I spoke with Derek on the telephone a few days ago to go over last minute arrangements, and then he sent me an email yesterday just before he and Hiroko hit the road. Derek will be playing a show in Kita-Kyushu tonight, and then they will set out sometime tomorrow for Hiroshima.

Jamie is organizing a huge benefit event for Sunday 9 January at El Barco and Barco Tropical, with live music and DJs. The goal is to raise 500,000 yen to donate to the Japan Red Cross to assist the victims of the tsunami that hit south Asia last month. See the Schedule section for more information.

There is an outside chance that I may be able to put together a “MacRack” sooner rather than later. I spent several hours yesterday shopping and deciding which iBook I want, and generally getting a bit too excited before I even have all of my ducks in a row.

I’ll be playing one solo set at Koba on Saturday night, along with bassist/vocalist Kajiyama Shu and “Bass Ninja” Imazawa Quagero. Hopefully I’ll be able to get the club’s owner, BOM, to join me for a bit of a jam with his didgeridoo.

The event scheduled for Sunday at Cusco Cafe has been moved to 5 December, also a Sunday. I also have a couple of promising gigs in development for December, as well as a large event scheduled for early January. More info on all of this will come later.

My research on the “MacRack” is progressing. I’ve changed my mind several times on both hardware and software, and will likely change it several times again before I have scratched together enough cash to finally make the purchase (hopefully sometime in the first half of 2005). Right now I’m in the process of soliciting advice from more knowlegable friends.

I fell asleep in my armchair Monday night reading the newspaper. I do this often, but this time I must have been sitting/slumping at an odd angle, because I’ve had a ferocious pain in my neck, shoulders, and upper back all week. I thought it would eventually work itself out, but if it keeps up like this for much longer, I may need to see a chiropractor.

I’m beginning to give some serious thought to making a major change in my effects rack. The new rack would be built around a laptop computer (probably a Mac, but haven’t gotten that far yet in the decision making) that would be installed with recording/mixing/sequencing software and any number of a variety of plug-ins for effects. The main advantages I see at this point are (1) being able to record tracks in my own home studio and (2) being able to add effects, processors, etc. as I like onto the computer’s hard drive, without any actual physical increase in the amount and weight of the equipment I have to move around. The main disadvantage (for me) is that I just don’t know much about this area of computers and computer software yet, and still have a lot of research to do. Luckily for me, there are already some pioneers in this area among Stick players, most notably Don Schiff. You can read more about his “MacRack” on his website by clicking Musings in the main menu, and then MacRack on the left side.

I finally mailed in my absentee ballot yesterday for the 2004 U.S. general election. This is my first time to vote since 1992. I had the ballot filled out for a week before I finally mailed it. Deciding who to vote for was no problem at all for me, but I did start to get cold feet about whether I wanted to participate. In addition, considering my candidate of choice and the political leanings of the state where my ballot will be counted (Indiana), my vote for president will in effect have zero impact. (You need to understand how the U.S. Electoral College works to understand that last bit.) Having said that, however, not all hope is lost for my candidate of choice: in all of the U.S. presidential elections in which I have participated (ok, there are only two: 1988 and 1992), no one has ever won the White House without my vote.

Jamie and Natasha had their wedding party on Monday night. Although they’ve been together for several years, they had never had a party with their friends, plus it was excellent timing since Jamie’s family is in Hiroshima now to visit them. We started off at 6pm with about 35 people at Rendez-Vous for food, drinks, and general merriment, and then moved on to a much larger event at El Barco starting at 9:30pm. A large group showed up at El Barco, many of us with instruments, and we celebrated for hours making music. The party was still going strong when I finally gave in and went home at 3:30am.

By the way, the kilt-clad Jamie and his two brothers, Fran and Simon, were a big hit with the ladies, and not because their knees were exposed. I wouldn’t be suprised if a few interesting “up-skirt” photos started showing up on the Internet soon.

For quite some time I’ve been wanting to add another effects unit to my rack for the melody strings, but I had given up on the idea because I can’t afford it right now. But, I started obsessing about the idea again last night, and stayed up rather late reading on-line product manuals again. I’m leaning toward products made by T.C. Electronic and Lexicon. The idea is to connect another processor in series with the Boss SE-70 that I’m currently using, to expand the palette and flexibility of sounds on the melody side. For now, I’ve simply re-wired my current rack so that both of my SE-70s are now processing the melody strings. This leaves my bass strings un-processed, which isn’t necessarily a downside, although I would like to eventually move one of the SE-70s back to the bass side.

Saturday’s Amnesty International event in Alice’s Garden was incredibly hot. Somebody said the high temperature was 35 degrees. And yet, we had a great crowd from nearly the beginning at 12pm all the way until the end just a little past 8pm. As always, Jamie did the work of at least 3 people, moving gear, mixing sound, and generally making sure everything ran smoothly and on time. The result was a huge success that (hopefully) demonstrated to the “powers that be” that (1) this is a great outdoor venue that could be used more effectively for monthly concerts, (2) there is plenty of local talent capable of attracting and holding the attention of an audience/shoppers passing by, and (3) people enjoy outdoor concerts in the middle of the shopping district, even if it means sitting for hours through blistering summer heat.

I will be one of several acts playing at a private party this Saturday, as well as at Feedback on the 17th. See the Schedule section for more info.

About two weeks ago I changed the signal routing of my gear. I now run the bass side of my Stick directly into the preamp of my SWR SM-400S amplifier, then through the effects chain, and to the Expand In section of the Rane SP 13 preamp where it is combined into a mono signal with the melody. This mono signal is then sent to the power amp side of the SM-400S. I think I get a tighter, punchier low end this way than with my previous routing, when I completely bypassed the SM-400S preamp in favor of the SP 13 preamp.

P.S.: Excellent choice, Mr. Kerry.

Although there are always several new pieces of gear that I want for processing my Stick signals, rather than dwell on how limited I am because I don’t have “super processing unit X”, I think I need to focus on being more creative with my existing units.

I’ve recently purchased a portable mp3 player with a 20GB hard drive. Supposedly, this thing can store several thousand compressed music files. It also has an internal microphone for recording audio direct to a compressed file. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to use it to record my performances, and maybe upload some files to my website in the future.

I’ve been compressing (actually using Ogg Vorbis rather than mp3) some of my favorite CDs, which has led to me spending several hours over the past few days listening to Stick recordings I hadn’t touched for quiet a while. This “re-discovery” has been rather inspiring.

Although nearly 20 years old, Emmett Chapman’s Parallel Galaxy is, for me, still the quintessential Stick recording. While there have been several incredible albums by great Stick musicians since then, Parallel Galaxy is still the one that sets the bar for everyone else.

I got my new Stick cables on Friday. Plugged in and did a little practicing. Not only are these new Planet Waves cables much heavier-duty (also heavy-weight, too) than what I had been using before, the sound is noticebly clearer as well. The clarity of these cables had been demonstrated to me before, so I was expecting it. What surprised me was the extra volume I am getting, particularly out of the bass side. I’m going to practice with the settings as they are now for another day or two, but initial impressions are, since switching cables, that I’m eventually going to need to tweak the balance between the bass and melody string groups. So far, I’m using only the new stereo-stereo cable into my Rane SP13 preamp; I haven’t yet had the chance to use the stereo-mono cable.

I’m excited about instrument cables. This is pretty indicative of how exciting my life is.

Recently, I’m really enjoying the CD “subzerosonic” by Stick player John Edmonds. He describes this CD as “odd-time deep-space ice groove for ambient hypnosis and motional haphazardry”. Check out his website for more info and a sound sample.