Images

Memento: Dancing and Pals at a wedding #flashback

Well this is well over a year ago now, but… a few days after our wedding, fellow MaeMae’s band member Hatsumi-san was married at a lovely event to a dashing gentleman who works in the alcohol beverage industry. Ryoko and some other musicians played some music (have video of this somewhere #NoteToSelf).

Aside from all of that, a few snaps surfaced recently which brought back some lovely memories of us dancing, and me hanging out with my pal Hama-san and Ren-san who is the proprietor of “the piano bar” and is on our mind recently as his business is really struggling of course.

Anyhow, this is my memory and these are two snaps and I can’t remember the photographer.

Artifacts: DIY cassette goodness

 

To me, there is importance in preserving the efforts of “small time“ artists putting their goodness out into the world in a true DIY style.

This stash includes:

* “Houseboat” and “Filterland” /4 track recorded cassettes (with a lot of doubling up and bouncing… really fantastic) by Chris Jacobson (who I met in Guam but he’s from Rhode Island and I’ve lost track of him)

* Chris Sullivan / who I played in a band with in Salt Lake City, he’s in Kentucky (i think) after going to Alaska to catch crabs (the kind from the ocean) or something like that… Fantastically versatile musician and charismatic front man

* “ARCO Hotel” by Joe Williamson who I knew in North Burnaby, BC years ago. He’s a deep jazz and classical (mostly) upright bass player with training at McGill. Cassette was recorded on New Year’s Day (I think) at eponymously named hotel in Amsterdam. Every once in while I see him pop up in European jazz circles doing important, eccentric things

* JahWah (demo), my pals from BC playing some funky punky reggae goodness / Chris Gee and renegades (Rob T & Merlin)

* Metal Planet and Scandoll, a couple of metal bands – who shared members – from my first go around in Tottori, Japan in 1993

* Francisco Fernandez’s band “the ferocious few “ / purchased from him busking on the streets of Austin at SXSW. He’s still out there doing his thing, give him some support

* Stony Curtis and the pipe dreams, one of many submissions when I was making Hempen Road documentary film… This one didn’t get used but I appreciated the effort.

* Another radio show on which I talked about hemp cannabis somewhere someplace somehow, have a lots of these sort of things
… and worth noting a lot of these tunes were used in my documentary films, various podcasts and pop up here and there, or sometimes not. 

Most of these, I suspect there’s very few original/organic/analog versions floating around, maybe a few others stashed in forgotten shoeboxes in various basements, attics and closets. Proud to be a curator.

And yes, I’ve course I have more, a whole box of cassettes and CDs labeled “dude, you got to hear my band…”

Ichiro x 4 #inspiration

Ichiro x 4

Note: visually explaining how we chose our baby name “Ichiro” as it came from:

  • Ryoko’s paternal grandfather (who died at 49, my age now)
  • Ryoko’s dear university sensei who first took her to Russia and Indonesia as well as taught her all about trees
  • The soon-to-be-hall-of-fame baseball player (who I got to see live many times with Mariners and is a symbol of courage, grace, persistence and skill and defying expectations and awesomeness)
  • Finally a little 3-D scan of our Ichiro in process (expected June 18th)

Ichiro: Grandfather (wedding photo)
Ichiro Hongo: sensei (fantastically interesting man)
Ichiro: Ballplayer (best ever)
Ichiro: Infant in process #pending  

Note: full name (pending) is Ichiro Stanley, Thorvald Olson

Diary: Outside the wall + compost bin

Note: Went “outside the wall” yesterday for a hospital visit and wow, a lot of weirdness everywhere… Got back home safe and I’m going outside to work in the garden now that i washed dishes / ps we made a yard waste / compost bin from scraps

Remember: Control The Controllables ‬

Update: also replanted 4 seedling trees (temporarily) and transplanted a bunch of kabocha (pumpkin squash variety)