A couple weeks ago we played at the yearly Japanese Cultural Fair with Kevin Kmetz, a fellow shamisen player in Santa Cruz. On the day of the fair, I gathered my home-made shamisen, bachi and yubikake together and we left…three hours early in fact, so we could practice with Kevin and Grant (the other shamisen player who’d be playing with us). If it was just Kevin, Luke and I, we wouldn’t have needed to practice that much beforehand but we hadn’t played at all with Grant so…yeah.
When we got there, there was no sign of the rest of the Shami-Posse so we watched the performers. There was an entertaining Mochi-pounding group on stage. Six people had long bamboo poles and were pounding rice in a hollowed-out-log bucket to the beat of the drummers on stage. After each pound, the six people raised their poles and another guy (who wasn’t pounding) folded the rice and managed to always get his hands out of the rice just as all of the poles were slamming into the bowl. Boy, you sure can’t afford to get your hands stuck in that stuff when the ram-rods come down.
Anyway, after they went through one pounding song, they asked for volunteers to do the pounding for them. (The guy who folded the rice would still fold—too much of a liability to have a noob get his hands stuck in the sticky rice ball with six beams coming down on his hand.) Luke asked me if he wanted to do it. I said I didn’t care. However, all the needed volunteers came up so we watched them pound. I decided to walk around to see if Kevin came so I asked Luke to watch over my shamisen while I was gone.
Anyway, when I came back to the stage area, I saw Luke on stage pounding away with some other volunteers. I looked to where he was sitting when I left but my shamisen wasn’t there. I looked around the audience area but I couldn’t see it. I saw our friend Hide so I asked him if he saw the shamisen. He didn’t, but as I was talking to him my eyes drifted back to the stage and there I saw my shamisen! (I knew it was mine because it was the only one enclosed in a soft-shell banjo case.) Whoo! What a relief! After Luke went off stage, he offered me a sample piece of mochi (sticky rice ball) they gave him. We each had a little bite. It tasted fine. I wouldn’t risk choking by eating it often. It sure coulda used a raspberry or a pickle or something.
Later, we met up with Kevin and Grant. We were looking for a place to practice without annoying anybody and we saw a church across the street so we set up there. After playing through the songs a couple a’ times, a bunch of people came out of the church. One of them came up to us and asked me what the instrument was called. I said a shamisen. Then he said about how his father went to Japan ‘n stuff like that. Nice guy and we had a nice conversation. Then the security guard said that a wedding was in progress and asked us to move. I guess the chap I was talking to was part of the wedding. He didn’t seem like he minded us playing though.
Anyway, we went back and played on the outskirts of the Fair. Each time we did this long 4 minute song, my hand would get soooo tired (since our wrists were bent at a 90 degree angle and we were using a lot of force on the strings) but we managed to pull through every time. Anyway, skip ahead an hour and a half and one trip to the bathroom, it was showtime! Kevin first did a little number to get the crowd warmed up. Then he called Luke and I on. The first song we did was a folk-song medley (Ringo Bushi, Kuroishi Yosare and Yasaburo Bushi). It went through smoothly for me. Luke had a bit of trouble. After the song finished, he realized he wasn’t wearing his Yubikake (which makes it easier to slide up and down the neck.) So I held his shamisen while he rushed down to get it. Then he came back ’cause he found out it was in his pocket. Too bad he came back so soon, I was all ready to unleash a few Yo’ Mama jokes.
After that, we played some Yoshida Brothers Song and finally, the Coup de Grace, Kita No Hibiki! It went off fine. My hand felt like it had Carpel Tunnel.
We got off stage at around 4:00 (started at 3:40). Since we hadn’t eaten lunch (playing on a full stomach ain’t fun) we decided to check out some of the vendors. We saw some of the standard noodly dishes. We moved on and saw a vegetable, meat ‘n rice bowl. It looked good in the picture so we ordered a $4.35 food bowl full of food. It looked better tha
n it tasted. I mean, well, ok, I’m being a little harsh. The veggies and the teriyaki (however you spell it) sirloin were really good. Unfortunately, they were about 15% of the dish. The rest was rice. Not the greatest rice mind you. Not much flavor. In fact, it was just plain rice. I liked how the rice kinda stuck together though, gave it a good texture. Luke led the charge in getting something else to go with it. I waited with the rice bowl and Shamisen while he went to get something else. Boy I’m glad he wanted to get something else to go along side with the rice! He came back with a noodly (but more importantly, something that was wetter than that rice) dish. So that was very complimentary.
After watching a few Taiko songs, we went back home.While walking, I gazed among the different vendors ‘n stands there. Massage looked pretty popular there. Fans were a top hit as well.
Wrists were killed and we were pooped at the end of the day but it was still fun.
