In addition to writing and podcasting about fringe subjects, I also love making music. My old pal J.P. Lilliston and I have played together for years, and his guitar can be heard all over Blue Turns Black. Now that Lilliston’s moved back to Nashville from Chicago we’ll hope to complete a project we’ve been working on long distance for some time: a full-length CD entitled The Wicked.
It always takes a long time to record my music and I’m always off onto the next project before the first one even gets to its feet. After The Wicked, I plan to do a self-recorded psych/garage project tentatively called Emits Showers of Sparks. I’ve been listening to lots of music in preparation and I’m developing plans for extensive notes that will seek to explain my own ideas regarding psychedelic music. I’m not interested in merely aping a style as much as I’m interested in thinking about how music can emulate the experience/reflect the cultural landscape of psychedelics and psychedelic people.
With all of that in mind, I was sad to hear about the recent death of Reg Presley – the lead singer of The Troggs (“Wild Thing,” “With a Girl Like You”) and a riff-tastic songwriter. Easily on the short list of any garage band best-of ratings, The Troggs mixed humorous performances with aggressive musicality and sexy songcraft to become one of the most endearing bands of their era. Of interest to readers of this blog will be Reg’s fascination with fringe subjects like crop circles and other paranormal phenomenon. Here’s some Wiki:
His most famous composition is “Love Is All Around”. Wet Wet Wet’s 1994 cover stayed at No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart for fifteen weeks. Presley used his royalties from that cover to fund his research subjects, such as alien spacecraft, lost civilizations, alchemy, and crop circles and outlined his findings in a book, Wild Things They Don’t Tell Us, published in October 2002.
Watch a great documentary about Reg and the boys at Joe Nolan’s Insomnia.
