I have safely returned to my home in Aomori, northern Japan after almost a month of traveling down the west coast from Oregon to Santa Cruz, California to Los Angeles. Got to see my old songwriting partner Danyl Johnson, Made new videos with Kyle Abbott and jammed a bit with Mike Penny!
Many thanks to Kyle for the great blogcasts of the Santa Cruz portion! Here is a brief summary of my trip from start to finish.
First thing that happened = running into Paco R. In Tokyo . . .
Then I found myself in a jam session across the ocean. . .
And in nature. . .
After that I found myself doing some street performing with Grant and Kyle
And Stayin Alive with the Abbott brothers!
In the end I stopped by L.A. And visited Mike Penny and my old bandmate from Estradasphere, Adam.
And of course no California Shamisen trip can be complete without a little dip into Shamisen HELL ! . . .
Mike’s fine! Didn’t make as many videos with him as I had hoped but he and I did get to give an awesome concert in a cave late one night with torches and candles and the moon as our only source of light ! It was quite epic! Also recorded some brand new God Of Shamisen material! Not much though. Just about 5 tracks plus three more for Franck I.'s project ! Anyway it kinda sucks being back here! It was great to spend that time being creative and seeing old familiar places and friends and family etc.
New Monsters of Shamisen is going to be even more epic than I had originally thought! Great work Kyle! Thanks for all the effort on the art and mixing/mastering process!
Don’t leave out that shot of the three of us ridiculously close in the studio With the mics hooked up on us! Hahaha! That one is hilarious!
Great to see so many videos Kevin! I also saw some additional ones on your youtube channel. A lot of punch in those small amps!
You got me into taking a listen to the latest God of Shamisen album again and I started learning the intro to the last Dragon Attack track. It’s epic and sounds really good.
Haha! Thanks guys! Karl, you gotta post some vids of yourself playing both that and the Taxi song! You saw the version we made in SC? It’s got your LYRICS in there! Great stuff!