Noah C Lekas steamrolls the sky this week as we spin his latest vinyl release live in the studio. It’s another cracker from Blind Owl Records. You can grab your copy right here. This fantastic new production draws on Noah C Lekas’ book Saturday Night Sage. Noah reads excerpts from the book to some wicked music provided by other acts from the Blind Owl stable. On this record you’ll get to hear music from Howlin’ Rain and Mrs Henry amongst others. It’s a brilliant collaboration and of course comes fully recommended from Record Box.
This week’s tracklist
- Steamroll the Sky Noah C Lekas
- Stay In My Corner The Arcs
- What I Need Pearl Charles
- Cosmic Pizza For Space Warriors Copernic
- La Revolución la Costa Surco Viejo
- Road of the Lonely Ones Madlib
- Don’t Wander Miss Grit
- Saturday Night Sage Noah C Lekas
Blind Owl Records releases Saturday Night Sage feat. Noah C Lekas and Howlin’ Rain
Noah C Lekas is a poet, essayist and journalist. His first book, Saturday Night Sage is a collection of narrative prose exploring mysticism and menial labour in contemporary America. It is largely influenced by The Exterminator by William Burroughs and Hot Water Music by Charles Bukowski. Noah found Burroughs through a recording of The ‘Priest’ They Called Him that he did with Kurt Cobain. Since then, music and literature have been inseparable for Lekas. After calling all four corners of the country home, his work is uniquely American. As is his perspective. As a result this first literary release for San Diego record label Blind Owl, the collection gives voice to an often overlooked and undervalued working-class experience.
Hailed as “A punk séance for the beat spirit”, Saturday Night Sage weaves the unwavering ethos of post-industrial Wisconsin with the poetic tradition of New York city and the eccentric rock ‘n’ roll of San Francisco.
…a luminous book of poetry about the journey of the Sage from the backbone of the American Dream to the exaltation of enlightenment
Listen SD
Growing up in a working-class household, Lekas was introduced to the mystic almost as early as the menial. However, Lekas was surrounded by Catholics, Buddhists, Hare Krishnas, Pentecostals and Hippies. His introduction to the sage’s life of seeking was early and in depth. In Racine, Wisconsin “The menial always lurked like a long rusty shadow” says Lekas. Eastern philosophy, Western religion, universal spirituality and blue collar ethos became the inspiration for the sage character.
“He’s sort of everything I dream of being and everything I’m afraid of becoming” Lekas recounts. While the book isn’t autobiographical, it is rooted in a visceral experience. Ultimately midwestern and defiantly counterculture that it’s impossible to separate the story from the life of the writer.
