Rock journalist and author of Life on Planet Rock, Lonn Friend, came to Colorado a few weeks ago and we digitally recorded a little interview atop Flagstaff mountain outside of Boulder. It was a bit windy, so unfortunately in a few places it sounds like the end of the earth is near, but overall, we cover some basic points as to what a reader will walk away with from taking a look at I Found All the Parts. Got 11 minutes? Enjoy! Lonn Friend YouTube Interview with Laura Faeth
Here's a transcription of our conversation.
Lonn Friend interview on 9/15/08 with Laura Faeth about her upcoming book, I Found All the Parts: Healing the Soul through Rock ‘n’ Roll.
Lonn: So where are we Laura?
Laura: We’re on top of Flagstaff Mountain. [near Boulder, Colorado]
Lonn: Is this where you wrote your book I Found All the Parts?
Laura: Yes.
Lonn: Could you have written your book anywhere else?
Laura: I don’t think so. A lot of people I needed to meet, to help me along my journey, for it to unfold, were here in Boulder. This was exactly where I needed to be to write this book.
Lonn: What do you want people to gather from your book?
Laura: I want people to get that there’s something much deeper within them that is connected to their soul…or whatever word you want to call it. And I believe that music, whatever music resonates with you, can help you access that in a very profound way.
Lonn: Do you think we all have to be mystics to put two and two together when it comes to how music helps us become more self-aware?
Laura: No I don’t. Well, let’s put it this way. We’re all mystics, whether we know it or not. Whether we tap into the part of us that connects with our intuition, or if you remain far more logical, that’s up to each of us, but we all have the ability to be intuitive. You don’t have to be the stereotypical “Ohm” kind of person or aesthetic that goes off into the mountains to be able to connect with music to see the deeper messages it is giving you.
One of the things that I found really fascinating along my journey was synchronicity. I kind of call it the psychic brick’s messenger. A message is coming from the Universe so that you know that there is communication between your soul, or your spirit, your essence. Synchronicities are a hell of a lotta fun and if you use them, start to pay attention to them, that’s when miracles can unfold….and it’s really really cool.
Want an example?
Lonn: Yes.
Laura: Let’s see. Throughout my journey, I kept getting synchronicities where I would have a flash of insight about something, and I wasn’t sure what the message was. Then usually what would happen was after the concerts of the band that I was following, something would happen near or around the concerts. Let’s see. Sometimes I think people think synchronicities are almost like premonitions, but I think we tend to access this vast, vast databank of information, and when we’re open, we don’t necessarily feel that something is going to happen, it’s just like an insight or a thought that comes your way.
So for instance, when I was on the way to a concert in California, traveling with some other fans, we were all in our own cars, and we were heading to the next concert of the band that I was following. On the way there I started thinking about this guy from college that I saw, his name was James Mapes. He was a hypnotist and he hypnotized the entire audience. It was one of the powerful moments of my life where I started to look at my own unconscious in a different way. I thought “Wow, this guy is really cool.”
And I saw some students I knew up on stage, and he did a typical show where people are talking to little green men under their chairs. It was really fascinating and the following year he came back to my college and told us that he wanted to teach people how to do this. He had a three hour class for students and it was really fascinating, and I think that was one of the major catalysts for me to pursue [this stuff] when I was older. This was a fascinating thread that our unconscious, or subconscious, is really influencing our present life in enormous ways besides our dreams. That’s one way the subconscious comes through.
Anyway, on the way to the concert I started to think about this guy [Mapes], and I hadn’t thought of him in a really long time, but I was writing the book and all of these breadcrumbs were leading me along the way. Maybe this guy really was an important spark for me. So I get to the concert that day to find that the warm-up band is a hypnotist. He did exactly the same kind of performance that James Mapes did. I thought, “Whoa, what the heck does that mean? Now why did that memory come up on my way to the concert?”…I had no idea who the warm-up band was going to be, I thought it was going to be a local band and I had no idea that this would occur. For me again it’s a message that we’re all connected to something much, much, deeper if we pay attention.
So I asked myself what this meant and I think it’s about being guided, constantly, by this higher wisdom within myself. I call it the soul, call it whatever you want, but that was one of those moments when I remember sitting in the audience going, “Wow, this is just way too cool.” Plus, it was hilarious. There was some really funny stuff. So everyone else is looking at it on the surface saying, “Oh ha-ha, isn’t that funny—people would take off their shoes every time he touched his forehead and people on stage would start talking to their shoe as if it were a phone—(laughs)
Lonn: You had a more intimate connection…
Laura: I had a much more intimate connection
Lonn: How often does a hypnotist open for a rock band? It makes it more acute.
Laura: I’ve never seen it before or since then, and that’s why the profound moments on this journey were always asking me, directing me, go within Laura. Don’t look just on the surface of what’s happening, ask why. What is the deeper message you need to understand as these things unfold. And the more I paid attention to the synchronicities—the more I paid attention to the little promptings I got inside, to the little voice that says, “Go this way,” or “Take a look in that book,” or “Why don’t you call this person that you haven’t talked to in awhile, or send them an email,”—usually something amazing would happen. The more I did that the more they unfolded. It’s almost like a snowball. The day I realized this was part of my path, to write about synchronicities, law of attraction, these deeper—what people might call “mystical” part of reality—(some people don’t think it’s real), I began to see that this is about everyday life. This is not about something that was reserved for people from hundreds of years ago or people who are into different religions like Hinduism or Buddhism. This is something that’s really practical.
I think that’s what part of my message in this book is, that you can be this average person having a really mind-blowing amazing journey, and being lead by a rock band who doesn’t even know you exist. (laughs)
Lonn: Do you think the fact that this is written as a novel, though it’s based upon your own fact and interpretations, do you think that anyone who has had a career passion for a certain individual band, or is just a lover of music who identifies with one specific group, lyrically, musically, metaphorically, that they can plug that group into your story and be just as educated by your tale?
Laura: Yes. It’s a universal journey. I really do feel like there were moments when I was writing and exploring and going to concerts—that I began to feel…there’s this saying that we’re all one—and when you think about that, we see ourselves as individual bodies. I like this rock band and that person likes that band and they don’t seem to have anything in common, but it really doesn’t matter because music is the universal language and it speaks to us on many, many levels.
Music bypasses the linear, logical part of our brain, and triggers some latent aspects of our consciousness. Music has been a part of civilization since the dawn of time. There was the hitting of stones together, rhythm—rhythm is the essence of life, it’s the pulsation of the Universe. So, I think anybody who is connected to music, whether it be rock music, country, jazz, hip-hop, whatever it is that floats your boat, especially if there is one particular group or band that you’ve followed…one of the criteria that I thought was important is if a band has spoken to you for a long period of time. Lots of us go through phases where one band might speak to us when we’re going through a difficult period of your life and then you move on and that’s fine. But if a band is continually there for you—for me it started when I was 15 years old, so it’s been 30 years—is that longevity and you’re still feeling a connection and the music speaks to you in a way that nothing else does, then yeah, I think anybody can read my book who has any kind of connection to any kind of music and hopefully see a part of themselves in my journey.
Lonn: This is Lonn Friend, author of Life on Planet Rock, getting high in the Rockies (sings a bit) under the evergreens, as Billy Joel once put it. Here, with Laura Faeth, keepin’ the faith, here in a rock ‘n’ roll Universe. Peace.
Here's a transcription of our conversation.
Lonn Friend interview on 9/15/08 with Laura Faeth about her upcoming book, I Found All the Parts: Healing the Soul through Rock ‘n’ Roll.
Lonn: So where are we Laura?
Laura: We’re on top of Flagstaff Mountain. [near Boulder, Colorado]
Lonn: Is this where you wrote your book I Found All the Parts?
Laura: Yes.
Lonn: Could you have written your book anywhere else?
Laura: I don’t think so. A lot of people I needed to meet, to help me along my journey, for it to unfold, were here in Boulder. This was exactly where I needed to be to write this book.
Lonn: What do you want people to gather from your book?
Laura: I want people to get that there’s something much deeper within them that is connected to their soul…or whatever word you want to call it. And I believe that music, whatever music resonates with you, can help you access that in a very profound way.
Lonn: Do you think we all have to be mystics to put two and two together when it comes to how music helps us become more self-aware?
Laura: No I don’t. Well, let’s put it this way. We’re all mystics, whether we know it or not. Whether we tap into the part of us that connects with our intuition, or if you remain far more logical, that’s up to each of us, but we all have the ability to be intuitive. You don’t have to be the stereotypical “Ohm” kind of person or aesthetic that goes off into the mountains to be able to connect with music to see the deeper messages it is giving you.
One of the things that I found really fascinating along my journey was synchronicity. I kind of call it the psychic brick’s messenger. A message is coming from the Universe so that you know that there is communication between your soul, or your spirit, your essence. Synchronicities are a hell of a lotta fun and if you use them, start to pay attention to them, that’s when miracles can unfold….and it’s really really cool.
Want an example?
Lonn: Yes.
Laura: Let’s see. Throughout my journey, I kept getting synchronicities where I would have a flash of insight about something, and I wasn’t sure what the message was. Then usually what would happen was after the concerts of the band that I was following, something would happen near or around the concerts. Let’s see. Sometimes I think people think synchronicities are almost like premonitions, but I think we tend to access this vast, vast databank of information, and when we’re open, we don’t necessarily feel that something is going to happen, it’s just like an insight or a thought that comes your way.
So for instance, when I was on the way to a concert in California, traveling with some other fans, we were all in our own cars, and we were heading to the next concert of the band that I was following. On the way there I started thinking about this guy from college that I saw, his name was James Mapes. He was a hypnotist and he hypnotized the entire audience. It was one of the powerful moments of my life where I started to look at my own unconscious in a different way. I thought “Wow, this guy is really cool.”
And I saw some students I knew up on stage, and he did a typical show where people are talking to little green men under their chairs. It was really fascinating and the following year he came back to my college and told us that he wanted to teach people how to do this. He had a three hour class for students and it was really fascinating, and I think that was one of the major catalysts for me to pursue [this stuff] when I was older. This was a fascinating thread that our unconscious, or subconscious, is really influencing our present life in enormous ways besides our dreams. That’s one way the subconscious comes through.
Anyway, on the way to the concert I started to think about this guy [Mapes], and I hadn’t thought of him in a really long time, but I was writing the book and all of these breadcrumbs were leading me along the way. Maybe this guy really was an important spark for me. So I get to the concert that day to find that the warm-up band is a hypnotist. He did exactly the same kind of performance that James Mapes did. I thought, “Whoa, what the heck does that mean? Now why did that memory come up on my way to the concert?”…I had no idea who the warm-up band was going to be, I thought it was going to be a local band and I had no idea that this would occur. For me again it’s a message that we’re all connected to something much, much, deeper if we pay attention.
So I asked myself what this meant and I think it’s about being guided, constantly, by this higher wisdom within myself. I call it the soul, call it whatever you want, but that was one of those moments when I remember sitting in the audience going, “Wow, this is just way too cool.” Plus, it was hilarious. There was some really funny stuff. So everyone else is looking at it on the surface saying, “Oh ha-ha, isn’t that funny—people would take off their shoes every time he touched his forehead and people on stage would start talking to their shoe as if it were a phone—(laughs)
Lonn: You had a more intimate connection…
Laura: I had a much more intimate connection
Lonn: How often does a hypnotist open for a rock band? It makes it more acute.
Laura: I’ve never seen it before or since then, and that’s why the profound moments on this journey were always asking me, directing me, go within Laura. Don’t look just on the surface of what’s happening, ask why. What is the deeper message you need to understand as these things unfold. And the more I paid attention to the synchronicities—the more I paid attention to the little promptings I got inside, to the little voice that says, “Go this way,” or “Take a look in that book,” or “Why don’t you call this person that you haven’t talked to in awhile, or send them an email,”—usually something amazing would happen. The more I did that the more they unfolded. It’s almost like a snowball. The day I realized this was part of my path, to write about synchronicities, law of attraction, these deeper—what people might call “mystical” part of reality—(some people don’t think it’s real), I began to see that this is about everyday life. This is not about something that was reserved for people from hundreds of years ago or people who are into different religions like Hinduism or Buddhism. This is something that’s really practical.
I think that’s what part of my message in this book is, that you can be this average person having a really mind-blowing amazing journey, and being lead by a rock band who doesn’t even know you exist. (laughs)
Lonn: Do you think the fact that this is written as a novel, though it’s based upon your own fact and interpretations, do you think that anyone who has had a career passion for a certain individual band, or is just a lover of music who identifies with one specific group, lyrically, musically, metaphorically, that they can plug that group into your story and be just as educated by your tale?
Laura: Yes. It’s a universal journey. I really do feel like there were moments when I was writing and exploring and going to concerts—that I began to feel…there’s this saying that we’re all one—and when you think about that, we see ourselves as individual bodies. I like this rock band and that person likes that band and they don’t seem to have anything in common, but it really doesn’t matter because music is the universal language and it speaks to us on many, many levels.
Music bypasses the linear, logical part of our brain, and triggers some latent aspects of our consciousness. Music has been a part of civilization since the dawn of time. There was the hitting of stones together, rhythm—rhythm is the essence of life, it’s the pulsation of the Universe. So, I think anybody who is connected to music, whether it be rock music, country, jazz, hip-hop, whatever it is that floats your boat, especially if there is one particular group or band that you’ve followed…one of the criteria that I thought was important is if a band has spoken to you for a long period of time. Lots of us go through phases where one band might speak to us when we’re going through a difficult period of your life and then you move on and that’s fine. But if a band is continually there for you—for me it started when I was 15 years old, so it’s been 30 years—is that longevity and you’re still feeling a connection and the music speaks to you in a way that nothing else does, then yeah, I think anybody can read my book who has any kind of connection to any kind of music and hopefully see a part of themselves in my journey.
Lonn: This is Lonn Friend, author of Life on Planet Rock, getting high in the Rockies (sings a bit) under the evergreens, as Billy Joel once put it. Here, with Laura Faeth, keepin’ the faith, here in a rock ‘n’ roll Universe. Peace.