Artist description Engorged With Blood: Rock Band Or Mystery Cult? Latest research suggests a connection between Engorged With Blood and the cult of the Green Goddess, a pre-Christian mystery religion associated with early agricultural societies of the near Middle-East. Beginning with Seed of Love, we find the singer announcing, "I am a tiller of the soil" in the second verse while in the first verse he seems to speak as the Goddess herself ("I am Life, etc..." ). This shifting of identity from Deity to priest to novice or supplicant is common in goddess liturgy. In songs such as Yonder Shore, we see obvious references to mystery cult liturgy,as well as apparent descriptions of the rites themselves. The supplicant "gave up everything" and must "lie face down" in an act of total surrender which would culminate typically in a deep inner chamber in a natural cavern or cave-like structure where the initiate would be shown a bell-shaped vessel which would be struck, the sound thereby created inducing trance states of unsurpassed depth and duration in which the Goddess would appear and impart the Secret of Eternal Life. Many if not all Engorged With Blood songs contain these types of references. Goodbye suggests the initiate’s denial of his/her former life and engaging in intimate acts by proxy with the Goddess culminating in the opening of "Your treasure chest," or Flower, an obvious reference to the Goddess as vulva, the great threshold between being and non-being. Frank discussion of the sex act is another common aspect of mystery cults and there is ample evidence of this in Engorged With Blood, beginning with the name itself. Tumescence itself seems to become a state of Goddess worship, and a lyric such as "Can you feel my pulse inside you?" becomes a complex Mobius strip of meaning: is the singer addressing a sex partner or is the Goddess- the giver of the pulse of life-addressing the singer? Stop the Clock takes the sex act as Goddess worship theme a step further. Here we find intimations of mutual simultaneous orgasm used for the purpose of "stopping the clock" or transcending the cycle of birth and death completely and "coming apart together" or annihilating corporeality in an act suggestive of tantric yoga. References to the journey of the mythic hero can also be found in Engorged With Blood. At first listening, the beginning of Penetrating Love Ray: In the middle of the night You will suddenly awaken Drenched in sweat With only one thing On your mind sounds like typical rock and roll sex play, but when that veil is removed we see the hero at his/her point of abject naked surrender- the dark night of the soul- receiving the boon of enlightenment in the form of a "penetrating love ray." In fact, when read correctly this song becomes a call to the quest which must be heeded ("you can’t tune me out") ending with the command, "Go stand in the moonlight-let it come inside you." To stand in the moonlight is to find the Goddess and become one with her. How does an individual in the late 20th century incorporate millenia-old esoteric traditions into daily life? This is the problem addressed in Lady Poonanay. Here we have a love song in which apparently real details of a real life are described and yet the object of the singer’s affection is given the title "Lady" and the name Poonanay, a variation on a vernacular vulva reference. And so we end where we began, with the Green Goddess, now incarnate in a mortal woman , our "soul sister."

Music Style Alternative

Musical Influences You name it, it's in there

Group Members John Hanes: Vocals, guitarSteve Kirk: Guitar, vocalsMike Simms: DrumsHilary Hanes: Bass, vocalsKen Weller: Bass, vocals

Instruments guitar, bass, drums

Albums "Engorged With Blood"

Location Berkeley, CA - USA

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