Noah Lekas turns Sage into Sounds

Poet and performer Noah Lekas, late of Wisconsin, more lately of North Park and Vista, says that the work of combining his poetry with the sound from local musicians just flowed naturally. “I’ve always been into recordings that walk that line between poetry and music,” explained Lekas. “People like Patti Smith, Gil Scott Heron, John Sinclair, and on and on. But when I wrote [this book] Saturday Night Sage, my ambition was just to write the book. Pushing it into a sonic space came later.

“For the first [recording] session, Ben Ambrosini, Chad Lee, and I recorded ‘Midwestern,’ ‘The Word,’ and ‘We Got a Problem with Groundwater.’ The idea was to take the poems off the page and put them into the digital ether. I wanted to see what would happen when the solitary act of writing was explored through collaboration. What would another perspective add? As a musician, the conversation is everything, so I wanted to bring some of that into the work.”

The recording sessions led to a recent EP, Sounds From the Shadow Factory. Collaborators include Ambrosini (Taken By Canadians) and Lee (best-known as percussionist for the Silent Comedy), San Diego’s Mrs. Henry, and Howlin’ Rain. Guitarist Dan Cervantes (of Mrs. Henry, Howlin’ Rain, and doyen of Blind Owl records) produced the sessions.

“Howlin’ Rain is on the ‘Saturday Night Sage’ track,” said Lekas. “The audio was captured from an impromptu jam session in Otay. Dan really had the vision for it. He produced the track and really made it what it is. I recorded my read later. Hafsa Fathima, a friend and very talented writer, jumped in on the mystic overdubs, and Dan recruited Pat Gubler from Garcia Peoples on keys. Shelby Badlock also made the lyric video for the track; it features Alan Forbes’ ‘Sage’ and ‘Shadow Factory’ artwork.”

“‘Steamroll the Sky’ was also cut with Ben and Chad, but in a separate session, and that video was shot by Josh Zimmerman [The Silent Comedy] in New York City. The last track, ‘Out of the Storm Drains,’ features Mrs. Henry. That one has a film noir-inspired video directed by Scott D. Rosenbaum, another pal that I met through our shared love of [guitarist] Hubert Sumlin. Scott directed the film Sidemen: Long Road to Glory, so having his take on the blues and jazz-inspired poem was great. And it can’t be overstated that a day in the studio with Mrs. Henry is always a fun day.”

The musical/poetry fusion spilled over to visual media in other ways. “Kevin and Rebecca Joelson turned ‘Midwestern’ into a powerful short film that debuted at the Milwaukee Short Film Festival. My wife Elizabeth made a great video for ‘The Word,’ and Shelby Baldock directed a heady animated short for ‘We Got a Problem With Groundwater’ that played the L.A. Shorts International Film Festival and the Memphis Film Festival. Seeing the vision that other artists brought to the poems was such a great experience. I owe a lot to my collaborators.”

Asked about the challenges of matching music to words, he’s forthright. “There weren’t really any challenges. We just had fun and tried to record something that we found interesting. It was less about trying to match the poems to music, and more about trying to see where the poems could go as audio recordings. Again, exploring that line between poetry and music. Hanging out in the studio with friends and shooting videos is always fun, and the entire audio and visual iteration of this project was purely about collaborating to make things that we dig.”

Asked about life after the virus, he’s succinct. “I’m going to hug my family and play music with my friends again. Everything else can wait.”