"Babylon Working"

How occult ritual, VU bootlegs, and studio accidents helped my favorite song I've ever made come into creation

Hello to my dear buds on here. Today (October 4th) is once again ‘Bandcamp Friday’ and today I thought I’d share the backstory of my favorite song on my new album GOD LOVES A SCAMMER (which, if you buy today, all of the proceeds go to me. If you buy it another day that’s also good). “Babylon Working” is not only my fav song on GLAS but it might be my favorite thing I've ever recorded. Big deal, ok. Here we go:

BABYLON WORKING

A few years ago, I found out about Jack Parsons, one of the most fascinating characters from 20th century America. One of the forefathers of modern American rocketry as well as a devout follower of Thelema (an occult/esoteric movement founded in the early 1900s by notorious con-man weirdo Aleister Crowley), Parson’s life feels as much like folklore as it does history. I became entranced with his strange story, especially after discovering that L Ron Hubbard, another notorious con-man weirdo, entered Parson’s life, assisted him in a bunch of Crowleyan sex magick rituals, then absconded to Florida with Parson’s girlfriend and $10,000 of his money (equal to about $130k today). Parsons then died in a bizarre chemical explosion that has never been definitively ruled murder, accident, or suicide. 

When working on the songs for God Loves A Scammer, this story kept coming up for me. The story of L Ron Hubbard playing along with a true believer’s countless black magick sex rituals, all the while planning a massive emotional and financial heist, feels distinctly American to me. Nothing is more American than a confidence man, and L Ron Hubbard was one of the most effective con-artists our country has ever seen. I knew the story had to fit somewhere in the world of the LP, and one day when writing, “Babylon Working” popped up, almost fully formed. 

I also knew that there would need to be a space in GLAS for muddy, expansive, instrumental section. On the demo I had about a minute and a half of groovy drum machine and guitar noises and I figured that it would be about that length when we got to the studio. The day of cutting “Babylon Working” when we were working at Kawari Sound, I threw on my favorite primordial tunes: The VU bootleg “Sweet Sister Ray”, Yuzo Iwata’s Daylight Moon, and the most disorienting versions of “Dark Star” I could find. Basically I did this until my dear friends and band members asked me when we were going to record, and when we finally got into it, the 45-90 seconds of planned noise time extended into 4 and a half minutes. We played “Babylon” two or three times, found the take we liked, and went to dinner. Job done, everyone excited. Then the computer crashed.

There is no pain like the feeling of creating something special and then realizing it is lost. When we got to the studio the next day, we realized that not only was “Babylon Working” gone, but also the original takes of “Satellite Telephone” and “Headway.” The latter two songs wouldn’t be hard to recreate, but “Babylon” was a special moment that would be next to impossible to recreate. In a stroke of extreme luck or astral foresight, Kawari’s engineer Zach had bounced a rough version of “Babylon Working” the day before. Though some readers may see this as a disappointment or a nightmarish occurence, this is a near-dream scenario for me. I’ve always found the back half of making a record (mixing, mastering, promotion) to be the painful part, nowhere near as fun as the raw act of creation. Because of the powers of chance and chaos, I got my wish to release the rough and original version of the song. We couldn’t mix the song, we just had to appreciate what was there. Done. Send to the presses, Spotify, etc. 

I was also very lucky to have Alex Swartzentruber, one of my favorite poets and podcasters, agree to let me sample a poem of his during the back half of “Babylon Working”. While writing/working on God Loves A Scammer, I had a line from this poem stuck in my head: “Did you know that a caterpillar melts and turns into soup in there?” Parsons may not have succeeded in creating his humunculus moonchild in the desert with L. Ron Hubbard, but the cycle of creation, death and transformation continues, and I am grateful to make art with my friends and people I admire.

Thanks so much for reading. I hope to post to my substack more or less weekly as the days get shorter. Talk to you soon and buy God Loves A Scammer here if you wanna. <3