I hope this finds you well and that you are both vaccinated or near vaccinated at this point in time! What a terrible year.
I wanted to write to share that the Smithsonian just released the music video for "Best God Damn Band in Wyoming" today, of course dedicated to Joy and the band at the end of the video. I'm sharing a link here...
My girlfriend emilia designed the jacket I wear in the video which has a lot of vietnamese and tennessee imagery on the front, and on the back she embroidered this amazing scene of a dragon fighting a bald eagle which is based off of a water color someone made at heart mountain. Also, even though we filmed the music video in our tiny studio apartment here in portland, emilia made these beautiful sets after we studied the old camp photos, modeling the main backdrop after the kabuki performance backgrounds.
All of this to say that knowing you two and becoming so close has been one of the real positive aspects of my life over the last decade. Joy, it's been such a privilege to tell your story and the larger George Igawa band story, and Denise, really without all of your help and friendship in San Francisco, none of my research in this area would have gotten off the ground. It's pretty unbelievable that now this song will be heard by a lot of people and more people will know about this band and this chapter in American history. I'm truly grateful to both of you and please know that even though I really dislike having my face on the internet, everytime I sing this song, I have you both and your family and your old bandmates in my heart.
It's tough to process this week. The inundation of violence, outrage, sadness, hot takes is head spinning and heart hurting. I hope things change. I hope the flames flashing across our screens ignite an inspired voter turnout this fall. More importantly, I pray that the residual heat of these riots lingers on and transforms into a compassionate warmth which move American masses towards empathy, reconciliation and positive action. I also hope that George Floyd isn't remembered solely as a suffocating martyr and so forgotten as a person. To look a bit deeper reveals that George was flawed and beautiful and immensely talented, that is to say, like all of us.
It's my job to dig through piles of sad histories. The way I relate to and cope with this work is through music. I search for sound and find the music makers. I hope people listen to Big Floyd's feature on "Tired of Ballin'" and respect his talent. I hope that the lasting image of George Floyd shifts away from his moment of dying and moves to him in front of the mic working with Houston's legendary Screwed Up Click, proceeding to, as Lawrence Burney writes, "glide over a funky slowed beat, boasting his Third Ward roots, dreaming of driving a drop top Bentley, and showing his "raw naked hide" on the competition for two minutes straight."
George delivers a solid verse. His voice is deep and resonant. It's powerful and it's refreshing to hear this man breathe and flow, and be human. I hope people remember that when they march for him, or donate money for the cause, or react defensively or god forbid justify his death. It's important to remember the goodness reported about him, about his athletic joy, to seek out the impressive leaping touchdown catch which you can find on youtube, and to listen to the music he made. Like the rest of us he was beautiful and flawed and talented and deserved better than what he got. His death was 100% wrong but I hope his death does not completely overshadow his life. It's nice to recite names, but what does that really mean if it boils someone down to your a handful of letters and a cause? However this affects people, I hope that Floyd's music is remembered as a small part of what has truly been lost in this and all of these avoidable, senseless acts of death. Thanks for the song George. I hope people hear you above the furor which surrounds you and I hope the fires you sparked turn to compassionate warmth which produces more music makers and more listeners.
Joyce Kwon is a talented singer and gayageum player from Los Angeles. The gayageum is an incredible instrument. The craftsmanship and engineering of the wood, strings and bridges, a work of art unto itself. Joyce centers the traditional Korean instrument in her recordings which are decidedly not Korean, traditionally speaking. Her songs are written in a more singer/songwriter vein with nods to classic American popular music, but the gayageum is seamlessly placed into a mix with tasteful percussion, keys, bass and vocals, blending in but also creating a unique blend, which is sort of Joyce’s M.O.
Here is someone who isn’t Joyce playing Hendrix’s “Voodoo Chile” on it:
That was fun.
As you can hear in “Little Bird,” Joyce’s lyrics are often located somewhere between wistful and encouraging, singing to her songs’ subjects but also to us and to herself as well. There’s some self-care marketing potential, which I mean in a good way, and have recently asked myself, why I don’t aim to do more of that. On my guitar case, I have a bumper sticker which reads “Joyce For Thriving 2020″ -- I also just saw that she has a T-shirt with that slogan which I’m hoping that after reading this nice post, she will give me one next time I see her...
Her excellent solo album DREAM OF HOME was written during a time where she was contemplating home as a concept and searching for it as a reality. Her songs ask us what "home” means for someone who, like myself and many others, is of two places and because of that, might feel that they belong nowhere. Although it was written between Korea and the States, this album was truly authored from an in-between place, an artist’s island of sorts, a place where I’ve written most of No-No Boy from. Dream of Home sweetly and sometimes bitterly works through these core ideas of belonging, home and hope through music, blending her Korean Gayageum with her American musical self.
As one of her many album adjacent projects, she took her “Little Bird” video and set out to include lyrical translations by friends who speak many different languages and who she notes are “American.” If you click on the settings in youtube for the video, you can choose to see the captions in any number of languages, including my 12 year old level French. By including these translations, she is obviously gesturing towards inclusiveness and solidarity, but also making a move off of that in-between cultural place and making a case for Americans and America broadly defined by its many sounds, including Joyce music and her friends’ languages.
I met Joyce at the DisOrient Film Festival in Eugene, OR in late winter of 2019. She was showing a music video for the song “Dream of Home” and performed a house concert. I was going through a really tough period in my life, maybe the toughest. I had come off two months of touring the world’s most depressing songs and having panic attacks during and after almost every concert. My long term relationship fell ended and many other important relationships fell apart. I was in the midst of personally reckoning with some deep, ancient personal stuff. I felt really exiled and depressed, completely lost.
At this house concert, Joyce’s stripped down performance, just her and her gayageum, really touched me. I got to hang out with her a bunch that weekend at the film festival, along with a whole bunch of awesome film makers and actors. We ended up talking a lot at the staff party and not doing karaoke together despite my urgings. A couple days later, Joyce even helped me make field recordings of objects at the Japanese American museum in Portland, old suitcases and trunks, nic nacs, bells, stoves, objects which were at the Minidoka WWII internment camp and which I turned into percussion instruments for my next album. She was one of the first new friends I made after this really dark period.
After we parted ways and I went back to Providence to wait for summer. I’ll write candidly, not because I like sharing, but in case you the reader has been dealing with any kind of depression, anxiety or mental illness. Sometimes it’s nice to know you’re not alone in that... Anyways, my depression deepened that spring until the summer allowed me to make a life-saving change of scene. But one thing that kept me going during that cold New England thaw, aside from the couple of true friends I had in town, was Joyce’s song “Why-Go-Round.” Give it a listen, especially if you’re having a rough time, or are just feeling extra human, which is to say messy, sad, and really down. Put this song on your phone and walk through a park or to a nice cafe you like, or just look out a good window. Let Joyce Kwon remind you that, even on your worst days, there’s a pretty green field around the corner, or a good friend to meet you at the corner bar. At the very least, there is a beautiful song to lift you up, dust you off and say, hey “you deserve to be happy.” Because you do. We all do. Thanks, Joyce.
Here’s an article I wrote for the Asian American Writers Workshop about John Okada’s novel No-No Boy, why I call my project that, and traveling through the past and present, many ghosts. Photos by Diego Luis.
Surel's Place is an artist residency and workshop studio that brings in artist from around the country. This month’s artists are from a Rhode Island music
A radio appearance recorded during the Surel’s Place residency in Idaho with Emilia Halvorsen from September.
Dave Tatsuno secretly shot footage of the Topaz concentration camp while he was incarcerated there. The camp held over 11,000 Japanese Americans during from 1942-1945. Doing research in San Francisco I befriended more than a few folks who were kids or teenagers int his camp. The image of the “only girl with skates” on the DIY ice rink is one of the most moving images I’ve ever seen, even after sitting with it for hours and hours. His movies captured some of the happier moments in camp, in typical home movie fashion, but there’s still a lot of sadness and confusion in these images, knowing they are set behind barbed wire. It’s amazing to hear him narrate the images which I used to accompany my song “Two Candles In The Dark.”
“Boat People” was used for the trailer for the 2019 DisOrient Film Festival. I was invited to perform at the opening night in Eugene. The films and filmmakers were outstanding and it was a really moving weekend of art. It’s a model for a truly engaging and caring event with all praise to the organizers who are a couple of badass moms and community members who along with an army of volunteers bring a really special thing to Oregon. http://disorientfilm.org/?fbclid=IwAR2mJv9yNlDjbcm3KQnvxwjwlsRISWLxUzUbHreMnvl0kzpAf6LiMcdZ7WE
This song comes from a story told by Alice Kawahatsu about her mother Jane Fumiye Hara who was incarcerated with her family in the concentration camp at Tule Lake, CA. It is often told that the Japanese American Incarceration undermined family structures and loosened the bond between first generation Issei and their Nisei children. This is largely true, but the camp experience affected each family and person differently. In Alice’s mom’s case, her parents were strict and forbade her to date. Despite the parental decree, Jane had a secret boyfriend. Though the couple could not acknowledge their romance in public, there was one space where they were able to show affection. After meals, they took to their jobs washing dishes in the mess hall and, standing beside each other, held hands beneath the soapy water. This moment helped weave the rest of this song which is simply about longing for love both within and beyond the barbed wire. For more information on WW2 Japanese American history please visit http://densho.org
Took a research trip to Dilley, TX to learn more about the family detention center which operates out of this small town. We put on a concert for for the lawyers, paralegals, staff and volunteers working for the Dilley Pro Bono Project doing important work offering free legal advice to those seeking asylum in the United States who have been locked up in this detention center. It's a grim, depressing story. The town folk themselves were nice, but it's odd to see a community which is centered around service to a private prison.
Please learn more about this crisis of humantiy happening at the border. As historians, it's wild and heartbreaking to see the same barbed wire, barracks, fences and lack of humanity employed as histories we study seem to repeat themselves. Hopefully some folks who see this might be inspired to help out either down near the border or with refugees, or generally, with anyone in need in your own community.
Volunteer, follow or support the work of the Dilley Pro Bono Project https://www.immigrationjustice.us/volunteeropportunities/dilley?fbclid=IwAR1_OAAPlOpkOYKNucakVVfaidiDh2ZjJ1ueJ54upXLbwDfe7Y7EGBaIMV0
Commissioned work “Buddha In The Searchlights,” inspired by the brilliant new book AMERICAN SUTRA by Duncan Williams. Stories of buddhism during the WW2 Japanese American Incarceration. Important scholarship and a great read.
