Altered Zones

A couple of weeks ago, we reported that Mike Collins' label Culture Dealer is accepting song-poem submissions for a new, limited cassette series.  We couldn't resist, so we submitted our own that will soon find a home on a split cassingle with another, hopefully bizarre, submission.  To channel the golden oddities of song-poems past, we arranged verbiage from some of the original Altered Zones contributors' posts to form the abstract poem that The Doobie Sisters Family Band-- a rotating cast of studio musicians assembled by Collins-- translated into an acid-washed shapeshifter that's worthy of both hip-twisting and cloud-gazing.

In the process of sending and receiving lyrics and artwork, I was able to ask Collins a couple of questions regarding the impetus of undertaking a project such as this. Besides citing Off The Charts: The Song Poem Story, he said, "I hate the idea of how many writers, musicians, artists, poets, filmmakers, etc. remain inactive because of self-consciousness, personal strife or lack of inspiration. That's just the whole idea for me. Before I really found my voice creatively, I was lucky to have a number of truly supportive close friends and collaborators, and my path now is to simply express myself and fuel the fire of others who might need an invitation to do so." If Altered Zones were a band, I don't know if it would sound like this, but with Mike Collins at the helm, it does.  --Mark Craig, Altered Zones

MP3: Altered Zones: "Eternal Dosez"

We've provided the lyrics, and their source links for you after the jump.  If you have $15, Culture Dealer is still accepting submissions