Summer Vacation

Well its been a long month of summer vacation, but I'll be saying hello to a new semester on Friday. Meanwhile the kids are all here preparing for the sports day the saturday after next.

I've been up to lots I suppose. Went to Fuji Rock a huge 3 day camp out rock festival at a ski resort, only about 2 hours from here. I have to say my favorite new band is Wolfmother. Also was quite pleased to be right up front for the Rac0nteurs, Jack White of the White Stripes new band. Other good shows were The Hives, JET, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Franz Ferdinand,and the String Cheese Incident. Course, checked out quite a few new bands, some were decent, some like OOIOO were just a bit too wierd ( the ear piercing shrieks) for me to stay too long. And after camping on a tilt (ski resort....but at least my feet were pointed down hill) I was glad to see my very horizontal bed.

Hmm.... other music happenings... went to Sado Island to see the famous Kodo drummers and their guest Urban Tap a group from NY that were really quite interesting and they had some great moves! Me and Dan decided to bring bikes and try to bike around. We didn't have enough time to tour the island but biked up an amazingly long hill on the way to the beach across the island and back and that was enough in the hot weather. Have to go back in the fall when its nice and cool because there are some beautiful landscapes on Sado to bike through and see the surrounding sea from.

Let's see now have a pet turtle named Scuba Steve who is quite the little character. He hasn't eaten any of his fishy friends since moving in either though he managed to disentegrate a plant. Not quite as fun to pet as a rabbit, I have entertained the idea of getting one and naming him/her pancake. But now there are already 2 fish tanks and one fish bowl (the recent addition of a blue beta named Natsuki), so its really enough to keep up with without worrying about poo balls on the tatami I reckon.

Keri's friend Chris from KY came for a visit and he plays a mess of instruments and bluegrass and wicked fingerstyle guitar. Thanks to both of them for really making Open Mic a blast. I think ya'll left some memories for quite a few folks there. Memory Live House was really packed to the brim...and I love to see it, lots of people making and digging music all coming together and enjoying life. Aside from having the pleasure of sharing the stage with Chris I also got to debut on drums for one song (the White Stripes, Seven Nation Army) with Dan and Yoshigoe-san and Sean. Big thanks to Sean for being our lead singer on short notice and really looking and sounding like a pro up there! If you doubt me, I have proof on video!! Hope we can get up to some more musical mischief next open mic.