Late last month we had the opportunity to play at the beautiful SOKA Performing Arts Center in Aliso Viejo, CA. We devoted a lot of time to rehearsal and I think it really paid off. The crowd was very receptive! You know the show is a success when the cast immediately starts hugging each other and screaming after we run offstage.  :)

Tsunami was met with a roaring applause at the end of the first half. We also received a standing ovation at the end of the show. Other highlights include a mercilessly fast Many Sides complete with bachi toss and my flawless execution of Here We Go Now. Watch the video when it comes out! (spoiler: my HWGN performance is not flawless)
Anyway, rather than jabber on about the show I thought it might be cool to instead share some pictures of what goes on backstage before a big performance like SOKA. Enjoy.

Thanks again to the SOKA tech crew and the lovely audience for making the show so memorable

Thanks for inviting us and letting us be a part of the event.

We stopped at Soka University to drop off the trailer and then continued down to Carlsbad. One day I want to check out Legoland, but I heard it’s like $50 or something outrageous. Just to see some Legos??? I mean, I love Legos and I grew up with them , but is there anyone who thinks $50 is worth it? Lemme know.

When we arrived at La Costa Resort & Spa, we had to drive all the way around to the back to load in to tight quarters. After we loaded in, I parked and took a mile hike back to the performance area. In the entrance there was an elephant! Yeah! A real elephant! It was huge and was all decked out in East Indian decor. Awesome!

So we did the gig which was great. Everyone loved it. It was a private event for someone’s birthday which had an East Indian theme.

We loaded out and then rewarded ourselves with carne asada fries (ahuhuh!) at Robertos. Tasty! Then we drove back to our place and had a slumber party. Well, actually we just watched David pull shime. We got some decent sleep in preparation for the big Soka show.

Load in at the Mirage

Jenny sneaking in the Do Not Enter door

Waiting in our "Green room"

After our rehearsal, we only had a little bit of free time so we checked into our hotel rooms and looked for a quick bite to eat. We ended up eating at the California Pizza Kitchen. I just realized… is driving to Nevada to eat at CPK ironic? I’m not sure because Alanis Morissette has forever confused me. Anyways, we all ordered pizza, but my pear gorgonzola pizza made us all laugh because it looked like a salad! Awesome, it must be healthy!

3 Pizzas, Mine only looks like a salad

Ahh, Just delicious

We performed for the event’s opening and closing, so we didn’t finish until late into the night. I’d like to thank our on-site contact Jane Moore for always being on top of things and making sure everything went according to plan.

Tech rehearsal on the Sony stage

Playing Hide and Seek in the red lights

Loading out, it's night already!

After the performance, we met up with David Cheetham. As posted in a previous blog, David built our amazing Ojime body. He had recently finished making some modifications to it, so it was the perfect time to pick it up. David graciously showed us to a local pub to wind down the night. Thanks David!

We were all exhausted by the time we got back to the Mirage, but I had an itching to lose some money, so I hit the blackjack tables. I was up, then down, then up, but in the end all went according to plan and I left Vegas with a dollar bill in my wallet, literally. I actually forgot to withdraw cash before heading to Vegas so I guess I’m lucky…

We all liked the Coke bottles they served at the hotel. I call this photo Silhouette Reflections.

We were in Vegas for less than 24 hours, but it was time to drive back home in the morning! We wanted to eat before leaving the city, so we eventually ended up eating at a place we saw the night before called “Jenni Pho”. Can you guess who was excited to eat here? After the Jennifers had their Jenni Phos, we drove back to LA just in time for TP rehearsal… whew, tiring!

Tadaaa! Jennifers at Jenni PHO!

Quiz: How many "Jenniphos" in this photo?

Nice layers of mountain and fog on the drive home!

–

Now, you may be thinking “Bellydancers…taiko…” -and YES! You would be right to assume that it’s a perfect fit! Because what else goes best with bellies, dancing, snakes, and dark makeup than taiko? Well, at least dark makeup and taiko.

The TP 5 began their journey bright and early at TP HQ in DT LA to carpool up to Bakersfield. The trip was long and the roads were windy, but Courtney kept us all awake by nearly hitting two other cars on the trip. In all fairness, THEY almost hit us, but it had the same effect.

On the way to Bakersfield, we passed by Six Flags Magic Mountain!
Look! There’s GOLIATH!

But no! We couldn’t be distracted from our mission – to entertain in Bakersfield! So we kept on going-

Yay we made it!

After unloading and getting set up, it was time to get dressed.

Darren had a bit of an accident with his pants, so I tried assisting…but it didn’t work out so well.

Everything worked out in the end though – his pants held up just fine.

The actual performance was really fun! We turned out to be a “mystery guest performance” that surprised the audience towards the mid-way point in the show. We got a very welcoming greeting and the crowd liked the show!

So sweaty, tired, and dirty, we unloaded and headed back to LA. But by the time we got back, we were all famished, so we decided to eat…

KOREAN BBQ!

So much meat…

Yay! What a fun gig! Glad both the TP 5 and the TP 7 had a good time playing for good causes!

-Kevin

Last Saturday the TP team was split in two, TP5 and TP7, in order to cover two performances.  While TP5 was covering a gig up in Bakersfield, TP7 (Jen, Tomomi, David, Liz, Andrew, Keiko, me) was at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in downtown LA for a St. Vincent’s Medical Center Event.  TP5 left a little napkin note for us on our car window before they left…Aw, TP family love!

This was the 1^st time I had ever been to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.  The venue was beautiful, and I really liked the table decorations they had set up for this event!

Our performance was a quick 15 minute, 3 song set.  Although we were in and out of there pretty fast, we had a good crowd of supportive people as our audience…which is always the best.  After the gig, we all decided to go grab some dinner at Oiwake in Little Tokyo.  Guess who we ran into?!…Emily Yoshihara!!  We all miss her terribly, but are glad to see that she is doing well.  We took a TP7+ Emily picture to document the event!

And the countdown…

Don’t miss this release! It gonna be sick!
https://twitter.com/CristianaMars/status/313334504624369665/photo/1

It’s been busy on the blog!   Since the start of March we’ve hit the ground running, so stay tuned for more TP adventures.   This past Saturday, we performed for JANM at their Target sponsored family event, which  supports the Japanese American National Museum to create fun opportunities for families to interact and bond in very unique ways!  Last Saturday’s theme was “Make Some Noise”… what perfect match— that’s what we love to do best!

We performed 4 of our staple pieces and really soaked up all the energy from the families and especially the kiddos who were sitting dangerously close to our set  while we’re turning and spinning! =D  Thanks to JANM for having us.  Make sure you check out the future Saturday events at JANM!

hey David,

Wondering if you’re interested in working with me on a project…I have been thinking about the idea of doing some kind of okedo to be played in odaiko style, that has a body made of staves that can be broken down and packed in a small space.
We have ordered okedo drumheads from Asano Taiko already, but we were going to get started on the okedo body project soon…
thoughts?

Thus began a Collapsible Okedo Project that would take about 6 months to get to its first prototype (and a pretty good one at that), and still being tweaked and refined.  Read on, you know you’re intrigued.

So why a collapsible okedo?  Well, I think every taiko group would agree that having at least one big Odaiko type drum is great to have for any performance, but these often come with a number of hassles.  Usually, the main two are (1) a big Odaiko is heavy and takes multiple people to lift and move about, (2) a big Odaiko takes up a lot of space in your taiko van/truck/trailer.  We decided we needed a collapsible okedo for two reasons: (1) For smaller performances, we could take it in place of our Ohiradaiko, which is 330 pounds, requires 4-6 people to move, and will only fit in our trailer (but not our van), and (2) for larger performances, we could take our Ohiradaiko, and our big Okedo (and live a decadent taiko lifestyle).   And just to add a third reason, I’ve always wanted a big drum for TP with a mitsudomoe design on it.  I figured David Cheetham was the appropriate guy to talk about something like this with, since he is pretty much a taiko version of a mad scientist….or mad engineer, or something to that effect.

This image shows some of the evolution of the design process between numerous emails with David–

We went back and forth about dimensions, fasteners, straps, wood, rope, etc, etc, and after much discussion, it went into production (with a quick first deadline of early February so we could try it out on our tour through central Iowa).  Also, in the meantime, our 3.5 shaku Asano Taiko okedo drumheads came in from Japan and we very happily picked them up at the freight forwarders by LAX.

Here’s what the six pieces looked like when David first put them together–each one six staves across–

 

He sanded it and made it all nice and smooth….

 

Painted it…

 

Then he packed it up with Jen C. from Las Vegas Kaminari Taiko (who was coming to LA to help us with our photo shoot) and it was ready for its first two-part test to see if it would (1) fit with the Asano drumheads on it, and (2) fit on the stand that George made for it.

 

Victory #1 – It fits with the Asano drumheads (and David even got matching rope for the drum)

 

Victory #2 – The drum fits on the new stand! Looks pretty good, huh?

Okay, so the next question is “how does it sound?”  Well, it sounds pretty good, especially considering how we didn’t have time to do any pattern/sound shaping on the inside of the okedo body.  That is currently in progress!  Also, the drumheads, being brand new, will probably take some time to mellow out.  But all things considered, we have been playing it with full power and it’s holding up nicely.  And, best of all it takes up a ridiculously small amount of space when packed up in comparison to the size of it when put together.  Other details: the shell is strapped together with two long fabric ratchet straps, and takes about 1 hour to put together with two people on-site (and also about the same amount of time to break it all down).

 

 

Well, this is getting fairly long, so I’ll just stop here, but feel free to post comments and questions and we’ll answer them.  Once we work out some of the initial kinks, I think it’s something all taiko groups might be interested in investing in.  David Cheetham, time to get a booth at the next Taiko Conference Marketplace?

One last photo, here’s the drum behind us at our concert at the Sondheim Theatre in Fairfield, Iowa–

We had a great time performing for the students, who also performed admirably and with panache when we gave several of them the opportunity to try playing taiko on stage. Many thanks to Mrs. Keiko Kirby for bringing us out!