Old School Goa Trance and Goa Gil

In the 1960's hippies such as "Eight finger Eddie" discovered the Goa beaches, at first it was the Anjuna, Calanguta and Baga beaches.

Here, the natural waves of the Arabian Sea have for eons been mating with solid land and the sands of the beaches of Goa provide the first substantial form of solid mass as a result. From these majestic sand beaches one can reach inland into small villages sometimes surrounded by lush tropical forest or jungle and further into the cities which provide deeper clues to the culture of India's 25th state.

The hippies of the '60's were listening to newly developing electronic music made possible by the introduction of the electronic keyboard, organs, piano, and guitar. With this electronic way of delivering sound bands such as the Beatles, King Crimson, and the Moody Blues were finding new ways of expressing themselves. From pure acoustic music this generated an electro-acoustic genre but not yet a true electronica style. Jean Michel Jarre is another big name associated with this early stage and in time Jarre was playing to spectacularly large crowds in concerts that included the use of lasers, fireworks, and other mind bending techniques.

Meanwhile people like Robert Moog are toying with the idea of synthesizers and sometimes around 1964 the Moog Synth becomes a musical technology that is affordable to the masses of certain newly enlightened musicians. In the years to come several other electronic gadgets will be added to the musical shaman's spell casting chest.

The hippies on the Goa beaches in the early and mid 1960's are finding themselves partying into the full moon stream in what comes to be known as the full moon party.

"Much to the amazement of the locals, the preferred pastime of these would be sadhus was to cavort naked on the sands together on full moon nights, amid a haze of chillum smoke and loud rock music blaring from makeshift PA's." A rough guide to Goa. p.154

Goa Gil, an early pioneer of the Goa Trance form tells it a bit differently. To him the early hippies, to which group Eight Fingers Eddie belonged to, were living a life where they had the best of the West and the East where they could enjoy art, music, and ideologies and the early parties were celebrations that involved groups who played acoustic guitars, drums, and flutes. by a fire on the beaches of Anjuna, and elsewhere. Ref. Michael Govny in a Beam interview with Goa Gil.

There is not point in discrediting either versions since they both have valid points. On the one hand the very first hippies may have been tamed but within a short time the crowds of party goers grew as did the party atmosphere.

The Sadhus mentioned in the guide above is also mentioned on Goa Gil's website as being Holy men of India revered by the Hindus as representatives of the Gods, sometimes even worshiped as deities themselves.

So there's synergy in the incongruence.

While the Grateful Dead, Neil Young, the Doors and others are rallying the Western crowds towards electronic resonant vibes Goa Gil finds himself in San Francisco and in the music industry.

Like other hippies of the time he was fighting the war culture and his aspirations included the meditative spiritual concepts found in the hills of the Himalayas. In 1969 he set course for India with the intent of merging the sounds of music with the spiritual realm of oneness by redefining the old tribal rituals.

Up to 1969 Goa Gil had worked with Chet Helms and the Family Dogs, and the Sons of Champlin. . Goa Gil was a member of the equipment team.

Chet Helm was a music promoter working with big names like Joplin and was the first promoter of psychedelic light show concerts at the Filmore and Avalon Ballrooms in San Francisco. In 1966 he hooked up with a commune of hippies called Family Dog known for throwing together wild events and open dances. Wiki

The Sons of Champlin played mostly R&B and commercial pop to the bay area clubs and were often on the same tickets as bands like The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and others who were more focused on psychedelic rock and folk.

The story goes that Champlin lost their ticket at Avalon and Goa Gil lost his job. The Sons of Champlin faded off the scene and Gil started his journey to India.

His website tells us that "his focus is in using the party situation as a medium to uplift the consciousness of the participants through the Trance Dance Experience".

The true Goa state of mind he goes on to say is one where trance music and trance dance combine to hopefully set off a chain reaction that enters the global consciousness.

It's a bit like the hundredth monkey theory and from 1969 onwards Goa was home to Music House and Goa full moon parties.

The Music House was a place were musicians met for jamming sessions. When the musicians would break a DJ would take over and fill the void. The Music House party became an ongoing thing and the scene just got rowdier on full moons and during Christmas and New Year. This was Goa Gil's house and he gave it up in the late 1970's. He left Goa but would later return.

Meanwhile the rest of the world had entered the age of electrobeat music which Goa Gil describes as having tribal and psychedelic qualities.

Kraftwerk a german group presents a good precursor musical work to techno.

Techno remained mostly an underground style throughout the eighties. It takes off in Detroit through the work of producers Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson who mixed music for dance clubs with inspiration from groups such as Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dreams. (see synthopia.com for more on that)

Gil returns to Goa and starts working the music scene with all night parties. The tracks that he uses don't really bring out the spirit that he aspires to so he starts remixing tapes that flow in accordance to his message or style.

According to Goa Gil that remixing process is the root of the Goa Trance. You make a night of really great vibes by mixing in the best with the best as people see it.

The night starts out slowly and gathers intensity but the idea is to keep them dancing and to install samples just at the right moment. Each new sample hits just a little harder than the next until it reaches a climax just before day break...but the vibes continue into the dawn.

"It's an initiation" Goa Gil says.

Dancing with the beat is a tribal thing. DJ's like Gil are similar to the Sadhus in that they carry the message into the psyche of the participants or party attendants. The music, when well choreographed set the stage for the trance. And when everyone in the trance state together then you have oneness of spirit beyond thought and beyond mind.

The cosmic energy of the trance does not require mind altering drugs to embed itself in the group consciousness of the party. The ego of self is absent while in the trance. Material commercialism is not a focus while in a trance.

The entire Goa trance trip is a ritual of consciousness that has been playing itself out since the dawn of man.

By 1995 the word is out and the Goa Trance form of music and dance is trending on the world scene.

It is however moving out of the old school and into other forms of psychedelic trance or psytrance styles. With the DJ being the shaman guide, the trance simply needs to be directed. This is done through the synergy of mood, tempo, and style.

The gurus of psytrance come up with several new sub genres to the Goa Trance party mix. Some of those include full on, dark, progressive, suomi, psybreaks, and psybient.

But to stay true to a unified theory of oneness it wouldn't be correct to say that the Goa Trance genre is the only underlying of all of these psychedelic trance species. Other sources could include Space Rock, Industrial music, Acid house, etcetera.

The unifying or synergistic value of all of these styles is that they have hypnotic and psychedelic influences on the being of humans. They seem to bring out the primordial nature of man which in a sense is what the hallucinogenic drugs that are often associated with this ritual behavior does.

Little wonder Goa Gil and Albert Hofmann meet in the same circles.

It's the journey of the shaman trance perhaps and both are seeking to answer the same question.