Ahbez Documentary Film Launches Crowdsourcing Campaign

It’s official. “As the Wind: The Enchanted Life of Eden Ahbez” has launched a crowdsourcing campaign and we need your help. The link is here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/as-the-wind-the-enchanted-life-of-eden-ahbez#/ For those fans who are unaware, long-time Ahbez historian Brian Chidester teamed up with filmmaker John Winer in 2017, and the pair have been working on a feature-length documentary…

NEWS: “Eden Ahbez’s Dharmaland” is UK “Guardian” Album of the Month

“Eden Ahbez’s Dharmaland,” arranged and performed by Ixtahuele, is just six days from being officially released (June 11, 2021), but already it has been chosen as the contemporary album of the month by the UK “Guardian” newspaper. See the full review here: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/jun/04/ixtahuele-eden-ahbezs-dharmaland-review-striking-take-on-an-extraordinary-songwriter There is also a second lead single from the album out now,…

New Ahbez Single/Music Video Is Released!

“Manna” is the first single from the forthcoming album, “Eden Ahbez’s Dharmaland,” due July 11, 2021. The link is here: “Dharmaland,” arranged and performed by Ìxtahuele, is the first-ever recording of this long-lost masterwork by the original hippie composer of “Nature Boy” and “Eden’s Island.” Resurrected from Ahbez’s unrecorded sheet music, c. 1961-63, Ìxtahuele has…

Web Interview Series Features Unknown Influence on Ahbez Canon

J. William Lloyd was a late 19th/early 20th century radical American author. His subjects included theosophy, anti-statism, anarchy, holistic diets, and a back-to-nature lifestyle. Among other published tomes, he wrote “The Scripture of the Serene Life” (1921) and “The Natural Man: A Romance of the Golden Age” (1902), which together influenced Eden Ahbez’s final project,…

New Eden Ahbez Audio Documentary by “For Keeps” Podcast

David Peterkofsky, host and producer of the podcast “For Keeps,” has just released a new episode and it features Brian Chidester, chronicler of Eden Ahbez and co-director of the documentary “As the Wind: The Enchanted Life of Eden Ahbez.” To download or stream the episode… follow the link here: https://forkeepspodcast.com/s11e6-nature-boy-eden-ahbez-celebrated-by-brian-chidester Among other things, the two…

Ahbez Pen-Pal Publishes New Article/Memoir

Roy Behrens—a retired professor of Graphic Design at the University of Northern Iowa and published author on the topic of Dazzle Ships (among other things)—has recently published an article about his pen-pal relationship with Eden Ahbez in the early 1960s in the most recent issue of the Iowa Source magazine. (Read it here.) For those…

NEWS: Nicolas Winding Refn’s Website Features Original Eden Ahbez Content

Academy Award nominated director Nicolas Winding Refn has a website—byNWR.com—and it currently hosts a feature article about Eden Ahbez written by yours truly (Brian Chidester), as well a preview of “As the Wind,” the documentary film I am currently co-directing about Ahbez with John Winer. The link to the article is here: https://www.bynwr.com/articles/visions-of-glory There is…

NEWS: Ahbez Documentary Receives Foundation Grant

It is with great pride that myself and Full Moon Films, the production company behind the Eden Ahbez documentary “As the Wind,” announce that we have been awarded the 2020 Kenneth Karmiole Research Fellowship grant. Besides being a great honor, we are excited to use the funds from this grant to do additional research on…