Sunday 28 May 2006 by ramuji
I really enjoyed sharing the stage with Kanamaru-san at Rakuza on Saturday. I had hoped for and expected more people to show up, but those who did come were enthusiastic and attentive. Kanamaru-san impressed the audience with his powerful melodies and extremely clean technique. He also talked from the stage about how much he likes coming to Hiroshima and looks forward to playing a show here again in the near future, which drew enthusiastic applause from the audience.
I had a lot of fun playing my music during my set, and it occurred to me later that I hadn’t experienced that feeling in such a long time. After about the first two songs, I was able to simply focus on my music and really get into what I was doing. I played two new songs, one of which I think has a lot of promise while the other one bordered on disaster. After the very bad ending to that song, I made a bit of a joke about it and the audience responded with friendly laughter, and then I immediately went into “Lift Off”, which was probably my most solid tune of the show.
This photograph was taken by a friend during my set. I hope to get a few more photos in a few days from a couple of other people that were snapping shots throughout the night.
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Monday 22 May 2006 by ramuji
I’m really excited about my joint performance on Saturday with Kanamaru-san. In addition to getting out and playing more myself, I want to invite more Stick players to Hiroshima for performances, and possibly more diverse events in the future if we can create enough interest in the instrument here.
One of Kanmaru-san’s regular gigs in Tokyo is a series of “TOMOYAARTS & Kanamaru Toshiaki Live Events”. The painter and the Stick player perform together completely unrehearsed and improvisational, feeding off of and contributing to each other’s performance. Kanamaru-san is also in the process of recording his second album, so I’ll be looking forward to hearing his new material on the 27th.
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Monday 22 May 2006 by ramuji
Performance Schedule: Kanamaru & ramuji @ Rakuza on Saturday 27 May
I went down to Windfall on Sunday evening to catch a great two sets of music from Maggie and Kit. They compliment each other quite well, and it is clear they really enjoy playing together. Windfall (not the shop in the picture above, btw) was a wonderful setting for their style of blues, rock-n-roll, and a even a little bit of bluegrass. Windfall is not a large place, however, so it was really a cramped space. I was surprised that there was actually room for 15 people to sit, and the house was packed for both sets.
Windfall has quickly become a new favorite on my short list of places I like to hang out. The owner has lots of CDs of “Americana music”; mostly country and blues, but a very deep catalog of everything those categories cover. Rarely do I hear anything there that I’ve heard previously somewhere else.
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Thursday 18 May 2006 by ramuji
Performance Schedule: Kanamaru & ramuji @ Rakuza on Saturday 27 May
These photos are from the 2006 New Year’s party at Mac. They were taken by Chris Davies, whose death a couple of months ago saddened us all. The walls in Mac are covered with a small fraction of the many photos that Chris shot over the years.
Mac is one of my favorite places to spend time in Hiroshima, and you can often find me there on the weekends standing in this same spot chatting with Boku-san as he works behind the bar.
The first photo shows me, Boku-san (middle), and Wada-san, clearly enjoying one of the many acts that performed that night. Actually, Wada-san was busy operating the sound board, as always.
The second photo was taken during my performance that night. I remember it started off roughly, as I discovered the hard way that I had a bad cable. As the crackles and pops belched out of the speakers, I looked up at Wada-san who threw his arms up in the air as if to say, “I’m not doing that!” So, I stopped at about 30 seconds into my first song to switch cables. I had to borrow someone’s guitar cable, and switch the Stick pickups to mono mode. It wasn’t a smooth performance, but playing for a roomfull of friends is fun and we all had a good night.
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Thursday 18 May 2006 by ramuji
Performance Schedule: Kanamaru & ramuji @ Rakuza on Saturday 27 May
I’m in the process of rearranging the website, hopefully making it easier for me to organize. I’ve been racking my brain for the past two days trying to figure out how to program all the new code, and I think I almost have it now. It’s still a little rough around the edges, so I’ll be doing some more clean up and reorganization over the next few days.
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