Conversations: Dick Lucas - Balancing Act
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Despite the continuation of war, greed, and exploitation, the mindset of the counter-cultural misfits of Back Then is that of a massive portion of the population Right Now: ignorance of the way the world works is now a choice, not a lack of information, and with knowledge comes the power and will to fight back, to not be part of the problem. More people than ever are living, through choice or necessity, fully aware of the consequences of inaction or blind acceptance of the status quo.
![An illustration of symmetrical curves.](https://varyer.imgix.net/balance.jpeg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&domain=varyer.imgix.net&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=2108&ixlib=php-3.3.1&q=82&usm=20&w=1200&s=770d0fcecb7cc176c5d7fa0930cef9a0 1200w, https://varyer.imgix.net/balance.jpeg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&domain=varyer.imgix.net&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=4216&ixlib=php-3.3.1&q=61&usm=20&w=2400&s=d80dc9f2e5e9337568b4a411cf3fee23 2400w, https://varyer.imgix.net/balance.jpeg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&domain=varyer.imgix.net&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=1742&ixlib=php-3.3.1&q=82&usm=20&w=992&s=382b27b90397082860589589179c9e25 992w, https://varyer.imgix.net/balance.jpeg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&domain=varyer.imgix.net&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=3485&ixlib=php-3.3.1&q=61&usm=20&w=1984&s=81738536fae87372c05f34912249f46c 1984w, https://varyer.imgix.net/balance.jpeg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&domain=varyer.imgix.net&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=1349&ixlib=php-3.3.1&q=60&usm=20&w=768&s=57426b43cba785721e0ff3a35a9f11d3 768w, https://varyer.imgix.net/balance.jpeg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&domain=varyer.imgix.net&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=2698&ixlib=php-3.3.1&q=45&usm=20&w=1536&s=deec3ca8ac7149f714bce83c88f58631 1536w, https://varyer.imgix.net/balance.jpeg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&domain=varyer.imgix.net&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=1012&ixlib=php-3.3.1&q=60&usm=20&w=576&s=7b14603075e9352ca5531ea8afb76ada 576w, https://varyer.imgix.net/balance.jpeg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&domain=varyer.imgix.net&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=2024&ixlib=php-3.3.1&q=45&usm=20&w=1152&s=4ea1d3d66aadccb4fbb885acb3394586 1152w)
You've spent the majority of your life expressing your critique of institutions, capitalism, and patriarchy through your music. When did it begin and when did you realize addressing the ills of power would have such a profound and ongoing effect on how you express yourself?
I was listening to Alan Freeman on his Saturday afternoon Rock Show on Radio One in '78 when he played The Adverts singing Bored Teenagers, and that sparked off an energised realisation that all the songs I'd heard before then had Nothing to Say, and here I was, a bored teenager who then supplanted that ennui with a fevered buying up of all the punk music I could afford, and simultaneously started writing lyrics. The songs were fun to write but lacked any socio-political awareness until I heard Crass, whose ideas lent shape to my general feeling of social alienation, not fitting in, and provided factual reasoning as to why and how something called 'the system' was controlling our lives.
Their systems, christ, they're everywhere,
school army church, the corporation deal-
a fucked up reality based on fear,
a fucking conspiracy to stop you feeling real
This was mind-opening and, it turned out, life-changing. There were a lot of evolutions in punk, but the effect of what became anarcho-punk had a profundity otherwise lacking, which dealt with the stark - and largely dark - actualities of living, while at the same time avoiding becoming part of that system: DIY labels, distribution, fanzines, and venues put music back in the hands of the bands and I'd say 'fans', but such was the interconnectivity between the two, terms like that became redundant. People were connected by more than the music, and it gave us more excitement and meaning than anything before. Whereas punk for many was the first chance to feel free enough to be self-expressive at all, anarcho-punk gave us a lot to get expressive about: so much greed and violence running the world, so many lies and distortions, so much ignorance letting it all happen...
![Stones are balanced on top of a large boulder.](https://varyer.imgix.net/20-08-11-plym-11.jpg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&domain=varyer.imgix.net&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=1200&ixlib=php-3.3.1&q=82&usm=20&w=1200&s=d8a1011444cce3be07e3441f49aa7dd7 1200w, https://varyer.imgix.net/20-08-11-plym-11.jpg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&domain=varyer.imgix.net&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=2400&ixlib=php-3.3.1&q=61&usm=20&w=2400&s=9b1403e5fc0e5b0edd19edc7b4ff4f4f 2400w, https://varyer.imgix.net/20-08-11-plym-11.jpg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&domain=varyer.imgix.net&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=992&ixlib=php-3.3.1&q=82&usm=20&w=992&s=613ef8493af145876686cf0cdb5d5f16 992w, https://varyer.imgix.net/20-08-11-plym-11.jpg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&domain=varyer.imgix.net&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=1984&ixlib=php-3.3.1&q=61&usm=20&w=1984&s=775b781ee944e1ec103fbeced322fefc 1984w, https://varyer.imgix.net/20-08-11-plym-11.jpg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&domain=varyer.imgix.net&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=768&ixlib=php-3.3.1&q=60&usm=20&w=768&s=684fc48374b844cf097a1f1cef145a30 768w, https://varyer.imgix.net/20-08-11-plym-11.jpg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&domain=varyer.imgix.net&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=1536&ixlib=php-3.3.1&q=45&usm=20&w=1536&s=f481b3abb214c4b21bb216d9205c6173 1536w, https://varyer.imgix.net/20-08-11-plym-11.jpg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&domain=varyer.imgix.net&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=576&ixlib=php-3.3.1&q=60&usm=20&w=576&s=417d0815fffce13186f0b12d9d99d664 576w, https://varyer.imgix.net/20-08-11-plym-11.jpg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&domain=varyer.imgix.net&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=1152&ixlib=php-3.3.1&q=45&usm=20&w=1152&s=de714d8a9b6e006ed399a68e3e46b408 1152w)
How do you feel about the timelessness of anarcho-punk, is it redemptive or disappointing?
What would we sing about if the world was a better place? It's easy to lament the lack of social or political change and excoriate anarcho-punk for its ineffectiveness over the last 40 years, but that's myopic. For, despite the continuation of war, greed, and exploitation, the mindset of the counter-cultural misfits of Back Then is that of a massive portion of the population Right Now: ignorance of the way the world works is now a choice, not a lack of information, and with knowledge comes the power and will to fight back, to not be part of the problem. More people than ever are living, through choice or necessity, fully aware of the consequences of inaction or blind acceptance of the status quo. Not to say anarcho-punk changed the world, but it opened it up for a lot of people.
How has the pandemic changed your relationship with performing? Do you rely more now on other creative pursuits to keep you sane and convey your perspective?
What performing?! It is so strange having such a long break from playing gigs, the indoor existence has made a mockery of time. There has been one gig, last September we [Culture Shock] did a 'no-crowd' gig, filmed it, and uploaded it on YouTube's new and fizzy BluurgTV channel - doing that has kept the impetus going, uploading music and art DIY-style once a week. Between lockdowns, CS also got together enough songs to make an album out of it, so life hasn't been entirely performance-free.
The trajectory from your musical career > art is endlessly fascinating, specifically balancing—eggs, rocks, forks—how did it start?
The band were staying at a friend's place after a gig, and he balanced a fork and a spoon intertwined with a matchstick on the edge of a glass, in a way that looked completely impossible and I was hooked!
When you're balancing, do you have a final form in mind, or is it more about the process?
First one, then the other. Imagining how good it would feel to balance this just there, then trying it, adjusting the form, extending it, playing with it, until it is final - or not!
![A golf ball is balanced atop a round stone and a brick.](https://varyer.imgix.net/20-6-01-3.jpg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&domain=varyer.imgix.net&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=1200&ixlib=php-3.3.1&q=82&usm=20&w=1200&s=e51fce55dc99633d2022d984263e0116 1200w, https://varyer.imgix.net/20-6-01-3.jpg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&domain=varyer.imgix.net&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=2400&ixlib=php-3.3.1&q=61&usm=20&w=2400&s=2efb321ed597a8ac512fe06cefb1fc3b 2400w, https://varyer.imgix.net/20-6-01-3.jpg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&domain=varyer.imgix.net&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=992&ixlib=php-3.3.1&q=82&usm=20&w=992&s=adc058da7a7436308c56e838c52cfa03 992w, https://varyer.imgix.net/20-6-01-3.jpg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&domain=varyer.imgix.net&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=1984&ixlib=php-3.3.1&q=61&usm=20&w=1984&s=99efcdbef38b581b9a5ca01141c6a989 1984w, https://varyer.imgix.net/20-6-01-3.jpg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&domain=varyer.imgix.net&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=768&ixlib=php-3.3.1&q=60&usm=20&w=768&s=f164b1152c0ded3c489dcf84747bacb7 768w, https://varyer.imgix.net/20-6-01-3.jpg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&domain=varyer.imgix.net&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=1536&ixlib=php-3.3.1&q=45&usm=20&w=1536&s=dae8b3c2ddc15eda119314384b795c6c 1536w, https://varyer.imgix.net/20-6-01-3.jpg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&domain=varyer.imgix.net&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=576&ixlib=php-3.3.1&q=60&usm=20&w=576&s=aa13d08eda3cb89b40612b17188c039d 576w, https://varyer.imgix.net/20-6-01-3.jpg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&domain=varyer.imgix.net&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=1152&ixlib=php-3.3.1&q=45&usm=20&w=1152&s=c360c2402747e53fd65d5cb69f301119 1152w)
Describe the differences between balancing organic objects over those that are man-made.
Organic = alive, and all matter in the universe being a series of vibrations, organics tend to move of their own accord more than manmade stuff does.
OK, this has more resonance as a statement when applied to say fruit, which is soft, rather than rocks: and a manmade pillow is a bugger to balance: but balancing takes a lot of time, and concentration can't prevent these theories popping up! Manmade stuff is generally easier to work with, as it's often symmetrical [there must be a palindromic synonym for 'symmetrical'...], but in a way that makes it too easy? Put another way, the satisfaction of balance increases with the visual a-symmetry.
Would you say that your balance practice has brought you any personal insights? If so, would you be comfortable sharing?
Let me pull up a floor...that's better.
Insights....ok, firstly, you can't beat nature. Gravity, winds, vibrations perceived or actual, they don't stop to lend a hand. The longest I spent continually failing to balance something was 20 minutes, and as I gave up I felt stupid for trying to do the impossible, nature wasn't having it. Most insights have mirrors attached, and I've equally and oppositely found myself becoming a strident fan of the old maxim 'if at first, you don't succeed...', cos most balances are at least a Bit Tricky, and the joy and wonder of getting past all notions of impossibility as the balance finally happens, is why its so good to do!
It also completely removes the outside world for a few minutes, which is what art is possibly all about.
In what ways do you parse which ideas you see through to fruition and which remain in the ether of your mind?
Ideas usually come one at a time. The ones that won't become song matter are the ones blurted out in an instant and not noted down, the conversational ones. The ones recalled enough to get noted later on can evolve into songs if serious enough [the silly stuff ends up written but only comes out in occasional stand-up poetry stints] - not that 'serious' has to be dull, just have some resonance or meaning.
Do you have any “unlikely sources” of personal inspiration?
In a way, aren't they all? I mean, inspiration is not something predictable or regular, and if an idea pops into my head, seemingly from nowhere [as when walking] then who's to name a source?
![A large ovoid stone is balanced on the tip of a large rock.](https://varyer.imgix.net/IMG_1575.jpg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&domain=varyer.imgix.net&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=1200&ixlib=php-3.3.1&q=82&usm=20&w=1200&s=307a13e8b1d1feaeae5cf1407ae82502 1200w, https://varyer.imgix.net/IMG_1575.jpg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&domain=varyer.imgix.net&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=2400&ixlib=php-3.3.1&q=61&usm=20&w=2400&s=b8630deb2bd851e707a9f33ddfce8151 2400w, https://varyer.imgix.net/IMG_1575.jpg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&domain=varyer.imgix.net&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=992&ixlib=php-3.3.1&q=82&usm=20&w=992&s=f6977e1c775a3ad60235112ab36e993b 992w, https://varyer.imgix.net/IMG_1575.jpg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&domain=varyer.imgix.net&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=1984&ixlib=php-3.3.1&q=61&usm=20&w=1984&s=800318792977216b029e83e55890afe2 1984w, https://varyer.imgix.net/IMG_1575.jpg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&domain=varyer.imgix.net&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=768&ixlib=php-3.3.1&q=60&usm=20&w=768&s=765213c8f58ff6191a050544eace7898 768w, https://varyer.imgix.net/IMG_1575.jpg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&domain=varyer.imgix.net&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=1536&ixlib=php-3.3.1&q=45&usm=20&w=1536&s=2f89eb837f236d83d64886f4f8951238 1536w, https://varyer.imgix.net/IMG_1575.jpg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&domain=varyer.imgix.net&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=576&ixlib=php-3.3.1&q=60&usm=20&w=576&s=7419ce038226da973b8b215523757fc7 576w, https://varyer.imgix.net/IMG_1575.jpg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&domain=varyer.imgix.net&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=1152&ixlib=php-3.3.1&q=45&usm=20&w=1152&s=636d66c473f5ebd31fae049bb18de191 1152w)
![Silverware is balanced within the spout of a bottle.](https://varyer.imgix.net/21-2-15.jpeg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&domain=varyer.imgix.net&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=1200&ixlib=php-3.3.1&q=82&usm=20&w=1200&s=2263204a753f164fe134ac99047fc6bb 1200w, https://varyer.imgix.net/21-2-15.jpeg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&domain=varyer.imgix.net&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=2400&ixlib=php-3.3.1&q=61&usm=20&w=2400&s=405514236bf04f61b0f060e88e252ba3 2400w, https://varyer.imgix.net/21-2-15.jpeg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&domain=varyer.imgix.net&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=992&ixlib=php-3.3.1&q=82&usm=20&w=992&s=014eb4e9158b768b58143f8813c57e5b 992w, https://varyer.imgix.net/21-2-15.jpeg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&domain=varyer.imgix.net&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=1984&ixlib=php-3.3.1&q=61&usm=20&w=1984&s=381b5e03dfde72d39fe13eda533817ca 1984w, https://varyer.imgix.net/21-2-15.jpeg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&domain=varyer.imgix.net&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=768&ixlib=php-3.3.1&q=60&usm=20&w=768&s=07e64399532200194fb09a7f90260005 768w, https://varyer.imgix.net/21-2-15.jpeg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&domain=varyer.imgix.net&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=1536&ixlib=php-3.3.1&q=45&usm=20&w=1536&s=a2976a5edac464e023d3af212d76dea6 1536w, https://varyer.imgix.net/21-2-15.jpeg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&domain=varyer.imgix.net&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=576&ixlib=php-3.3.1&q=60&usm=20&w=576&s=c03ac41c8ed4f2bc128ef17e007cd3ac 576w, https://varyer.imgix.net/21-2-15.jpeg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&domain=varyer.imgix.net&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=1152&ixlib=php-3.3.1&q=45&usm=20&w=1152&s=03180a9d776cc0d521571794ea88057b 1152w)
How can engaging in a simple practice, like balancing, affect one’s personal trajectory?
Makes relaxing seem less of a waste of time...puts haste and anxiety to sleep for a while...a trajectory? Onwards and upwards! [We treat time as linear, some older cultures had non-linear time, it circled].
Where do you see your art going in the future, are you currently investigating any new forms of practice?
I actually don't think about the future beyond a few months, and most of what I create isn't mapped out in advance. Just keep going :o)
Photos courtesy of Dick Lucas