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There are only three more days till the end of the Netflix Find Your Voice competition and Jon Goldman’s film: Paul Sussman’s Eleven-Step Guide to Self-Actualization is right on the verge or making it to the next round.  If you haven’t voted for his film please vote!  Jon is using a track that we did with Patrick Graham for his entry and having his film win would be fantastic for us and for Jon!

Vote here: http://www.netflixfindyourvoice.com/

Bryan from TAIKOPROJECT has been obsessed with finding a warehouse for TAIKOPROJECT’s new home.  We’re close.  This might be it!

It’s a great space.  It will take a bit of work to fix the place up to our satisfaction, but once it’s finished, this will be a great space to be in.  Practices, rehearsals, small concerts, recordings, retreats… this will be a great resource!  And hopefully On can help pitch in to use it too…  =)

A taiko group always dreams of having a nice, big, open space.  I hope this works out.

Last weekend Bryan from TAIKOPROJECT and I went to Japan to celebrate Asano’s 400th Year Anniversary.  I can’t believe there has been a company (let alone a taiko company) that has survived for 400 years.  Can you believe that?

The weekend was filled with performances, drum sales, merchandise sales, meeting many taiko people, and a reception.  Congratulations Julia Asano!

Here’s Bryan in front of a huge odaiko.  At the end of the weekend, there was a fun odaiko jam where we got to play this odaiko.  It was probably the biggest taiko I’ve ever hit in my life and in the process, Yoshikazu Fujimoto, lead odaiko player from Kodo, lent me his odaiko bachi and I totally broke one!  I’ve never done that before.  Maybe I should take lessons from him…

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Our music is being used for Jon Goldman’s submission to Netflix’ Find Your Voice competition!  Jon is one of 10 Semi Finalists picked from thousands of applicants and he used “…Strikes 13″ a track we did with Patrick Graham for his preview submission! Jon’s film is called Paul Sussman’s Eleven-Step Guide to Self-Actualization.

The films with the highest number of stars will move on the final round and the winner of this competition will get $150,000 plus resouces like film stock, processing, camera rental, and post-production services for a total value of more than $350,000 to make his/her film.

So Jon needs your votes!  You do NOT need to be a Netflix subscriber to vote.  The 5 films that move on to the next round will be determined by the total number of stars.  So go to the Netflix Find Your Voice website, watch Jon Goldman’s 3 minute trailer and be sure to vote at the end!

http://www.netflixfindyourvoice.com/

Yoko Fujimoto, Kodo member and amazing singer, is performing works from her new CD this Saturday at the Japanese American National Museum at 2pm and 8pm.  Yoko gave On Ensemble an amazing private workshop a while back and we’ve been die-hard fans ever since.  Her grace and composure on stage is amazing.  Have a great show, Yoko!

We got a nice review from Underwire a popular culture blog at Wired.com:

On Ensemble’s most recent effort, Ume in the Middle, is an interesting hybrid that should appeal equally to fusion aficionados and left-fielders in search of something stranger than the average jazz-hop fare found on indie labels like Ninja Tune.

Wired magazine is one of the few magazines I actually buy.  Usually it’s at an airport for inflight reading material, but being a magazine on all things high tech maybe I should be visiting the website instead.

BTW a lot of my favorite artists are on the Ninja Tune and Big Dada (Ninja Tune’s hip hop arm) including: Anti Pop Consortium, Diplo, DJ Vadim and the Cinematic Orchestra.  So Ninja Tune if you are reading this we are not too strange for you… really… please sign us.

One particular Jason Swinscoe Cinematic Orchestra album that has had an influence on my music is Everyday.  It’s a great album featuring vocals by Fontella Bass and amazing drumming by Luke Flowers.  I blame the track “Flite” for convincing me that, yes odd time grooves with just a bit of melodic material are interesting for six and half minutes.

A number of stations added “Ume in the Middle” this week including KBSU in Boise ID, WRBU in Peoria IL ,KRCX in Denver CO, and WBRS in Waltham, MA.  KEXP in Seattle spun “Yamasong”, KSYM in San Antonio played “After Rain” and lots of support from WXDU in Durham who played “After Rain”, “Waiting”, “Yamasong” and “Hiroya vs. Miniboss”.  We’ve had a substantial increase in radio airplay this week with more stations giving “Ume in the Middle” light and medium airplay.  We’re getting medium ariplay from KRUA Anchorage, WSDP Canton, WGTB Washington, WPTS Pittsburgh, WUAG Greensboro, XTSR Townson, WPMD  Norwalk and KNDS Fargo.  We’re getting light airplay from over twenty stations across the country including WCSB and WRUW Cleveland, WIIT Chicago, KEXP Seattle, WMBR Cambridge and KSYM San Antonio. We made the New World charts at several stations inlcuding: WCCS (#22), CJAM (#5), WXDU (#5), WMPG (#4) and WITR (#8), this was all enough to have “Ume in the Middle” debut at #40 on the CMJ New World Chart this week! (more…)

Sorry if you had trouble seeing the website yesterday. The main hub of our ISP, Cyberonic, (a Covad reseller) was down for most of the day. Things seem to be back up and humming again. Sorry for the inconvenience!

Unfortunately, my room has the faint smell of dying electronics.  I wonder if one of the computers is about to give up the ghost… if it’s not one thing, it’s another…