Live looping guitarist carries an educational message

PALMER — Few can fully comprehend the art of rock musician Arthur Lee Land without witnessing it firsthand.

Born Arthur Leland Sikking III, Arthur Lee Land is both a stage name and a metaphorical place occupied by the middle-aged, Colorado rocker, who specializes in “the art of live looping:” a high-tech way for a solo act to sound like a five-or-more-piece band in a recording studio.

“It’s like the ADD mind at work,” Sikking said — a kind of “digital plate spinning” that requires strong abilities in multi-tasking and improvising.

The term ADD (attention deficit disorder) in the artist’s description of his craft is not flippantly used. Sikking himself grew up with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), before there was a name for the condition. His hyperactive mind and the drugs he took to “focus” dragged him down for years, making him believe he wasn’t “good enough,” as detailed in his 2013 song of the same name.

Now, after three decades of marriage and playing music, he views ADD and ADHD much differently.

“My underlying mission (as a performer) is to reframe the way the world sees ADHD, from a disorder to a gift,” Sikking said.

In addition to his personal experiences, Sikking’s viewpoint is based on the idea that there are two kinds of minds: that of the hunter/gatherer, and that of the farmer. The hunter vs. farmer hypothesis is laid out in the book, “ADD: A Different Perception,” in which Michigan radio host Thom Hartmann claims that people diagnosed with ADD and ADHD are simply wired differently.

On Hartmann’s website, a table compares individual ADD traits, when viewed as a disorder, to manifestations of those traits viewed through the “hunter” lens, and with opposite “farmer” traits.

For example, if a child has a short attention span but is capable of intensely focusing on something for long periods of time, that might reflect on the ancient hunter’s propensity to constantly monitor their environment for food or danger. Farmers, oppositely, would not be easily distracted from the task at hand, unthreatened and undeterred by components of the hunter’s less stable lifestyle.

“The challenge is that our schools are set up for farmers,” Sikking said.

Naturally, there would be some overlap, he said, and not every person might have the “wiring” of a hunter or a farmer. Neither is necessarily better than the other, he said, but each has its place.

“Hunters and farmers need to work together. Hunters can start the company, but don’t let ’em run it. You gotta have farmers to run the company, or you gotta have a farmer assistant with your hunter.”

“If it was all farmers, there’d be no innovation,” Sikking said.

Arthur Lee Land seems to be a product of that innovation. When Sikking started air drumming at age five, he probably didn’t know he’d be touring the country 20 or 30 years later essentially playing 10 different instruments at once. But after a trip to West Africa as a young adult, he was inspired to cultivate the “Afro-grass folk rock” vibe he found in Ghana, Togo and Nigeria back home in the United States, integrating bluegrass and electronic dance music (EDM) with African drumming and other kinds of percussion.

Now Sikking regularly plays with the Americana band, Great American Taxi, in addition to doing solo tours and trio gigs as Arthur Lee Land. He’s made appearances with Railroad Earth and Elephant Revival, backing 1960s British folk-rock artist Donovan (“Mellow Yellow” and “Sunshine Superman”) with the latter, he said.

“I get different things from all of them, and I have different kind of roles, in some ways, in all of them,” Sikking said. “No one project gives me everything.”

Neither does Arthur Lee Land’s music gather just one class of fans. His Friday performance at the Fishhook Bar last week had 20 or 30 people grooving to his tunes by the end of the first set, ranging in age from 20-something to 60-ish.

“Wow — how do you do that?” one older man asked after one song.

Sikking just grinned and began a new loop.

To learn more about Arthur Lee Land and the art of live looping, visit www.arthurleeland.com.

Upcoming shows

Arthur Lee Land will host a lead guitar workshop followed by a solo performance at Vagabond Blues in Palmer this Friday, Oct. 7. The workshop is free and runs from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. Tickets for the performance are $15 general admission, $10 for seniors and students, and can be purchased at Fireside Books, Vagabond Blues, or online from the Palmer Arts Council website at http://conta.cc/2dqvFc7

Arthur Lee Land will also perform with Great American Taxi at the Fairview Inn in Talkeetna at 9 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 13; Klondike Mike’s (with local opener Braided River) in Palmer at 6 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 14; 49th State Brewing Company in Anchorage at 8 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 15; and Alice’s Champagne Palace in Homer at 9 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 16.

The Palmer show is a fundraiser for Radio Free Palmer (89.5 KVRF) and the Homer show is a fundraiser for KBBI (AM 890).

Tickets are $10 for the Palmer show and available at Klondike Mike’s.