!! LAST MINUTE PLACE CHANGE !!

WE WILL BE PLAYING AT TURNURE PARK BUT NOT DELFINO PARK.

We deeply apologize for this very last minute place change.

Turnure Park
Corner of Lake Ave & Canfield Ave
White Plains, NY

White Plains Cherry Blossom Festival

Hello everyone. We hope you all are enjoying seeing all kinds of flowers blooming. My friends and I were performing at Washington Square Park on the other day. People were just roaming around and enjoying the serene view of the colorful flowers in all over the places. The tree of flowers which attracted this old-school Japanese man the most with its bright color of pink was, of course, the cherry blossom.

WaFoo is going to participate in White Plains Cherry Blossom Festival. The sponsor of the festival just switched the site due to the rain in forecast.

May 4th (Sun) 12 noon
Delfino Park
53 Lake St.
White Plains, NY
(914)422-1348
Link to the map

The festival is going to take place from 12 noon till 5pm and WaFoo is going to perform from 12pm sharp for half an hour. Please come around.

WaFoo outside of WaFoo: Richmond County Orchestra concert

　我々WaFooのように様々なスタイルを盛り込むバンドは、他のジャンルの音楽のプロジェクトに参加して、そのスタイルを学ぶことが必要不可欠です。それをし続けることにより、我々独自のスタイルをさらに深いものにし、また、独特のものにすると信じています。

For the band like WaFoo, which involves lots of different styles of music, it is imperative to keep playing and learning diverse genre of music. Each member of WaFoo is participating in different projects outside of WaFoo and I believe that this discipline is going to make WaFoo's music deeper and more original.

　スタッテン島を拠点にするクラシック音楽のリッチモンド・カウンティー・オーケストラ(RCO)はそのプロジェクトの一つで、一雄さん（コントラバス）とゆうきちゃん（フルートとピッコロ）と私、一平（チェロとコントラバス）の３人が参加させていただいてます。今日はそのRCOのコンサートがセント・ジョン大学でありました。今回は残念ながら一雄さんはスケジュールの都合で参加できなかったのですが、ゆーきちゃんと私が参加させて頂き、モーツァルトとワーグナーとチャイコフスキーを演奏しました。私も長い間参加できなかったのですが、今日は半年ぶりの出演となりました。今回のコンサートは高校生バンドのAFTER EFFECTとの共演でした。

Staten-Island-based classical orchestra, Richmond County Orchestra, is the project which three of WaFoo members are participating in: Kazuo (Contrabass), Yuuki (Flute & Piccolo), and me Ippei (Cello & Contrabass). Today, the concert of RCO was held at St. John's University. Although Kazuo could not participate this time because of his tight schedule, Yuuki and I performed some Mozart, Wagner and Tchaikovsky with RCO. I myself had not been able to perform with RCO for six months. This concert was a joint concert with the high school jazz band After Effect.

　コンサートの後は３人でニュージャージーのチーズケーキ・ファクトリーに食事に行きました。チーズケーキ以外の物を初めて食べましたが、美味しかったです。

Three of us went to the Cheesecake Factory in New Jersey. I had something other than cheese cake in there for the first time, but it was delicious.

Concert @ St. Peter's Church

　今日はWaFooの春季コンサートがありました。尺八のマルコ・レイナード氏をゲストに迎えてのコンサートです。子供のための講演会でゲストと一緒に演奏したことはありましたが、コンサートにゲストを招いて演奏するのは初めてです。マルコ先生は素晴らしい尺八の演奏で一気にオーディエンスを魅了しました。

WaFoo had a concert at St. Peter's Church in Staten Island, NY. The shaku-hachi master Monsieur Marco Lienhard played with us and that was a blast. He totally stole the show.

春期コンサートはおかげさまで成功に終わりました。コンサートを観に来て下さった方々、サポートして下さった方々、そしてスポンサーであるCOASHIには我々メンバー全員、感謝しています。ありがとうございました。

The Spring concert was a success. We want to thank the people who came to and who supported our concert, and also the sponsor of the concert Council on the Arts & Humanities for Staten Island (COAHSI). Thank you all!

ギグの後片付けの写真。すみません、これしか撮る暇がありませんでした。
Aftermath of the gig. Sorry I didn't have a time to take more photos.

　この後、マルコ先生とブルックリンに寿司の食い放題に行き、みんなで死ぬほど食べました。大食いチャンピオンはマルコ先生でした。

Later that night, we all went to all-you-can-eat sushi in Brooklyn and stuffed ourselves. The eating champion of the night was Marco sensei.

Rehearsal with Mr. Marco Lienhard

We are thrilled to perform with the great Shaku-hachi (Japanese bamboo flute) player, Mr. Marco Lienhard, on our concert on April 19th. Marco sensei has been leading the New-York based Japanese drum group, TAIKOZA , for years. While he was living in Japan for thirteen years, he studied and performed Japanese traditional folk music intensively and also has been all over the world countless times.

This is very first time to have a guest player on WaFoo, and for most of us, it is the first time in our musician lives to play with the Japanese traditional musician in his caliber. We just did a rehearsal with Marco sensei and played four of our tunes. Marco sensei blew entirely different life into our music. I don’t want to give away the surprise so I won’t go details but the tunes were so different with his virtuoso shaku-hachi playing. Well, I hope I’ll be brave enough to play shamisen, which is another Japanese traditional instrument, right next to him.

Please come and check out our Spring concert on April 19th at St. Peter’s Church in Staten Island. I assure you the concert will be a lot of fun and surprises.

Helloooo

Just wanted to say hi to our dearest fans out there...

April has come (spring hasn't, it seems, though), and our Spring Concert is near as announced on our website. I'm sure it'll as well be announced on this blog very soon!

We'll welcome Mr. Marco Lienhard, founder of Taikoza, as a special guest and will collaborate with him on several tunes. We are working on the arrangements right now. Also some new materials are in store, so be sure to visit St. Peter's on April 19th!

That's it for now. Ciao.

Haruichiban Festival - This Friday!!

We are pleased to inform you about our WaFoo Live at Haru Ichiban Festival scheduled on this Friday. Our concert is a part of music festival called "Haru Ichiban - A Musical Breeze from Japan" a four-day festival of contemporary Japanese music. On the same night, Michiyo Yagi, koto(Japanese traditional string instrument) virtuoso will play, too. Please come & enjoy Spring Musical Breeze from Japan!

WaFoo Live at Haru Ichiban Festival
Friday, March 21, 2008
8:00pm
Drom
Drom - www.dromnyc.com
85 Avenue A (bet. 5 & 6) New York, NY, 10009
phone:(212)777-1157

Ticket: $25 (one day)
$60 (4 days pass)

Click to Buy Ticket

Press Release : http://dromnyc.com/home/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=51&Itemid=53

We hope you can make it and look forward to seeing you at the concert!

Magic Eye

Do you guys remember "Magic Eye?" My memory goes back about 15 years or so. I and my college-mates in Australia were trying to figure out what the heck the "magic" was all about. The only things I saw on the book of the "rather strange pictures" were just a bunch of different pattern of some computer graphics page after page. I thought it's some kind of weird psychological test (like Rorschach test). Then my bass instructor at the college told me that I had to see through the pictures and set the focal point further back of the pictures. After he told me that, I finally got it and was amazed with all those three-dimensional stuff on two-dimensional flat papers. Not too many people know but there were the videos of Magic Eye and you could see the moving 3D Magic Eye images on TV. I borrowed the VHS videos from a Blockbuster, put this bulky slab of plastic into the video deck, locked on the TV screen and was burning my eyes whole day. The Magic Eye totally knocked a country boy in Australia down.

Now, fifteen years later, our beloved band-mates of WaFoo, Takeshi and Sanae, found this "rather strange pictures" on a calender hanged on the wall at the rehearsal. Surprisingly this couple had never seen Magic Eye in their lives before.

Takeshi didn't have a clue.

Still working and reading the instruction.

"Oh yeah, I know this. You have to find a little guy in this messy picture." That's "Where's Waldo?" Sanae. Anyway she got the Magic-Eye concept in a couple of minutes.

After a couple of hours of rehearsing, Takeshi picked up the calender again in the break. Still no clue.

Another couple of hours later and after our rehearsal is done, again, he picked up the calender, stood still without blinking and only organs moving in his body were his heart and the apples of his eye balls trying to set different focal point. When we were almost done packing up, suddenly we all heard a middle-aged man in the next room screaming "AAAARRGGGHH! I got it!!" So he finally got it. Congratulations Takeshi. Good job. By the way, we all were enjoying watching you struggling.... for four hours.

WaFoo MySpace Page

Finally, WaFoo caught up with the trend and made our Myspace page.
http://www.myspace.com/wafoomusic

It still needs some work (like the bio and stuff...), but I put up some tracks from our debut CD "Organic Mood," so check them out. More importantly, if you have a Myspace page, be sure to sign up as a friend, leave us some comments!!

Haru Ichiban Festival at Drom!

Feb. 27, 2008 - We went to Drom for a meeting about Haru Ichiban Festival from March 18 - 22. (We'll be on Friday, March 21, 2008.)
Drom is newly opend in East Village, beautiful & chic restaurant & lounge. The stage was fully equipped and nicely set. The people who run Drom are very enthusiastic about promoting arts, world culture & artists trying to express themselves in innovative ways. This spirit is what we all are looking for in NYC!
I'm sure Drom will be the main stage for NYC Arts.

drom | 85 Avenue A | New York, NY, 10009 | (212)777-1157