KUAR Recording Studio

Posted on August 15, 2014 by lksukany

The Damsels in Distress were asked to record at the KUAR studio for a music performance and interview for KUAR Arts & Letters Valentines Day show.

We arrived at the KUAR recording studio and were met by Brad Minnick, Mary Ellen, and Chris Hickey. We followed Chris Hickey down the long hallways and maze of KUAR to get to the recording room.

Once in the recording room, we settled in, played some songs, and answered some questions. Interviewing is a lot of fun. Brad had some really great questions. M was better at answering what specific songs were about, and I was better at answering the history and organization of the Damsels.

It took us a couple of takes to play the songs without any mistakes. And I just couldn’t get a good whistle!

We had lots of fun during the interview and there was much laughing taking place. The neat and weird thing about giving an interview was summing up 8 years of our work and life in a couple of sentences.

We will write a Valentines Day song and go back to the KUAR studio for a follow up interview. The show will be released for a Valentines Day special.

Thanks Mary Ellen for taking pictures and videos of the recording session!

Artist Interview: Micah

Posted on August 12, 2014 by lksukany

Micah Sukany is one of the creators at Paper Opera. He mostly works on the music side of things, though he does write as well.

Who are you and what do you do?
My name is Micah Sukany. I am one-half of The Damsels in Distress. I also write and record music that doesn’t make it as Damsels pieces. I didn’t self-identify as a musician until late last year. When the Damsels started getting money for pieces we recorded for a radio show, I thought, “Okay, I should probably take this seriously.”

What is your music process?
I work best and most often by recording. When recording, I have a musical idea and quickly document that. I generally work from those early, recorded fragments. I think the best things I’ve come up with is when I heard the part before I ever played the part. For “Father Priam” I heard that in my head in its entirety and I had to learn to play it – that’s the first time that’s ever happened.

Recording vs. performing?
Recording is exciting because I work to build upon layers, and I can hear everything. When performing I have to concentrate and be mindful of what I’m doing, so I don’t have time to enjoy or even listen. I’m just focused on keeping the tempo and playing the songs.

What is the biggest challenge of creating music and how do you deal with them?
The biggest challenge of creating music is finishing when I lose interest. I haven’t really figured out how to deal with this, so I have a lot of unfinished work. It’s hard to keep going, practicing, working, and reshaping something to be perfect when I lose interest part of the way through. That is a big struggle.

What do you like about your work?
I like that my work is mine. I write it to please myself. I have always written music for myself. I have always been my primary audience. If I don’t like what it sounds like, then it’s probably not that great. I like to make it. I like that I’ve made it. And sometimes, when it’s a song from a dream, I like to listen to something that came from a dream.

I like that me and L.K. make it together, that it is our music. I like it when people say, “that’s nice,” or “I liked that.” Also, when I hear our music in a recording or video, I think it sounds magical, and I like that we’ve created something mysterious.

What inspires your work?
I got tickets to the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra’s performance of Mahlers 5th. After that I was pretty fired up to do something better or different. It’s in the music we wrote for KUAR Arts and Letters Father’s Day show. Also, I wrote all of the instrumental recording for “Grown Ups” on the album “Spinning Plates” immediately after watching the Herzog film “Stroszek.”

What are your favorite inspirational places in Arkansas?
I like both the Big Dam bridge and the Two Rivers bridge. I also like driving quite a bit – the drive from Greenbrier to Harrison on 65, Little Rock to Stuttgart on 165, and I40 to Memphis are all great drives.

Who are your musical inspirations?
I really like John Lurie, the Lounge Lizards, and Fela Kuti, Africa 70, The Lovers (they are genuine and earnest both qualities I enjoy), Tasseomancy has a great aesthetic for me, and I’m always going to like folk music and European folk music.

I have always been a big fan of Subpop’s Mudhoney. Mudhoney has always been making the same kinds of music since their 20s, and they keep doing it because they like it, and I’ve always admired that they do what they like. I’ve always admired the people that played on Hearts of Space. I always thought Steven Reich was pretty smart. Like, one idea is interesting for the whole piece.

Beethoven is pretty important, especially for rock bands. Beethoven knew how to write parts.

When I think about what a good band should sound like, I think about Beethoven’s 5th symphony. Some times it’s just a single note played in a particular rhythm – just letting things be simple. Not an accompaniment pattern – just simple, like what needs to be there. It’s elegant. That’s what I think for musicians that are professionals.

What is integral to the work of a musician?
I think the audience is the number one important thing. You can be your own audience. The idea of the rock star or professional musician has distorted what musicians are in a community because they become the sellers of commodities, opposed to storytellers or someone that creates a space in which something happens. If you look at a healthy music community, like bluegrass or classical, the musicians are just as much their teachers and their students. Their identity is connected through other musicians as something they have received and as something they are passing on. The rock star doesn’t give anything in that sense, they just make money.

Discipline and a steady, stable process. The music process involves a lot of listening, internalizing, and applying in new contexts.

And he likes to read poetry!

What is your strongest poetry memory?
I went to a poetry reading at Juanita K. Hammons Hall for the Performing Arts in Springfield, Missouri. Up to that point, I mostly read poetry and didn’t realize that I was missing the sound or music of poetry as well as its drama. It didn’t hurt that the poetry was read by some award winning actors of the stage and screen.

Poetry has been definitive for me. I spent three or four years in undergraduate reading it almost exclusively.

The KUAR Arts and Letters Fundraiser Showcase

Posted on August 1, 2014 by lksukany

The Damsels in Distress were asked to open as a part of a showcase for the KUAR Arts and Letters Fundraiser at Dugan’s Pub in downtown Little Rock last Sunday.

We played with bands Heather Smith, Odyssey, and The Cons of Formant.

Heather Smith band

The Cons of Formant

We wanted to especially thank the Cons of Formant because they brought their own PA, which they let everyone use, they helped us set up our gear, and ran the sound for us. They also used to be our neighbors. Seeing them again brought back the nostalgic “summer nights” memory of sitting on our back deck listening to them play music in their own backyard with their friends singing along.

There was a great turn out and everyone supported the fundraising part as well as the bands. We even had a special guest star appearance by writer Sam Brown, author of “The Last Baby Angel.” Below is a video of Sam Brown reading an excerpt of “The Last Baby Angel” while The Cons of Formant play accompanying music.

The Set List:
Underwater
Picnic
I Don’t Drive
Arkansas
Neutron Rising
French Song
Rare Red Rainbow
D & D
Gailey’s
Mr. and Mrs.
Namesake
Twinkle Twinkle Emo

We often change instruments for each of our songs. Changing instruments can take a minute or two, which ends up being a long time when multiplied by 10 songs – especially in a 35 minute time slot. We ordered our set list so that one person was able to go directly into the next song while the other changed instruments. When we timed the set during practice, it was 34 minutes. At the beginning of the show, we were having some sound issues, so it was cut short, and “Mr. and Mrs.” ended up being our closing song.

Writing, Recording, and Performance
In terms of writing, recording, and performing, the performance is the most difficult for us. Imagine being in front of a room full of people (and if the room is full of people then wow – that is good). They are all talking, eating, and drinking. Maybe only 10 of the people in the room are actually there to see you perform – these are your wonderful, supportive “fans.” As a performer, your goal is to entertain in a way that is non-threatening, confident, and creates a seamless transition from the crowd having a good time with their friends to having a great time listening to the band with their friends. The best possible scenario is that this would happen while making more “fans” with the actual music.

Honestly, the art of performance is a very big part of a band, and it is just not one of our strengths at this point. However, I do think we collected 3 or 4 new fans!

Thank you everyone who came to the show and for your support for the KUAR Arts and Letters radio program. We also wanted to give a special thank you to Dr. J. Bradley Minnick and his wonderful wife Mary Ellen for including us in all of their “taking over the world through the arts” schemes!

Thank you John and Janet with JJ Paquette Photography for coming out and taking pictures of our band!

Paper Opera

Posted on July 17, 2014 by lksukany

The creation of Paper Opera

Once I came up with the name Paper Opera – which took a couple of years to define what the art, music, and writing that M and I were doing – I went ahead and purchased the domain name through Reg123. This was August 2012. I knew what I wanted the Paper Opera website to offer (full art gallery, audio and video space for the Damsels in Distress with purchasing options, ebook capabilities, a full shop, and a news or blog update area). After researching my options, the general pricing to build something this significant was about $5,000. With no money in my art account I decided to use the free options and connect them all through one location.

The online components of Paper Opera

ART: The art gallery I built in Wix in February 2014, and used the L.K. Sukany artist name. Although M will create an occasional painting, he doesn’t really work too much in the fine art medium. I wanted something professional, like an online portfolio. It took me applying for a job I really wanted to actually build the online portfolio. After not getting the job, I reworked it, and am still finding pieces I have not photographed to add. I am still not 100% satisfied with the artist site, and am open for suggestions.

Music: For the Damsels in Distress site we went with Bandcamp in May 2014 because it was the easiest to understand and least complicated for others to use – anyone with internet access can use it. Because the free bandcamp doesn’t have video capabilities, we created a Paper Opera Youtube channel in May 2014 for videos.

Stories: With the ebook/self publishing, Lulu was the most recommended and we opened an account in March 2014. We have many projects in the works on this front, so all I can say is “coming soon” for this feature.

Shop: The Paper Opera shop is on Etsy and was started March 2014.

Paper Opera: All of these are linked from the artist website in Wix as well as the Paper Opera site in WordPress. We transferred the domain from Reg123 to WordPress in February 2014 because there was a better free interface.

The Logo

I wanted to design a logo for Paper Opera that had whimsical qualities and that would express the themes of art, music, and writing. I also wanted a design that would look good on the web (website banner) and in print (for business cards).

I knew I wanted to have an instrument in the logo from the beginning. I played with the tambourine or drum using the “O” for “Opera” and working in the name “Paper Opera” somehow. It turned into a cello and paintbrush. But the only thing I could see the cello as was a woman’s body and then she was playing herself, and it just kind of got weird.

So I transitioned from the cello to the accordion. There is something so whimsical and quirky about the accordion. I started playing with the accordion buttons as maybe a paint palette.

I designed this amalgamated object (accordion, paper, and a watercolor tray).

It just didn’t work in portraying the playfulness I really wanted in the logo. It also seemed really stiff – the design did.

I thought about how whimsical my damsels drawings are and thought about using that approach.

I took The “Dancer” and created this type of layered image with a circle to define the space and the accordion as a embellishment.

It just felt too forced, too clean, and I didn’t really want to use “The Dancer” for the paper opera logo. But I really liked the format of a figure in a circle and the logo words in the circle. I thought about the Dreamworks logo of the boy sitting on the moon and fishing. I really liked how the image evokes the idea of using imagination and has an element of being carefree.

I wanted something similar to that idea. I thought about it for a while and made this sketch during a sermon at Grace Church. The boy playing the accordion and sitting in the circle as if it were a swing, and a girl dancing while simultaneously writing or drawing with a feather behind the circle. It just seemed too busy for a logo.

I liked the bones, and decided this was something I could work with. I drew M sitting on a bar stool playing the accordion.

Once I had my drawing, I took a photo of it, and opened in Photoshop. I put a lot of texture effects, changed the figure a bit, and added the circle and key words – art, music, stories – within the logo. I admit, typography is not one of my strengths, but I like the look of cursive quite a bit, so that’s what I used for my text.

M and I have been doing Paper Opera the whole time we have known each other – over 8 years. It has been less defined and more abstract at times – sometimes floating around in our heads and our hearts – other times in a simple melody. Paper Opera is the online version of our art, music, and stories that we can share with you!

A Wedding Song

Posted on July 15, 2014 by lksukany

The Damsels in Distress were asked to play a song at the Lockehart wedding at Grace Church. M and I decided to play “Mr. and Mrs.”, from album, “Spinning Plates.”

“Mr. and Mrs.” was originally titled “Mr. and Mrs. Epperson.” We wrote the song in response to being asked to play a song at the Epperson wedding. We later shortened the title to “Mr. and Mrs.” so that it could be used in a more general sense for many wedding lovers.

“Mr. and Mrs.” is about the wedding and the marriage of two lovers.

Mr. and Mrs.
Your lovely heart’s bold
To love someone like me
Who sees this life in the only way to be free.
“I do” forever.

We’ll make the changes.
We’ll say what needs to be said.
And then we’ll do them in our hearts and our heads.

With this ring, I thee wed to be true love to be true.
With this ring, I thee wed to be true love to be true.
To be true.

So would you join me?
Soon our flesh will be one.
We’ll live together forever and forever.

“I do” forever.

Our friends Doug and Sue Mary from Family Life took this video and sent to us. Thanks Doug and Sue!

Paper Opera

Art, music, and stories.

Tag Archives: #the damsels

KUAR Recording Studio

Artist Interview: Micah

The KUAR Arts and Letters Fundraiser Showcase

Paper Opera

A Wedding Song