durantula.com

Oh, crap, Sat nite and I forgot about the blog! The blog, the blog, it’s always the goddam blog, alright, alright, let’s see what deep thoughts I can expouse today. (expouse made it thru spell check so must be ok)…

The blog, oh yeah, yeah, yeah I still have to get some new pics and music for all of youse but here is the deep thought, didn’t think I could do it huh?

The TRUTH is indisputable. It doesn’t matter what you or I think it is. How easily our minds are tricked and how easily we can even fool ourselves into thinking we know what the TRUTH is. Humans may not want to admit it but our minds are not capable of understanding so we come up with something, anything to explain it.

I’ll lighten up next week, yeah, right

A brand new year, great! A new start. Last year wasn’t so great. Polititians, leaders and big business continue falling into what I call “Human Nature Pitfalls”. Greed and the lust for power.  These “Public Servants” only seem interested in serving themselves. Who ever heard of servants determining their own pay like ours?

So why don’t we get it together as humans to end these disgusting traits? We have free will to do whatever we want, that is what seperates us from the animals, right? We got these big brains and all. Turns out our “free will” is restricted and dictated by our nature. Our genetics along with all the chemicals and hormones dictate how we feel and what we think to a large degree. Just try to go against your nature and see what happens!

So happy new year, we have no choice but to deal with these things the best we can…

I’m in Florida escaping the current Snowmagedden, geez! Remember, global warming is causing global climate change, so weather will be more extreme, hot, cold, floods and drought.

Anyway, as soon as I get the new tech gear working I will be posting more pics and music stuff as promised.

I’m taking the week off so tune in to the next Saturday evening post.

See you next year, don’t be late!

durantula BLOG #4

This is a very special must read durantula, holiday edition.

The holidays never fail to remind me of that one year at this time….

My band, “The Petty Swami’s” had just finished our set for the big ShoegazeFest at Lake Titicaca when the crowd broke out brutally fighting each other, seems that one half were Christians and the other half weren’t and it was a common occurrence at sports or music events there. Since our band had just played, they arrested us and hauled us before their “judge” and he asked us what defense we had for starting the riot!?! Why is it that I always feel like I’m on trial all the time? All our 6 foot 9 inch 450 pound road manager, (“Jolly, also known as ‘Buck’ or ‘Roy’ Rodgers”) could do at the time was to yell and act like a crazy wrestler,  body slamming 6 or 8 of the Peruvian flakes, before we could get out of there. Sheeesh!

But I digress, this is the time o’ year we thank others who have helped us thru, so here are a few of the friends I owe thanks to for 2013:

Jerome Hughes, my web guru.

Rick Addy (aka Iggy Yoakum), owner of “Shake Rattle and Read” store on Broadway.

Tom Klein, Bill Kroll and all “the Country Doctors”.

Chris, Paul and Cocks.

All the bands and staff at the Metro for the “Cold Waves Fest”

James Galli at Doc Audio’s speaker clinic.

David Sudzus for legal help.

Dave Peterson the steel guitar guru.

Ilker Yucel, editor ReGen Magazine.

Cousin Wayne, Ranching Guru.

Bob DePugh, Royalty Guru

And all my other friends and relatives I don’t see often enough…

So MERRY KRIMBLE and Happy New Year!!

I know in the last blog post I said there would be music and pictures this week, I lied. But fear not, all this and more to come in the New Year.

Join me next time for the weekly Saturday Nite durantula Blog 2013 Wrap!

You can always email me at: durantula@durantula.com

All material copyright Mark Durante.  durantula is a registered trademark, all rights reserved.

I’m keepin it short this week because my dog is not well and she is way more important than this blog shit.

It has been mentioned that I need to introduce myself or as I would say Who Is Me?

Durantula is Mark Durante. My first gig as a guitarist was at an outdoor fest in 1966. I was the rhythm guitarist. We played cover songs of the day. Soon I was playing in power trios like my new hero Jimi Hendrix, (who I saw live three times in Chicago). I moved to San Francisco in 1969 and joined the Johnny Mars Blues Band, we even played the Fillmore West in 1970 before it closed in 1971.

More bands until Public Enemy formed in 1978, was my first rock band that had real potential, great songwriting by the band, all great players/singers, alas it was not to be. The Next Big Thing was next in the ‘80s, then the Slammin’ Watusis, who signed with Epic Records and released two albums. I got involved with Ministry when they were on the “Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste” tour in 1990 and Al needed a guitar tech bad as the tour was mayhem and with three other guitarists besides Al…

Al then asked me to also help out with the guitar tech thing on the Revolting Cocks US tour. (Got a lot of stories from that one).He had me play a little guitar on that one so I appreciated that. We then went on the Revco European tour where I was mainly playing guitar while still helping Al out with his guitars. Great time was had by all.

After that tour Al, Michael Balsh and Mark Panick and I went on a “fear and loathing” trip to New Orleans to visit and stay with Trent Reznor for Mardi Gras.

One thing led to another and I started recording some with KMFDM and was asked to join the band. The four of us wrote and recorded “Angst” for Waxtrax! Records.  I toured and recorded for two more CDs, Nihil and Xtort.

When Sascha wanted to return to a more techno direction with less guitar work I decided to leave to pursue a career in guitar building and designing. I’ve worked with the Hamer Guitar company, Parker Guitars, Washburn and Oscar Schmidt. Also have done some consulting work for Dan Kelly of Reso-glas Guitars recently, check them out. I also make my own durantula guitars , winding my own pat.pend. “Dual Quad” pickups.

I told myself back in the day that some day when I was a little older I would teach myself Steel Guitar like my favorites Buddy Emmons and Jimmy Day. So in the mid ‘90s I did. I first joined Iggy Yoakam and the Famous Pogo ponies and then joined the Waco Brothers, we went on to record 8 albums for Bloodshot Records. Since retiring from the Wacos, I have been writing, recording and producing music and artwork and this website.

Thanks for listening, next week some more photos, so tune in again same time same station…

durantula is a registered trademark, all rights reserved

Blog #2

This week’s blog is some serious shit. The passing of Nelson Mandela makes us reflect on how far we humans have (or have not) come in terms of basic human rights. Slavery in the USA was a black mark for a country supposedly founded on freedom and liberty. What kind of person wants to have slaves? Our founding fathers had slaves. I guess the thought back then was that the black people they brought over here were savages, so it wasn’t a big deal to treat them that way. They’re just animals. Humans are a pretty egotistical bunch always thinking we are so much “better” than everything else. Real smart.

It’s taken a long time to come as far as we have but I am constantly reminded that slavery is still common practice in many countries around the world today. Every once in a while you will see a story about this on the news channels but you will see this covered much less than news such as what the Kardashians are wearing to a party. The solutions are not easy to these things that have been a part of human nature since the beginning. Do you get ahead in this world by being nice or by being ruthless? Also what does “get ahead” mean? Money, power, or things like caring for each other and the beautiful good things in life?

So what to do, well we have a war on Drugs, Terror and just about every other thing why not a war on Slavery? For one, it’s not happening near us so who cares? What now, do we send our military over there to topple regimes that allow this kind of thing? We got problems here we need to work on, we can’t police the entire world. The topic needs to be brought to light much more than it has, shine a light on these people and their disgusting ways. We’ve had enough war in our lifetime, there’s got to be a better way…

As far as the prospect of wars go, the various religions compel the followers to start Holy Wars because their God told them to, for good or bad reasons or just because there is not enough space for a growing population, people need their space or we get irritable and lash out. Our dogs will bark when someone invades our home space. With the world population doubling in my lifetime and with people multiplying and encroaching on everyone else’s territory more and more, what can you expect for the future? Humans have always been tribal and still are very much so. Witness rivalry’s between sports teams that often cause fights in the stands. Ain’t we humans great?

Next week we will turn back to more pleasant things, more about music, guitars, art and the like so check back again!

durantula BLOG ON!

People used to keep a diary, now we keep blogs. The difference is that the diaries were secret but blogs are for the ENTIRE WORLD. Whoa yeah. It’s amazing to think that just 150 years ago there was no recorded music, no working automobiles, no airplanes, no electricity, no cameras, radio and TV, no phones, all these things we take for granted now have been invented so recently. Soon the “smart”phone, TV, computer and all will be together miniaturized into a chip that will be able to be implanted into a human at birth that will record each person’s life from start to finish onto a file like the Social Security number we all have already.

The implant will have a name such as “MY MYND”. Everyone will want it just like they want the latest iphone now, but there will be a down side…Oh jeez!

Surrealistic Audio/Visual for Non-Conformists

The “Audio” part of our lives is taken for granted by many…

I learned a long time ago that the music I was interested in wasn’t necessarily the most popular. Thus durantula audio/visual is NOT for the masses. I don’t want the Miley fans anyway. It is for the individual. W.M. Burroughs said “The most important thing a person can do is to become an individual again, de-control himself”.

When in my teens, my hormones pretty much forced me to be aggressive and one outlet for that was music, of course. I started playing guitar in 1966 and when I saw the Who at the Cellar teen club in 1967, it was a game changer. Then seeing Jimi Hendrix, the Doors, Cream, Blue Cheer, Paul Butterfield’s Blues Band, Buffalo Springfield and most of the other “underground bands” of the time was the inspiration that has kept me going to this day. Music has been a medicine for the soul and helped me thru many hard times and I don’t know what it would be like not to have it. I think most people probably feel this way too.

I’ve sometimes felt guilty at my job, (musician), or made to feel guilty, because I will sit and stare for long periods of time thinking music. If you can “hear a song in your head”, that’s what it’s like. The music is all around. If you can listen, you can hear it. Then, if you can re-create it with musical instruments, others can also hear it. It’s non-verbal communication that can say things words can’t.

Visual

A picture is worth a thousand words. I have been an artist since I was a kid, I still have some of it, not bad.  Inspired by the underground comics artists such as R. Griffin and of course Dali and Van Gogh among others, the advent of the modern computer has made it possible for me to fully visualize my dreams. Look for updates on my art page soon.

So begins the weekly durantula Blog. I’m open to discussion but will not suffer fools.

All kinds of topics to come:

Durantula Music and Art updates. The Guitars of durantula.

Check the Store page for news on upcoming products!