Demons dreaming,
Breathe in, breathe in…
I’m coming back again…
Voodoo, voodoo, voodoo, voodoo.
—Sully Erna, Godsmack, “Voodoo”
They call Jim Morrison “An American Poet.” Dylan’s lyrics are studied at universities. But they forget Sully Erna, singer of Godsmack, a band from Haverhill, MA. Godsmack wrote and recorded the greatest music in world history after Mozart, Kenny G, and Robert Johnson respectively.
(Blake, Auden, Pound, Erna)
So the other day I was sitting around, holding a seance and listening to Godsmack’s s/t debut, thinking about the time I saw them at a bowling alley in Haverhill, MA, back in 1998. Life doesn’t get much better than ‘Smack playing an Alice in Chains cover for an encore.
(Academy Lanes in Haverhill: Home of glow bowling!!!)
Anyway, back to the seance. I’m dripping wax on my pet lizard Goober (pronounced goo-bah) when “Voodoo” comes on. Soon I enter a trance and drift to my bookshelf, unconsciously yanking down Robert Stone’s voodoo novel “Bay of Souls.” I read the whole book while ‘Smack’s s/t LP plays on repeat.
Twelve hours later I awake from my trance covered in Cheetos dust and slobber. All I can think about is voodoo. Where is this leading? Oh, just to a first-hand account of an all night voodoo affair in the Haitian jungle…
It all started in Las Cayes, on the bottom left of the above map…
August, 2004. Haiti.
I’m in the Haitian capital, Port au Prince, to see Brazil’s national team play Haiti in a “friendly” soccer game. With me are Jeff and Rusty, two fellow Ronahldonio fans. Somehow we wind up drinking rum at a concert in our neo-Gothic hotel with a guy who got kicked out of the Peace Corps. He’s a portly pony tailed guy looking for hookers. He has a red pick up truck.
The next day the Peace Corps’ dropout drives us across Haiti to a small fishing village on the outskirts of Las Cayes. The beach is endless tan sand walled by billows of green palms; dazzling undeveloped Caribbean splendor. Late afternoon hunger leads us to the town’s sole eatery: thatched roof, no walls, a table, all on sand. Jeff disappears with a Haitian rasta, doubled up on a moped. I buy a straw hat and mesh tank top off the head and back of another guy. Dinner is two lobsters each for $5. Before this meal, Jeff was for 10 years vegetarian.
After dinner, the Peace Corps guy asks, “You guys want to go to a voodoo rager?”
“Sure. Where?”
“10 minutes into the jungle,” he lies.
45 minutes of back jolts up a deserted jungle mountain road later, we park. After walking another 20 minutes we hear drums. Boom-boom-boom. Steady pulsing rhythm. There is nothing visible, no light, only sound. Creepy. Finally we spot a fire, some light, a crowd’s dark blur. Approaching, we stop at a banana booze stand and stock up on the local moonshine.
Inside a large wood hut, a few hundred people are packed around five drummers. A bonfire burns outside the hut—bodies are reduced to black shadows by the flames central glow. We’re in a wooded jungle on a slanted mountain roll. The jungle floor is mud and leaves and exposed roots. Many are chanting but the drums dominate the audio.
Hundreds of people are tens of miles from their homes, dancing, sweating, drinking, chanting in the jungle—great concept! I love voodoo.
Banana booze goes down hard and offers a twisted drunk. It’s more poison than alcohol. But it works, especially mixed with rum shots. The combo forces me to dance in the sweaty hut, lit by dangling bulbs, among sweaty women who’s eyes drift brain-ward. Men wearing nothing but ripped jean shorts push and hug me. This goes on all night, sometimes for days one, the Peace Corps’ reject tells me.
“I’m not the one who’s so far away…”
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March 20th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Crab legs served in Dixie cups too, great scene.
March 20th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
You spelled “Beethoven” wrong. And some of these readers may not know how sarcastic you are being about Godsmack, they are such a bummer. (I thought they were from Nashua, NH like Aerosmith), but anyway after their guitar player quit to go play bass in a blues band in Germany he lived with his grandmother and he sold me his hot-rodded out Rectifer (guitar amp). That is the best guitar sound I ever got on a recording (TYF’s “THE ONLY WAY”)
March 20th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Beethoven sucks!!!! And I love Godsmack. STOP TALKING SHIT BITCH!!! Don’t make me curse your soul.
March 21st, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Lawrence, MA gave Sully the key to the city. Well deserved in my opinion.
March 22nd, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Yea Lawrence. For more information see my post about Lawrence, you’ll then understand why Sully deserved it.
http://medicineagency.com/blog/archives/564