Live Performance at Art Museum

Daichi Yoshino and I have been invited by Hokkaido Obihiro Museum of Art to perform in its entrance hall on Saturday, the 29th of January. This is going to be our first appearance at the local museum which is located on a hill of grand Obihiro Green Park.

We are going to be performing from 4:30 p.m., when twilight blue probably begins to prevail the wooded patio which you can see through the tall floor-to-ceiling windows in the background of our stage. Please look forward to seeing how we fill the quiet venue with our music. No charge for our concert (free!).

To download this photo flier, click here.

To download detailed fliers from the museum (Japanese), click here.

Coincidentally, there is an impressive exhibition of landscape pictures "Soaked in Landscape. Play with Nature." in cooperation with the Museum of Art in Hakodate, which is Daichi's hometown, also my second hometown. I hope you will enjoy it as well. For details check out the museum's website.

1/29（土）北海道立帯広美術館のロビーで吉野大地と「ミュージアム・コンサート」を行います。広大な帯広グリーンパーク内の丘の上にある同美術館での出演は初。

午後4:30からのライブで、ちょうどステージの背景の窓一面に広がる中庭の林が黄昏の青色に染まり始まるころ。静かな会場は、私たちの音楽でいっぱいにするとどうなるのやら。入場料は無料。

→プリント用ミニフライヤーはこちらから

→美術館発行の詳しいチラシはこちらから

奇しくも、当日は道立函館美術館の「コラボ」による風景画展「風景に、浸る。自然と、遊ぶ。」も開催中。こちらも楽しめそう。函館は大地さんの出身地、かつ私の第二の故郷。（詳しくは美術館のウェブサイトをどうぞ。）

Here Comes The Sunshine

I realized the bright sunshine coming in through the windows just when we started playing "Here Comes The Sun," and it was exactly the party coordinator had predicted during our rehearsal.

This is a scene from the party to celebrate my friends' wedding at Rancho El Paso. I believe the newly wed couple has had a great heartwarming time with the flowers, food, costumes, live music, hula dancing, etc., thanks to the sun... NOPE! to all the nice friends (more than 80 people!) who gathered to congratulate them.

"Here Comes The Sunshine" を演奏している時に、温かい日差しが窓から差し込んで来たのに気がついた。パーティの幹事がリハーサル中に予想した通り。

ランチョ・エルパソでの友人の結婚お祝いパーティの1シーン。新婚夫婦は、きれいな花、おいしい食事、仮装（？）、ライブ、フラダンスなどなどでさぞかし満足だったかな。お日様の...いやいや80人以上お祝いに集まってくれたみんなのおかげ。

Great Moments of Inspiration

On a nice and warm Sunday in October, I was invited by my band mate, Claude (Thaddius) to play in his acoustic set with (photo from left to right) Katz a.k.a Fucchie (perc.), Toshi (bass), Chip (perc.) at his base station, Marumigaoka-Onsen.

As always, Claude just named some songs we could probably play together right before the show. I am sure, although we had not rehearsed together, we were able to weave out pretty nice and groovy music. Yes, even with the artists I've met for the first time (Chip and Toshi this time right on the stage), we can always build something great as long as we keep inspiring one another. This is what I believe live music is about!

Cheers, Claude, it's always fun to join you (and for getting the piano tuned).

10月の温かい日曜日、バンド仲間のClaude (Thaddius) に呼ばれて、Katz（フッチー・perc.）、Toshi (bass)、Chip (perc.)と一緒に、彼のホームステージ丸美が丘温泉でアコースティクライブに参加。

いつもどおり、ステージ直前にClaudeがこのメンバーでできそうな曲をチョイス。リハーサルなし。でも、なかなかいいノリだった。お互いに刺激し合っていれば、初対面のアーチスト（ChipとToshiはステージで）とでさえ、いい音楽ができる。これがライブの醍醐味。

Claude、いつも楽しい時間（と調律）をどうもっす。

(photo by M-Jane)

Let It Snow Again

This is the snowcapped top tube of my bike, worn and battered, but still as reliable as an old friend. We see much more snow here even before Christmas this year. It's time to go mushing!

すり切れてくたびれた、でも旧友のように頼りがいのある自転車のトップチューブに積もる雪。今年はクリスマス前からずいぶん降る。犬ぞりの出番だ。

Backdating Updates

I am now updating my blog backdating with a lot of topics I have missed to upload in the past half year. I was just too busy....well, no excuse.

I can't even believe that I haven't purchase an iPhone 4 in spite I have been a power user (classic expression!) of Apple Mac for 24 years. It would hopefully help me update my blog more easily.

過去半年間にアップし逃した話題をさかのぼって更新している。忙しかった...言い訳はいかんです。

iPhone 4もまだ買っていない。もう24年もApple Macのパワーユーザー（ちょっと昔の言い方？）なのにもかかわらず...。まあ、（手に入れると）ブログももっと簡単にアップできるようになるんだろうな。

What a Great Time a Cup of Coffee Can Make!

This could be one of the most rich coffee I have ever experienced. I am not a coffee connoisseur or taster, nor do I drink it everyday either, but I could immediately feel that this presents very deep taste and lush and diverse aroma.

I brewed it at home one warm afternoon of October and it could be a perfect match with any relaxing music you name. I would choose this.

I had a kind of noteworthy chance to meet, Mrs. Unnamalai Thiagarajan, the owner of a fully-organic, Biodynamic coffee estate in India, at the local airport. She came to Tokyo to attend a specialty coffee convention and she took this opportunity to visit Biodynamic Farming practitioners and farms in Hokkaido, and we were going to guide her. But unfortunately, she had to turn back on the airplane she flew to here since she had to go back to India ASAP due to unexpected urgency. That was the coffee she left with us.

From her very, very concise presentation (in front of the departure gate!) of her farm in Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu, we could see that it was carefully grown with no chemicals in the mountainous region blessed with abundant biodiversity, good water and soil. See more details of Balmaadi Estate.

If you are interested in trying the coffee from my brief impression by any chance, check out for further distributor information (in Japan)

Well, I hope to see her again wherever it may be.

今まで出会った中でもおそらく一番リッチなコーヒーの一つかも知れない。コーヒー鑑定士でもテイスターでも毎日飲む愛飲家でもない私にも、とても味わいが深くて、贅沢で沢山入り交じった香りに包まれるのがすぐに分かる。

10月のあたたかな昼下がりに家で入れてみた。どんなゆったりした音楽にもぴったりかと。私ならこれかな。

地元の空港で、インドで有機農法（バイオダイナミック）の農園を経営するUnnamalai Thiagarajan女史にお会いする機会があった。実は東京でのスペシャルティコーヒーイベントに出席するために来日、ついでに北海道のバイオダイナミック農家を訪ねたいとこの地にいらっしゃったのでご案内する予定だった。しかしながら、急用でインドに帰ることになり、着いたその脚で同じ飛行機に乗って帰られる事に...。上記は彼女のおみやげのコーヒー。

（なんと出発ゲート前で!）タミールナドゥ州ニルギリにある農園についての超短いプレゼン。山中の現地の、とても豊かな生物多様性と、上質な水と土壌に支えられ、化学肥料や農薬を一切使っていない事をとりあえず了解。詳しくはこちら（Balmaadi Estate）。

こんな紹介でもお飲みになりたい方がいらしたら、こちらへどうぞ。

また機会があればどこかでお会いしたいものだ。

Beaujolais Nouveau 2010

We had another music show at Rancho El Paso's "Beaujolais Nouveau Dinner Special" on Thursday, November 19th.

I was joined by Yohei (guitars/center) as usual and also by the superb guitarist, Yoichi Watanabe (right) and the natural-high vocalist, Ai Tanaka (not shown) both from Minimokudo, as a full acoustic set.

It was a great opportunity to make Minimokudo's debut at the venue showing off the great original songs by Yoichi sung by Ai, whom I joined with Choppa (bassist) in their groovy gig on October 30th at Mega Stone.

Besides, wouldn't it be nice to perform under those ham and sausage and between those cactuses? They are all real ones!

To those who came to the show, thank you all for joining us and I hope you enjoyed the fill variety of music we played.

11/19（木）またまたランチョ・エルパソ「ボージョレー・ヌーヴォー・スペシャル・ディナー」に今年も出演。

フルアコースティックセットで、いつもの洋平（guit./中央）に加えて、ミニモク堂の最高のギタリスト渡辺洋一さん（右）とナチュラルハイのヴォーカリスト田中愛さん（写真なし）も登場。

洋一さんのオリジナル名曲を愛さんが歌って披露するエルパソデビューのよい機会にもなった。ミニモクとは10/30メガストーンでベースのちょっぱさんとグルービーなライブもやりました。

それにしても、ハムやソーセージの下、サボテンにはさまれてライブっていうのもいいかも。全部本物。

お越しいただいたみなさま、最後までおつきあいいただきありがとうございます。なんでもありの選曲で楽しい時間を過ごされたか？と願うところ。

(photo by T. Noda)

Heat Wave from Africa

I was involved in a live music show by an African music group on the 20th of October at Hokkaido Yell Center as a sound engineer. (I was asked the day before! My Goodness!) It was unexpectedly small but I really had a big time though.

The group was led by Chiaki Hayakawa (vocal) and Masaya Onishi (vo., gt. & perc.) and joined by Norihiko Yamakita (perc.) and Hiromi Kondo (perc.) (photo: from left to right), and (some of them) were on tour all over Japan calling for people's support for the education and independent lives of African children and their monetary fund, "Maisha ya Raha ("happy life" in Swahili)" they built for such purposes. For further information on their endeavor, please check their website.

Their passionate and energetic performance as well as the beautiful slideshow they presented were so impressive that I hoped much more people had known this event earlier. Probably because of the lack of organized advertisement efforts, there wasn't a big turnout of audiences this time unfortunately, but definitely not next time though.

10/20に帯広エールセンターでのアフリカンミュージックのライブに音響のお手伝いをした。（頼まれたのは前日！ぎゃあ〜）予期せず小さなイベントになってしまったけれど、とても楽しかった。

パフォーマーは早川千晶さん（vo.）、大西匡哉（まさや）さん（vo., gt. & perc.）、そして山北のりひこさん（perc.） そして近藤ひろみさん（perc.）の4人。そのうち何人かで日本中をツアーして、アフリカの子供達の教育と自立のための支援を求めて回っている。詳しい活動内容はこちら。

心に残る熱い演奏と美しいスライドショーを目の当たりにして、もっともっとたくさんの人たちがこのイベントのことを早くに知っていたらと思った。おそらく組織的に広告宣伝ができなかったので満員にできなかったのが悔しいが、次はそんな事がないようにと願う。

VietJapBraz 2010 Meet

In September, three gangster clan bosses from Brazil, Vietnam and Japan (in the order of the photos) had their annual secret gathering in downtown Obihiro.

You know it's cool to hang around by bus these days, not in those outrageously huge black limos anymore. Yes, we even go green too.

9月にブラジル、ベトナム、日本（写真順）のギャングの親分3人が帯広で恒例の

秘密会議。

最近は路線バスでうろうろするのがクールなんですぜ。あのバカでっかい黒いリムジンというのはもうナンセンス。私たちもエコで行く時代だ。