Mephiskapheles Essay, Research Paper

Mephiskapheles Most people wouldn’t think that medieval myths and modern music have much in common.However, to a certain extent they do share at least one thing in common, and it is the bandMephiskapholes, a play on words for Mephistopholes, a mythological deity. To understand Mephistopholes and how he relates to the band in question, one mustunderstand his role in German mythology. Mephistopholes is always an evil character, and is oftencompared to a devil or Satan. The most popular reference to him was in Faust, which is widely consideredas one of the greatest works ever written. It is a midevil story about a philosopher, appropriately namedFaust, who becomes very lonely and calls out to Satan. It is then that Mephistopholes first enters themyth, and offers Faust a beautiful young woman named Marguerite in exchange for signing a contract with him.He eventually accepts and, as one might expect, Faust ends up regretting signing it as many badthings happen after accepting the deal. The story comes to an end as both Faust andMephistopholes are banished to Hell. Although this myth is more frequently seen as a book or as an opera production, the story,created by Goethe, the greatest German writer in any literary form, is also a fixture inGerman culture as well as ours to a certain degree. For example, the words Mephisto and Mephistophelian arederived from the character’s name. Also derived from the character’s name is the name or the world’s great satanic ska band,Mephiskapholes. Although at first one might think that the band may have misspelled theirname, they fully intended that spelling. The reason for this is that they play ska music, which ishorn-fueled dance music that has influences from reggae, jazz, big band and punk music, and many of today’sska bands fit their three-lettered musical genre into their band names, like the Skatalites and theSkalars. The band, hailing from New York, plays ska music which merits a name derived from a mythical devil. Despite a rather evil image though, the band is actually very friendly, and use the image of beingdevil worshipers to poke fun at people who really feel that way. The example of their “current use” I haveattached is a flyer for their concert coming up over Spring Break, which, I along with many fans of Germanmythology will attend and enjoy music that would make Goethe proud. Tantra Monsters In my rather brief search for references to classical mythology in ska music of today, I have beenquite surprised by the meanings of some bands’ names. One band’s name that I’ve alwayswondered about is that of the Tantra Monsters, a ska band from Hawaii, that has as intresting and unique ofa sound as a name. Furthermore, their moniker has quite a rich heritage in reference to Asian myths and

religion. Tantra derives from Vedic/Hindu religions; it was most common in Northern India, although it got mixed together with Southern Indian local religions such as the worship of Kali. Astrange offshoot of it is in the Tibetan mixed-religion sometimes called Tibetan Buddhism, but also referred toas Tibetan Lamaism.In ancient times, Tibet had a native local god/goddess, parallel to the Indian local/regional god/goddess systems. Around the time of the Aryan invasion of India, Aryans consolidated thetriple-god concept (Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva) by absorbing the various Dravidian local goddesses as”shaktis” (originally the word meant “power” but it came to imply “female consort”) for their triad. Meanwhile, the Tibetans kinda were left on their own, hence their “Lamaism” does not resemble classicHinduism.The Tibetans never abandoned their ancient god/goddess pairings, so suddenly you have these big Buddhist tankas (religious paintings) showing the 108 Bodhisatvas (108 is a sacred number for mathematical reasons in many cultures, most notably Asia; the Bodhisatvas are the nearly enlightened guys who could achieve nirvana (nothingness) but choose as good Samaritans to reincarnateand help other souls evolve to the point of nirvanahood) — and each of these 108 Bodhisatvas isshown with a naked woman, his shakti, in his lap having sex with him oddly enough. Although I don’tthink that I’ll go in to much more detail about the sexual aspects of Tantra since they aren’t really thatessential to an understanding of the myths, and aren’t really appropriate for school, sex does play a ratherbig part in their myths and gods and goddesses’ lives. On the other end of the reference is the reason why I found out about all of those things, and that is the Tantra Monsters. First, I can’t really explain why they chose it to be the Tantra Monsters, and I actually haven’t found any references to specific deities or creatures known as Tantra Monsters, but one can obviously figure out what they are based on the last three paragraphs. Anyways, theband, as I said in the opening paragraph, is from Hawaii, and they play ska music that has a fairly significantjazz influence in it also. To quote the owner of Dill Records, the record label they’re on, “These guys are freaks, especially the trombone player Shigue.” Although they aren’t homicidal maniacs or mentally unstable, they are quite different, but, considering the uniqueness of Tantra the name is actually quite fitting. Attached is a rather wrinkled catalog for a ska mail order catalog which carries the Tantra Monsters’ latest CD. In case you can’t find it, it’s about half way down the left hand xolumn, and is circled in black pen. In conclusion, no matter how little sense it makes for a band to call themselves something like the Tantra Monsters, it’s much easier to understand the name with a knowledge ofancient Hindu mythology and history.