Shasta Album

In 1986 my friend Anton released a tape cassette music album he entitled Shasta. I found a copy of it the other day and found a an old jogging Sony Walkman and a couple of 3 inch tall speakers that it could play through and sat in my Hot tub (Spa) and listened to the old songs from when I lived the Mt. Shasta life. At that time my wife and I had 2 1/2 acres of land on the side of Mt. Shasta in Northern California at 4000 feet. I built a house that was an A frame so it could shed the up to 7 feet of snow at one time on the ground there during the winters then without breaking through the roof if I wasn't there to clear it off.

There was one song in particular I liked to hear called "Rainbow Caravans" and it reminded me of the many alternative cross country skiers and kayakers and mountain climbers that Anton and I met and hung out with and skied and kayaked and mountain climbed with during the 1970s and 1980s.

So since Anton and I have known each other since church when he was 11 and I 14 and since we started climbing mountains together and rock climbing in 1969 when he was about 18 and was just starting at UCLA I called up and asked him if I could put his early Shasta Album from tape cassette on Youtube. He said he had a few of these old tapes still on hand and gave them away to close friends who remembered those days. He said it was okay if I did this. I said a lot of people our age are nostalgic for songs like this. Since I'm 61 it probably means he's about 58 now but still doing concerts all over.

I thought about doing a transfer of this album song by song tonight but it's already 11:32 pm and there are 4 other people in the house asleep or getting ready to sleep so now just isn't the time to do more than write a blog on one of my computers.

Here is a list of songs on the first side of the 1986 Shasta Album:songs by Anton Mizerak
Changes in the Season
New Beginnings
Love is a Longing
Sarasvati
What makes life worth living
We've Got the Power

Side 2

Someday
Community Song
Rainbow Caravans

Oh Body
Vikrama
Shasta

Also, Anton is fluent in Sanskrit which is the root language of Hindi(India) and Tibetan and likely Newari(Nepal's language) and possibly several hundred other languages in India and the surrounding area.

Sanskrit is like Latin in that it is a very ancient language and for other reasons. However, Guatama Buddha's teachings are often written in Sanskrit and have been preserved in this form for 2500 years now. Since Anton was always fascinated by Guatama Buddha's teachings especially in the form of Tibetan Buddhism he became fluent in Sanskrit at UCLA during the early 1970s when he got his master's degree there.

If you are interested in New Age Music with a Mt. Shasta and World Music Flavor contact Anton at:

shastasong.com

In 1986 Anton and I met in Katmandu, Nepal. When we were rock climbing and mountain climbing he had had a dream to go to Mustang in Nepal which he eventually did. Since he was playing concerts in Europe at the time and visiting relatives in Switzerland he flew to Nepal from Switzerland, I believe and met my family (5 of us, 3 kids from 10 to 14) in Katmandu,Nepal in late February or early March of 1986. After he returned from visiting us and the Himalayas he created this Shasta album on tape cassette later that year likely during the summer months.

My family arrived in Katmandu in December 1985 and wound up receiving the Kalachakra Tantra from the Dalai Lama in Bodhgaya, India along with 500,000 others from Tibet, Nepal, India, Bhutan and the rest of the world, most in their native dress which was amazingly spectacular. However, India at that time was a fairly serious cultural shock both very good and bad at the same time. I found India to be literally, "The most Amazing place on earth" and this in a good sense and in a difficult sense when one found dead bodies in the streets unattended to at that time. But precisely because of the nearness of death in India at that time, every moment of each precious life meant something to everyone we met there, unlike the United States where many people wander around in a Disneyland like unreal trance all the time because reality just can't be found anywhere for them. Whereas in India everywhere we went reality and death on every level was there intruding into every waking moment. And because of this one could not run away from both the incredible good of life as well as being faced with death and dying almost every day in some way.

Though Anton has returned to India, Nepal, China and that area many times since to study Tabla with masters in Katmandu, to give Concerts in Japan and Singapore etc. and to travel Asia extensively, I found my resources had to go to getting my kids through school and traveling and living in Hawaii and California and traveling Europe. Though it could be problematic at 61 to go into some of the conditions one sometimes finds in Asia I have hopes of traveling to Asia again only this time I would go less native with many more luxuries and less 50 mile hikes with backpacks through the Himalayas like I did when I was 37 with my family.