Date: Sat Jul 9, 2005
Subject: Japan Spring 2005 - Hanami to Hanabi in Tokyo and elsewhere

Hi folks,

Back in Bangkok, chilling out in Tu's Place again, and it's time for another
round-up of the adventures of your hero, Shen.  Episode 19, from Hanami to
Hanabi in Tokyo (Japan Spring 2005 Report).  At the end of our last episode,
Shen & Orie were gazing into the sunset on beautiful Ko Chang, West
Thailand...


APRIL - YOYOGI PARK

We arrived in Japan at the perfect moment - the peak of hanami
(flower-viewing) season, just before all the cherry blossoms drop.  On my
second day back I went off to Yoyogi Park, tabla in hand, to see who I could
meet.  I haven't described Yoyogi Park in these emails yet...  a gathering
point for so many subcultures, starting from Harajuku Station you've got the
cosplay girls (dressed as gothic versions of Disney characters, I think),
then at the entrance to the park are the rockers imagining they're Elvis,
then here and there the high school acapella group or hip-hop dance group,
the skateboarders, further inside the park are the drum 'n didj folks, then
a little further on next to the pond is the foxtrot club and then the trance
DJ and company, all mixed up with all manner of "regular folks" throwing
baseballs and drinking Asahi.  But on the second Sunday of April, it was
wall-to-wall merry drunken hanami parties under the cherry trees.  I found a
nice bunch of African drum/tabla/sanshin (Okinawan lute) playing folks and
got into the spirit of things.  Thanks to Shige, Ryuichi and all!

I popped back to Yoyogi, tabla in hand, a few more times in April.  It
seemed a great place to meet people.  I handed out a lot of name cards and
fliers.  On the weekend of April 23-24 at the Earth Garden festival, I spent
a total of 12 hours sitting and playing tabla at maximum volume (I was up
against a big rock stage) and managing to attract a bit of attention, and
even to sell a few CDs.  To tell the truth, the shortage of gigs and
students in my life was getting to me.  Negative emotions...  But as a
result, I had a great time and met a lot of nice people.  In fact, a couple
of the folks I met that weekend came to almost every gig I had after that!
Thanks Ben & Chigusa!

I did have one small gig in April - thanks to Takashi Kougo-san, a wonderful
esraj player.  (For those of you not in the know, the esraj looks like a
small sitar, except that it has a skin over the body and is played with a
bow.)   The audience was small, but the music was moving, and the venue,
Space Cake, proved successful a couple of months later.


MAY - GOLDEN WEEK @ THE GREENHOUSE, INDO-JAZZ, KANSAI TOUR & MBIRA ZVAKANAKA

Golden Week (April 29-May 4) is a week full of public holidays and the whole
country takes the week off.  We had such a great time at last year's
Earthlingz Golden Week Gathering that of course once again we were off to
the Greenhouse, a big old farmhouse in a secluded valley a couple of hours
into the mountains from Ikebukuro on the Seibu Line.  This year's Golden
Week Gathering featured, along with myself on tabla, analog bleeps from
Babaluma, various ethnic sounds from Shakti, Indian classical shakuhachi and
koto from Tim Hoffman, Indian classical bansuri from Taro Terahara, and a
few more with saz, mbiras, an old grand piano, DJ console etc.  The
Greenhouse owner, Chris Case, really knows how to make a space for creation
and then sit back and let things flow.  What's more, his cooking is
delicious and his conversation fascinating.  Among the stories I've been
privy to while lazing in one of the nearby onsens (hot spring baths), Syd
Barrett, Yoko Ono, and Timothy Leary have all popped up.  I've met so many
interesting people at the Greenhouse, and had some great jams.

I had a few concerts in May too.  First up, Indo-Jazz 4tet, with TaroTerahara (bansuri - gee, he's good), Hikaru Komamura (guitar), Satoshi Ikeda
(double bass), and myself.  We had a very small but enjoyable concert back
in November, and this time the attendance was much more encouraging, and the
music fine.  Nice group - just a shame everyone's so busy we can't get
together more often.  Well, everyone's busy, except me of course...  (More
negative emotions...  Around this time I managed to find a couple of private
English students.)

After a small gig with American acoustic guitarist T.C. Deane, I had a
little tour of Kansai: gave some tabla lessons to my old students and had
some beers with old friends in Kyoto, played with young sitar whiz, Tadao
"Action Sitar" Ishihama in Osaka, and then nipped over to Nagoya for a
concert with Odissi dance (Mayumi Fukushima) accompanied by live sitar (Koki
Yoshida) and double tabla (Naoto Saito and myself).  It was my first
opportunity to play with dance in Japan and I think everyone would agree it
went down well.  The tabla duet with Naoto-san was also great fun.  We have
an excellent chemistry, which is hard to find with tabla players.

Back to Tokyo and I witnessed the best Indian classical performance I've yet
seen in Japan - Setsuo "Jimi" Miyashita (santoor), Keisuke Muto (sitar) and
U-Zhaan (tabla-whiz, gee he's good).  What a fantastic jugalbandi (duet)!
Keisuke-san's melodic accompaniment was excellent.

I wrapped up the month with a concert with Mbira Zvakanaka, a nice couple of
folks who've been to Zimbabwe and learnt along with some of the mbira folks
I play with in Brisbane.  Lovely gig!  I just love playing tabla with mbira.
I'm looking forward to playing with Masa & Meggy in Japan next year, but
before then I get to play with their guru-sisters in Brisbane too!


JUNE - GYPSY LIFE

A big fight at home meant that I spent all of June living in other people's
homes, a few days here, a few there, a few days at the Greenhouse.  Thanks
to everyone who's helped - Martine, Steve & Teruyo, Alex, Tadao, Christophe,
Masa, Chris, Meggy, Colin, Michiro & Reiko, and Taro & Yuriko!  I've been
living out my dream of going tabla in hand, rehearsal-to-lesson-to-gig.  I
actually started to get busy musically in June.  With some well-paid
concerts, a few tabla lessons, a couple of tabla sales and some CDs, I
started to think I could possibly get by as a musician after all.

Gig highlights in June - a Kyoto machiya (traditional Kyoto house) concert
with Jimi Miyashita, our first since playing together in Varanasi in March;
a couple of performances with Hide, a young sitar player I met in Varanasi;
the ever-wonderful bansuri of Taro Terahara at Otoya-Kintoki (nightly world
music venue); a packed Space Cake with old buddy J (sitar); and Bhai-Bhai at
Cozmo's in Shibuya.  I organised "Bhai-Bhai" (Hindi meaning - "brothers") as
my "bye-bye" gig for the year in Japan and invited Terahara-san (gee he's
good), Muto-san (sitar) and U-Zhaan (tabla-whiz) to play.  To be honest,
while I enjoyed myself as always, I really felt the pressure both as gig
organiser and in replying to U-Zhaan's fantastic tabla solos.  Having
decided to avoid the bad taste of financial pressure in my music for the
next while, I felt a huge weight off my shoulders at the end of this gig.

Last up, off to Niigata to play with my old friend Michiro Kimura at the
opening of a natural therapies centre.  It's summer in Japan, people are
lighting hanabi (firecrackers), and Michiro's sitar continues to grow more
beautiful.  It was full-circle for me.  On moving to Tokyo in August last
year, first up was the Tohoku tour from Niigata to Akita with Michiro.  Now,
I was leaving Tokyo, for a while at least, and once again I was in Niigata
drinking sake with Michiro.  Thanks Michiro and Reiko!


WHAT'S NEXT?

Unfortunately, a lot of my last 3 months have been coloured by negative
emotions - jealousy, paranoia, that kind of thing.  "Why are those tabla
players getting so many gigs and I'm sitting around at home?  Why didn't
that musician invite me, once again?  Is it because my tabla is missing
something?  Is it because my Japanese is baby-talk?"  I know thinking like
that is senseless, but with the pressure of trying to make money from just
music it was too easy to fall prey to those negative emotions.  There's no
place for jealousy in music, so I have to take a break from depending on
music for a living.  I still have a lot to learn as a musician and there's
no hurry.

I'll be flying into Brisbane on July 23rd and staying until January.  In
that time I hope to get some kind of job and save enough money for another
study-trip to India from January to April.  I don't plan to organise many
concerts in Australia, although I do have a few ideas.  I hope to get some
concert invitations and a number of tabla students, but I won't be too
disappointed if it doesn't work out that way.  It's time to focus on putting
beauty and positive feelings into my music.


WEB LINKS:
Takashi Kougo (esraj): http://www.bon-music.com/
Space Cake (venue): http://www.afterhours25.com/
Tim Hoffman (Indian classical shakuhachi, koto and vocals):
http://www.ijmea.com/
Taro Terahara (bansuri): http://www.pure.ne.jp/~fueya/
Earthlingz/The Greenhouse: http://www.earthlingz.net/
Hikaru Komamura (jazz guitar): http://homepage.mac.com/hikarino/%7Eckv68950
Tadao Ishihama (sitar): http://www.tadao.in
Mayumi Fukushima (Odissi dance): http://www.surya-odissi.com/
Koki Yoshida (sitar): http://homepage2.nifty.com/gyan/
Setsuo "Jimi" Miyashita (santoor): http://www.ne.jp/asahi/okumino/sarasoju/
Keisuke Muto (sitar): http://www.real-tokyo.net/~muto/news.html
Mbira Zvakanaka (mbira): http://www.mbirazvakanaka.com/
Martine Cotton (photos): http://www.frangipani.info/index/
Otoya-Kintoki (venue): http://www2.u-netsurf.ne.jp/~otokin/
Junichi Osako (sitar): http://sitar.parfait.ne.jp/
Cozmo's Cafe (venue): http://www.cozmoscafe.com/
Michiro Kimura (sitar): http://www1.ocn.ne.jp/~hanauta/ [Dead link removed]


Love to all
Shen
Aum Mani Padme Hum