Lucky Dragons are a band, but they’re more than that—they’re an art project, a social experiment, a magic show. The LA-based duo of Luke Fischbeck and Sarah Rara use an unconventional setup that works to dissolve not only the barrier between performer and audience but also the barriers between audience members. Rara sings, dances, and delivers vocal incantations, and either band member might play a simple flute, a melodica, or handheld percussion; Fischbeck often tends to a laptop on the floor. But for the last half of a typical Lucky Dragons set—part of an ongoing project the band calls “Make a Baby”—the crowd creates most of the music, controlling the output of the computer via a neon hydra of yarn-wrapped cables that sprawls out of it and sprouts wands of braided tin and dried seed-pod shakers. There’s even a small pile of rocks that can be played like a theremin.
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Every version of “Make a Baby” is unique, determined by the way the audience participates. The performances are nonhierarchical, free-form, and welcoming, and they’re unlike anything else coming out of the underground right now.
With Lucky Dragons it’s not like going to go see a band that plays on a stage, does the songs by rote, and maintains a certain distance from the crowd. With you guys the audience has a hand—literally—in shaping the sound. How did you develop this participatory approach?
You say the rules are fluid—what are the rules for Lucky Dragons?
R: What’s most important is the social interaction, the engagement, the chance interface with strangers—so we figured, why not start with that? Make the specific arrangement and attitude of the people the source of the sound, the thing that structures the music. It’s still an odd thing playing “Make a Baby,” something that I never fully get used to. Can I touch his arm? Can I say hello? How far apart are we? Where am I? What are we doing? Who’s over there? Some of the instruments are a kind of joke on technology or dumb magic—somehow the rock synthesizer and the computer are equated. Our shakers come from the most common tree in our neighborhood, a Brazilian gold medallion tree. In many ways the instruments are anti-“gear”—why would I want to buy dozens of guitar pedals? I loathe shopping for music gear. There’s so much out there, and for a while we were working from whatever materials we could find on the street—it’s a zero-budget orchestra of instruments.
