Santeria - High & Rising (Remastered Video)

Video: by DougOut
Santeria "House of the Dying Sun" Re-issue Available July 2010.

Born in the murky swamplands of Louisiana and comprised of members from the India to the backwoods of the Deep South, Santeria was birth in 1994. For 10 years, they defied expectations by releasing three exceptional records (Santeria in 1998, Apocalypse, Louisiana in 2000, and House of the Dying Sun in 2002) on their own label (GolarWash Labs) while banging out hundreds of gigs in Nowheresville towns across America. They retooled the basics of "southern rock" and modified it into a new and inspired form—relatively free of Confederate clichés and beer guzzling drunkenness - concentrating their creative energies on expressing the isolation and loneliness of the modern south - at times loud and overbearing and alternately quiet, subdued, and withdrawn. Rumored to have been cursed by voodoo practitioners upset at the band appropriating the name "Santeria," the band soldiered on through countless setbacks—freakish car crashes, cow hearts stuff in their mailboxes, knife and gun fights, eviction from their band house, paranoia, mental illness, police harassment, and numerous unexplained phenomena.

In 2002, they caught a break by hooking up with 4x Grammy Award winning producer, Tony Daigle (Sonny Landreth, Dr. John, Gatemouth Brown), to record the critically acclaimed House of the Dying Sun. The CD, by all accounts, is an unheralded classic, packed with the world-class songwriting skills and lyrics of frontman, Dege Legg—an enigmatic and curious figure in the American underground, rumored to have been born in a junkyard - backed by the pounding cinematic assault of the band. With an Indian drummer propelling the algebraic rhythms of the five man unit, they blasted through 11 songs of pure beauty, sadness, savagery, and séance - scanning the southern landscape like a kaleidoscope aimed at a Black Sun - to complete one of the greatest records released at the dawn of the new millennium. After a national tour in 2003 ended with in-fighting amongst after back to back trips to a Mexican whorehouse and the Roswell, New Mexico UFO museum, they held strong on for another year before mysteriously disappearing into the oblivion of the American Wasteland after drummer Krishna Kasturi's near fatal car-accident that left him confined to a wheel chair for the next two years. They each went their separate ways. Living in cheap motels. Dropping off the map. After recovering from his injuries in 2006, Krishna reunited the band to record the magnum opus, Year of the Knife.

There is no moral to the story of Santeria, no moral other than that of five young men coming together to make a dastardly noise that a few heard and many others did not. Theirs was the lonesome cry of the isolated post-punk weirdo rock boy, stuck in the Badlands of the Deep South, fighting off the violence of those who wish to crush them, while fending off the criticism of those who wish to ridicule their efforts. In the end, they remained true to who they were, which was truer than most. They never denied they were hicks who'd been shuttled between the cavemanish demands of their surroundings and those locked in the Black Box of their hearts. The tension between those two extremes is what makes Santeria unique among countless underground rock bands of their time. They never Uncle Tom'd their piers nor aped whatever nonsensical trend happened to be ripe at the time. This is their story. This was their way. For better or worse, the legend of Santeria and their music continues to inspire and divide.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Santeria
• punk

[belljar777]

LOVE THIS, LOVE THIS, LOVE THIS!! i listen to this every . fucking. day.

[santeriaband]

@belljar777

Rock on!!!! Thanks...

[belljar777]

@santeriaband

hey primo!!! you know me, i'm devils, aka pam, aka, that crazy bitch. heh. i'm battling a dying computer but i'm STILL completely blown by this video. (yes, in a good way.) i'm listening to this now in my last precious minutes of computer time. THANK YOU FOR THIS MUSIC!! you guys rock my world. hard. love.

[santeriaband]

Right on Pam!! Glad you like the sights and sounds....we surely have more in us on the way. Thank you for lending us your ears. Keep rockin and in touch.... Primo

[fresh6517]

looks way better then the old one

[santeriaband]

@fresh6517

Thanks.... Off the master.

[stephsbis]

And I remember some of those shows.

[stephsbis]

Love this video! It really matches the energy of the song, which makes the song top itself.

[suckaniggasdick]

Bad ass man.