Looking back on how Lightning came together, it’s as if we have been chasing this story, and it’s many threads, for years.
Hiking 11 miles back the rugged Na Pali Coast with Mike Yun, there meeting freerider Surfer Chris who lived in a cave, fished, surfed and legend had it paddled the island on his 9’0, a furniture burn on the Monongahela with the mayor of Braddock’s sister and rogue filmmaker Bill Daniel, sneaking the Minimalist Avant-garde into small town PA with Rhys Chatham’s 100 Guitar Orchestra and BMX bike/race car driver/ sound engineer Eric Block, collaborating with architect Jesus Robles in Peter Baer’s desert wood shop on a sculpture/happening in the Sonoran, the list goes on and on and runs into these pages.
Lightning is about bringing all these artists and musicians, athletes and wild makers under one roof to share their adventure with whoever is interested.
We see business and the world changing. People love to say that the music industry is changing, but in reality, music is the tip of the iceberg. The whole landscape is trans- forming underfoot, momentary glimpses, and we look to be part of that change. Levis doesn’t play rock n roll, we do. And we see that true for many of our friends and fellow artists, so we’ve created Lightning as a go west, multi beneficial, camaraderie of carrying heavy stuff, make the scene party/experiment to confront this confusion we see in the world.
An immersion experiment of collaborations within a wide net of counter culture like-minded individuals intentionally translating into fun-havery and really wild and out there happenings onward and into the future. We’ll be out exploring the many cultures we love, goofing off, not taking ourselves too seriously, and most importantly, not forgetting the legend of fun- spreading its memory such that it is present and alive and celebrated. We plan to be the ones celebrating it.
The fight is not over, save rock n roll.
Love,
Ali + Seth