Infected Mushroom -- "The Pretender" (2012)

I'm the voice inside your head

You refuse to hear

I'm the face that you have to face

Mirrored in your stare

I'm what's left, I'm what's right

I'm the enemy

I'm the hand that will take you down

Bring you to your knees

The 2012 election campaign has certainly brought me to my knees.  I don't want to hear Romney's and Obama's voices inside my head, and I don't want to see their faces staring out at me every time I turn on a television . . . but there they are.

One place where I could escape all the campaign nonsense for a few hours while on vacation last month was my favorite Cape Cod mountain-biking venue, the West Barnstable (MA) Conservation Area, otherwise known as the "Trail of Tears."

On one of my rides there, I suddenly saw big-ass mushrooms everywhere.  It hadn't been particularly rainy that week.  But the Trail of Tears goes through a fairly dense forest, and the floor of that forest doesn't get a lot of sunlight.  

The trusty ol' Mongoose

I did considerable research trying to identify some of the mushrooms I saw that day, but I eventually gave up.  I simply couldn't match up the fungi in my photos with those on the mushroom-identification websites I visited.  So I'm not going to speculate on which species I encountered.

Did you know that Buddha may have died from mushroom poisoning?  (Some people don't buy that story.)

The Roman emperor Claudius supposedly was murdered by being fed toxic mushrooms, as was Pope Clement VII.  (Some historians say that it's doubtful that either of these gentlemen was murdered, much less murdered with mushrooms.)  

However, the best-selling author, Nicholas Evans -- he wrote The Horse Whisperer -- was definitely a victim of bad 'shrooms.  (He had to have a kidney transplant after consuming deadly webcaps in 2008.) 

Here's one mushroom variety that I saw all over the place the day of my Trail of Tears ride.  I don't think it's a poisonous one -- there are relatively few poisonous mushroom species, and most fatal mushroom poisonings are attributable to a single type (the Amanita phalloides mushroom) -- but I wasn't tempted to test my mushroom-identification skills.  (Likewise, I've never been tempted to play Russian roulette.)

I saw quite a few specimens of this mushroom on my ride.  It was big and beautifully colored.  I don't think it's toxic, but I wasn't take any chances with it either.

Here's another shot of this mushroom:

Here's the most unusual mushroom I came across.  I only saw one example of this one.  Even if it was safe to eat, it was simply too beautiful to harvest.

I couldn't think of a suitable song to feature on this post off the top of my head, so I went online and searched for songs with "mushroom" in the lyrics.

That's how I discovered the Infected Mushroom, an Israeli electronica duo that's released eight albums since 1999.

No, I didn't make this group up.  Spend a little time with Uncle Google and you'll see that Infected Mushroom is one of the best-selling groups in Israel's history.  (The music video for their 2006 song, "Becoming Insane," has had over 17 million views on Youtube.)  They "play a manic breed of trance music unlike anything in the current dance arena," according to the Los Angeles Times, which praised their energetic live shows.

Infected Mushroom's newest album, Army of Mushrooms, was released earlier this year.  It includes a cover of the Foo Fighters' "The Pretender," which was previously featured on 2 or 3 lines.  Click here if you missed that post.

I would never say that Infected Mushroom's take on "The Pretender" is as good as the original -- which has a furious sincerity that makes it one of my all-time favorites -- but it's very interesting.  And beggars can't be choosers when looking for songs that provide an appropriate musical accompaniment to pictures of mushrooms.

Here's "The Pretender":

Click here if you'd like to buy the song from Amazon: