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Travis Wernet


about Travis Wernet

Life only started to make sense when I began to try on what it felt like to be an artist. Someplace deep inside I felt the elation , early on , of going into a situation and turning the atmosphere of a moment around for the enjoyment of myself and others . I used to do this by leaping up out of the bath-tub and running around the house naked as a kid. We called it streaking in the 1970s. It wasnt easy to show this side of myself as I grew older, like towards the end of High School. (But not as a Streaker!)

At age ~23 I was re-introduced to Didjeridu. Nothing could have affected me like Didjeridu did at that time. It grabbed me and wouldnt let go. So, I taught myself to play.

I would go out to the cliffs on the Pacific Coast whenever I could. More often than not , I went at night, and it was just so beautiful, the Ocean and the Moon shining at me from far away in Space, down upon these vast waters several feet below the place where I sat and practiced.

I was involved with some people, who were seeking to spread the magic of the early Rave culture by producing this on-going event called the Techno Cosmic Mass. I played with them and was contacted afterwards by Sondra Slade, a Middle-Eastern Percussionist , who had a group called Axis Mundi . This woman blew me away - she has this mysterious and very Persian mystique. I became Axis Mundis new Didj-player. Later we picked up Stuart Sovatsky, a beautiful man and Tantric Teacher, who was bringing ideas like meditation practice into public schools as far back as 1975. Lisa Moskow, a Sarod Player of some renown also joined us and helps kick up the rhythm section with occasional guest member Alyssa De Caro who does percussion and dances with Burning Man Festival favorites Gamelan X. Axis Mundi have been playing for at least 8 years together now.

We get some pretty far-out reactions, partly because Stuart does this heavy and incredible effected-chanting. This happened at a gig we played years ago at Club Cocomo in San Fran. I was getting a drink and overheard some Freudian Psychologists at the bar talking. They were sooo freaked-out by us. They had all these ideas about our being a bunch of penis-envysts or some such hilarity. That would have made a great publicity-campaign!

My CD Lanterns of Midnight springs from a recipe of fresh ingredients. I had this epiphany in ~2002 to weave Didjeridu and Spoken Word together. It is unique in its fusion of typically wordless musical elements and a crafting through words to suggest participation in a transcendent reality. This attracts me in part, after being deeply affected by the authentic , non-commercial side of Electronic Dance Music - the kind which has used technology to channel and re-create the ancient wisdom of World Percussion and Indigenous People. Early on, I liked Jim Morrison and his poetry on An American Prayer with the Doors. Peter Gabriels Passion really got me too. In the mid 90s there was the Orbs adventures beyond the ultraworld - ahhhhh!. Currently I receive a lot of inspiration from listening to Stephen Kent and Ganga Giri in terms of Didjeridu music.

What I do is quest into life, with eyes and heart searching for ways to behold the wonder-bound experience of walking through the trees and not knowing where the journey is going. Its going along and , suddenly , something quite extra-ordinary pops out of nowhere? Like stopping in the forest and seeing a spider in its web in faint light, noticing all its aliveness , before getting stuck in it and having the thing end up on you somewhere! Or maybe its walking at night and turning a corner, getting smacked in the face by the Moon coming up just above the horizon; it looks like its covered in honey and you can reach up and kiss it! I want to be in a place to share these kinds of moments with others, and feel that delicious tickling somewhere in my depths and see music as the vehicle. My desire and plesaure is to be out and playing and knowing people through the magic of creating, and see myself exploring music professionally , in this way, playing Live and making offerings of recorded imaginal scapes that take the listener someplace wonderful and unexpected. This year I enjoyed presenting a sundown set on the open desert at Burning Man, as well as playing on the same stage as Jai Uttal, Suzanne Sterling, and Shimshai at Harmony festival. Presently,I am also being invited to help co-create cutting-edge art salons with Joegh Bullough Michael Gosney of Cyberset, SF.


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