RockOm

By Tom Crenshaw, Tom@RockOm.net

Most formulas for success in the music industry don't include exiting the lime-light at the pinnacle of one's career, but Matt Malley (bassist and co-founder of the Counting Crows) did just this in 2004. Matt retired after 14 years with Counting Crows just as the band was celebrating an Academy Award nomination for their song "Accidentally In Love," which appeared in the motion picture Shrek 2 Soundtrack.

Matt now follows another path, one focused on the home-front and family. He's now a full time father and husband as well as a record producer, session bassist, ashram keeper and student of the Mohan Veena or Indian slide guitar. Matt is a student and friend of Grammy winner Vishwa Mohan Bhatt and when chance brings them together, is either learning from his music "guru" or recording Bhatt's guitar in his home studio at the family ashram.

Matt has also just released his first solo record titled The Goddess Within. As a longtime student of Sahaja Yoga meditation Matt has infused The Goddess Within with sacred sounds, rhythms and harmonies, but don't expect this collection to be a velvety venture into serene, mystical realms. Matt rocks out when he's blissed-off and proves higher states needn't be all sanctified-sounding. One can be on the edge, pushing the boundaries both cosmically and musically at the same time.

In this exclusive interview with RockOm Matt speaks about the reasons he left Counting Crows, Kundalini energy and Sahaja yoga, learning the Indian slide guitar, his debut album and his musical intentions for the future.

Tom: You're an Oscar, Grammy and Golden Globe-nominated songwriter and a co-founder as well as a 14-year member of Counting Crows. The question is, why does one leave a band as successful as the Counting Crows?

Matt: Good question. Actually it was fatherhood. But when my second boy was born in January of 2004 I just couldn't handle being a missing-in-action dad. My first one was born in 2000 and I missed the first three or four years of his life because we lived in hotel rooms out touring. That was really hard. So when the second child was born I lasted about another year and then I just had to get out and push the eject button. I haven't looked back. The money was good but money doesn't mean anything. We're still friends and the guys in the band are all like brothers, but I didn't need to be away from home anymore. It was grating on my soul and that's why I left.

Tom: How does something that you love so much turn into something you have to get away from?

Matt: When I first joined the band I wasn't married and wasn't a father yet so my life was better suited for touring and traveling like we did. I'm still a fan of ol' Adam; he's a great songwriter and that's why I stuck with him so long, but family came along and it outweighed my enthusiasm for being the bass player in Counting Crows. I didn't want to be the dad that comes home once every four or five months and visits for a couple of weeks and the kids don't know me that well. Even though the band was still fun, my life on the outside changed.

Tom: How did you get started into music?

Matt: When I was about seven years old a guy came to our grammar school and tested everyone in the class to see who had musical talent. He singled me out and told my parents that I needed to start taking piano lessons. I took classical piano when I was seven or eight and also went through trumpet and violin in the school bands through grammar school. That was my first exposure to music. Honestly, I didn't really like classical piano because it was kind of like typing. I had to memorize these pieces and I didn't feel it in my heart, I just had to memorize things with my brain. I wish I had stuck with it because classical music is an incredible art form.

Tom: When kids discover music for the first time and have the opportunity to play an instrument, especially alongside other kids, they discover something about themselves that's brand new. What did you discover about yourself through music that you may not have otherwise?

Matt: It was my first taste of collective awareness or collective consciousness. You're with a group and you all are achieving something harmonious at the same time. That was new to me as a kid... as I imagine it would be to any kid. [Laughs]

Tom: Tell us about your debut album The Goddess Within. How did that come about?

Matt: The lady on the album cover founded a type of meditation that I've been doing for over 20 years. Her name is Sri Matajii. She was born in the center of India in 1923 and is still alive today but is elderly and quiet and has stopped giving public programs. She's was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in the late 90s, though she didn't get it. [She teaches] a technique and a knowledge of the spiritual machinery that we're all born with. It's a universal truth and not from one religion; in fact it ties a lot of the prophets' teachings together. It involves an awakening of what's called the Kundalini or what in the Orient is called the Chi and it resides at the sacrum bone at the base of the spine. Sacrum is Latin for sacred, so whoever named the bone knew that it contained something. The Kundalini is regarded as the feminine aspect of divinity and so the Goddess within is kind of like my term for the Kundalini, the Goddess. The masculine aspect of God or spirit is in our heart as a spark called the Atman in India. The Kundalini is like a gas that rises up and unites with the spark, carrying it up to the fontanelle bone area at the top of the head. Fontanelle is French for fountain, so whoever named that area named it auspiciously as well. This teaching just connects a lot of the world's religions. Even in Christianity, the saints at Pentecost had tongues of fire coming out of the top of their heads but Christians have just seen that as a mystery.

In learning about the Kundalini, I've approached it like a scientist... no blind faith. Smart people don't just believe something that they're told; they have to find out for themselves. When the Kundalini is awakened you feel it as a cool breeze on the palms of your hands and out the top of your head. You could say that the central nervous system becomes integrated with the spiritual nervous system or the parasympathetic, the seven chakras. The knowledge that [Sri Matajii] teaches is really in depth. She's spoken to the Jungian Society and she's a Nobel Peace Prize nominee... you could say I'm a disciple of hers.

Tom: Did you ever get a chance to meet her in person?

Matt: Yes, a few times, but it was very formal. You don't just talk casually with her. I let her do the talking. Back in the late 90s I got to sit with her a couple of times. She knew I was in a rock band so the way she saw that was that I was helping bring vibrations into the music industry. She had asked me about Kurt Cobain who had killed himself a couple of years before. I remember responding, "I think it was drugs that made him do that." And she said, "I think he was frustrated." She asked about a lot of things related to music with me; it was very interesting.

Tom: I suppose she felt you could reach a lot of people.

Matt: Yes and by reaching them it doesn't mean preaching about her yoga. It's just that the presence of being out there puts vibrations into where you are. Wherever you put your attention, the Kundalini will follow.

Tom: So for this CD, did you go into meditation or prepare in some other way?

Matt: I didn't do any exercises or anything like that. We live in an ashram; in fact, I own an ashram with three buildings and our friends who do our meditation live here. We kind of live in vibration so I don't meditate or anything right before playing music. We meditate every morning at day break. The record was just done during the day somewhat spontaneously and when I felt good I would go work on it.

Tom: What are the intentions for this album?

Matt: Rather than clobber people over the head with my one practice, I'm hoping to continue to introduce spirituality to the Western world. I'm interested in Indian culture, the Hindu deities, the great religions of the world including Christianity, Mohammad was a great teacher... I'm just hoping to continue what a lot of artists are doing by introducing a spiritual outlook - without being religious - to the Western world.

Tom: You've expressed interest in Qawwali as well. How did you get interested in that?

Matt: I discovered Qawwali in the 90s and fell in love with it. It's a very aggressive Indian vocal style of singing. When I would do pilgrimages to India and I'd be at my Sahaja Yoga get-togethers, they'd often have Qawwali artists or bhajans or lots of Indian classical music and the Qawwali artists always stuck out to me. They would be almost frightening and wearing their matching hats; I almost consider it the heavy metal of Indian classical music. [Laughs] When I learned about the translation of the words, I was blown way. Qawwali music originated in what was Persia about 700 years ago as Sufi devotional music and has a connection to Islam but it's beyond just that now. I'm just a big fan of that art form.

Tom: You're also studying Indian slide guitar. We interviewed Debashish Bhattacharya last year when he was in Savannah, GA with Derek Trucks, Bob Brozman and Jerry Douglas. It's a difficult art to learn. How long have you been studying this?

Matt: It's really not easy at all. [Laughs] After ten years of learning it, I'm still on the tip of the iceberg. I know that when children start playing in India they'll be doing what's called the alankar for two or three years which is just exercises up and down the major scale before they actually start learning anything. They spend all that time just getting their pitch right. Slide guitar is like that; it's hard to get the pitch just right unless you practice the alankar for a long time.

Tom: Are you going to continue to move forward with spiritual music or get back in with the Crows? What does the future hold for you?

Matt: I'm not all that interested in a rock band anymore. It's a very blunt art form. Not to diss it or anything; a lot of the great rock records are also spiritual records. "Stairway to Heaven" is a Goddess song. I don't know if it's age or what but I'm getting more subtle. I'm reinventing myself and I'd like to give Indian music concerts on my slide guitar some day; I don't know when. I'd like to spend the rest of my life doing that.

www.mattmalley.com

A RockOm Interview with Rev. Justin Epstein

Justin Epstein is a dynamic inspirational speaker who has given over one hundred and thirty presentations to thousands of people in Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall.  He has shared the stage with such notables as Dr. Maya Angelou, Les Brown, Iyanla Vanzant and Marianne Williamson.

Justin Epstein graduated Magna Cum Laude from James Madison University, where he received a BS degree and double-majored in Communications and Religion/Philosophy.  He is a graduate of Unity School for Religious Studies Ministerial Program in Missouri and was ordained a Unity Minister in 1993.  He also resided at Ananda Village for three and a half years, a prolific school of Eastern thought.

He has produced and hosted the cable television series "Practical Spirituality" that aired in New York City. Justin served as the associate to prolific author and speaker Eric Butterworth, whose book Discover the Power within You was listed in Oprah's first edition of O Magazine as the book that changed her perspective on God and started her on her spiritual journey.

Justin is a student of the best-selling authors Dr. Wayne Dyer, Eckhart Tolle and the personal development gurus Anthony Robbins and Brian Tracy. He is also a graduate of the American Comedy Institute and has performed stand up comedy in clubs throughout New York City including Caroline's on Broadway.  Justin is the president/CEO of Justin Epstein International, presenting seminars on Enlightened Golf: Merging Mind, Body and Spirit through the Game and also speaks to salespeople.  He is the senior minister of the Unity Church of Hilton Head Island, SC.

RockOm: How was music emphasized during your stint at Ananda Village?

Justin Epstein: After I was ordained from Unity I decided to go out to Ananda Village in Northern California and learn more about the understanding of the teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda, which was a wonderful balance of the teaching of yoga, based on The Bhagavad Gita. It's the science of realizing God and experiencing God, here and now. Yogananda talked about Jesus and quoted the Bible and that really appealed to me.

Part of the teaching at Ananda Village is chanting. Yogananda said that chanting is half the battle, because in chanting you're repeating positive, spiritual words over and over and that's focusing your thoughts and your heart's feelings. The whole point is to take all those feelings in the heart and channel them towards God. Ultimately, it goes beyond feeling uplifted and arousing emotion and sentiment - it helps you to get quiet and to meditate. You take the energy you're bringing inside [from the music or chanting] and you channel it from the heart to the point between the eyebrows - the spiritual eye - which helps you experience not only the subconscious feeling, but the super-conscious level of mind, that level of creativity where we experience that presence of God.

We're talking about music here today and Jesus said that death and life are in the power of the tongue. Every word that you speak has an impact in your life. When we sing, we're taking thoughts and we're crystallizing them into words, singing those words and they impact our heart and change our physiology. They can change our behavior and uplift us. If the words are negative then they can bring us down.

RO: What is it about music that connects us with God?

JE: Music helps to get your feelings and thoughts all channeled towards one focus, to have all your energy moving in the direction of super-consciousness or God. That’s the main thing it does for me. When we’re happy we use words like "up", "uplifted", and "on top of the world."  I believe when we're happy, our energy and focus flow upward. Music can help to take your energy, focus it and move it in an upward direction. You can use that energy to experience a deeper communion.

RO: What is your insights on the spiritual sounds "Om/Aum", "Amen", and "The Word"?

JE: In the teachings of Yogananda there's the transcendent presence of God who is beyond all form. That presence begins to vibrate itself as sound, as energy. It creates this word and creates you and me. It is the consciousness of God vibrating itself. The Om is that movement of sound energy and vibration that creates everything. It is the Amen in Judaism and Christianity, the Ameen of the Muslims, and the Omkar for the Zoroastrians. I believe The Word (from the Bible's Gospel of John) was the presence and activity that vibrates itself. That's the creative Word. It's creating everything. "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God."  You might call it the Holy Ghost or the Comforter. In chanting, ultimately, we want to be able to listen to the Om sound, to open up to that presence and that sound that is within us and to let it vibrate throughout our whole being.

RO: Or resonate with the larger Om.

JE: Exactly, listening to that vibration of Om brings us back into union with that one, transcendent presence. We're in tune with the music of the spheres.

RO: Are there other sacred texts or scriptures that have meant something to you as far as music is concerned?

JE: The Bible verse, "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord", certainly comes to mind. I don't believe the Lord needs our joyful noise, but I think we need it!

Be sure to catch the entire audio portion of our interview with Reverend Justin on Thursday's RockOm.net Podcast.

By Tom Crenshaw, tom@RockOm.net

In Eastern spirituality it is believed that the whole universe, in its fundamental form, is made up of vibrating, pulsating energy. “Om” is considered to be the humming sound of this cosmic energy with no beginning and no ending.  In his book, The Call of the Upanishads, Rohit Mehta writes about Om and Anahata Nada, or “the sound that is unstruck.”

“This word [Om] indicates the coexistence of the articulate and the inarticulate sounds - of the heard and unheard melodies - of the sound that is struck and the sound that is unstruck, the Anahata Nada. Sound may be described by its three-fold nature - the Audible sound, the Inaudible sound, and the Imperishable sound. The audible sound is the one which the human ear can hear. The inaudible sound is one which belongs to such octaves as either too high or too low for the human ear to respond to. But there is a third category of sound which is imperishable. Sound obviously consists of vibrations, and all vibrations have a beginning and an end. But if there could be a sound which is unstruck - the Anahata Nada - then surely there could be no end to it as there is no beginning to it. To talk of a vibration-less sound is indeed to indulge in a paradox. In the sacred word Om, there is such a paradox. It is both heard and unheard, struck as well as unstruck. It is both perishable and imperishable.”

The Upanishads can hold no unique claim that sound energy is fundamentally the creative force which was never originated and is never ending.  The same can be found in the Bible, in the Book of John 1:1 - “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

Have you ever heard the saying, “We are made of the same stuff as the stars”? It’s a beautiful quote that sets my mind to dreaming. If indeed as scientists believe we are made of the dust of stars, then one could ask, what is the dust of the stars made of? We all know the human body is comprised of billions of cells, but what makes up the structure of the tiniest, unseen sub-atomic particles holding the cells together? (After all, no one has ever actually seen an atom although the concept - introduced by the Greek philosopher Democritus - has been around since 400 BC.) How can we know the parts of what we can’t even see? Could sound potentially hold a clue as to our very nature? The yogis and saints seem to intuit so.

And how did these yogis and saints come to realize vibration as the foundation for the material world? Through scientific measurements and calibrated laboratory instruments? Of course not. They came to realize primal sound energy through stillness, internal reflection, meditation, prayer and surrendering to a universal presence - a universal vibration - that only seems to make itself known when, as songwriter Trevor Hall puts it, we "turn down the volume."

I guess the thrust of what I want to communicate here, and it's a theme I come back to often, is that when we take time to be still we can come to know our "calibration" is naturally in tune with the essence of God.  When we take time to "tune in" and resonate with the Om of the universe, we come to discover the hidden aspects of our nature (like overtones we can't hear but, nonetheless, exist). And if we practice enough, we may begin to discover, much like the yogis and saints before us, that at our very core we are the essence of Anahata Nada.

In this month's article, Essential Rhythm: An Interview with Tabla Master Zakir Hussain (Part 2), Mr. Hussain speaks to the natural rhythms and melodies inherent in the universe. Among those, Zakir mentions the frequencies created from the spinning of our planet:

"The earth, when it rotates, creates a tone and that tone is Bb. When I hit this [hits table], there's no note, but if it's played a million times fast, it becomes a tone - 'mmmm' - and that's Bb."

To bring that directly into the spiritual realm, many traditions believe that that sound of the universe vibrating, and therefore the sound of the earth, is in fact the syllable "OM" or "AUM":

"OM" or "AUM" has been called the "Sound of the Universe" as it is believed that the whole Universe, in its fundamental form, is made up of vibrating, pulsating energy. Om is considered as the humming sound of this cosmic energy... (Source)

It seems that NASA, too, agrees - at least in part. A Science@NASA article published in 2001 shares not about the sound of the spinning earth, but the planet's natural radio emissions:

If humans had radio antennas instead of ears, we would hear a remarkable symphony of strange noises coming from our own planet. Scientists call them "tweeks," "whistlers" and "sferics." They sound like background music from a flamboyant science fiction film, but this is not science fiction. Earth's natural radio emissions are real and, although we're mostly unaware of them, they are around us all the time.

"Everyone's terrestrial environment almost literally sings with radio waves at audio frequencies," says Dennis Gallagher, a space physicist at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). "Our ears can't detect radio waves directly, but we can convert them to sound waves with the aid of a very low frequency (VLF) radio receiver."

In fact, you can even click over to this page on spaceweather.com to listen to these amazing earth frequencies. Just be aware that "you can hear sferics, tweeks, whistlers and other VLF radio sounds at any time of the day, but the hours around dawn and dusk are generally best. Nighttime is also better than daytime. In Huntsville, AL, where our online receiver is located, dawn happens at about 1200 UT and dusk is ten hours later at 2200 UT."

So what is all of this to say?  You can certainly draw your own conclusions; these are simply interesting theories and facts that few people are aware of.  But it could also suggest that if the foundation of the universe and earth are vibrational (you could even say musical), then perhaps it is possible to be more or less in harmony with it.  Click below to leave your thoughts...

Discuss this article

Diane Mandle

Links:
Visit SoundEnergyHealing.com
Diane on MySpace

Diane Mandle is a musician, healer and therapist from California who uses ancient Tibetan singing bowls in her practice. Be sure to also check out this week's podcast where Diane shares with RockOm about her work, the sounds and harmonies created from these bowls and the power of music and vibration.

"Return to Om"

"The whole point of these instruments is to bring us back into our memory of wholeness. The bowls are the teachers of the Dharma and that's their main purpose - to help bring us back to our visceral memory of the interconnectedness of all things, represented by the mantra Om." (Diane Mandle)

Click to Play. NOTE: This is a slow, meditative track that takes time to roll in. It will be a few seconds for you to hear the first chimes.

John Coltrane - The Major Works of John Coltrane (Impulse, 1992)

This two CD set brings together some very intense and transitional music recorded by John Coltrane in 1965. This was a fascinating period in his career, as his longtime quartet with McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass and Elvin Jones on drums was in the process of dissolving, and his role as a mentor to the younger "New Thing" musicians led him to seek out new collaborators like Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders and Rashied Ali. On the recordings collected here, the quartet is joined by a rotating cast of additional musicians which allow for a larger palette to be used in the ambitious music Coltrane was working toward.

The two takes of Coltrane's monumental "Ascension" dominate this collection. As a big band free jazz performance it was unique in the jazz canon at the time, akin to Ornette Coleman's "Free Jazz" but separate in its ambition and execution. Spiritual concerns were paramount to the final period of Coltrane's career, and it is possible to see "Ascension" as his musical impressions of a man's journey to the afterlife. But much like William Blake's spiritual poetry, it is a harrowing journey. Both versions of the epic begin with a statement by the group followed by group and solo sections signaled by hand gestures from the leader. The soloists were allowed as much room as they needed and the overall effect was devastating. "Ascension" is either revered or vilified by critics, but I think this really misses the point. This is a transitory, experimental work and should be viewed as such. Allowing the music to wash over you with the ebbs and flows of the soloists and groups is one of the most intense experiences in jazz, and broke new ground for the likes of Peter Brotzmann and the ROVA Saxophone Quartet (who have recorded two of their own interpretations of "Ascension") to continue the exploration.

"Om" is one of the most daunting performances in Coltrane's music for listeners to comprehend. Beginning with an ominous sounding recitation and chanting, it gives way to some of the most cacophonous free jazz ever recorded. It's brutal stuff, but it was not meant to be deliberately ugly or confrontational. John Coltrane was interested in all aspects of spirituality, and the Om of the eastern culture was part of it. The chanting and screaming may come off as a little campy, but there's no reason to believe that it is anything less than sincere.

"Kulu Se Mama" and "Selflessness" round out the collection and deserve attention because they take in elements of African and Caribbean music. Vocals, chanting and a very interesting groove make for an arresting performance. This collection could more appropriately be called The Spiritual Works of John Coltrane, as Coltrane's spiritual quest informs all of the music found here. This is the sound of John Coltrane leaving Earth bound chordal jazz behind and lifting off to explore the cosmos of free jazz.

[by Tim Niland. Tim is a music fan who regularly writes jazz and blues reviews on his blog at http://jazzandblues.blogspot.com ]