I "discovered" an amazing musician - Brian Wong - he has been playing koto for 35 years, and plays Shakuhachi and other instruments as well. I put discovered in quotes, because he has been around here in the SF Bay Area longer than I have (born and raised) but I just played with him for the first time recently. The first time I played electronics, but the other night played bass with him for the first time - here's a taste:



The video is just the raw audio from my iPhone, but I also recorded everything multitrack and made a different audio-only mix (having trouble embedding the player so here's the direct link):

https://soundcloud.com/gyokyo/obake-jam

My B-string is pretty dead - I've been meaning to change the strings, looks like that's my project for the weekend (including lemon oil for the fretboard). I am hoping that this duo is a long-term project - we definitely have chemistry - he can just play and play and play! And one of my favorite things to do is play with a great soloist. This is only the third time we ever played together and the first with me on bass!

Very cool!

Sounds great!  The Koto looks like Mickey Hart's Beam's little brother.  Very unique sounding instrument.

Bill, tgo

Very cool, sounds great!

Thanks everyone for listening! This project emerged out of the ether - I'm looking forward to continuing it.

Wow Bill, nice insight about koto & the Beam! Brian actually plays bass koto - I haven't heard that but interested in checking it out. And speaking of the Beam, it reminded me of one of my favorite Dead & Co moments - that night's Drums/Space drove out the annoying family in front of us - mom was maybe a John Mayer fan?



And we are definitely employing drone in this duo - I was going to say drones, but remembered Mickey Hart's shirt:

The SoundCloud recording is very nice.   The chemistry is evident, hope you do more with Brian.

Quote from: pauldo on November 04, 2023, 05:22:48 AM
The SoundCloud recording is very nice.   The chemistry is evident, hope you do more with Brian.

Thank you! I can hardly wait to play with him again! And actually, I have another track where he plays Shakuhachi which I will post when it's ready.