Living Japan

Wabi_Sabi W hat a ride! The last two and a half months have been a roller coaster ride to remember. As Wabi_Sabi's drummer, I'll be wrapping up the year with a collaborative live show in Hadano (秦野) AEON mall. The performance will feature Wabi_Sabi and another up and coming jazz pianist, Jacob.  So far we have played 18 live shows, traveled over a 1000km all the way from Niigata in the west to Hamatsu in southern Shizuoka and as far north as Sendai. We stayed in hotels, campers, manga cafes, cars, you name it. We played gigs in front of 100's of people on the street, and live shows in front of empty seats. So goes the life of a performer. While there have been a lot of things I've taken  from this experience, there are two things in particular I'll write about in this post. First is my Japanese, and second is my personal growth as a foreigner in Japan. Being with Benny and Hiro on the road for days at a time has given me an opportunity to grow as an...

Wabi_Sabi I have been given an extremely rare opportunity to be a part of a project that I can honestly say not many foreigners have had. Starting this month I will be touring with a professional band all over Japan as a their drummer. I'm super excited for this opportunity and because of the rarity of the situation I thought it would be an interesting topic to share with you all. With this shift in blogging I'll get a chance to publicize my band overseas and also give some of you who may be interested in playing in a band in Japan an inside look at the industry. Last month I accepted an offer to play with Wabi_Sabi, a band that's been active all around Honshu, Japan for the last 5 years. You can visit the website here and listen to our music and find out where we are playing. We are currently working on an English page which should be available soon. If you can't read Japanese and want to come see us live then go ahead and friend me on Facebook and you ca...