Luke just wrote me about renewing domains, and that got me looking at my old website (which Luke set up for me when I was into written blogs 'n such) The Adventures of Big ‘K’! http://www.adventuresofbigk.com. Needless to say, It hasn’t been updated it in 6 years, but we’ve kept the domain just for historical sake.
Anywho, I randomly clicked on the month of August 2005, and to my surprise, I stumbled on a blog about my first encounter with Kevin Kmetz!!! This was back when I was primarily playing shakuhachi and trying out a borrowed nagauta, without the slightest interest in Tsugaru style.
Anyhow, here it is!
Shamisen on the Mall
Written on August 27, 2005.
So, I went down to Rhythm (wow! I can’t believe I spelled that right!) Fusion to look for some goat skin for my banjo. It was some fine skin and for 16 bucks. This is also my first home-made banjo so since it’s kinda a test-run, I don’t need to use the best of the best. After inspecting the skins, I left. I saw an Oud on the wall. It looks like the Baliset Gurney used on Dune!
While walking down to the lumber store to look for some hooks for my banjo (to pull the skin down), I saw a Shamisen player playing Tsugaru stuff. I wanted to listen but I wanted to get to the lumber store and get back in time for Karate so I hurried down to the lumber store and thoroughly inspected the hooks. all the long hooks were too fat to be used but I found a box of skinny short hooks which I could heat and bend into a long one. After buying a set, I hurried back to the Shamisen player hoping to listen to a bit before he left. Fortunately, he was still there.
After he finished a piece, I asked what tuning he was in. I mentioned that I tuned my Shamisen to the Shakuhachi to play the San Kyoku pieces. He let me play his Shamisen and woo! What a trip! He had a real nice pick. The edges were rounded so he could do tremelo stuff. My pick has sharp edges which make it hard to do that. He teaches Shamisen nearby so I might get a lesson.
And I guess the rest is history!
