Band Booking: Dustin Wong

Posted by Jason Diamond

Dustin Wong is one of the great guitar geniuses of our time, and on his first solo album since the hiatus–or whatever the kids are calling it these days–of his former band, Ponytail, he delivers big time.

Infinite Love is an expansive work of heady, spazzy, and textured instrumentals that sounds something like surf rock for the Silver Surfer. A lot of it sounds improvised (and frankly, it probably is), and some of it sounds like it’s being transmitted from an otherworldly place; all of that will make sense once you see Wong’s reading list

What have you been reading lately?

I’ve been reading Alejandro Jodorowsky’s book, The Way of the Tarot, The Spiritual Teacher in the Cards.  It’s really fascinating, I’ve been thinking about taking up Tarot reading.
What sort of stuff do you read on tour?

I read Franchezzo’s A Wanderer in Spiritlands on the last tour.  Its apparently a transcription of a spirit that got summoned by a medium.  Its his story about the spirit world.  A lot of interesting description about the astral planes and the aether.

Best book you read last year was?

The Bhagavad Gita was a book that I kept coming back to last year, I wanted to know where Buddhism took off and wanted to know the argument behind the separate soul vs the body and the soul as a unified entity.  I’m in limbo with these two arguments, they are both true in different circumstances, I enjoy having an internal discussion about these ideas.

Could you give us a reading list of your five favorite books?

Old Path White Cloud by Thich Naht Hanh
Breaking Open the Head by Daniel Pinchbeck
Fire From Within by Carlos Castaneda
Man and His Symbols by Carl Jung
The Spiritual Journey of Alejandro Jordorowsky by Alejandro Jodorowsky

Has literature ever influenced your song writing?

Yes, absolutely!  I get a lot of inspiration from the books I read and it adds to what I’ve done in the past.