• Performance Schedule:
  ramuji @ Rakuza on Friday 14 July

I’ll be performing at Rakuza on Friday 14 July, as an opening act for Denims from Tokyo. Ko-Ko-Ro, another local group, will also be performing an opening set. Both Denims and Ko-Ko-Ro are vocal + acoustic guitar duos, so I expect it to be a relativley mellow evening of good music.

See the Schedule page for details, and contact me by email or through the Comments link for advance tickets.

• Performance Schedule:
  ramuji @ Rakuza on Friday 14 July

It seems that I am having trouble with the mail server I have set up for my website. I have discovered twice in the past month that I never received email sent to me on my ramuji.com account. I’m usually pretty good at responding to email, so if you haven’t heard back from me within a few days, you may want to try contacting me through the “Comments” link at the bottom of every blog entry.

• Performance Schedule:
  ramuji @ Rakuza on Friday 14 July

After my show with Kanamaru-san at Rakuza, I was getting into a good pattern of regular practice and songwriting for at least a couple of hours every day. But, that came to an abrupt end this past Saturday. The reason is shown in the photo to the right.

This is Ebon, the newest addition to our family. She and a sister were found abandoned by Gale, a friend who lives in Kyoto, when they were only about a week old. Gale took care of them on his own for three weeks, but doesn’t currently have the space to keep even one cat. So, he brought them along on his most recent trip to Hiroshima. I took one, and Maggie adopted the other.

We also have a male adult cat, Chai, and since Ebon is still only a month old and weak (but healthy), we are careful to keep the two separated until she gets a bit bigger and stronger. That, plus the fact that all babies demand a lot of attention has taken a bit of a toll on me the past several days. Ebon wants to be held constantly, and will only curl up and sleep if she is being cradled in someone’s lap. Last night she finally seemed to get used to the idea of sleeping alone for a few hours, and so I was able to get more than 4 hours of sleep for the first time since Saturday.

• Performance Schedule:
  ramuji @ Rakuza on Friday 14 July

Here is a short clip of a song that I began working on in May. It started off as the relatively simple structure presented here, and then I expanded it a bit last week for the show at Rakuza. It is currently untitled, and still needs a bit of (songwriting) work.

Untitled (1,374KB mp3 stereo sound file)

This clip was recorded at home with Guitar Rig 2, and then imported into Audio Desk for minor editing. I haven’t done much recording until now, so it is really an eye opener for me to listen back and hear how clearly my mistakes stand out. In particular, the left hand bass lines are much rougher than I had realized, and that is one area that I will need to focus a lot of attention. I had a click track in my headphones while making this recording, and yet it’s pretty obvious that I need to spend more time practicing with a metronome.

• Performance Schedule:
  ramuji @ Rakuza on Friday 14 July

This photo was taken by Ishizawa-san, owner of Rakuza, at the end of the night on Saturday. Both Kanamaru-san and I were quite tired at this point, and still recovering from our colds.

The great time I had at Rakuza has really lit a fire under my ass. I’ve been putting in a lot more practice time than before, and I’m working on new material for the first time in a very long time. Right now I have a performance scheduled for July, but I would like to be able to schedule something for the end of June as well. Maybe I can work something out this weekend …