TEMPLE OF BON MATIN
OCTOBER TOUR 2002
Some dates need help. Please write them if you can at folknoise@hotmail.com

Saturday, October 19th.......Baltimore (thru Mary Knott, Mike Bell or Nautical Almanac?)
Sun. 10/20.......Louisville ( thru Teenan Lawler?) or Lexington (Mike Connelly?)
Mon. 10/21......Nashville (thru Chris Davis?)
Tues. 10/22.......Birmingham (w/Arthur Doyle?)....venue suggestions?
Wed. 10/23.....Mobile (Splash?)....need help getting show!
Thurs. 10/24....New Orleans/Baton Rouge (Quintron's place?)....any other suggestions?
Fri. 10/25.....Houston (CONFIRMED at Sound Exchange)
Sat. 10/26....Austin (CONFIRMED thru Charalambides)
Sun. 10/27....San Antonio or Amarillo (The Green House?)....any other suggestions?
Mon. 10/28......El Paso or Albuquerque (A&B Auto Wrecking?)...any other suggestions?
Tues. 10/29.....Tucson.....need help getting show!
Wed. 10/30...San Diego...need help getting show!
Thurs. 10/31.....Mexico
Fri.-Sun. 11/1-113......Los Angeles (KSPC radio broadcast CONFIRMED)
(L.A................Spaceland, CIA, Silverlake Lounge, The Smell....need help confirming show!)

TEMPLE OF BON MATIN
"Cabin in the Sky"

P. Larson has been after these liner notes for days now. But, I'm still digesting this latest Temple of Bon Matin record, Cabin in the Sky. Despite this new TOBM's heightened sense of space and dabbling in the hi-fi (All previous versions of TOBM shared two qualities in common: sonic density and garbled recordings.), fragments of Cabin in the Sky sound vaguely like remnants from any of the past three records. At near peak moments, they jam with such hard rock fervor that you are tempted to tag them as space rock or jazzbo boogie. Then that jam reaches meltdown and bursts into some propulsive free-roaming nebula charged with ionized something or other and radioactive ass-quivering debris. This music is all so incategorizable (word?!?) because of its ability to operate as either head music or body music or both in some perpetually shifting ratio.

Instability naturally leads to psychic disorientation, which is my primary reason for digging their sounds (Hell, two more reasons: 1) A new rearrangement of the senses 2) Skull-fucking.). The music's relationship to the moment(s) and place(s) that TOBM recorded it constantly remain(s) obscured. Regardless of tempo or tone, each and every TOBM song undulates and ripples as if it's part gas-liquid-solid. Remember when your geology professor sprung that theory on you that rock when young and volatile moves more like a liquid? TOBM are that million-years process crammed into, roughly, 70 minutes.

Before I've completely loss your attention, let me lend a couple hints as to the theme(s) that inspired Ed's direction for Cabin in the Sky. When I visited him at his condemned castle in the Pennsylvanian woods known locally as Cheery Acres, we discussed his ideas for the then yet-to-be-titled record. While we burned garbage in the fireplace for warmth and rabid little'coons scurried about our feet (Interpret this scene literally.), Ed talked quietly but intensely of spelunkers discovering, deep within a shaft of a long-abandoned Appalachian mine, the skeletal remains of a mother lovingly embracing her human-alien hybrid baby; both found clinging to one another in the fetal position.

The obvious themes are there: backwoods folk and their music mingling with space-age extraterrestriality. But, I, also, think that ragged Ed Wilcox- the self-exile and the lone troubadour- sees the near-extinct life that he has cultivated huddled in the dankness of that mines haft. He's a visionary, in the terms most descriptive sense, who still believes in the power of fusing an organically grown language (folk music) with highly individual interpretation similar in spirit to some of Ed's idols and recent inspirations: Max Roach and the Allman Brothers (Dear Ed: Now we can listen to Eat a Peach together.) Sure, TOBM kicks out some weird shit at times that can entail some concentrated listening. But, it should be when the music is a reflection/refraction of an authentic group of strangers adrift from the mother culture searching for a common tongue amongst themselves.

Months later when I witnessed this new TOBM vibrate the pillars of the Bulb Clubhouse in Olneyville, ED looked as if he himself stumbled down from the hills when he took the stage barefoot and wore nothing but a pair of filthy Levis. He strapped a homemade assemblage of drums and rattles across his chest and proceeded to rock his pale-white mud pie breasts into a glistening speckled jelly of sweat and grime. This backwoods allegory completed itself when this new TOBM unleashed their music on the crowd.

The guitarist resembled a gargantuan dark yeti who possessed a bewildering sense of time when he slashed across Ed's quaking drumming with jagged riffage and other playing techniques that are much less obvious than power-riffs but press the band's sound in a constant forward motion. Ed's bassist surely must have been a bootlegger when both of these weary looking creatures encountered one another on their respective pilgrimages through the underbelly of American music. Like his band mates, this bootlegger's fluid bass lines provided both forward motion and a swirling sense of free movement. I'm not too sure how Mr. Velocity Hopkins fits into this painting, but with a six-string that emits prickly-metallic-chugging-metal-farts, he's become a part of Wilcox's stream. Maybe he's the bug-eyed preacher who was chased from town due to his whiskey-soaked shenanigans with the local lady aristocrats. Then again, he's convinced that I'm the lush in this 'burg.

- Justin Farrar

MORE PRESS:

TEMPLE OF BON MATIN: Cabin in the Sky LP (BULB) The Temple of the Good Morning return with another release on one of America's top five or even top three labels for underground music. Blastitude regulars may or may not have noticed that I think Bullet Into Mesmer's Brain by the Laser Temple of Bon Matin is one of the best albums this whole 1990s freak underground came up with. That was sort of a big-band album, that sounded like it might have been largely recorded at one single live show, with one of the most unique drifty/jammy 'space rock' vibes around. Well, I would've been happy with a Mesmer's Part Two, but on the Bulb website I caught wind of how Mr. Bon Matin Ed Wilcox was kind of laying low, living in a condemned cabin with lots of squirrels for roommates, and at live shows playing live with his drums just strapped to him. That led me, somewhat disappointed, but still interested, to expect an album performed not by a band, but more just by Wilcox, up in his cabin, some sort of broken-down Jandekian thing. Well, now I've got it, and despite the brief intro (a traditional country blues!) it's not really a solo cabin-folk thing at all. In fact, "Muleskinner Blues" ends with a beautiful rock-band coda, like the dreamy expanse of Mesmer's condensed and hardened into just a couple highly effective minutes. The big rock drum set is still all over this album, played to flooring effect on "Shenandoah," a heavy-ass rock jam like a slow Black Butthole Sabbath Surfers dirge only huger and more blown-out. Rocks harder than anything on Mesmer's, and the next cut ("Caledonia," recorded live in Miami) rocks even harder than that....now I'm hearing the infamous "Merzbow meets L.A. Guns" comparison which frankly never really happened on the quite mellow Mesmer's album. Then again, the next track, "Coloring Book," is a jazzy drum/keyboard duo improv. There's plenty more out and loud stuff to come, though the set-closing title track is a peach-eating sweet-side-of-the-Allmans instrumental. (The catch is that it's mixed so it sounds like you're playing it with an ounce of dust attached to the needle.) Cabin in the Sky is a pretty serious album....I think it's actually a step up from Mesmer's...
-- Blastitude

"The mysterious wall of sound and confusion explodes from the tips of Fast Eddie's sticks. The Temple is a machine that puts you in trance. Very sonic, very hard, very fast. Combining Eastern philosophy with Eastern cartooning, Bon Matin races into your heart. Probably having the most extensive revolving door of musicians, I'm sure some sadly missed members would have remained had the entity garnered more support over the years. Some speak in hushed voices of the Temple curse. Years from now hordes of ignorant naysayers will be climbing over each other to claim that they were there when no one else was. The loooooooong overdue Siltbreeze LP released earlier this year was a masterpiece to behold and demolished anyone's doubt that this band, in any form, driven by Wilcox, can deliver the goods. With the new addition of bonus drummer Angelo, Ed has room to soar like he never has before, and the band remains ever-changing, ever-moving and ever Bon Matin."
--Stain #9

"If a gang of smelly welding students broke into your house, force-fed you PCP, tore the place apart, all the while some maniac banging on your doors with two ball peen hammers, that would have to be Temple of Bon Matin"