The Wild Hunt (https://wildhunt.org/tag/pagan-music/page/3)
TWH – Now that the season has turned and we are nearing the end of the 2017, we look back, one last time, to review this historic year. What happened? What didn’t happen? What events shaped our thoughts and guided our actions? In our collective worlds, both big and small, what were the major discussions?
TWH — The end of August dealt a bit of a setback to Pagan music fans when festival organizer David Banach published a series of posts on the CalderaFest Facebook page revealing that the concert was going to be postponed. Fewer than expected ticket sales were the primary cause for the upheaval, as The Wild Hunt reported earlier this month. The reaction among folks who were planning to attend was mixed. One commenter on those public posts said, “I’d like to know about the developments about refunds… my group spent $1000 and we’d like our money back.
TWH – Welcome to the new Pagan music column for the Wild Hunt, I hope you’ll join me in the months to come through the musical underground of the great below, the stunning and oft-listened to heights of the great above and the balance that makes up our daily musical landscape in the great between. Our lives are immeasurably enriched by music, and with the growth of the internet and the bottoming out of technology costs for recording, we’ve never had access to more of it. Pagan music especially would seem to have benefited from the boon of technology. While it’s impossible to know everything that’s happening, one can still spot trends and pick out the talented and truly creative. You’ll never catch me claiming to be an expert on anything related to music, I’m coming at this as a passionate fan.
“It’s been a great journey, but all things have a life cycle. It is time for us to let you all know that Emerald Rose has decided to retire as a band after the end of this year.” – Arthur Hinds, July 16
ATLANTA, Ga. – On July 16 Arthur Hinds, singer and songwriter for the popular band Emerald Rose, announced via his personal Facebook page that it was time to split the party. The Wild Hunt talked with Hinds, who is also a well known ritualist and bard at Pagan gatherings, about the highlights of performing with Emerald Rose and what’s in store for him in the future. Over the years, Emerald Rose gained a devoted following in two areas that often overlap: Paganism and geek culture.
I think a little trip in the WABAC (Wayback) Machine is in order. In 1982, Chris De Burgh released an album called “The Getaway.” The most famous song, by far I would guess, was “Don’t Pay the Ferryman,” an art rock piece describing the voyage of a soul over –- presumably -– the River Styx and warned to keep his obulos from the ferryman until the voyage reaches the other side. On the flip side of the album (a literal location back then) was a short song called “Where Peaceful Waters Flow.” This song is full of Anglocentric imagery that effortlessly echoes Pagan themes. It could as readily be both a song to a beloved as it could be a song to the Goddess.