I wanted nothing more than to play music today but the tatami bugs seem to have come back and I need to sort out some final things for my taxes so I spent my long Monday break between classes vaccuuming and doing laundry and caculating things.
Now it’s 6 PM I’m in the park waiting for my laundry to finish and after that I have two more classes.
Such is life.
But these past few days I’ve been pretty fired up. I realized a few more pieces on my board that I can re-arrange to make life flow a whole lot better.
Things that didn’t excite me suddenly do!
Most of these are around guitar and music. Here are a few of them.
1 Guitar Upgrade!
Guitar brands never excited me cause I couldn’t hear the difference. Pearls before Swine! I could hear a difference but I didn’t really know what it was going on, even after hearing it explained.
But since I spent the last year trying to get better tone through compression and EQ, I’ve developed the vocabulary and the sense to know thr basic difference between Fender and Les Paul and that gives me a base to understand other brands.
I am going to get back to recording soon and a new guitar would make the album sound maybe 10% better, so I am pumping myself up to buy a new guitar. I am sure a $2000 guitar usually sounds better than an $200 guitar but I am sure a $1 million dollar wine tastes better than a $10 wine. It doesn’t mean I need a $1 million dollar wine, some tastes are only for the connesueirs. I’m looking for something around $800-1200 which is ….I don’t know where this money is coming from in these markets but I am going to sell some old coins at a loss if I have to.
This is an investment in my future too.
I’m looking at the Yamaha Revstar RSS20 and a Paul Reed Smith SE Custom 24. They aren’t big favorites among guitar fanatics because they don’t have as much character as some of the more popular guitars or botique guitars but they both seem diverse and low maintenance which I need.
I may go with something else, Les Paul guitars are so beautiful, I’d love one but the medium ends Epiphones are seem to have problems going out of tune and they’re all heavy. Let’s see.
2 Going to the studio!
I will probably be recording most of my album at home but I want a chance to mess around on some other guitars before I buy one.
There are 3 studios nearby that I want to connect with. Some studios in Tokyo have a community. Some have shows. It’s something I have opted out of because the cost really adds up over time and carrying everything to the studio is a pain in the ass but if I don’t need to bring my guitar it’s a lot easier.
It would be cool to meet some bands outside my circle and get out of my comfort zone a little. This would be a perfect chance and the first steps to being able to organize shows at a new venue.
3 New friends to play with
Through the last show we had, we got on the radar of some other artists who organize their own shows, all slightly more active then us and since in Tokyo everything is planned way in advance we aren’t going to play with them just yet, but I’ve already been asked twice for dates that didn’t line up. It’s only a matter of time til we do something together.
I haven’t been as active about arranging shows because zi want to focus April and May on recording but after that I hope to organize a show or three this summer.
I was hoping to be able to announce the release of my live album by today but it seems to have been delayed by a fee days. Well then!
4 When the system hands you lemons, squeeze it in their eye
Since the minimum required investment money required yo start a company as a foreigner in Japan went from 40k US to 200-300k, we were locked out completey from building the life we were just about ready to build.
It took us 5 years to prepare and the carpet was swept out from beneath us with very little options. So half a year later we have no idea how we are going to escape the rat race, but we know we want to stay here and we know we want to focus on our passions so we are going to have to double down and work wven harder.
This doesn’t bother me one bit. It means taking bigger risks than I planned on taking, using up some investments that were meant for starting the business to suppliment my income but that money isn’t wasted. It buys me time to focus more on music and art and building a community and having fun with my life. It means not living in a atate of lack.
So as much as I want the new rules to suck it and I am praying for a system where people whoo connect with the land they are on and the people around them can stay easily despite their incomes and job titles, I have too much important and fun stuff to focus on to worry about it too much.
Before I get lost in unrelated topics I will call it a day,
If you haven’t seen my vlog/podcast reboot, here is the latest episode/video (you can find it on podcast platforms too if thats your thing, search “Untangled Knots”) :
I Was Doing Art Wrong
