Hope Machine sings songs which are universal. Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie did that. Phil Ochs wrote a few universal songs, but really his songs were more PERSONAL. Even his "political" or so-called "topical" songs were more personal, expressing HIS truth (which was sometimes THE truth) as opposed to Pete and Woody who more often touched on UNIVERSAL truth. "The gamblin' man is rich, the workin' man is poor," etc... Matt Turk says Woody Guthrie was a populist. In his HEAD he might have been a populist, but in his HEART he was socialist, and in his dreams and yearnings, judging by what he wrote, he was a socialist (and humanist.) Pete Seeger, it seems, in his HEAD and HEART, is a socialist. They both wrote UNIVERSAL songs from a socialist perspective. These songs are very spiritual. Society is a "higher power" than an individual so the spiritual in Woody's work especially could come from that "God-concept." Gillen & Turk, like each guy's solo stuff, write and sing personal songs and universal songs. (as did Woody and Pete, but they are remembered for their universal songs.) Hope Machine sticks to the universal, but we perform them in a very open, personal, real way. Unlike Pete and Woody we write from a Spiritual perspective. (although all of these separations of spitrit/ individual/ society are illusions.) I am Christian, Steve is spiritually native-American, and Matt (although a part-time Hope Machine) is a Jew, so coming from 3 different perspectives kind of waters it down so that it remains spiritual and never in jeopardy of supporting any dogma or doctrine. Steve and I write and choose songs which express that we are all in this together, that life is sacred, and that together we can change the world. When Matt plays with us he brings not only his traditional Hebrew folk music foundation, but his very Jewish since of social justice. Judaism is the religion of law. Not oppressive law but protective, life-giving, Father-law. Christianity is the religion of forgiveness and indigenous spirituality is the religion of the oneness of all life and all things. They all bring the same thing but from different perspectives. Our spirituality defines Hope Machine and all of our work as artists. Steve first embraced Pete's participation stuff because Steve is basically native. Song is communal. The People sing. It is simple. Steve looked at Pete Seeger through eyes which had been immersed so long in native-American spirituality and recognized Pete as "one who brings together." Western culture supports a model of leadership where the leader is at the top of a pyramid above the people. Native leadership turns the pyramid over. The chief is at the bottom holding up the people, serving. (When and where our pyramid got flipped over I don't know...) Anyhow Pete is the chief kind of leader. Pete sings and people sing along and come together. I jumped on board from a Christian perspective of forgiveness because I see how this community singing heals, cleanses, and restores The People. Matt walks into the room bringing a sense of empowering The People to fight for justice. The most amazing thing for me is that the more I work with these 2 men the more I become a "Christian-Jew-Indian" in my heart. My worldview, which is a spirituality- based worldview to begin with, gets broader by this work with these guys, and with all of Hope Machine's "special guests." This, in my opinion, is the basis of all of my hope for the future. ALL_ONE_GOD_FAITH, as the famous, "crazy" soap maker Dr. Bronner says. Love, hope, peace, justice, kindness, generosity, self-control, etc.. what the Christian bible calls the "fruits of the spirit." Hope Machine loves to invite others to play with us and celebrates these other because it is our job to lift them up, to hold them up to the light so they will walk away from the experience with renewed hope. Transcendence. Our big egos need us to do this as our one hope of humility, and it is somehow part of what we are. Besides which it is much more fun to play with others then it is to keep inward in a striving to be perfect and rehearsed. Besides which perfection is an illusion and it is also the most boring thing I've ever seen. We are vessels for the light of God or Great Spirit or Shining Star or whatever you want to call it. As such we can only include people, not exclude them. This includes the "audience" too. If they sing we give them more songs they can sing....as natural as breathing. We can't "make" them sing. Sometimes they do sometimes they don't, because it isn't US that gets them to sing.It may be the words or the tunes, but I think it is Spirit. Spirit moves through them and they sing. God's spirit, their own spirit, community spirit, whatever... I try not to question, just do. Why me? Why us? I guess the question is why not? For some reason we were chosen for this particular job. I don't even know that we are very good at it. Maybe that's part of why we were chosen. So people can see that even schmucks like us can help facilitate transcendence. Transcendence.... What it is all about.

Monday, February 11th 2008