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I swear he's made of the same stuff as air. - Hope
Hope: You have a compilation of 5 prior limited releases - A Sewing Circle (aka States Rights Pennsylvania) - to be released on States Rights Records April 5th, 2006 (available for purchase now at states rights, hawksandsparrows.org &/or glaciersofnice.com). How did the idea to do such a large collection (in such a tiny package) come about, and how easy was it to set the wheels in motion? Luke: Half of these records don't exist anymore! Except only sometimes I will find a seven inch I made somewhere in a house or a store and wonder how it got to be where it is...! I think the idea was to give a new history to these songs, make them stronger by attaching them to each other. Also, it has always seemed to me that cds should be 80 minutes long as a rule. Or filled up with something all the way to the end... so much plastic space! Little containers for transporting sounds.... it was easy to make! Steve Schroeder (States Rights) knows how to make cds, and he wanted to put out the next Lucky Dragons record ( widows ) but it wasn't ready yet, so there was this he could do! And he did! Can you give some examples of your current inspirations motivating the music you are right now creating? I think a lot about voices, like, what it means to have a voice, how everyone needs to have a voice in the world. And then I think about broken voices, voices that are not heard correctly - also about borrowing voices, or having your voice stolen, or making a voice out of nothing but air. I really like having one voice change into another like a shadows meeting and melting, or maybe like trying to play music that is your voice both as you hear it yourself and as others hear it, but at the same time.. . squeezing many perspectives into one tiny listening space! We went to a poetry slam thing last night by accident and started talking afterwards about whether angry poetry is sometimes the only way to respond to extraordinary situations. We decided this was absolutely not true, that there are plenty of more constructive and beautiful ways of dealing with the intensity of life. So on a similar thought, there's no reason why politics is always about trying to seize power, or resist power, drown each other out, or all this violent conflict. Politics can also be many voices at once, each heard distinctly.
What is it like, visually, to be you ? What do you see when you make noises? Tessellations, spirals, branches, roots, tubers, shoots, leaves, petals, diamonds, veins, vines, grains, crystals, clouds, folds, rivers, mountains, circles, that kind of stuff. Nature jams, joy jams. What continents are on your tour agenda these next 6 months? I go to Europe in a few weeks, and then midwest and Canada stuff in the early spring... this summer I am trying to work out a tour in Israel, Jordan, and Turkey because I have some friends living there now - we will see! And then oh! of course all the time east coast/west coast... rambling. Missing the solid earthy embraces of home though...! What kind of tree do you find yourself sitting under more often than others? Oh man! Now it is too too cold to sit under any tree but the cedars or whatever the ones with long sweeping branches are... blanket trees that grow in circles and fill the floor with a bed of needles. But in the warm weather I like an apple tree. I look forward to visiting more and different kinds of fruit trees in the near future though...!!! Gift giving trees! Help me with my recipe for keeping a heart from becoming jaded: or even better, maybe cookies that restore childlike innocence and wonderment.. . what would those be made of ? My friend Raphael and I worked it out that the next wave of coolness in the world is going to be "true beauty"... absolute separation from any kind of cynical, ironic, or jaded attitude stuff. It's a pretty tough style to argue with once you see it fully grown, but I think we are all way too used to protecting ourselves¤ our taste, our intelligence, our friends, the stuff we make or appreciate, where we come from, what we do for a living, what we really want¤ with criticism... so yes. It will take a lot of work to promote true beauty, and the toughest part is that especially the promotion itself must be done with a pure heart. so in answer to your question, I don't really know the recipe, but I do see the importance of figuring one out. Maybe the key is working together with other people? Keeping your own ideas running in parallel with other points of view... pluralism? you know? Not taking yourself so seriously, as a person of taste.... I guess that's hard to do as you write about music... or make music..! Believe in what you are doing, to the point of living in a world of many people doing many different equally important things with their lives. Then when you meet each other, it is possible for you both to learn from one another. Also, I think people, wherever they are from, really have an unexpected openness to magic, even if it is really dumb magic. And by magic I guess I could mean technology, but really just anything amazing that changes how you thought of the world, or of yourself, or of other people... that increases beauty in the world in uncontrollable ways. Get to it!
The artwork on the compilation, where did it come from? I drew it! And then Steve got these people in Portland to mass-print the drawings in gold metallic ink. [ - It is gold on chipboard Arigato Pak, and it's beautiful monochromed. It is very vibrant in some lights and sorta hidden and you may have to tilt it in other lights.] My friend is five and we are listening to tracks 11 and 12 on Sewing Circle. He really would like to know HOW you make those noises. "It kinda sounds like an elephant" "and track 46 reminds me of flying bathtubs", says he.. . It's sad, but a lot of the time I forget how some sounds were made! So I just say they were made by magic or whatever. Really though, it is usually one very normal sound, like a yawn or a clap or a singing song or something, and then a computer changes the sound into something else, and then something else, and then by that point it is really unrecognizable as the normal thing, and it just sounds like clouds, like whatever you hear in them. It's funny how easy it is to suggest some sounds, like animal sounds, or voices... we are just really ready to hear those sounds wherever they are! I like thinking a lot about the material of the sounds... like, what they are made of. All of the normal sounds that things start out with are familiar things from my life... friends' voices, people playing instruments together in our kitchen, animals that live in our house (no elephants though...!)... Then whatever gets made out of these normal sounds always has that love and familiarity inside of it. Could you give me a list of available Lucky Dragon sounds and any works maybe hard to find.... ? Most Lucky Dragons sounds are on this Sewing Circle cd... that's three seven inches (f_uxus, boys, and bees), an eight inch (shh...! [see the top graphic!]) and a cd-r (faults). Besides these there is a web only thing called "hawks and sparrows" that is all anti-war protest sounds peacefully mixed up and around, a cd-ep of mexican fleamarket music called "Norteñas" (aka States Rights Rhode Island) and a full length cd called "dark falcon". I think that's it. More music all the time!!!!!!! What makes Lucky Dragons happy? Happiness is so hard! I told my friend about this question {"what makes lucky dragons happy"} and she thought I was being silly to shy away from it. It should be the first question anyone is asked! Everything else that follows only dilutes the point of it... right? Happiness is central. Even when we talk about living to avoid jadedness, to hold onto wonder and amazement, these things only dance around the question of what makes us happy. Following happiness keeps us from getting jaded! And the better and more exact we know what things make happiness the more likely we are to achieve them. Be careful what you wish for when you are young because you will achieve it when you are old! So there are very abstract things, and there are very concrete things. I will make two lists. Concrete things that make Lucky Dragons happy [in no order at all]: ¤ plant nurseries ¤ juice with no added sugar ¤ taking breaks to drink coffee ¤ animal friends ¤ warm homes lovingly maintained ¤ clean sheets ¤ taking walks to think about stuff ¤ bright winter sky ¤ rain in summer ¤ climbing mountains ¤ riding a bicycle wearing shorts ¤ staring at the river with too much dazzling sun on the water ¤ swans' nests ¤ falling asleep in cars or trains especially when it is raining ¤ breakthroughs in understanding with friends ¤ being honest with children and the very old ¤ going on breakfast dates ¤ walking through snow to get to the beach ¤ sexy thoughts ¤ swimming ¤ talking to strangers and finding the things we have in common ¤ remembering my dreams ¤ being able to give people gifts when I see them ¤ city streets with old trees ¤ comfortable silence ¤ large dinners prepared by many people together ¤ sumi ink club (me and sarah paint together on thursday mornings) ¤ chances to thank or compliment people. Abstract things: ¤ close partnership and how it evolves and endures ¤ feeling like I understand history ¤ intense calm ¤ true sharing ¤ careful consideration of difficult things ¤ learning and teaching what I have learned ¤ feeling like i do not owe, and I am not owed by anyone, especially friends and family ¤ gift culture ¤ home.
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