Lo-Fi Blog

Last week I spent some time in Nagoya and took two days off to spend with my family. I decided to drive, even though it's not actually cheap to do that as part of my trip. Long drives for me are strangely a way to get away from my daily life, where I am unfortunately driving to many of my gigs.. the difference is the traffic though!

Last time we went to play in Nagoya we visited the Phil Jones Bass gear importer in Japan cause their office was close to where we were staying. this time I didn't have the time to visit their office but did check out some gear since I had some extra time while I was there.

I've always been unhappy with many distortion pedals for the bass, maybe because distorted bass is just not so widely used in music... but anyway I tried out the Aguilar Agro stompbox and it was one pedal I actually liked a lot.

It kept the lows intact even when the drive was high, and it was really versatile letting me dial in lots of drive to amp crunch with different mid frequencies and attack.



Also wanted to compare so tried out the level of drive on their DI pre-amp the Tone Hammer. it was a great sounding DI and pre-amp complete with boost and lots of tone shaping capability, but didn't satisfy my want for a drive pedal.


My style of playing.. especially live, requires all kinds of sound variations to be the right lead instrument and bass depending on the situation.

I've updated my board so plan to upload that on my blog soon too


5

Back when I started this band I had this concept of creating a sound that mixed both analog and digital sounds not in the digital music direction but in a live band context.

I've seen some really cool digital rock bands and then also some good live hiphop bands as well and I felt that just replicating digital music live was not enough.

What made live music really "live" for me was not just the way it was performed but what the live environment influenced you to create in the live performance.

That's how Lo-Fi's sound became more about the jamming and live interaction, instead of trying to just replicate programmed beats. (Not that we were really successful at doing that...!)

The concert we did the other day at the Duo Music Exchange was a great opportunity to reflect on the show itself too. usually we are so centered on getting the sound and playing right we never cared so much for the stage costumes or lighting arrangements unless it was a painting or multi-genre art show. But I think especially in Japan, the way you dress is an important part of the show and changes how the audience receives the sound your emitting.

We were lucky enough to have the support of a very cool designer from IZREEL to help out for this show. it was really eyeopening for me especially because it was a lot like arranging stage props for a play, how he styled our costumes for the show. this is a shot we had our manager take backstage on Yosh's phone before the show.






I have to admit it takes many people and a good team of sound lighting styling and of course performers to put together a larger scale show. it's really great though, after all is finished to look back and hear some surprising feedback from our fans!
I didn't even now people were paying attention to what we were wearing.. shows how much I know :p

5

Thanks for coming out to see the show at Duo Music Exchange!
Also a very special thanks to our stylist Takakura-san from IZREEL.
It was a really great to have him help us out with creating an awesome atmosphere on the stage with his selection of styles from his collection.



Our setlist for this night was:
Make That Change
Higher
Angel
What We Fight For
Realize


We didn't get too many songs into our setlist, but we did get to do a lot of jamming! It was great to hear some great comments about the jams too.


We'll be doing some more concerts next month too, so look forward to our updates on http://www.lofi-net.com/


- Posted by 5

Great show at the new "Cafe Vacation"!!!


This was a great photo that was tweeted by @motoji24 !!
It's great when we can get nice photos posted by the people at the show.

The new cafe was great. The place has got a really big bar counter and pretty good sound with our sound system! Most likely the best sounding bar/cafe style place we've played at.

But what made the concert great, was the fans that were enjoying the show!
really really great crowd!!
Thanks for making the concert awesome!


for those of you in Chiba, we'll be playing at the Surf Jam tomorrow!
Surf Jam HP

- Posted by 5