My busy work schedule has wreaked havoc with my sleeping patterns. Before, it was simply a case of getting my days and nights reversed, which is a situation I’m somewhat used to and can mend relatively easily. However, the last few days it is becoming more and more like insomnia. For the past two nights I’ve gone to bed before 10pm, only to wake up within 2 hours and not be able to fall back asleep. I’m typing this at 04:30. I find this particularly frustrating because I’ve never, ever had any difficulty sleeping at any time or under any condition.

On the bright side, I’ve used the time tonight to catch up on some of my website backlog. Speaking of bright sides, I hope I can get back to sleep this morning before the sun comes up (unlike yesterday).

One reason I’m really disappointed that I didn’t get a recording of my performance on Sunday night is because I played my “Chapman bass motor” patterns in front of an audience for the first time. These are left hand bass patterns strongly based on what Emmett Chapman teaches in his excellent book Free Hands. I still have trouble putting my left hand on “auto pilot” and mainintaing the pattern while soloing (or doing anything mildly intricate, for that matter) with the right hand. But, I think putting what I have so far out in front of an audience without any major crashes was an important first step to building a bit of confidence with the technique. Still, it would have been nice to have a recording to study afterwards.

I’m in the preliminary stages of booking a Stick player for a performace at a local cafe, hopefully before the end of the year. We don’t even have a date nailed down yet, so its too early for details. Hopefully good news will be available in the near future.

Sunday was interesting. Actually, the days leading up to Sunday contributed a lot to my state on that night. Last week was one of the busiest weeks I’ve had, with very late nights trying to meet deadlines and leaving little time (actually none) for practice. So, I put in a couple of hours on Sunday afternoon, but that time was really spent only trying to relearn songs I hadn’t played in weeks.

Then, the taxi service I had called to come pick me up showed up about 15 minutes sooner than it usually takes them to get out here. Apparently, the driver happened to be in the neighborhood. Normally this would be a good thing, except that I have “perfected” my routine of making sure I have everything packed and ready to go just as the taxi is “supposed” to be getting here, thus minimizing the chance of me being ready too soon and then having to pace around for 15 to 20 minutes waiting anxiously for the driver to show up. But, he shows up early, and I’m still packing up my gear, don’t have my pants on, haven’t put my contact lenses in … In my rush to get everything out the door, I didn’t realize until we were well down the road that I had forgotten to write down the telephone number and address of the place I’m going. No problem, right? I had a generally good idea of where it is.

So, we get in the neighborhood, and I tell the driver to go down this street, I think its just down here on the left. It was a dark residential neighborhood. Nothing even vaguely resembling a bar to be seen. We drove up and down that street at least 5 times. I was getting anxious, not only about the time, but also the increasing fare meter. (The driver didn’t seem to mind.) After two panicked calls to Jamie (yes, one call wasn’t enough), we finally found the place, which we had passed right in front of on every one of the 8 trips up and down that dark street. The taxi drive that should have taken 20 minutes took about 45. It was 19:30. I was scheduled to be first on stage at 20:00.

Well, there was hardly anyone there yet, so I had the stage all to myself to get my gear set up and do a short sound check. We ended up starting the show at 20:25. While my performance was nothing to write home about, considering my panicked state of less than an hour earlier I felt amazingly calm and was able to shrug off my numerous mistakes. I even felt more comfortable talking to the crowd than usual, going into a brief version of my taxi adventure. Afterwards, Yuri mentioned how relaxed I looked.

I had taken my microphone and recording device, and even found a great spot right up near the stage to record my performance. I realized only later that I had forgotten to push the record button. Oh well, I guess that is kinda fitting for the night I had.

And a month long hiatus comes to an end …

I’ve always been prone to do things in fits and starts, and that characteristic gets even worse during the summer months. Basically, I’m the opposite of a bear that hibernates in the winter; I shut down as much as I can and wait out the heat by trying to move as little as possible (mentally as well as physically). I have little desire to do much of anything through the weeks of heat and humidity, which includes practicing the Stick. So, when I finally picked up my Stick last Thursday for the first time in weeks, yes I was incredibly rusty in technique, but it was soooooo much fun. For three days I practiced at least 3 hours a day. A busy work schedule this week has prevented me from making it a daily routine, but I’m anxious to get back at it as soon as things settle back down to a more regular pace.

I’ll be playing at One Love on 26 September. Although I’ve heard a lot of good things about this bar/restaurant/music spot, this will be my first time to visit. One Love has been the sponsor of the Miyajima Full Moon Festivals held usually twice annually on a local beach, with the most recent being at the end of August. Apparently the festival was a financial wash for the sponsors this time, due to a rather strong typhoon that decided to pass through and rain (and blow, and wreak general havoc) on the party. The event on the 26th will be a fund raiser, with all musicians volunteering their time and all proceeds contributed to help pay for the losses.

My friend and Stick player Derek Dallenger has finally joined the cyber world (with baby steps so far), and we’ve been exchanging emails over the past few days. He sent me a link to a website that has a brief interview with him, as well as a video clip of a sample of some of his music. Even if you can’t read the Japanese text on the website, I think it is well worth checking out to have a look at the video sample of Derek’s music. (Scroll about halfway down the page; the link is under the red text.)