New Gold City

Just in time for the fall reading season (and thinking about holiday presents for the hard to shop for), I'm proud to present this video book trailer for my novel Beyond the Will of God . I'm especially happy with this creation because of the music. I've written about Global Illage in the past here, but I love the drum work done by here by my good friend Jim Hamilton and the atmospherics of his bandmates, Tim Motzer, Dan Sears, and Chris Cuzme. Without a doubt, once you read my novel, you'll understand when I say this is transcendant music of the first order. We are a nation built on freedom and improvisation. Don't ever forget that. 

For the past three decades I've been looking for novels and stories that illuminate the power of music. Rhythm linked with melody seems to go all the way to the depths of the human soul. This astonishes me. I have loved music all of my life. My father played every form of classical music in our house when I was growing up. And he played his music loud. By the time I was four it was profoundly comforting listening to everything from opera to string quartets or solo piano at volumes well in excess of five on a hi-fi system. During the heyday of the audiophile in the late '60s and early '70s, my dad built himself a monstrous stereo system using state-of-the-art electronics and Scandinavian components. I got to hear Mahler and Tchaikovsky so loud and so pure they went all the way into me and moved me forever.  Pop music touched me early on as well. I fell in love with The Beatles by the time I was six (summer of 1964) and its been clear sailing since. In 1971 my older cousin in...

My new novel,  Beyond the Will of God , is intended to remind readers of, or introduce them to, the playful, exotic, and mysterious elements of loud music that I believe we've forgotten.  Beyond the Will of God  seeks to thread the needle between serious mystery and quirky cosmic thriller. It is funky, humorous, and pathetically romantic -- the way we used to be back in the day.   The book gets its title from a line in the Jimi Hendrix song, "1983...(A Merman I Should Turn to Be)," : ...And you know good and well It would be beyond the will of God And the grace of a king. In many ways, this story is a murder mystery...but it's wrapped in the magic of music...and then rolled up into cosmic questions that we used to ask ourselves all the time. What is the relationship between mind and body? What is telepathy? Why is the truth about altered states of consciousness so delicate and hard to understand? Where is the communal power of music coming from? And what about the ps...

Sometimes you are blessed with good friends who have so much artistic talent they inspire the hell out of you. As I work through final edits and publication formatting for Beyond the Will of God , I have the privilege of listening to some of the most interesting music I've heard in a long time. My good friend Jim Hamilton, percussionist extraordinaire (a big-time student of Brazilian rhythm of all kinds), has provided me with a rough cut of extended compositions by an iteration (or something) of his electro-trip-jazz band GLOBAL iLLAGE . Rest assured, if you pay attention, the most amazing music you will ever hear is yet to come. I have no idea when these tracks will find their way into finished form, but you really need to be on the lookout for this album. It's establishing one helluva supreme manifestation in my head. My novel  Beyond the Will of God, is all about the transformative, transcendent power of music. It is a murder mystery wrapped up in a music mystery wrapped up...

A book announcement. The 1970s were the pinnacle years for conspiracy theories in America. Uncertainties about JFK's assassination got things rolling in the 1960s, but the stories got weirder and weirder the more we watched our great cultural heroes pass on into death well before their time -- Kerouac, Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, MLK, Jr., even Elvis -- to name just a few. For years it was said that no one ever saw The Doors' Jim Morrison's body after he died and that his grave in Paris was empty.  Conspiracy theorists had a field day when evidence of CIA misdeeds came to light during the Church Committee Hearings. No one had ever heard of Remote Viewing. The experiments performed by various military and CIA intelligence units on unwitting citizens using psychedelic drugs seemed like proof that the mysteries of LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin were more than psychological fancy.  As the 1970s gave way to the 1980s & 1990s, abandoned missile silos throughout the p...

And they also threw this in my face, they said, Anyway, you know good and well It would be beyond the will of God And the grace of a king. - Jimi Hendrix, “1983…(A Merman I Should Turn to Be)” Beyond the Will of God is a mystery coming out in Summer 2012. It ain't your run of the mill whodunit, though. Somehow everyone forgot all those conspiracy theories and weird coincidences that kept popping up in the late Sixties and all through the Seventies. More than anything, the music of folks like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Doors, and The Allman Brothers (even The Beatles and Elvis if you were paying attention) spoke to something deep and wild in each of us. Do you remember? Beyond the Will of God brings you back to that place, and offers a great deal of whacky ideas and provocative characters all related to a series of murders that take place in central Missouri during the heat of summer when the insects are buzzing and the air is thick with possibility once again. Here's how...