just have to act like a journalist and suppress the fact
that I will be crying later.
11. “Black Baby”
The worst thing about this is how genuinely
touching it is in places. The ideas are admirable. The people are sincere. The
music is an honest, and more obviously so for its amateurishness, outpouring of
emotion. But there are no shortcuts. There is no better human place to put your faith than in your imperfect self. There is no such thing as perfection. That way lies
insanity and death. The organ accompaniment on this is really nice.
12. “Will You?”
Triumphant choral horn rock that sounds like Up
With People backed by a cross between Chicago and ELO. It is well-produced. It
is nice. It ends, mercifully, abruptly, after a tight 3:35. “The world is
changing, will you?” Yes. I will. I will never be the same after this. I promise.
May your souls all find peace in heaven. Please. Please please.
CONCLUSION:
Well, THAT was heavy. Holy shit. I sometimes listen
to Brainbombs for
pleasure, and this album might be too much for me to handle. It might be the
worst album of all time. I’m not sure. I know I’m going to have a less good day
now because of listening to it.
Sorry if you clicked and listened and got
bummed out. At least you’re here in the good old USofA and not following some
crazyman down in Nowheresville, The Jungle, South America. At least you’re not
stuck in some spiritual hokum yoga school in Thailand. And if you are, again, at
least you’re not following some crazyman down in Nowheresville, The Jungle,
South America.
Good luck out there, Julia. Come back soon,
and hey, pick up some tunes while you’re in Thailand. Might as well.
Also, happy Fourth of July, everybody.
Remember: just because you live in the greatest country on earth doesn’t mean
it’s anything more or less than just a country.
