Jimi Hendrix

A Thinking Person’s Music: The Mystery of the Loud Guitar

~ David Biddle ~ Leave a comment

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 psychedelic experience and music? Is that magic real? Or just mental dust?

A few weeks before he died, Jimi Hendrix gave an interview in which he talked about his aspirations for the music he wanted to write in the future. He said he wanted his music to change, that it should be about healing and peace, and that music was first and foremost a spiritual tool.

I’ve been struck by that statement ever since I heard it nearly 30 years ago. Back in the 1960s and 1970s the combination of blues, soul, funk, melody, and poetic lyrics were an enormous force of liberation in The Americas (and Great Britain). Whether you listened to Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On?,” an Allman Brothers instrumental like “Hot ‘Lanta,” “Riders on the Storm” by The Doors, or, say, Jimi’s “Power to Love,” you were moved, you were freed, and you knew you were part of something gargantuan. That gargantuan-ness was best exemplified by the loud guitar.

I don’t want to sound like an old-school prig, but most people don’t feel that way anymore about what they listen to. There’s no question that the music of today is just as good as the music of that bygone era (I love everyone from Global Illage and Citizen Cope to Honey Watts and The Roots). But music used to be at the center of what was once a powerful cultural shift on multiple levels all happening at once — we were waking up to how profoundly powerful the magic of the human mind is. Listening to Marvin Gaye or Pink Floyd or Santana took the heart and the mind of the listener on a trip that was both oddly spiritual and physically alluring. The link between emotion, language, and the body was something we were all really truly committed to understanding…and Experiencing. [Don’t get me wrong here: musicians are still working at this level; trust me, I know many amazing artists. It’s never been about anything but getting to the spinning heart of the magic of the human soul…I’m talking about the rest of us.]

Can you dramatize all of these issues? Can you make a story up that calls the reader to the back fence when everything almost seemed to make sense? Are there still mysteries here worth exploring? How does a writer delve into all of this and leave the mythologies of the past open-ended in a way that still lets the reader bring their own intuitions to the dance?
The only way to find out is to read Beyond the Will of God. Stay tuned and consider buying this e-book when it comes out on June 15. If you don’t have an e-reader, you can download Kindle for the Mac and Kindle for Windows. Just go here: Kindle Apps

Or use this as your excuse to buy a new iPad or Kindle. You know you want one.

Remember, June 15 is the release date at the Kindle Store. It will be interesting summer reading.

And for those who know what they’re doing, if you send me your Kindle email address (found in your Amazon account in the “Manage Your Kindle” then “Manage Your Devices” section), I will forward you an advance copy of Beyond the Will of God at no charge. This offer is good through June 14. All I ask is that you let people know about this book, and/or that you review it at Amazon after June 15th.

-dcb

Conspiracy Theory and The Near Future

~ David Biddle ~ Leave a comment

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 prairie belt of the US became decommissioned and old school Cold War paranoids became convinced the military was up to something far more dangerous than nuclear missiles. And then there were all the stories about secret “black helicopters” and paramilitary militia groups, bolstered by the realities of the Reverend Jim Jones, David Koresh, and other fanatic cult groups. 
My new novel, Beyond the Will of God, playfully links a good portion of these tantalizing “theories” together. Imagine as well that something far more important is at the root of what’s really been going on. Somewhere in the heart of central Missouri in the near future, mysterious music will filter through night darkened farmland. The dead body of an Amish teenager will launch a police investigation that leads to a great deal more than a simple homicide. Elvis will be seen roaming the countryside. A young, drug-addled clairvoyant will arrive in the area, confused about some odd power that improvisational psychedelic music has over human consciousness. The Sumter brothers and their unofficial militia group are also somehow involved.

Police Sergeant Jill Simpson teams up with Philadelphia tabloid reporter Franklin Harris to tie all of these issues together. These mysteries play out amidst the dense heat of rural central Missouri and on the edges of the almost forgotten city of Columbia. Secrets are revealed about the supposed doors of perception and the limits of expanded consciousness.

If you are looking for summer reading that is fun and thought provoking and far beyond the usual, this book is worth the read. I think of Beyond the Will of God as sort of a fairytale for Baby Boomers and other people who “get it.” It’s part thriller, part mystery, part science fiction, part paranormal speculation.

Publication is scheduled for June 15 at Amazon’s Kindle Store. Contact me if you’d like an advance digital copy (available by June 1). Just email me david.c.biddle@gmail.com and I will forward you a digital copy for your iPad, Kindle, Nook or most anything else.

See the top of the page to sign up for email updates regarding Beyond the Will of God and other stuff I’m working on.

And, lastly, for what it’s worth, please forward the link for this announcement to those who might be interested. Believe it or not, all the marketing studies out there say that word-of-mouth is the most effective way to sell books. I’m an independent writer. I need your help. Post the link on your FaceBook Page, email it to friends, Tweet it, whatever makes sense. I am Grateful!

-dcb

What is Beyond the Will of God? (contains a full prologue excerpt)

~ David Biddle ~ Leave a comment


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 the book opens:
Prologue
  
Journal Entry 1397: Cecil Miller
I found it on a number of bootleg recordings first, but there are a few examples of it on studio works as well – all from groups who understand what is possible. On the live recordings, you hear it best. There’s a certain moment where something happens with the music and everything comes together. You have to know what to listen for, though, or you won’t experience it.

>snip<
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I was required to delete the rest of this prologue due to my agreement with Amazon in their KDP Select program. For what it’s worth, buy the book. It’s worth it. Just click the cover near the top of the page and you’ll be taken to the Amazon page.

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This novel will be independently published through Amazon’s Kindle system over the summer and then more widely distributed in the Fall. If all is successful, a paper print version will be ready by Christmas. You can still buy Kindle books and read them on your computer or iPad or smartphone. Check out Amazon’s Free Apps online.


Go to the top of this page to subscribe to this blog, or come back weekly for more information and more excerpts and more…

“Something’s happening, but you don’t know what it is, do you? Mr. Jones.”
-DB