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Julio
Venegas, an artist from El Paso, Texas, committed suicide in
1996. A free spirit and noted provocateur, "He was definitely
someone who lived life to the fullest," remembers his friend,
Cedric Bixler Zavala. "Toward the end, he acquired a really bad
limp from being in a coma. He had tons of scars all over his
body and some of his closer friends used to call him
Frankenstein. He had big cut marks on his throat, welts and
bruises and bumps, and his arm had been shriveled up from
shooting up rat poison. He acquired so many scars it was like a
walking map." When Cedric sang for At The Drive-In, he wrote a
lyric--‘Embroglio’ on 1996’s Acrobatic Tenement--about Venegas,
who had killed himself while that band were rehearsing. "I
didn’t feel it really did him justice," he continues, "I felt
like a whole record should be dedicated to him." That record is
De-Loused In The Comatorium, the astonishing first album by The
Mars Volta. De-Loused In The Comatorium is an iridescent,
fearless, brain-busting hour of music, a fictionalized
celebration of Julio Venegas’
life. Based on a story written by Cedric, it is a concept album
in which the hero tries to commit suicide by overdosing on
morphine. Instead of dying, he falls into a coma for a week, and
experiences fantastic adventures in his dreams, elemental
battles between the good and bad aspects of his conscience. At
the end, he emerges from the coma, but chooses to die.
Visit the website for audio
tracks and more info at
http://www.themarsvolta.com
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