LOG - 20

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3 April 2004 - at a music party (Club Daedalus, DC) to celebrate the end of a regional Asian American law students awareness conference: Alex Tanouye (blues), Bad Faith (rock), Maggie Kim & the Red Band (urban/pop/rock), and Paper Doll (bluesy rock)
Earlier, in the afternoon, I'd visited Goucher College just north of Baltimore city. There was an early brass (music) festival going on, there. I went to hear a trumpet professor from Brooklyn College (CUNY) talk about coach horns and post horns.

10 April - Za Ondekoza, Millennium Stage, Kennedy Center, DC... haven't heard this taiko group in many years... saw 'em once before at El Camino College in Torrance/Gardena, California. It was so long ago, that the personnel have probably changed since then. (Maybe several times)

11 April - Hiromitsu Agatsuma, Millennium Stage, Kennedy Center, DC... not a very exciting band, although their skills were tops... the keyboardist and drummer were flashier than Agatsuma on shamisen or the bassist.

17 April - attended a cousin's wedding in Charlottesville, Virginia. (Held on campus, University of Virginia) The only music was by a solo trumpeter, Ally Buchanan. She played various classical pieces (Bach, Clarke, etc.). It seemed to work well with the simple outdoor ceremony. I should've taken a picture of her tooting her horn. She was probably the best-looking gal at the event (of course, aside from the bride).
There was a copy of the wedding announcement lying around, that had been submitted to the NY Times for publication the next day. I found out that the bride's mother, my aunt, teaches piano at the university.

2 May - Bruce Eisenbeil (gtr.s), Katsuyuki Itakura (piano/kybd), and Stephen Flinn (perc.) [improv], Sangha Cafe, Takoma Park, Md.

13 May - Corinne May, Kulaks Woodshed, L.A., webcast... There's a tv monitor in the room which allows the performer to read email sent in by the internet audience. (The text is magnified many times.) When she read outloud and responded to email (some from folks from her native Singapore and its neighbor Malaysia), she sounded slightly spacey. (Is this still a West Coast malady? Hopefully less so than before... How can I be so critical of West Coasters?! Because I used to be one, myself. A West Coaster, I mean. And generally not spacey.)

23 May - Ned Rothenberg (winds, including shakuhachi), Mark Dresser (bass), & Michiyo Yagi (17 & 21 string kotos), Sangha Cafe, Takoma Park, Maryland

29 May - Tonight I saw Paddy Wack (Jack Wright -reeds; Sabine Vogel -flutes; Michael Griener -perc.) and Unsk (Birgit Uhler -trmpt.; Martin Küchen -sax; Lise-Lott Norelius -objects/electronics; Raymond Strid -perc.) at the Red Room in Baltimore.

17 June - went to the Ottobar in Baltimore to see Acid Mothers Temple, a psychedelic rock group from Japan. A better descriptor would probably be neo-psychedelic. They seemed to lack the sort of innovation that characterized the best of original psychedelic rock. And yet, there were some very accomplished elements... Opening the show, was Leprechaun Catering, a local experimental duo. I arrived after they'd played, and didn't realize that I was familiar with one of them, until I saw him sitting behind the merch table. It was Tom Boram, who I recognized from some whimsical improv performances a couple years ago at the Red Room. I talked to him, and he recognized me, as well.

7 July - tuned in to the webcast of a hip hop show on East Village radio and caught a bit of an interview with SOTO (a trio from somewhere down South (Atlanta?)). Unfortunately, some of it was unintelligible due to a music bed that sometimes masked the conversation(inappropriate relative sound levels). The technical quality of the interview also suffered from the distant miking of the group (they weren't all close enough to the mike) and the blurting speech style of the dj/interviewer. By the latter, I mean that he tended to rush his words in spurts.

10 July - Claire Barratt (dancer) and Tatsuya Nakatani (percussion), Red Room, Baltimore... Barratt's suite of dances drew often from Asian influences and much of it was inpsiring. Of course, Nakatani is no slouch, and had some new noisemaking devices to play with.

31 July - L'arc~en~ciel (J-rock), Baltimore arena... Otakon... talked with James Tonjes and Rick of Record Jam Play Productions, Vail Joy and Kat Chee of the JRock Online club, and David Chu of imaginasian tv. (when i sort out my notes, i will enter relay the substance in here)

15 Aug - Sanawon (Jenny Choi and Philip __?__), Beatnik Termites, Mike Park, and Ready Steady Go at the Ottobar in Baltimore. Jenny is the mastermind behind the series of tours she calls, AIR or "Asians in Rock". This is the like the 3rd or 4th such tour. This time, her touring partner is Mike Park, the man behind Asian Man Records.
She told me that having Park was a boost, because of larger venues expressed interest in having them play. On the other hand, it meant more work for her to find established, well-known artists to join them on the bill. (Something urged on her, no doubt, by the club bookers.)
[...intend on commenting on performances by Patrick Kim and the Beatnik Termites, Mike Park, and a conversation with Michelle Chin who manages Ready Steady Go and runs the rudeindc and dcska websites.]

21 Aug - I attended SoundWalk in Long Beach, California. It was an evening of indoor and outdoor site-specific sound installations scattered around the East Village Arts District. As one might expect, it was a mixed bag... More than 30 Southern Cal-based artists were involved. The organizers hope to put it on annually.

22 August - Made a trip to Amoeba Records in Hollywood. Not as enjoyable than the other time I went. More people, narrower aisles, and less stock in the rock, popular, and international music bins. (Although I did manage to unearth a copy of Cigarbox Planetarium in the $1 bins.)
I had an easier time finding releases by Asian Americans in the jazz and modern classical sections.

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