LOG - 21

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31 August 2004 - arrived in Denver and tuned to AM 670 (KKZN) to listen to the 2nd day of a new talk format for the radio station, namely "progressive talk". The hostess had a thick NYC accent and was talking about the Republican convention, there. I felt that I was in New York. It seemed odd or inappropriate to be riding around Denver and listening to a thick NY city accent over the radio.

1 September - tuned into KGNU 88.5 FM in the morning and heard Pacifica radio coverage of the RNC and protests in NYC.

2 September - woke up very early (3 or 4am) and had the hotel room radio tuned to KGNU. Had it turned down low. It seemed that around 5 or 5:30, something happened. After that, I didn't seem to be able to receive the station. Instead, there was another station in its place, with Christian broadcasting. The new station not only replaced KGNU, but seemed to bleed into other neighboring frequencies as well.
nbsp;nbsp;Received a tip from master mandolin player, Dwight Mark, that Gil Asakawa was performing at Boulder's Pearl Street Mall this evening. Unfortunately, I was out of town, and returned too late to catch Asakawa's performance. (Not sure what he plays. Didn't even know that he's a musician.)

3 September - on the United airlines flight back to Baltimore, one of the segments of the video program, "Smooth Jazz TV" was of a performance by the fusion/r&b group, Hiroshima, at last year's Burk's Jazz Festival (Reading, PA). Interspersed with the stage shots were clips of scenes about town.

8 September - got a response from the Engineer at KGNU. I'd emailed her asking about my reception problem (see description above - Sept. 2) ...

12 September - Groove Therapy from New Jersey opened for the first International/Diversity Celebration Music Festival at Pimlico Middle School in Baltimore (a mile or so up the road from the racetrack where the Preakness is run)...
  Attended a service at Old St. Paul's Church in downtown Baltimore commemorating the 190th anniversary of the Star-Spangled Banner. Sang 2 stanzas with the rest of the congregation.
  Browsed my favorite book outlet store and found a book called, Chinese Canadians; Voices from a community (1992). It consists of interviews of prominent Chinese Canadians. It's okay, but I'd prefer a book with a mix of prestigious and common folk. Anyhow, one of the people covered is composer Alexina Louie. She seems to have said a thing or two that might be worth excerpting.

Tosh (Left) & Tats (Right) 18 September - Toshi Makihara & Tatsuya Nakatani, True Vine Records, Baltimore... True Vine is a recently opened, scruffy space in the Hampden neighborhood... Got some good shots of these two improvisational percussionists as they did their thing...

30 September - Joss and exit clov, Black Cat club, DC... Joss, from NY-NJ, sounded pretty good. Ambrose Liu and his band has come up with some good music. That's important in a club environment, where good music usually has an edge over lyrics. ... exit clov, being the hometown band, attracted almost all of the audience. ... Got into a brief interesting conversation with Chris, the Joss drummer. Turns out his day job is with Marubeni, a Japanese merchandising firm. He's been with them for many years. He works in a joint venture between Marubeni and Citizen. The latter, best known for their watches, makes a popular brand of computerized lathe. (Chris says they sold 450 -- this year? can't remember over what time period.)
I told him that I'd visited a machine tool museum a year ago in Vermont, where there were lathes going back 150 years.

2 October - High Zero festival, Theater Project, Baltimore... The 5th or 6th festival of improvised music combining local and out-of-town artists.
3 October - High Zero festival, Theater Project, Baltimore... Mostly disappointing except the 2nd act, Audrey Chen, Le Quan Ninh, and Nicole Bindler. They got the biggest applause of the night, and deservedly so.

10 Oct - IQU at Supreme Imperial, Baltimore... This Seattle duo (Kento Oiwa & Michiko Swiggs) has a pretty attractive sound. They've got tons of equipment and know how to use them... and yet... I'd like to see more of Michiko's charm unleashed on stage.   I asked how their tour was going so far. She said the first part of their tour started in Florida right after the hurricanes. In Orlando, they had stayed in a hotel that had had its roof blown off.

15 Oct - "Pacific Crossings": Yosuke Yamashita New York Trio (YY -piano; Cecil McBee -bass; Pheeroan Aklaff -drums) + Meisho Tosha (flute) & Kiyohiko Semba (drums)

16 Oct - Chang Cheng-Yue and Free9 + MC Hot Dog, 9:30 club, Wash., DC. MC Hot Dog had to be the highlight of night. (Who sez that Mandarin Chinese is an inappropriate language for rap?!) ... when I got back to my car, I found it had been broken into... The thief grabbed some change and battery-charging cables...

19 Oct - Caught another gig by IQU, this time at the Recher Theatre in Towson, Maryland. They were opening for a band called "...And you will know us by the trail of dead". The main differences between IQU's performance of a week ago and tonight were that, this time, there was little or no gap between songs, the audience was much larger (60-75), and the sound system speakers were huge (thus creating floor-shaking bass beats).
  Sherry, one of the hosts of the Supreme Imperial gig was there at the Recher. She recognized me and came up to me to say hello. When I mentioned to her about my car break-in, she relayed her own experience in that same neighborhood several years ago. Upon filing a police report, she was told that that area suffered the highest theft rate in DC. (Gotta be careful where you park...)

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