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I often joke around that 90% of my job as a taiko drummer is driving stuff around--loading and unloading equipment. 10% of my time I am actually drumming. While moving and packing drums has been pretty normal--we have Toni Yagami chudaiko bags, and other cases for shime and okedotaiko, what often causes us to make a ridiculous amount of trips back and forth to the van are our numerous stands. Shime stands, okedo stand pieces, chu stands, percussion tables, etc, etc. After about a decade of doing this, I think I've finally figured out a simple solution, and I am very grateful that Toni is humoring me and helping make some STAND BAGS! Here are some sketches and ideas that we have. If you have the same problem lugging stands around, maybe Toni can make some stand bags for you, too! (after she does ours)

Here are some of my basic ideas--first, here we have three shime stands that fold up and can stack together pretty compact.



Normally, we'd just pick one or two up in one hand and carry them from van to stage and back. What this and the other stand bags are going to do that is going to save us tons of time (I think) is that we can pack multiple stands and carry three at a time over our shoulders, which means our hands are still free to carry other stuff. We're ordering two for now, which means we should be able to transport 6 stands, which should be plenty.



We also have two more designs, and anyone out there who has Asano Taiko okedos and stands might find these intriguing. As some of you may know, Asano Taiko's okedo stands break down into two pieces. A piece shaped like an "I" and another piece shaped like an "H". If you're like TAIKOPROJECT, every now and then we take the wrong sized stand, or mismatched, or one time we left a stand piece at a gig. Sigh. These okedo stand bags we hope will make it so none of these things happen, AND that we can transport them and protect them better.

This first photo is the "I" pieces. There's a caster on one of them, but we're going to take it off--



Here's the bag sketch. Also, there will be some padding on the top flap, because we have had to repair a number of pegs, since they're kind of fragile. This one also slings over the shoulder, making it easy to carry along with other pieces of equipment.



Finally, we have our okedo "H" stand pieces. These come in various sizes, but are all pretty close in their dimensions. Again, they sling over the shoulder and will also protect the stands when they're packed away.



Here's the bag sketch--



Toni has just started working on these, but I am really excited to see how they'll turn out. When they're done, we'll post photos on our blog!

Oshogatsu, Part 2

After a great New Year's day performance, TP continued its Oshogatsu celebrations on Sunday, January 2nd with a performance at JANM (the Japanese American National Museum), located in the heart of Little Tokyo.

Despite some disappointing weather (2011 opened with beautiful, sunny weather on the 1st but gave LA a taste of more rain on the 2nd), JANM continued its family celebrations to ring in the New Year with folks from all over the city. We were the last performance of the day, closing out the day's festivities.

We performed a fun set, and I found that the rain turned out to serve some good after all. It brought everyone together indoors, and while performing for large, spread out audiences are exciting too, the second floor of the museum provided a warm, intimate space. There's something about having your audience so physically close that adds extra enjoyment to a performance. As one of the brand new trainees myself, it was, no doubt, a good stage experience to add to my personal repertoire.

All in all, a great way to kick off the year.

Enjoying a bite-sized piece of warm, soft kinako mochi post-performance doesn't hurt either. (Thanks, Kodama Taiko!)

New Year's Taiko Gigs

Happy New Year, folks! I hope you all had a chance to open the new year with lots of food, friends, family, and fun – and also with an appropriate amount of alliteration.

It’s a busy time for TaikoProject so far this year. On New Year’s Day, we were very pleased to perform at Weller Court in downtown LA’s Little Tokyo. The performance opened with an improvised collaboration with an impressive and dynamic Ikebana presentation (we're talking huge bamboo...not your typical New Year's Day table centerpiece), and later we performed a set for a packed courtyard crowd of New Year’s revelers and spectators.

We’ve got several other gigs coming up soon, so if you’re feeling the need for some TP taiko magic to set your year on the path to awesomeness, head on over to our website to find out where you can see us next!

HTV commercial shoot in San Pedro!

Happy New Year everyone! Looks like 2011 is going to be a very busy and exciting year for TAIKOPROJECT! Just wanted to tell you guys a about a gig we had last month.

On December 7^th, TP was asked to help shoot a commercial for HTV, an MTV-esque Latin American TV channel.Our call time was super early! 6:00AM! The commercial was shot at the Korean Bell of Friendship in San Pedro. When we got there it dark and foggy, but people were already running around building the set. As the sun rose, the Korean Bell transformed into some kind of feudal Asian palace. At one point we heard, “Bring anything that looks Asian!!!!!” being yelled across the park. Ceramic urns, tea pots, blankets, pillows, and random Mardi Gras beads were hurried over and strewn around the bell.Taiko players, ninjas, a Japanese/Filipino emperor, and Chinese lion dancers converged at the Korean Bell to create some mutant freak mix of Asian culture. Several hours later the set was complete, everyone was in place, and we were ready to begin shooting!

Now would be a good time for me to tell you the premise of the commercial....which I find hilarious....

A buff, mean-looking Asian Emperor sits in his palace surrounded by scantily glad ninja girls (because we all know being a ninja is so much easier when you are wearing close to nothing). Ferocious taiko playing can be heard in the background. *ominous drumroll... A voluptuous "Latin Bombshell" arrives at said Asian palace in a black luxury sedan with her two ripped Latino man-friends. Asian Emperor sends his ninja girls to do battle with them. Lead ninja girl cuts half of Latin Bombshell's dress off. Tension rises. *CUE SALSA MUSIC *CUE LION DANCERS *CUE SPONTANEOUS DANCE PARTY!!! Ninja girl enjoys a passionate dance with Latino man.... Asian Emperor shares a moment with Latin Bombshell... you get the idea. If only all the world's problems could be solved by spontaneously bursting into dance....Based on the other commercials in this series, I’m assuming at some point in time a gigantic hot air balloon with the HTV logo on it will rip the temple from the ground and take us all on a happy, dance-filled ride into the unknown (I’m serious.)

Playing taiko was fun as usual. The drums were so loud that the production crew had to continuously yell at us to stop playing… Bryan, Brian, and I played a pretty simple arrangement thrown together earlier that morning. Eventually we spiced things up and played along to some salsa music (for the dance party). Bryan and Bryan has some close-up shots taken of them with an extremely expensive crane-mounted camera. Hopefully those make it into the commercial somewhere!

Most of the day was actually spent waiting for the fog to lift. The fog ended up putting the shoot many hours behind schedule. To make matters worse, it was absolutely freezing outside! Fortunately, someone was there to give us our jackets between shots. Some 12 hours after we arrived, the sun was beginning to set, the temperature had dropped even more, and the crew was scrambling to get some last shots in. There was lots of stress and yelling in those last 30 minutes, but after we wrapped we got to enjoy a nice sunset.

A long day, but very fun nonetheless. The three of us met some very interesting people and had some good laughs. Here are some pictures from our day: