Lo-Fi Blog

Lo-Fi is a doing well as a band since we finally settled with the three members we are now. We've released our album at the end of last year, and hopefully if things move on as scheduled we'll be releasing our next album around the same time this year too.

Then it will mean that we really have something available for our fans when we finally reach them live where-ever they are. I especially miss being in the US to perform. I haven't been there before with my band, and I think it'd be a great environment to play our sound.

Japan has an interesting musical environment, but it seems as though the neo-soul kind of sound hasn't really hit main-stream here yet, and it seems like a very underground movement compared to other genres like punk-rock and ofcourse the Japanese traditional J-POP / Kayo-kyoku sound.

I love the old Japanese music, that was J-POP once, but now categorized as Kayo-kyoku. The sound is a blend of traditional Japanese music melody mixed with influences from western music. Maybe the trend shifts are moving too fast for the public to follow, but just like anywhere else in the world, CD sales are plummeting and digital sales are the main source of income for many artists.

http://www.riaj.or.jp/data/quantity/index.html

Just check out the shift toward the end of the chart (at the bottom) where CD sales are down but there is trend for more movement on video media.

Here's some information they also researched about the consumer trends for music.
http://www.riaj.or.jp/report/mediauser/pdf/softuser2009.pdf

It's easy to tell that the television media is very dominant in controlling what people buy.
http://www.riaj.or.jp/data/cd_all/cd_all_q.html

It's no surprise that international artists have very limited sales in Japan. Then again I don't this is the whole picture, because the Japan Record association only has access to those who have registered and filed their reports into their database.

So even though we are in rough waters doing music here in Japan as an indie artist, we are getting really good feedback from our audience, and they are helping to keep our band going. We are incredibly grateful for the love and support of our music. We sell the most records at our shows, even though our CDs are physically available all over, I guess when they see a live performance it's more convincing for them that they will get what they paid for when they buy the CD.

Right now we were successful in getting about 1000 CDs sold and that got us enough support to help start making our second full album. We've gotten almost all the songs written and now we're starting the recording process all over again.

The new album should have even more live sound and jamming, can't wait to get it all together for people waiting on our new music.

Here's a new video clip from a concert that was performed in Nagoya. At the Apollo Theater there.
It was strange that a venue would use such a famous name with no regard to it's origin!
Anyway, they have a great sound system and the crowd was really great there.

We did a show at a really special place in July called "On The Rocks"
The bar owner George is a big fan of our band and we're grateful he organized this very personal night just devoted to hours of our music and some nostalgic DJing by George.


BTW that mirror ball was handmade by George...!


We played right in front of George's huge record collection that fills two walls of the bar...



This is another small show we did at Ayumi and Yoheyy's exhibition in Nakameguro. We did the show at a cool cafe there called Didn't play with a drum set but used my Mac to give us some beats.

In the end we just ended up playing as an acoustic guitar and piano duo, cause the drum rhythm wasn't really getting too interesting. Live human played music has the most punch I think.

Anyway they have the kind of "living room" -like atmosphere there so it was really different compared to some of the other intense shows we've done with them in the past.


Ayumi is one of my favorite painters and here are some of her paintings behind us.


Reno, Yoheyy, Ayumi, 5, Nori


A close up of the live painting that night


- Posted by 5

The gig at Hayama beach house Oasis was really great!
We played there in July but now it's almost halfway into August and it's too bad I haven't been updating my blog yet.

We played two sets that night and both were very different. We started out the concert with some slow jams and covers. After we got people listening we did a bunch of Lo-Fi songs for the second set.

I didn't know that the beach there in Hayama was so cool.
I lived in the Fujisawa area for a few years as a student here but never got a chance to visit the beaches I was so busy studying Japanese and music.

This month we've got gigs planed on the 18th Saturday in Shibuya at a venue called Wasted Time. it's right near Tokyu Hands.
we start after eight and play till quarter before nine.

The next week on the 24th Thursday we'll be playing a gig back on the beach in Zushi. We plan to play with Hank and maybe a special guest we are still arranging.

The venue is called Surfers.
It's really close to the other music venue there called Otodama.

Hope to see everyone there.
Time flies!

- Posted by 5

Yesterday we had a gig at beach house "Surfer's" on Zushi Beach in Kanagawa Japan.



I lived in the area as a student almost 8 years ago, but never got the chance to hang out on the beaches there before. I must admit I was missing out on a lot!

Last night we performed with Kat, Yutaka, and Aaron-san. Was mostly acoustic style performances, (except for Lo-Fi) and great atmosphere.

I love playing outside, but the beach is really tough on the gear I must say.
We played Surfer's last year in the summer too, and all my stomp boxes were covered in sand. my Amp and cabinet also had to be disassembled for me to clean out the dust and sand from the beach.
The salty moisture really does no good for the instrument finishes or strings either. It's always a blast to play out there, but so much hard work to get the gear back in shape.



Today we're going to play at and event to promote a movie hosted by Moet.
Really the opposite atmosphere of what we did last night!
In the middle of the city / restaurant style... Its our first time playing in the Roppongi Event indoor event space. We'll be doing two sets tonite hope to have fun!


- Posted by 5

great weather today in Tokyo!
We took a small break from the studio last week so it was great
playing with the band again today!

Today we were rehearsing with a great singer Lisa Halim who'll be playing with us tomorrow at the Beach Party in Sendagaya at the Good Morning Cafe







Lisa and her crew









Yosh & Nori at the rehearsal...



We should be playing from around three tomorrow... It should be a hot day so if all goes well we'll be playing outside!



- Posted by 5