Lucky Dragons1. What's the first piece of music you listened to today?
Mystical Unionists "Sketches for the Craft of Consciousness"
2. What are your vices?
Staying up all night doing nothing much.
3. What is one of your prejudices?
"Busy" is a shallow attitude.
4. In what way do you think music has the ability to change the way people live their lives?
By expanding or contracting (adding specificity to) people's ideas of what is appropriate, what can be sustained, what makes sense, what you can carry with you, what you can give away. Music justifies things very gently, and it combines well with other things to make up one's public identity.
5. At what age did you first feel distrust?
I don't think I trusted anyone from age 22-25. Otherwise I have always felt very a deep feeling of general trust!!!
6. Do you think that your name is appropriate for you? (If not, what name would be more appropriate?)
"Lucky Dragons" is my public name, and a very empty name. I borrowed it from a Japanese fishing boat that was caught in the fallout of the hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll, and became a focal point for anti-nuclear sentiment afterwards. In the sense that it is a shell for strong peaceful sentiments, I think it is appropriate! Only when a (public) name is not allowed to keep its hollowness does it feel inappropriate.
7. What is the best piece of music you've ever created, in your opinion?
"Hawks and Sparrows," made up entirely of field recordings from anti-war protests across the US in 2003. There are no words, and some of the samples are only a thousandth of a second long. The CDs were packaged with early spring flowers pressed into each case, and distributed by "reverse-shoplifting" into record stores around the world. A digital version will be available for free download forever from my website! Totally.
8. Right now, how are you trying to change yourself?
Trying to find a job! Ha ha!
9. If you had the time, what else would you do?
Grow more food, have better conversations, start a school, clean up the street I live on, get out into the desert, play more shows in places that I've never been, go to the library, go to the post office, make a book, write more letters, visit my brother.
10. What social cause do you feel the most strongly about (negative or positive)?
When the police step out of their cars on our block they have their guns drawn. For four years, no one has been able to figure out how to stop the American war. The law, on every level, sustains violence and poverty, erodes trust, and profits the rich whether they ask for it or not. Beyond allowing injustice to continue, most laws seem structured to ensure injustice. I am inspired by people who work to restructure the law piece-by-piece to have it reflect even the smallest part of how people actually feel towards one another as humans!
11. What are your fears?
As stupid as it sounds, I don’t think I’m afraid of anything! Living well and simply in difficult times, and having strong friends, I feel anxiety, or regret, sometimes, but never what would qualify as true fear!
12. What is your favorite joke (tasteful or tasteless)?
I've been on a big knock-knock joke kick recently. Or puns! And the joke about, "What if I could pay rent in memories alone?"
13. Who is your favorite author?
Colette, or Yukio Mishima
14. What is your favorite movie?
15. Favorite album(s) from the last few years?
Daniel Higgs' "Magic Alphabet" Nika Soup + Saya Source "Ipiya" Kites "Peace Trials" Lavender Diamond "Cavalry of Light"
16. What would you like to know more about?
I'd like to be able to speak more languages, I'd like to know more about Los Angeles history--the groups of people that came together here and the things they made together--woman's building, los four, UGMAA, semina... there are so many secrets here!
17. What is one thing you would like to do/see/accomplish before you die?
Raise children--metaphorically and literally, specifically and generally, directly and indirectly, alone and together.
More from Lucky Dragons
Visit Lucky Dragons at hawksandsparrows.org and on MySpace.