Review: The Satyr’s Rod (Mesolithic Dionysus)

Album: The Satyr’s Rod

Band: Mesolithic Dionysus

Publisher: Silenus Records

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Let me tell ya, there ain’t nothing wrong with a dumb rock’n’roll band. They ain’t all got to be dumb, but damn, sometimes there’s nothing quite so glorious as a band that’s simply there to rock your socks off. And that’s definitely the case with Mesolithic Dionysus, a band that’s all about sex, wine, and ecstatic dancing.

I only just discovered them recently, though they’ve been around for years. I’d been investigating the dirty dealings of Lord Urizen’s underlings in the Land of Plenty, and man was I depressed. I needed something to lift my spirit, put some energy back into my hooves, when my friend George (who used to be Janis Joplin’s dog and is now a sort of huge fire-breathing donkey-spider) recommended I try listening to The Satyr’s Rod. He was really surprised when I told him I hadn’t heard of it and immediately sent me an LP. Personally I prefer high-quality digital files, but George insists LPs just have that special sound.

Anyway, I get the album, and the cover is, well, a satyr’s rod. On the back there’s a picture of the band: a naked maenad on bass guitar, a hairy goat on drums, a long-haired caveman screaming into a microphone. Is this gonna cheer me up? Is this going to make me feel like the world isn’t going to hell in a handbasket?

The song titles almost look scratched rather than written:

  1. The Satyr’s Rod
  2. I Love Figs
  3. Drunk Love Song
  4. Hold the Thyrsus
  5. Satyr on Satyr
  6. Nymph on Nymph
  7. Everybody on Everybody
  8. Party Time, Eleutherios!

I put in the LP. The moment the guitar kicks in, I’m in love. This is rock’n’roll, pure, glorious, stupid, absolutely damn real. This is demotic poetry, revelation discovered in passion instead of piety. It’s music for moving bodies, for grinding thighs, for lips and hands and sweat and moans all calling out to the Sublime, screaming we are here! and we will not go away!

Sure enough, George was right. The album didn’t teach me how to overcome the odds or change the system, but who cares? Who says that’s the point of music, anyway? Who says it’s gotta have any point? But it made me happy. It made me get out of the newsroom and hook up with a nice mare who felt like dancing, and the night was full of glory, and I remembered why the hell I was a reporter in the first place: to help create a world that’s got more space for satyrs and maenads and goats and a whole lot less space for bankers.

Now I gotta get back to work, those scandals won’t investigate themselves. Take care and see ya soon.

– Jimmy Caballus

 

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