Haiku for Disco _ a poem by Yuri Kageyama

Haiku for Disco _ a poem by Yuri Kageyama

Too Tired, Brain Is Dead
Chukah Thomp, Chukah Thomp, Chukah Thomp,
Disco Is Music.

Some people who know a lot about music look down upon disco because of its simple repetitive rhythm and how the genre has played in to the evil money-making music industry machinery (although other genres have done this, too). What is being overlooked is that this simple repetitive rhythm, which gets people off their seats and out on the dance floor, speaks to people who work hard all day and need to forget, can’t think, but want to groove _ not those academics who want to sit around, focus on more intelligent music to analyze, contemplate and articulate. Call it dumb. Call it what you will. Call it the primordial beat. I am alive. That is what disco music says. And that is the most important thing any music, any art, any writing can say.

(video from Jimmy Clary, via Hiroyuki Shido)

Talking TAIKO Book party in San Francisco




Film by Yoshiaki Tago

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Photos by Annette Dorfman



Film by Yoshiaki Tago.

Talking TAIKO Book party for “The New and Selected Yuri _ Writing From Peeling Till Now” at Yoshi’s in San Francisco MON Aug. 15, 2011.
An evening of poetry by Yuri Kageyama with music by The Yuricane:
Eric Kamau Gravatt (drums), Makoto Horiuchi (guitar, musical director), Isaku Kageyama (taiko, percussion), Hiroyuki Shido (bass), Glen Pearson (keyboards), Ashwut Rodriguez (guitar).
Special Guests: Ishmael Reed, Tennessee Reed and Carla Blank.
A firsthand report in Jazz Advance: Borderless Poetics: Taiko Meets Jazz at My Book Party.

Reading at a San Francisco book store


Reading at a San Francisco book store TUE Aug. 16, 2011 with (from left to right) Yoshiaki Tago (filmmaker), Hiroyuki Shido (bass), Eric Kamau Gravatt (drums), Makoto Horiuchi (guitar), Yuri Kageyama (poet) and Isaku Kageyama (percussion, taiko).
Photos by Annette Dorfman.
The best thing about the reading was that Milton Murayama, author of “All I Asking For Is My Body,” whom I had not seen in years, came with his wife Dawn because he saw it in The San Francisco Chronicle.
He told me the day he would stop writing is the day he dies.
So much like Milton _ still the same after all these years.
He had that same twinkle in his eye when he said those words like a promise.
Death can’t be all bad if we can keep writing till the day we die.