Resurrection Fairy Tale

Once upon a time, I posted to this blog on a regular basis. It was mostly a journal about my life in Japan and all the extraordinary people I met there. Then, after moving back to the US to attend graduate school at the School for International Training (SIT) in Brattleboro, VT, this blog started to lose some momentum, but posts continued to slowly trickle out. When I moved to San Francisco in 2008, the posts… just kinda… stopped.

Now, after many years of silence, I’m ready to resurrect this sucker with a new goal and focus. I want to use this online space to connect with other educators, music lovers, art aficionados, pranksters, and anyone else who takes the time to read whatever dribble I put here. 

I credit my interest in this resurgence to Will Richardson, an author and advocate for personal learning networks. A few years ago, I read his TED Book titled Why School?, which caused me to take a step back and examine the methodologies I was using with my students. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in 21st century education. More recently, I read his book titled Personal Learning Networks, which has really lit a fire in me to be more active online to make useful connections around my passions.

Hence, I plan to post some of my lesson plans and materials, in hopes of connecting and collaborating with other educators. There’s no sense in teaching in an isolated classroom while the bulk of human knowledge is accessible online. I also want to share some of my favorite musical discoveries. I’ve been an avid listener my entire life, and I’m sure someone out there has similar tuneful tastes. My day job affords me the opportunity to join university art classes in a variety of subjects, so I’d like to share some of the epiphanies I experience. I’m sure there are folks out there that know much more than me and can further my understanding. Finally, the internet is a crazy place, so I need a place to rant about my crazy Bay Area Burning Man friends and post pictures of my cat, right?

There’s really no telling where this blog will go. My fingers are crossed that I can build some sort of educational S.T.E.A.M. with it. If I can begin providing some valuable content, while making more connections, and having thoughtful conversations, with just a little bit of goofy fun, I’m sure things will be happily ever after. 

Dylan

Together Through Life:
Dylan as the best Texas bar band in the world weathering the oncoming apocalypse at the edge of the earth.

Check it out: Amazon

Sister Rosetta Tharpe

I heard Dylan on his radio show say this woman would blow my mind.






I do believe he was right.

Bumped for Boston

So, I've been living out of a backpack for the past nine months and waiting for an opportunity to return to Boston and gather my personal belongings and get them to San Francisco.

Last weekend coming back from New Orleans, I voluntarily got bumped from my connecting flight in return for a free round trip ticket to anywhere in the continental US. Single.

While I waited languidly in LAX for six hours, I started calling around to friends. Turns out one good friend was planning on going to Boston the end of May for a Phish show at Fenway Park. Call it fate, but he had an extra ticket. Double off the Monster.

Talked to my boss; got the time off work. Contacted a couple friends in Beantown; got a place to stay and the green light to get my things out of storage. Triple down the line.

Booked my free flight. Grand-f*ckin-slam over Williamsburg into the Ted seat.

Sweet Caroline here I come.

So good! So good! So good!

French Quarter Festival / Stu's Wedding

Music from Big Pink

Like a phoenix rising from the pink styrofoam peanut shells & bubble wrap, my external hard-drive was resurrected.

Nearly nine months without, it's finally been reconnected. Hallelujah, I have access to all my music again!

Let the good times roll.

CoExisT

“So, when was the last time you saw a 3D movie?” I asked them trying to make some light conversation.

A little puzzled by the question, “Never,” Humaid answered in a thick Middle Eastern accent.

“Really? Howwa ‘bout an IMAX movie? Are you familiar with IMAX?” I asked them.

“Uh?.... What is IMAX meaning?” Saeed asked in a sheepish, somewhat broken, naïve tone.

“Ah, man! It’s a really, big, huge screen,” I tried to explain while making sweeping hand gestures and accidentally nudged the fella next to me. “I’m really, sorry,” I grinned at him, unable to contain my excitement.

“It’s ah-right,” the New Englander smiled back as his wife chimed in, “Yeah, ‘dis is like ah concert. Some lady ah-ready yelled at us for breaking in line.”

“I saw people scalping tickets out front.”

“Da only thing missin’ is beeah.”

“They have beer,” I quickly interjected and motioned to the concession stand.

Without hesitation, the husband scurried through the packed lobby to the popcorn line like an overeager teenager to pick up two Buds in a bottle.

“This is really crazy, uh.” I said to the wife while her husband was paying for the beer. “I teach English at Northeastern, and I’m here with a few of my students. They’ve never even heard of U2.”

The woman looked a little befuddled and then, clearly as excited as I was, peered over my shoulder to my students and blurted out, “Ya guys are gonna love it! I heaah the Edge’s guitar comes off da screen and ya can almost touch it!”

Blank stares.

Just then, the happy husband came back and handed his honey a beer.

I seized the chance to ask my students another question, “Do ya’ll drink beer?”

“No… never,” Humaid said stoically.

“Ah… only wine,” I joked, which drew a couple nervous smiles and shifty glances from them just as the theater doors opened and the line started to snake through the lobby.

“Say,” the happy husband began, “ where are you guys from?”

Saeed and Humaid replied almost in unison, “We’re from Dubai.”

“Oh… I know where that is. It’s…. ahhhh….. ummmm…. United ….. Emirates…..” his unassured voice trailed off as the orderly cue crept forward. “That’s a rich country.”

“Yes… we have oil,” Humaid said dubiously.

I was happy to see my students engage in a spontaneous conversation, but as soon as we crossed the threshold of the theater doors, my focus shifted to the scamble for seats as close to center as we could get.

Not long after getting situated in front of the 65-foot screen, we got two big thumbs up from the beer drinking couple two rows behind us.

The lights went down, the screen popped out, and the surround sound cranked up.

After a couple songs, the leather clad Bono began sporting a CoExisT headband while banging a snare drum to the opening march of Sunday Bloody Sunday. As he began to ask the question, “How long must we sing this song?” water droplets came flying off the screen and the oceans of 3D people in the crowd waved and melded into the theater audience almost seamlessly.

Humaid leaned over to me and whispered, “It’s like truth.”

I grinned ear to ear.

In Humaid's limited English ability, he just said a whole lot.

I sat back in my chair and thought to myself, "Peace be with Bono and you too."

Musicovery : interactive webRadio

This is a mash up between Pandora & MusicPlasma:
Musicovery : interactive webRadio

Happy listening!

Brian Eno: Let there be Light

Apple - Pro - Profiles - Brian Eno, p. 1

Brian Eno paints with light. And his paintings, like the medium, shift and dance like free-flowing jazz solos or elaborate ragas. In fact, they have more in common with live music than they do with traditional artwork. “When I started working on visual work again, I actually wanted to make paintings that were more like music,” he says. “That meant making visual work that nonetheless changed very slowly.” Eno has been sculpting and bending light into living paintings for about 25 years, rigging galleries across the globe with modified televisions, programmed projectors, and three-dimensional light sculptures... Cont.

www.77millionpaintings.com

Yokkaichi Summer Music Festival

This is a tip of the hat to my buddy Richard and the rest of the promotion staff for organizing this music festival and a wag of the finger to anybody in Japan that doesn't go.

It's the 10th and last time they're gonna do it, and it's for a good cause; all proceeds go to local Yokkaichi charities.

If that's not reason enough to go, the lineup looks good too! Big Frog, A-Fank Syndicate, and more will get the place rockin', and Tokyo Ale will be serving up cool refreshing beverages, so pack up the car and get down there this weekend for some fun in the sun!

http://www.cty-net.ne.jp/~rtjordan/yokkaichi_promotions/

(*~*)/

MusicPlasma

Check out this site. It gives you a visual representation of various band in the same sphere of influence.

Liveplasma: music, movies, search engine and discovery engine

Kinda cool.

Whitney Music Box

whitney music box var. 0 - chromatic - 48 tines

Music theory visualized.

Wow.

Neil Young: Living With War

allmusic ((( Living with War > Overview )))

In a move that deliberately echoes the rush release of "Ohio" in the wake of the Kent State shootings, Neil Young bashed out his 2006 protest record Living with War in a matter of days, sometimes recording songs the day they were written, and then seized the opportunities of the digital age by streaming the entire album on his website only weeks after it was recorded, with the official digital and CD releases trailing several days later. It's the best use yet of the instant, widespread distribution that the Web has to offer, and it also hearkens back to the days when folk music was topical, turning the news into song.

Rolling Stones: Bigger Bang Tour

HOLY MUTHA F$@!K!ER!

The only way I can describe the Rolling Stones Bigger Bang concert in Nagoya Dome is with a string of expletives unfit to print here. To say I'm still buzzing or walking without touching the ground would be a mild understatement.

Before the show, I met my friend Toku, his girlfriend Nami, his colleague Motoshi, and a local promoter that goes by the name Go-Low. The night before, Toku and Go-Low went drinking with some of the Stones roadies and received an offer to come backstage. I got to tag along!

Check out the photo gallery here: Rolling Stones: Bigger Bang

We met Pierre, the Stones chief sound technician, who escorted us backstage and gave us a tour of the area. He took us past Mick's dressing room, all the guitars, and up on the stage. I actually walked around on the Rolling Stones' stage!

Eventually, Pierre passed us off to Mike, Charlie's drum tech. Mike told us to bust out our cameras and he started talking pictures for us. He gave Motoshi a set of drumsticks and everyone else got guitar picks.

Check out this video of Mike showing us the drums:



The show itself was fun, but the Japanese audience was a little too conservative. Believe it or not, they didn't even serve beer in the place. Totally mind-boggling.

It took a little while for the audience to really get into it, but the latter half of the show was really fun.

Here's a short video of Honky Tonk Women:



After the show, we all went to a restaurant to chill out, get something to eat, and finally drink a beer. While we were eating, Bernard, one of the back-up singers came and sat down near us.

The whole night was surreal, as it should have been.

Damo Suzuki's Network (Nagoya)

A couple weeks ago I went to see Damo Suzuki's Network play in Nagoya. Damo is an ex-member of the '70s German prog-rock juggernaut CAN. He's now on what he calls the Never Ending World Tour.

Damo travels alone to cities all over the world, and he has a revolving cast of musicians improvise behind him. In each city, he assembles a band of local musicians. Thus, every night is new and slightly or maybe even extremely different.

His show in Nagoya consisted of Hiroshi Higashi (Synthesizer), Makoto Kawabata (Guitar), Atsushi Tsuyama (Bass) all members of the Acid Mothers Temple. As well as local Zen musician Kei (Guitar) with pal Ryoko Ono (Sax), and Taiqui (Drums).

I've been messing around with YouTube a lot recently, so I decided to post this short clip from the show.

Enjoy the noize!

Dungen: Panda

Dungen was in high rotation for me last year, and I just came across this video on the web.

Enjoy.

Melbourne may name road after AC/DC (June 8, 2004)

NEWS.com.au | City may name road after AC/DC (June 8, 2004)

Highway to Hell?

Goma da Didgeridoo

photo courtesy of daniel bowman simon

Sunday night I went to see Goma da Didgeridoo play a small club called Club Daughter in downtown Nagoya with my friend Miki.

I had seen Goma play solo/acoustic twice before, but this time he was augmented by a djambe, a full drum kit, and some dj computer effects, so it was incomparable.

The club was very small, low ceilings, narrow, no raised stage for the band, giant speaker stacks in all four corners jutting out obscuring walkways, and the place was absolutely overflowing with the most dreadlocks I've ever seen in Japan.

I'm talkin' loooong locks. One lanky, Indian looking guy, I swear to God, had locks down below his knees. It's not the kind of thing you see everyday living in timid Japan. Where these people come from and where they go is a mystery to me, but they come out of the woodwork for raves and concerts. The whole scene was incommodious.

Because there was no backstage area, the band had to navigate, equipment in hand, through the abominable crowd. Originating from the far back of the narrow club, they parted people like an entrance to a prizefight. A full entourage with Goma, a small pocket-sized Japanese guy with an enormous afro, bringing up the rear.

Once the jungle rhythm of the drums started, and Goma began blowing his didge, the entire atmosphere of the club altered. Everyone became transfixed on only the music because it was impossible to see the musicians.

The music was completely blustering and earth shaking. The reverberating didgeridoo was pumped at full volume through all four speaker stacks creating a three dimensional sound sphere that sent minds in distorted directions, while the bottomless bass of the drums and djambe shook the walls of the club and the riffraff's asses.

The band played for just under an hour, which was plenty. Heat and humidity set in after the first fifteen minutes turning the place into an honest to god concrete jungle.

My friend Miki and I went outside to escape the mugginess. With our minds and bodies rattled to the core, we decided it was time to go home. Back to Heiwa-cho for some peace and quiet.