Tokyo - 4 days off!

Watchin' movies, eatin food. Saw the amazing Paul Hanson play Cirque Du Soleil at Disney Land Tokyo. Gonna go explore now...

Just uploaded a bunch of pics from the first 5 days of teaching... and eating!
Click the text below for full gallery:

Japan 2010 | Uriah teaches with Toshi

Day 5 - Tokyo School of Music - and Summer Sonic!

Woah. what a friggin day! A long crazy adventure AFTER our full day at the music school in Shubuya. Errol & Victoria are playing with Stevie tonight, and I got a pass. But getting there, and out of there proved to be long, expensive and super shirt soaking on multiple occasions due to the humidity. More to come...

Day 4 - Fukuoka School of Music

Fukuoka is known for their Ramen, but I've already been eating so much that I can't mess with it today. Another breakfast and lunch comprised almost entirely of convenience store food. Instead of giving a big bass class today, Toshi and I ganged the guitarists up with the bassists, and talked about bass stuff, as well as playing together. We really got to jam 1 on 1 for the first time and show how important communication is. Oh yeah- tons of shredding licks too! Flight to Tokyo... More to come...

Day 3 - Nagoya School of Music - AND WINGS!

Nagoya was awesome- Loved the peeps at the school. Gave a great hour long bass class, and had a great rig this time- A Walter Woods with an Epifani 6x10 cab. Wicked! Dinner with Nagoya's own famous Chicken Wings. Full day of work, then flight to Fukuoka, pausing briefly to have ramen and beer at the airport. More to come...

Day 2 - Osaka Music School

So hot and humid. Why'd I bring all these long sleeve shirts, hoodies and beanies? Today we showed up just past 10am, and assembled a convenience store (Lawson's) breakfast of coffee, sandwiches, and instant ramen- which wasn't half bad! We rehearsed, I taught a bass class for 5 (more manageable than the 13 yesterday) and performed a bit. In fact, we got to play on the pro stage- with lighting, cameras and audience, as this was the ending ceremony for new student orientation. I'm sure we'll have vid up soon of our rock version of Canon in D. Off to the train station to finally grab a beer and take the hour ride to Nagoya- famous for their CHICKEN WINGS! Again, all pics can be found at Japan 2010 | Facebook Pics
-U



Vid at Student concert - first time playing this one! ELEVATION

Day 1 - Flight easy; Osaka HUMID & HOT!!!

A few pics may be posted here.

All pics can be seen at: Japan 2010 | Facebook Pics

Still no sleep. The past few weeks have been hectic to say the least, but all in the name of good family, friends and music. Just finished a 4 day gig with Kid Beyond. Shilo and his gf were also in town for 2 weeks, and we spared no time between activities. I'm bushed! Anyways...

I met drummer Glen Sobel at the gate at SFO. Easy flight- passed out, but still listening to the 12 tunes I have to learn for this teaching/performance run. It's for 2 weeks in Japan- I love it there!

So humid. So hot. 1st stop: RAMEN! You'd think that with the amount of Asians and Japanese in SF I could find a decent bowl- but that's just not the case. There is absolutely nothing like going to Japan and getting it there. Toshi brought us down the street for some ramen and it was slammin. They only had boiled Gyoza- not fried, but it was still the bomb. I ordered a lemonade, which didn't taste like lemonade but tasted familiar. It later clicked that this was the same exact flavor of Big League Chew, except in a sparkling beverage.

Hotel, more cramming of tunes and charting until I passed out. More charting in the am; rehearsal at 11am, teach a 70 min bass workshop @ 1:30, perform 3 tunes for students with ensemble, then watch as about 10 groups work their way through Deep Purple's "Burn" (here I am playing and singing Burn in Sweden) & Chickenfoot's "Soap on a Rope" with varying success. By the time 8pm rolled around it was time for dinner, and the usual Osaka trip to see Yoko & the gang at Rock Rock. My local drunk buddy Hirayama was there, and we joked as much as possible before Glen and I had to split- we were BEAT!

The highlight of the day for me was finally getting to play some of this difficult music with Toshi and Glen. Glen is an absolute monster on the drums- I dunno why he hasn't landed any huge gigs- real pro and slick- def a blast to play with as a bassist- and you know I'd tell ya otherwise! We def all clicked- Toshi and I are already having fun jamming and throwing in similar and complimentary fills during the tunes. SHREDDING!

That's it for now... my sleeping schedule is all f'd up, but it's been like that for a few weeks now. So long as I get enough hours (which I'm not) I'll be ok. G'nite.