Dionysos and I are having an odd trip down memory lane. Specifically back to 2002, when Serj Tankian released the independent project Serart with Arto Tunçboyaciyan. I walked half way across Las Vegas, in scorching heat (and listening to Smashing Pumpkins) to get the CD. At first the clerk of the chain record store didn’t understand what I was talking about (which increasingly pissed me off since I’d called ahead to confirm they had it) but eventually it turned up in the jazz section of all places.

I’d really dug the more melodious and Armenian parts of SOAD’s first two albums, and often used them in ritual for Dionysos. Somehow I’d heard there was going to be more of that on this project, so I waited excitedly for the release. And was met with some of the weirdest tunes I had encountered since I tried listening to Frank Zappa as a teen. My brain could only handle it in small doses, so it took me a couple months to make it through the whole thing. (I was so unformed back then.)

An instinct, the voice of Dionysos, my desire to be cooler than I actually was, something said keep going there’s important shit in it you’re not getting, so I stubbornly persisted and one night during ritual it all clicked into place and I fucking loved it. Listened to it over and over, all the way through, for weeks on end. It captured my mental state and certain aspects of Dionysos I was connecting with at the time in an uncanny way, to the point that it’s basically my personal soundtrack for 2002-03. (Along with Blind Melon, which I was equally obsessed with.)

Listening to Serart again really brings it all flooding back, both the good and the bad. And yet through everything that happened in Vegas, Dionysos was there with me, and that’s pretty cool.

Not sure what the point of any of this is, but I uncharacteristically felt like sharing something personal, so enjoy.