Barbara: I know you’ve got a lot of vinyl, but how about CDs and mp3s?
The Mystic Guru: I don’t often have much CD or mp3 choice, although I do have some CDs. CDs and mp3s are all for the better, I suppose. More music can go further to more people that way!

Barbara: What instruments do you play?
The Mystic Guru: Me, I play the guitar and the bass guitar. I’ve been playing the guitar for about ten years and the bass guitar for about eight or seven. We started off in a band ages ago called “Sex With Dragons”. Yeah, years ago we did loads of improvised music which was drum and bass – very strange, warbly, effects-laden music. That band turned in to various other different bands; a band called “Nine Bar” and then we started a ska reggae band and we called it the “Firstites”. It was kind of a soundsystem collective that was about making dub music. My friend had a studio and we played bass and guitar and a drum kit. That band eventually turned in to “Lightning Strikes” which was a reggae band that I ran. Oh yeah, there was another band which developed called “Komma”. It was all about the Pythagoras scale of the musical harmony principle. That’s what the name meant anyway. That was kind of improvised music as well, but we ended up playing reggae rhythms because my friend on the drums and me on the bass liked loads of reggae. That was up until now when I joined Urban Dub, and I’ve recently joined a band called “Ambush”. I started playing bass guitar for them.

Barbara: That sounds quite scary.
The Mystic Guru: The world can be a quite scary place sometimes, don’t you think? We’re lucky round here that it’s not that scary, considering other places where it’s much worse. It could be much, much worse.

Barbara: Are a lot of people going to get killed in the Armagideon?
The Mystic Guru: Loads of people. Tonnes and tonnes of people. There will be mad stuff happening. We’ll have to wait for something to go wrong first before it will all really kick off and get out of control, like a war getting out of control or some natural disaster. I don’t know how it will start. You should read the book of “Revelations” in the Bible and that will give you an indication of the kind of things that a visionary called St. John saw would happen at the end of time. It had all these things about angels performing these tasks of holding back the winds from the corners of the earth so that all the slaves of God can be marked on their foreheads. There is all this kind of thing about a big congregation of people going to the promised land and going to the hills of Mount Zion. They chose an elected God, getting up and sing a new song and meanwhile the wicked get tortured by strange alien insect things while there’s a weeping and a wailing and a gnashing of teeth. And it’s just horrors, but you should read it in “Revelations” at the end of the Bible. It’s kind of like the beginning of the end. After it’s all done there’s a massive crystal space Mount Zion comes down – a crystal city or some kind of golden city comes down from outer space and everyone gets somewhere new and the beast is locked up for a thousand years before he re-emerges once again for another final battle. It’s all very scary, but it’s also all very hopeful because if you’re a good child of God you get looked after, but it doesn’t sound very pleasant; the souls marching to be judged.

Barbara: What other books have you read?
The Mystic Guru: I read the Bible all the way through from start to finish. What other books have I read? Oh yeah, the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” is my favourite book, because in all five books to the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, there’s just so much philosophy. Have you read the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”? I’ll get you a copy. It’s just amazing. At the moment I’m reading Philip K Dick, which is all about Science Fiction things. Giant insects mimic human beings. Harry Mulisch, “The Discovery of Heaven” is good. So are Chinua Achebe “Things Fall Apart” and Ben Okri “The Famished Road” (and anything else by Ben Okri). I’m reading the “Dhama” at the moment, as well, which is the Buddhist Cannon or like the Buddhist Bible book and John Fowles “The Magus”. I like “Catch-22” by Joseph Heller. I read the Koran which is like the Bible a bit, but there’s a lot more things about little sayings of assuredness of faith and the blessing of the almighty, all merciful, all powerful God who rules over us all. It’s made clear in various enlightening suras of thought-provoking sometimes historic, sometimes philosophical speak. It tells the story of Moses and his competition of saucery with the Pharaoh. The Pharoah gets all his soldiers and saucerers to throw down their staffs and they all turn in to snakes. Then Moses throws down his staff and it becomes a snake and eats all the other snakes.

Barbara: Would you say that you are a total nutter?
The Mystic Guru: No, I don’t think that I am THAT insane at all, but I’ll leave that for you to decide. You’ve just got to do the best you can for everybody, haven’t you, doing this guitar-playing business, making it regular and nice for the people. People go to shake my hand and stuff like that just through the music really. If they can get in to a space with the music like I do, then we’re all going somewhere good. I tell you what, though, I don’t think you need to interview me. I’m only a minor member of the band. I’ve told you all of my favourite music and my favourite books.

Barbara: Do you smoke "Northern Lights"?
The Mystic Guru: If I had some "Northern Lights", I would certainly smoke it, yeah. "Orange Bud" and "Purple Haze" – oh yeah, all the good brands and varieties. People don’t often sell it as that these days, so you have to go to Amsterdam or somewhere where you can really be a connoisseur about it. "AFRICAN BUSH HERB" and "NICE POLLEN"! But I don’t think you can really put all this on a website. I’m a vegetarian – a vegan, in fact. Although, it’s difficult to be a strict vegan, I’ve noticed. I’m not the strictest vegan in the world ever. I sometimes change to fit in for politeness sake when meals are prepared and you don’t have much say as to what goes in to them and stuff, but on the whole, I’m trying to avoid dairy products, because I don’t think it’s fair on the cows to produce all that milk. Being a vegetarian is nice for the environment and it’s nice for yourself. If everybody ate vegetables, there wouldn’t be any starvation in the world, because there would be so much GNP turned over to making sustainable food for people to eat.

Barbara: I can’t think of any more questions.
The Mystic Guru: Well, then, I would just like to say “Give thanks and praises to the most high JAH RASTAFARI!” The immense energy that comes through faith that we’re connected with is so unbelievably amazing! It’s such a blessing to have God in your life and to know God. I wish EVERYBODY would find God within themselves through prayer and meditation so that we can all become one great happy family amongst mankind, which is what I think people ought to be like. So GIVE PRAISE TO THE MOST HIGH! He who is the king and the provider will show you the right direction to nourish your soul…. Good Lord that he is. To all the other people as well: People make the world go round. Urban Dub are facilitating various different energies. It’s really nice to be involved in creativity. Urban Dub band together to make harmonious motion for everyone. It’s a really good thing.  
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