After The Rain My Heart Still Dreams is a 16-track concept album from Los Angeles based experiential band Captain Ahab. You can click that link and buy it for $5. The following quotes are from the 2 members who comprise Captain Ahab, copied from the liner notes of the now out-of-print CD version of that album. In these two paragraphs the group delivers the message of their music and scratches the surface of the transformative experience of their live show. Only if you’re willing to drink the Kool-Aid…
“After the rain my heart still dreams is a conceptual exploration of the rejection of identity. Many of the most common notions and motivations found in narrative can be traced to this very fundamental human desire. We attempt to reject our identities as sinner, and yearn to return to a time of purity and ultimately, ignorance. For are not ignorance and innocence essentially one and the same Here then, is my atonement, my release, my attempt to clear myself. I am attempting to return not only to a time before ‘the fall’ but before any knowledge or identity at all. The desire is one to be completely unformed; completely malleable. Of course as my newly adopted identity grows and changes throughout these songs, the listener will discover that the attempt to avoid the tree of knowledge is utterly futile. Sin, temptation, puberty, change, growth, identity, life finds us all and forces us into roles, whether we will or no. There is no control, no fantasy, no purity. I may wash away my engrams however I please, but after the rain, my heart still dreams.”
– Jonathan Snipes
“Human history is filled with communal sets of frenetic or sexual congress. The worship of Dionysus was at first met with considerable resistance. Sacrificial victims, sometimes humans, were devoured in sexual orgy, yet the worship of Dionysus became accepted in Greek culture. Captain Ahab denies the tradition and bohemian simplicity of a human acting upon an instrument to create entertainment. A brutal physical sacrifice is demanded of both audience and performer in the Captain Ahab live experience as it is in Dionysian worship. There is no equation for what Captain Ahab does; there are only coincidences, incidental similarities between shows. After all is burnt away by the kinetics of our live show, this album remains. The gamut of experiences run in the live performance can only exist in the live performance. This album is a testament to the magic from the live show. The truest and holiest power is found in our communal experience of Captain Ahab.”
-Jim Merson
“How has it happened that the social sciences view the human strengths and virtues – altruism, courage, honesty, duty, joy, health, responsibility, and good cheer – as derivative, defensive, or downright illusions, while weakness and negative emotions – anxiety, lust, selfishness, paranoia, anger, disorder, and sadness – are viewed as authentic?”
-Dr. Martin Seligman
Fiction with Sincerity 