from http://www.subpop.com/bands/earth/earthbio.html
Earth formed in olywa.
In early 90(?). d. carlson wants to call the band wormwood but compromises
with then members Slim Moon (later to found kill rock stars), and Greg
babior. Original lineup 2 guitars, vocals, and the now trendy and de rigeur
old analog synths (earth misses out on hipdom by 4 years). TDG becomes
revolving bass player and does white noise side project the fragile sphincter
with d. carlson. Greg is very caught up in sound proofing the practice
space. Greg departs over the rest of the bands ineptitude at jazz improving
over a three note riff. TDG caught up in ascendancy of his band. Move to
Seattle. D.carlson meets Dave Harwell at Hard-On's show. Joe Preston signs
on while waiting for his dream to materialize. Slim and D. war over vocals
and threir place;or lack therof; in the band. 1st show at Portlands Blue
galery. Last with Slim and vocals. TDG and his bass player are driving
earth. Earth get in wreck at gas station 3 blocks from house. Bass player
and the assailant go off to smoke pot while waiting for insurance companies
to call back. Not the last time earth's transport will be hampered by chemical
dependancy/abuse. 2nd show in Portland. Earth is Heavy Metal cover
band. Set includes 'Animal Magnetism' by Scorps, 'One Track Mind' by Motorhead
and a handful of Saint Vitus tunes. 3rd show in Olywa. Sets trend of audience
participating from the outside. We record in Portland at Smegma Studios
with Mike Lastra. The studio is in His house, which is besieged by 'coons.
TDG and Kelly Canary along for vocals. TDG sleeps a lot during sessions.
Earth opens for L7 at Vogue. Most of Sub-Pop are in attendance. D.C. behind
amps at this point. After show Bruce and John asks Earth to release something.
Earth volunteer Portland tapes and sign-on -board. Extra-Capsular Extraction(earth
1) released sometime in '91. We play our best show as a three piece. 5
people watch us open for Hell-Cows. Next weekend earth blows chunks opening
for TDG's band. Play in Olywa. with Blake Babies. They spend their entire
sound check playing riff from Yes's "Owner of a lonely heart". During
show with Screaming Trees the drum machine first becomes a problem , with
Joe repeatedly stepping on the pedal and restarting songs half way through.
Joe's
dream becomes reality. He is asked to join the Melvins. He can't leave
earth fast enough. Dream becomes nightmare when his bitter, money-grubbing
ways do not endear him to his employers. The Melvins can him. He takes
revenge by bootlegging to his employers. The Melvins can him. He takes
revenge by bootlegging earth 7in's. Carl Anala formerly of Hell Cows
joins briefly. He departs rapidly. Earth is a two piece. 1992. Earth
are interviewed by then up and comer Tabitha Soren for MTV. Dave not realizing
who she will become in the near future repeatedly offends her with a knowing
and friendly hand on her thigh during each response to a question. Earth
is delighted. Last show with the drum machine. MTV is unacountably
filming the show. Earth is opening for aspeed metal band so ther are plenty
of mustaches and long shorty hair do's . The drum machine gives up the
ghost early in the first song. Dave wisley exits the stage. D.C. remainns
to play an open chord for 35 minutes. Fists and fingers raised the audience
chants "you suck"emphatically. Downer use begins in earnest among one half
of the band. Earth 2 recorded in august at Avast studios with Stewart Hallerman
at the helm. Many consider this record a definitive statement of the
drone triumphant. Other s merely the inevitable ressult of the damage downers
do to perception of time and duration. Earth plays the Ultra-Lamefest
with many other labelmates. Earth only wants to do one song . The
powers that be want the band off after 15 minutes. Earth holds on and finishes
the song , all 25 minutes of it. Sometime after the release party Dave
decides his life and new interest in gardening would be better off without
Earth. Earth is a one piece. Downer use at atrocious, possibly toxic levels
in remaining member of band. Fall of '93 recording begins on Phase3.
D.Carlson , for a variety of sordid reasons, misses the first 2 ½
days of recording. For these sessions Tommy Hansen (formerly of the Fartz
and Crisis Party) plays second guitar. Sub-Pop pull the plug on the sessions.
Anger and recriminations follow. Earth's standing with the Company are
at a low-ebb. D.C.'s imminent demise predicted. Ian Dickson leaps into
the breach and stakes job on completion of record. A year later (fall '94)
sessions are booked at the Soundhouse with Scott Benson on the board. Rick
Cambern does drums on one track. Sessions in trouble Ian locks D.C.
in isolation booth for 6 hours. Due to a medical emergency the sessions
crash to a halt. D.C.: "_____ went out in the bathroom, Scott won't keep
recording." Ian: " How much do we have recorded, is it enough for a record
?" D.C.: " It's 58 minutes, long enhough." The album is a critical masterpiece
(well, at least 2 critics). Phase 3 released April '95. May of '95
Paul Smith invites earth to play Disobey night for Blast First and record
a live record. When the fax arrives at Sub-Pop they think its a bad joke.
Earth is supposed to play for 45 minutes. They play for 26 and 2 english
kids play the last 5 minutes of feedback. Ian is now member. Earth is a
2 piece again. The album is mixed at Mute's Worldwide studios with PK at
the helm. Earth mess with Texas. Too much of eveything (3 oz. Methamphetamine,
80 valiums, 25 Xanax, riding a white horse). Disaster at Dripping Springs.
Redemption (a very wet version) at Emo's. If they take me back to Texas
they wont take me back alive. June Earth play the MacIntosh New Music Seminar.
Sub-Pop decides to re-sign earth for 3 more records. February '96 finds
earth with 2 new members, Shawn McElligot on lead guitar and Mike McDaniels
on drums. Mike Deming is engineering and playing organ. The recordimg takes
place at Studio .45, which happens to be in the old Colt manufacturing
plant in Hartford, Connecticut. Recording and mixing take about 2 weeks.Before
the album is released , earth is invited to play Hyperstrings in Austria.
Its a festival of modern guitar (especially non-traditional manipulation)
techniques. Other people playing included K.K. Null, E.A.R.(with Sonic
Boom), Jim O'Rourke, fellow Seattleites Magnog, and DJ Haswell. The album
is released July 23rd. On to the future. Re-mixes of a few songs
are in the works . Look for them on Sweet Mother . They should include
versions by DJ Nasir, Spooky and Constantine. Coming soon, the franchise.
September 15, 2002
CHAOS IN COLOMBIA
Blood Spills to Keep Oil
Wealth Flowing
Colombia: Violence
explodes in province where army, under U.S. pressure, focuses on protecting
an Occidental pipeline.
By T. CHRISTIAN MILLER, TIMES STAFF WRITER
ARAUCA, Colombia -- Under
pressure from Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum and the U.S. government,
the Colombian military has redeployed its forces to protect a key oil pipeline,
leading to an explosion of violence in the undefended countryside.
The army
has reassigned the majority of its troops in this war-torn province to
patrol the pipeline, which is jointly owned by Occidental and the Colombian
state oil company. Leftist guerrillas battling the government shut down
production for a total of eight months in 2001, but this year the number
of attacks on the pipeline has plunged.
Civilians
in Arauca, the province that surrounds the pipeline, have paid the price.
In the absence of any sustained military presence since late last year,
Colombia's violent right-wing paramilitary squads quickly moved in, unleashing
a campaign of murder and terror with impunity.
Hundreds
of politicians, journalists, businessmen and ordinary residents have been
kidnapped and killed in the "dirty war." Brutal combat between the paramilitaries
and leftist guerrillas has forced thousands to flee their homes. Scores
of people have simply disappeared.
Arauca
is now the most violent province in one of the most violent countries in
the world.
"Here,
there is fire on all sides," said a man who was fleeing recent fighting
in the countryside, using his tractor to pull a wagon piled high with household
goods to Arauca, the provincial capital.
The spiraling
chaos comes just as the U.S. begins its first tentative steps toward playing
a more direct role in Colombia's bewildering internal conflict.
Until
now, U.S. aid has been limited to fighting drug trafficking. But as early
as next month, the first U.S. instructors will arrive to launch a controversial
training program to help Colombian soldiers better protect the pipeline.
The U.S. is also planning to send helicopters and improve intelligence
sharing with the Colombian army.
Critics
charge that the plan forces U.S. taxpayers to provide security for a private
company, Occidental. And human rights groups say the local Colombian army
unit, the 18th Brigade, has aided the paramilitary advance, meaning that
U.S. trainers may become complicit in human rights abuses.
"If you
bring in more troops, this conflict is only going to get worse," said Enrique
Pertuz, the executive director of a local human rights group. "If your
enemy tries to overcome you with more arms and soldiers, you respond in
kind. There are going to be more killings, more massacres, more repression."
Role of Paramilitaries
The Colombian army has long
been accused of cooperating with the paramilitaries because both sides
share a common enemy in the guerrillas. The paramilitaries, financed by
drugs and large landowners, use massacres and torture to fight the rebels
in areas that have been neglected by Colombia's thinly stretched armed
forces.
U.S.
and Colombian officials defend the training plan, saying it will protect
oil flow along the pipeline, which provides an important source of revenue
for the Colombian government. The additional income from the protected
pipeline will allow the Colombian government to step up efforts to combat
the rebels and paramilitaries, the officials argue, as well as the drugs
that flow to U.S. streets.
But once
here, the U.S. troops will be stationed in barracks that suffer frequent
attacks from the guerrillas.
U.S.
officials say they are doing everything they can to ensure the safety of
the American soldiers. A handful of U.S. military officers are already
on the ground in Arauca, trying to improve safety, but U.S. officials acknowledge
that the bases will be difficult to protect.
The bases
are small, poorly defended and located in cities dominated by guerrilla
militias. "You do your best to focus on protecting your forces the best
you can. That doesn't mean someone won't get injured," a U.S. official
said on condition of anonymity.
For years,
Occidental and the Colombian government tolerated a system that allowed
the guerrillas to become rich from oil proceeds. Now, that wealth has resulted
in a clash between the guerrillas and the paramilitaries that the Colombian
army has been unable to contain.
Army Spread Thin
Colombian army officials
don't dispute that their focus on the pipeline has hampered their ability
to maintain order in the disputed region, although they strenuously deny
paramilitary links. The U.S. aid will be the key to restoring their fighting
capability, they said.
"If I
could free up 30% of the troops that are guarding the pipeline in order
to be able to go after the guerrilla and paramilitaries, things would be
different," said Gen. Carlos Lemus, the commanding officer of the 18th
Brigade.
The U.S.
has been entangled in conflict in Arauca before. Earlier this year, The
Times reported on the involvement of U.S. government spy planes, Oxy and
a Florida surveillance company, AirScan Inc., in a botched Colombian military
operation in 1998 that left 18 civilians dead in Santo Domingo, a small
hamlet in the province.
But this
time, U.S. troops are arriving in the midst of a maelstrom that has put
Arauca on the front lines of Colombia's nearly 40-year-old war.
Comandante
Mario, the leader of the local paramilitaries, said U.S. troops are walking
into an inferno.
"Tell
me, how many body bags are they going to bring?" he said as his men patrolled
a dirt road an hour away from 18th Brigade headquarters. "Are they ready
for combat in Colombia's jungles?"
Arauca
province was first populated in the 1940s and 1950s by waves of refugees
fleeing a period of bloody civil war known simply as La Violencia--the
violence.
The settlers
arrived to a region of spare natural beauty, where Colombia's vast eastern
prairie begins its sprawl from the Andes mountain range toward the border
with Venezuela.
Broad
savannah spreads like a green blanket in every direction. Hundreds of rivers
lace the mostly treeless flatlands, flooding in wet summers and drying
up in winters. Giant rodents called capybara roam the wetlands, and scores
of brightly colored birds fill the air.
The impoverished
region was long forgotten by the central government in the faraway capital,
Bogota. The neglect allowed Colombia's second-largest rebel army, the National
Liberation Army, or ELN, to take almost complete control. The rebels determined
who took public office through vote-buying and intimidation and extracted
"taxes" from local landowners.
Then,
in 1983, oil was discovered. Occidental teamed up with the Colombian government
to develop the 1.3-billion-barrel Cano Limon oil field, located along the
border with Venezuela. A 483-mile-long pipeline was built to take oil to
the coast.
Oil Cash in Rebel Hands
Though Occidental officials
deny any direct payments to the guerrillas, they acknowledge that oil money
poured into rebel hands via corrupt local government officials and Occidental
subcontractors.
That's
because, by law, part of the oil profits had to return to Arauca. The budget
for the local government--dominated by ELN sympathizers and allies--jumped
from $300,000 per year to $60 million to $80 million as a result of oil
royalties.
A tour
of Arauca shows how little of that money found its way to the community.
The province is filled with incomplete building projects, the result of
money siphoned away by guerrillas. There is a half-built water park, a
half-built bus terminal, even a half-built velodrome.
The corruption
was an open secret. But no one did anything about it. It was simply easier
to keep the oil flowing.
"The
guerrillas got rich," said an Occidental executive.
By 1999,
the money had attracted the interest of Colombia's largest rebel group,
the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or the FARC. The group, which
has expanded rapidly in recent years, counts more than 18,000 fighters,
compared with about 3,000 for the ELN.
The FARC
demanded a share of the money. The local ELN-controlled government refused.
And the so-called "royalty war" began.
In 2001,
the FARC began to unleash a bombing campaign against the pipeline that
brought a halt to production--and thus to the revenues that the ELN relied
on to finance its army.
Occidental
officials watched with growing nervousness as the FARC planted as many
as five bombs a day along the length of the pipeline. Oxy's oil field--which
accounts for about 5% of the company's total world production of 133 million
barrels of oil--was shut down for nearly four months beginning in March
2001.
Top Occidental
executives began meeting with Colombian and U.S. officials in an effort
to persuade them to step up pipeline protection. They met with former President
Andres Pastrana and U.S. Ambassador Anne W. Patterson.
The executives'
argument was that Occidental wasn't the only one losing money as a result
of the attacks. The Colombian government was giving up an average of $40
million a month in oil royalties, a sum that eventually equaled $500 million
for 2001--equivalent to 2% of the national budget.
U.S.
officials began asking for improved pipeline security from the Colombians.
And they also began drawing up the plan to bring in American trainers for
the Colombian troops guarding the pipeline.
Occidental
insists that it had no role in developing the Colombian government's military
strategy other than providing detailed information on the attacks.
But it
takes credit for raising the alarm.
"We made
them realize that they could not allow the attacks to continue," an Oxy
official said.
Protecting the Pipeline
The effort to increase pipeline
protection began in July 2001, after Oxy and U.S. pressure resulted in
a special Colombian security council meeting. The Colombian army sent in
a special forces unit for two months that successfully stopped attacks
against the pipeline. That convinced the military to redeploy more troops
on a permanent basis.
On a
parallel track, the State Department began drawing up plans to improve
pipeline protection in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Its
$98-million proposal was a risky gambit. Previously, aid to Colombia had
been limited almost entirely to anti-narcotics efforts.
But a
top U.S. official acknowledged on a recent visit to Colombia that the proposal
was a "test" of congressional willingness to expand the war on terrorism
to groups beyond those such as Al Qaeda. The State Department lists both
of Colombia's leftist guerrilla groups as well as the paramilitaries as
terrorists.
"We chose
the pipeline because every day it's shut down it costs the Colombian government
a lot of money," the official said. "One of the things we asked Colombians
to do is spend more money on their own defense.... It made sense to us
to keep a revenue-producing pipeline going."
Meanwhile,
last December, the Colombian army put its new strategy in place. It more
than doubled the size of the force protecting the pipeline, adding three
more battalions to the two already assigned there. Military officials also
began working with the local prosecutor to step up prosecutions of suspected
bomb-makers.
Within
a month, the aggressive new strategy showed results. Attack attempts continued
at the same pace, but now the army began intercepting the guerrillas before
the strikes were successful.
Attacks Decrease
So far this year, there
have been only 29 attacks on the pipeline, as opposed to 170 last year.
And they have shut down the pipeline for less than a month--compared with
eight months in 2001.
Nonetheless,
Colombian military officials said they still need U.S. training and equipment.
More helicopters will allow them to move even more quickly to attack the
guerrillas.
"If we
had mobility, we could move our foot soldiers ... to other parts of the
province," said Lemus, head of the local 18th Brigade. "We could maintain
a permanent offensive, perusing all the subversive groups, and not always
be stuck to the pipeline."
The improved
pipeline protection has meant disaster and terror for the rest of Arauca.
Thousands
of families have fled the countryside for ill-prepared urban centers.
Arauca's
dirt roads are scenes of misery, with trucks piled high with furniture,
farm animals and families fleeing violence.
The homicide
rate has soared. After an average of about 200 slayings a year in the late
1990s, the province is on track for a figure of more than 400 dead this
year, according to police statistics.
That
translates to a rate of about 160 killings per 100,000 people--more than
double Colombia's already record high of 64 homicides per 100,000. In the
U.S., the figure is about six per 100,000 people.
"There
has been a huge amount of uncertainty and fear," said Luis Eduardo Velez,
the deputy governor of the province.
"People
had learned how to live with the guerrillas. Now they have to learn to
deal with a totally different group."
In interviews,
local paramilitary commanders said their aim is to "purify" the province
of politicians, journalists and others affiliated with the guerrillas.
Targets are selected with the help of local guerrillas who have switched
sides to join the better-paying paramilitaries.
On a
recent weekday, Comandante Mario and about three dozen of his men manned
a roadblock on a muddy street about 15 miles outside Arauca, the provincial
capital.
They
were well armed, each equipped with automatic rifles and one with an M-60
machine gun. They had a radio and said they were in constant communication
with other paramilitary fronts.
The men,
members of the Capital Bloc of the Vanquishers of Arauca, as the local
paramilitary squad is known, insisted that they kill carefully.
"We're
an illegal, extreme-right army, but we have rules and regulations to prevent
civilians from being killed," said Freddy, a squad leader.
Mario
said the paramilitaries follow a three-step process. In the first step,
the intended target is warned to stop collaborating with guerrillas. If
the person ignores the warning, he or she is told to leave the province.
"And
the third step, well, you know what the third step is," Mario said. "We
execute them."
Local
human rights groups said the paramilitaries' arrival in the region was
facilitated by the 18th Brigade, which they said is using the illegal group
to supplement its own diminished presence.
The rights
groups have reported killings near army posts and closely coordinated movements
between the brigade and the paramilitaries.
But both
the paramilitaries and the military officials strongly deny any links in
interviews. Both groups pointed out that they have clashed on the battlefield,
leaving at least nine paramilitary soldiers dead this year.
Mario
said the only help his troops offer is indirect. Strikes against the guerrillas
aid the Colombian army in its effort to better protect the pipeline by
keeping the rebels occupied, he said.
But Colombian
military officials said the presence of the paramilitaries has only complicated
efforts by stretching the army's resources.
The paramilitaries
"are a destabilizing factor that has increased violence," the 18th Brigade's
Lemus said. "Whereas before we had to fight against only two groups, now
we have to fight three."
Occidental
executives said they regret the violence and noted that the company recently
boosted its spending on social development programs in Colombia from $2
million to $3 million a year.
"It's
our opinion that the problem in Arauca, because of its size and complexity,
requires an integral solution" that involves both economic and social development,
said Juan Carlos Ucros, Occidental's spokesman. Such a solution "will be
what finally permits an improvement to the reality the province is living
today."
Col.
Emilio Torres, the official directly in charge of pipeline patrols, said
Colombia needs every dollar it can get to end its war.
"It's
our mission to protect the pipeline," Torres said as dusk fell on the tiny
outpost and his men sallied out on patrols with night-vision goggles. "We
have to protect it."
BACKGROUND: When oil was discovered in 1983, Occidental Petroleum teamed up with the Colombian government to develop the 1.3-billion-barrel Cano Limon oil field, located along the border with Venezuela. A 483-mile-long pipeline was built to the coast.
VIOLENCE: The homicide rate
in Arauca province has soared since the Colombian army increased its protection
of the pipeline. Police statistics show that the province is on track this
year for about 160 killings per 100,000 people--more than double Colombia's
already record-high rate of 64 homicides per 100,000.
Sheldon Rochlin, filmmaker, publisher, producer and founder of Mystic Fire Video, left his body on June 24th 2002 of pneumonia in New York City. He was 63. The arc of his life and creativity covered an extraordinary and diverse ground. He touched many lives.
From 1960 to 1970 he was part of the New York independent and experimental film scene and traveled to Europe where he completed his first films Vali-The Witch of Positano and Dope, which are considered underground classics. In 1968 he filmed two historic cultural events of the time: The Living Theatre’s performance of Paradise Now at the Sportspalast in Berlin and Electric Bath, his documentary of The Bath Festival in England.
Mr. Rochlin then traveled to India where he resided at the Sri Aurobindo ashram where he met the Mother and documented her last Darsham. He recorded the Breaking of the Ground at Auroville and established a video archival project there. He traveled then to Dharamsala where he met His Holiness The IVth Dalai Lama and arranged the first trip out of India of the Gyuto Monks with whom he traveled and filmed Tantra of Gyuto: Sacred Rituals of Tibet. His other films of that period include: Tibetan Medicine in which he documents the insights and practice of Tibet's first woman doctor, Lopsang Dolma and Nepal – Land of the Gods.
In 1977 he joined forces with Maxine Harris with whom he established Mystic Fire Video. Their filmic collaborations include: Hymn to the Mystic Fire; Secret Egypt; Signals Through the Flames, Metamorphosis, the Essential Teachings of the Buddha by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and Sukhavati – Place of Bliss with Joseph Campbell. Mystic Fire Video continues to produce, publish and distribute.
He was currently finishing an in-depth documentary of the Kalachakra ceremony documenting the Dalai Lama who performs the foundational liturgy of the Tantric teachings which are his mandate to preserve; and Coincidencia Oppositirum, a work of alchemy with Terence McKenna.
He is survived by his wife, Maxine Harris, his step-children, Rhana, Branwyn, and Morgan Harris, and Ptolemy Mann; and his sister Bernice Brown.
From the Sunday, September
8, 2002 San Francisco Chronicle:
9/11 for Allen Ginsberg
Andrei Codrescu
9/11, I can barely remember
you, they've buried you in so much hype!
9/11, I wept when you were
first on television! I wept for New York, for
the dead, for all of us,
for myself, for the world!
9/11, I was sure that the
world had changed forever because bad guys
wanted America dead &
hated us because we listen to rock 'n' roll and wear
no miniskirts on our naked
faces!
9/11, I cheered when
our warplanes ripped through the skies of Afghanistan
scorching the caves where
our enemies burrowed & I marvelled at our
precision- guided bombs
trying to ignore their occasionally murderous
imprecision!
9/11, I sat mesmerized in
front of CNN as the gargoyled faces of the Cold
War began crawling out of
the musty cellars of history and, eyes
unaccustomed to light blinking,
began to spout the doctrines of Total War!
9/11, I started to feel
sorry for you when retired generals, admirals,
spies, loonies and fakes
brushed off their swords and rushed to your
defense! So many double-chins!
So many watering eyes! So many dentured
grins and brush haircuts!
So many double-bottom suitcases clutched in so
many pimp-ringed hands!
They even brought Ollie North from felonious
disgrace to stand up for
you with his Constitution-overthrowing boyish old
looks!
9/11, I felt bad for
you when the Lefties crowded you from the other side
with their guilt-filled
jaws of "I told you so," and their eternal excuses
for the wretched exotics
of the world whose suffering they experience in
their marble-topped kitchens
between arguments about what wine to serve
with the wild rice! And
I wept for you again when soured professors who
missed the collapse of commie
fascism in 1989 descended on you like rabid
wolverines led by Noam Chomsky
whose teethmarks are all over the zero
ground of American academia!
9/11, you saved the paranoids
from self-cannibalism!
9/11, you were a boon to
advertisers and publicists and
flag-manufacturers, and
they sold you with cars and pizzas and they
drained you of your raw
primal power even as they pretended to grieve for
you! Zero down payment until
Doomsday!
9/11, you were a godsend
to poetasters who were out of the gate lamenting
and whining before your
towers even gave out!
9/11, your dead and
your heroes are covered by thick layers of ash &
greed & the Republic
owes you an apology.
9/11, I close my eyes
and recall you in all your gory glory & I still
hate those who did this
to us and to our greatest city.
9/11, I can barely
remember you & I'm sorry.
Andrei Codrescu is a New
Orleans-based poet who still remembers Allen
Ginsberg