Conspiracy Music

Though few people are aware of it, conspiracy theories and rock 'n' roll have always been intimately connected. From the beginning of its popularity among American youth in the 1950s, rock 'n' roll was believed—by some—to be a Communist conspiracy to surreptitiously corrupt the future generations of the United States. (The Lyndon LaRouche organization advocates that point of view to this day and demands that its adherents listen to classical music only.) The overlap between conspiracies and rock 'n' roll eventually spawned an entire book: Alex Constantine’s The Covert War Against Rock (Feral House, 2000) which accuses various intelligence agencies of having been behind the deaths of Brian Jones, Jim Morrison, John Lennon, Bob Marley, Tupac Shakur, etc. 

Some musicians have been conspiracy buffs themselves, and their obsessions are reflected in their songs. Among the very best of these musicians was punk rock legend Stiv Bators (1949-1990) whose stage name was inspired by a conspiracy theorist named Dr. Peter Beter (yes, that was his real name), an eccentric attorney who authored a book entitled The Conspiracy Against the Dollar in 1973. Throughout the 1970s and early ‘80s, Beter disseminated his peculiar conspiracy theories (e.g., President Jimmy Carter was assassinated by Soviet agents and replaced with anorganic robotoid) through a regular series of “audio letters”-- cassette tapes distributed through the mail--to which one could subscribe as if it were a dark, surreal, mirror-world version of the Reader’s Digest. Bators must have been one of the good doctor’s most loyal subscribers, since Beter’s unique conspiracy theories eventually inspired an entire concept album in 1981, Only Lovers Left Alive by Bators’ band The Wanderers (who, to this day, are far less notorious than Bators’ other bands, The Dead Boys and Lords of the New Church). Only Lovers Left Alive is probably one of my favorite albums of all time, and my favorite track from the album is “Dr. Beter,” which gets my vote as the greatest conspiracy song ever recorded. The album is hard to find these days, but you can still stumble across it in the obscure byways of the internet it if you send out the right brain waves. The album is well worth the effort.   

Future posts will spotlight other examples in the weird and little-known subgenre I’m calling “Conspiracy Music.” Stay tuned….

(Oh, and everything you ever wanted to know about Dr. Peter Beter can be found HERE.)

"Dr. Beter" by Stiv Bators:

Beter's audio letters believe in what they say
He warned us of the cosmospheres that wiped the USA
Particle beam weapons came bouncing off the moon
Of Operation Tabletop, Battle of the Harvest Moon
Dr. Beter, Peter Beter, Dr. Beter
His claims are even more amazing than at first appears
The Rockefeller murders, assassinations through the years
You watch your bruised and battered world in your vacuum jaws
Your robotoid president lost the Third World War
Many men took part in it, four set the stage
Politicians and the Pope, you would be amazed
The Rockefeller dynasty, the mid-east oil trick
Ft. Knox gold, all was stole, by the Bolsheviks
In only thirty seconds the message will begin
His information service of all the world sins
The actor Pope conspiracy, can't learn it off the tube
Send off now, don't be late, you've everything to lose

 

 

Dr. Beter

 

Journey to the Hollow Earth

Wisdom dictates that it’s always invigorating to begin the new year with a basic primer of the Hollow Earth.

Courtesy of UFOTV and YouTube, here’s everything you ever wanted to know about the Hollow Earth but were reticent to ask (all in 25 minutes and 41 seconds).  Click on the title below: 

JOURNEY TO THE HOLLOW EARTH: THE HISTORY, MYTHOLOGY AND FOLKLORE THAT THE EARTH HAS A HOLLOW REALM

Here are some favorite quotes from the documentary:

“What do the Hopi Indians, Adolf Hitler, Tibetan monks, and Icelanders all have in common?”

“And now, back to Hitler....”

“Or more importantly, if you’re an adventurer and would like to join this journey to the center of the Earth, please contact the International Society for a Complete Earth.  This could be the most exciting adventure of your life!”

Shades of Gray Barker

My friend Eric Blair bought me the following documentary as a Christmas gift:  Shades of Gray directed by Bob Wilkinson and co-written by Wilkinson and Robert Tinnell.  This obscure 2009 documentary details the important life and work of Gray Barker, author of such classic works of UFOlogy as They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers (1956) and The Silver Bridge (1970).  Barker was instrumental in popularizing such legendary examples of modern folklore (and folk truth) as the Men in Black, the Philadelphia Experiment, Mothman, and numerous other paranormal enigmas.  Barker’s They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers, which introduced the Men in Black to the world, was one of the first full-length books I read about UFOs and stimulated an insatiable thirst for similar information.  It’s an essential tool for understanding 1950s Cold War American culture.  In my learned estimation, it sits on a very high tier within the Alternate Pantheon of American literature, among the key New Gospels of post-WWII America.  Fortunately, reasonably priced copies of the first edition hardcover can still be found with relative ease (via ABEBOOKS, for example). 

The recently deceased James Moseley, Barker’s close friend and partner in crime, is featured prominently in this well-rounded documentary, which doesn’t shy away from showing all the various contradictory aspects of Barker’s persona.  He was a serious and dedicated journalist, a puckish hoaxster, a wide-eyed dreamer, a bitter skeptic, a frustrated fiction writer, an inventive independent publisher, a successful self-promoter, and a master of self-sabotage all rolled into one.  Information about purchasing Shades of Gray on DVD can be found HERE. 

The Cryptocracy Is Watching You

Please read this brief excerpt from a 12-28-12 article entitled "Congress Disgracefully Approves the FISA Warrantless Spying Bill for Five More Years, Rejects All Privacy Amendments" by Trevor Timm of the Electronic Frontier Foundation:

Today, after just one day of rushed debate, the Senate shamefully voted on a five-year extension to the FISA Amendments Act, an unconsitutional law that openly allows for warrantless surveillance of Americans' overseas communications.

Incredibly, the Senate rejected all the proposed amendments that would have brought a modicum of transparency and oversight to the government's activities, despite previous refusals by the Executive branch to even estimate how many Americans are surveilled by this program or reveal critical secret court rulings interpreting it.

The common-sense amendments the Senate hastily rejected were modest in scope and written with the utmost deference to national security concerns. The Senate had months to consider them, but waited until four days before the law was to expire to bring them to the floor, and then used the contrived time crunch to stifle any chances of them passing.

Sen. Ron Wyden's amendment would not have taken away any of the NSA's powers, it just would have forced intelligence agencies to send Congress a report every year detailing how their surveillance was affecting ordinary Americans. Yet Congress voted to be purposely kept in the dark about a general estimate of how many Americans have been spied on.

Read the entire article HERE.

The Simple Art of Distraction

While the nation's collective psyche remains paralyzed due to a series of ostensibly random mass murders, draconian bills like the FISA Amendments Act are once again slithering their way through Congress with very little substantial deliberation.  Please read Matt Sledge's 12-20-12 Huffington Post article entitled "FISA Warrantless Wiretapping Bill Poised For Renewal Despite Unanswered Questions."  Here's a brief excerpt:

With Senate poised to act as early as Thursday night to renew the foreign surveillance bill that authorized the Bush administration's secret warrantless wiretapping program, civil liberties advocates are getting deja vu.

With only the Senate's vote standing in the way of renewal, the debate over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments Act in 2012 is looking strikingly similar over to the debate over the bill in 2008. The White House is pushing for a quick, "clean" reauthorization without any amendments before the bill's Dec. 31 expiration date. Congress seems to be showing little inclination to press for more. And civil liberties advocates, along with a few Senate allies, are criticizing the measure, arguing that basic details of the warrantless wiretapping program remain unknown.

Or, as Michelle Richardson, legislative counsel with the ACLU's Washington office, put it, "I bet [Bush] is laughing his ass off."

Ah, yes, the simple art of distraction continues apace....

Read the rest of Matt Sledge's article HERE.

Santa Was a Mushroom!

In case you ever suspected that Santa Claus might be a clever, phantasmagoric metaphor for the psychedelic Amanita muscaria mushroom, here’s your chance to prove your instincts correct. 

The following is an excerpt from a 2007 documentary entitled The Pharmacratic Inquisition directed by Jan Irvin and Andrew Rutajit.  This brief nine minute clip comes to you courtesy of YouTube and is highly recommended for your Yuletide viewing pleasure:  “Come one, come all, girls and boys; please click HERE for Christmas joy!”

Merry X-Mas everybody!  HO HO HO!

University of Washington Scientists Explore the Theory That We're Living in a Simulated Reality

From Ray Villard's 12-16-12 Discovery.com article entitled "Are We Living Inside a Computer Simulation?":

In 2003, British philosopher Nick Bostrom published a paper that proposed the universe we live in might in fact really be a numerical computer simulation. To give this a bizarre Twilight Zone twist, he suggested that our far-evolved distant descendants might construct such a program to simulate the past and recreate how their remote ancestors lived.

He felt that such an experiment was inevitable for a supercivilization. If it didn't happen by now, then in meant that humanity never evolved that far and we're doomed to a short lifespan as a species, he argued.

To extrapolate further, I'd suggest that artificial intelligent entities descended from us would be curious about looking back in time by simulating the universe of their biological ancestors.

As off-the-wall as this sounds, a team of physicists at the University of Washington (UW) recently announced that there is a potential test to seen if we actually live in The Lattice. Ironically, it would be the first such observation for scientifically hypothesized evidence of intelligent design behind the cosmos.

Villard's article can be seen in its entirety HERE.

Katherine Long's 12-15-12 Seattle Times article, "Living in a Simulated World," reports on the very same study in a somewhat more concise manner and can be read HERE.