All posts filed under: Sarky Mekmorakoth

Conversations With Sarky: Going Solo

Published by Saysomphorn Sisavatdy

This is Part Two in an interview series on Lao American music artist, Sarky Mekmorakoth. You can read the first interview, “Conversations with Sarky: The Early Years (Part One) here. I feel like I need to lighten the mood, so, I’m gonna ask, what are you most proud of during your career? Teaching. It’s an amazing feeling to be a guitar instructor because it’s something I love to do so much. So, to get to share my passion, knowledge, and love for music to a new generation? It’s like seeing yourself back then, when you first started and the progression. It’s cool what these kids are able to do. I get to share everything I went through, learned, and some of these kids really have it. That doesn’t happen everyday but when you see it and hear it–it’s an impact. I’ve been very blessed to get to do what I love and pass it on to more people. And to be able to do it for this long. It’s a dream. Considering how many of …

Conversations with Sarky: The Early Years

Published by Saysomphorn Sisavatdy

This is Part One in a series about Lao American music artist, Sarky Mekmorakoth. Music has always been an integral part of my life. I fell into it escaping from the harsh realities of being a 1st gen immigrant child of refugees: out of place, out of time. I found out just how much power it holds, too. Sometimes the electric charge was filled with feverish euphoria and other times, just an echoing sadness filled by gravity-induced silence, and everywhere in between. Early on, it was my light at the end of the tunnel–the constant melody that sang to me about my worth, filling that primal need for hope within me with hollow, deep, bass-filled down beats. About the only thing that could compare to my love of music and its magic, was my insatiable love of books. If music gave me hope, books and stories showed me what could be waiting if I persevered. In the mid-80s, when I first discovered Whitney Houston’s “Greatest Love of All” it became my anthem. I didn’t know …