John Barlowe & Surface of Eceyon - John Barlowe's Reading of "Myths From the Surface of Eceyon," Accompanied by Syrfyyc Yf Ycyon's "Dragyyn" CDR
(Spirit of Orr)

Actually, this should probably be viewed more as a John Barlowe/Franz Prichard project than a real Surface of Eceyon release, since the only thing that actually differentiates it from the "official" Dragyyn release is the overdubbed recording of the 72 year old midwestern poet and story-teller reading one of the Yume Bitsu member's weird-ass myths of Dryystn—Dryystn being, of course, the particular multiverse that contains the plane known as Eceyon, from which the musicians here assert that they've come.

I've actually been lucky enough to meet John Barlowe's youngest daughter Jezzie once or twice as I've traveled through Indiana (I'm sure many fakejazz readers either know or at least know of her, as she's quite friendly and popular with all the rockers), but was surprised to find that she actually had almost nothing to do with arranging this collaboration, or introducing her famous father to the band. Apparently last Christmas she had stayed in her father's den for the holidays, and when she left she forgot her Dragyyn album (including the cover with the printed version of the myth). One of the Christmas gifts her father had gotten that year was a karaoke machine, which he was really excited about playing with. She told me that her father had first heard the CD more or less by accident, but had enjoyed listening to it while reading the myth of Seffryn, so he just decided to use his new karaoke machine to do what he thought was obvious, recording himself reading the story over the music. Then for some reason he put the tape in a jiffy pack and sent it to the band, who naturally arranged to have it released.

The CD itself is surprisingly enjoyable to listen to. True, if you pay too much attention to what's going on you can accidentally start laughing a little bit, but if instead you just tune out the strangeness of the concept and the silliness of the myth itself, and only let yourself hear the tone and cadence of Barlowe's voice as an additional musical instrument, it gets pretty deep. Barlowe's own poetry (from what little I've read) is very down to earth, homey and simple—vastly different in style and content from Prichard's story, but surprisingly his voice and delivery seem to suit this task as well as anything I can imagine. It's soothing but also authoritative in a way that makes you want to believe the myth, respect it, and take it much more seriously than your better judgment might tell you to. I don't think anybody but a real genuine grandpa could sound like this.

Jezzie told me that her father hasn't done much creative work for about fifteen years, but that since getting his new karaoke machine he's been spending a few hours a week recording much of his poetry over selections of music. I don't know if any of that stuff could possibly be as interesting or strange as this new version of Dragyyn, but in a way I hope maybe I'll get to hear it sometime. Jezzie's really cute and funny about her dad and how he's getting older, and she was nice enough to email me a brand new poem he just wrote last month. It was over 500 lines about how Pizza Hut's new fancy crust pizzas don't taste very good. I sure hope he records it!

ned clayton 2004 jul 30