Dark Sun Big Rain is out and in stores NOW!
I am a Malaysian singer/songwriter, and visual artist now back again in Southeast Asia after some good years in Japan.
Collaboration with my American creative partner, Daddy Peet, has yielded a body of heart-felt songs that I might loosely describe as "East meets West." Consciously or unconsciously, we have tried to fuse the idioms of blues, jazz, folk and rock with traditional Southeast Asian genres into our songs. This fusion makes total sense as it reflects our cultural and musical frames of reference.
My music and art have travelled with me to many places. Outside of Malaysia, Japan and Singapore, I have had the opportunity to play in other memorable spots and meet all kinds of interesting folk. Some magic moments include jamming in Agra, India, in the shadow of the Taj Mahal, making music in a primitive, candle lit hotel in the Hunza Valley, not far from K2 in northern Pakistan, rockin the blues at Harvelle's and Canter's in Los Angeles, taking back Vermont in cafes and bars while doing an art fellowship in New England, and ruffling some feathers and shaking up the jams in bar gigs and house parties in New York, Ohio and Oregon...
When I moved to Japan in the 90's, the jazz scene there was very vibrant. I started to explore jazz since it was a natural progression from my forays into American blues and folk music. I caught many jazz greats in action in Japan, including Wynton Marsalis, Elvin Jones, The Modern Jazz Quartet, Marcus Roberts, Freddie Hubbard, to name a few, and I also got to make music with some of them: Kenny Drew, Willie Pickens, The New Glen Miller Orchestra, the Catwalk Band and the American pianist/music professor Janeen Larsen, with whom I gigged for a year and recorded an unreleased and untitled set of jazz tunes
At the same time, I also formed an acoustic folk-blues band with some
gaijin friends called
The Cadillacs. This group, primarily made up of North Americans, but with occasional instrumental help from an Australian bassist and a Japanese drummer, evolved into
The Eclectics and then
The Electric Cadillacs. It was great fun doing American folk and blues, work songs, spirituals and R&B to very appreciative audiences in Tohoku, northern Japan. Apart from tight vocal harmonies, our line-up offered the sounds of the mandolin, harp, accordion and guitars.
Concurrent to my involvement with
The Cadillacs, I decided to form a blues band with a big Chicago-blues sound, called
Black & Blue comprising some of the best blues musicians in the Akita region. The line-up included ABS radio DJ/ producer Papa Mitsui and the Small Town Stars' guitarist, Electric Hitoshi, both alternating on lead and rythmn guitars. After a year and a half of rockin some frenzied audiences with
Black & Blue and tearing the prefecture's collective ear dums apart, this band gave way to my next project,
The Blackstone Blues Band, a band bent on acoustic & country blues tunes and urban blues rockers. Apart from drums, bass and requisite guitar hero in the form of the wild man, Yuki Kasai, the line-up included blues harp and fiddle.This group endured for many years and gigging was a gas gas gas.
At that time, I was starting to write songs with Daddy Peet, and our more rockous offerings, like "Don't Tell Me", "Dis" and "Drivin' Down The Berm" got integrated into the Blackstone Blues Band repertoire. We recorded an EP with songs by Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters and a handful of originals, which we titled,
Home Grown, but never released. We also continued to gig throughout Tohoku over the course of 3 or 4 years, but eventually disbanded. It was too much fun, yet
all things must pass!
I was now spending more time tinkering on my guitar and writing more songs with the da Peet and we were looking to develop a particular sound that best reflected the poetry of the songs. So I became a solo artist/a singer songwriter, if you will, with a couple back up bands in ever evolving configurations. We sometimes referred to ourselves as
Karen Nunis Blackstone and the Child Grooms and at other times,
Karen Nunis Blackstone and the Dudes. We played lots of featured acts, from bashes in little cafes and bars to full blown shows in concert halls and festivals, always to a surprisingly appreciative audience. It was great to play original stuff and be appreciated! These line ups were made up of old friends from the
Blackstone Blues Band and new friends who were happy to join the bandwagon. Now, the line-up included various percussions like djembe and tabla, acoustic double or electric bass, acoustic and electric guitars, violin, blues harp and flute. With a bunch of songs under my belt, I recorded my first internationally released album,
Give Me Sanity, in the year 2000.
The musicians who supported me live or in the studio, including Steve Byrne, Hideki Kitajima, Chris Hoskins, Naomi Nomoto, Toki Mama-san, Tomasso Cecere, Yuki Kasai, Badar, Adrian Kingsley, Smoker Minato, Daddy Peet, Guitaro, Hideo Himori, Julian Mokhtar & Mohar Diman, hailed from Japan, Australia, Italy, the US, Malaysia and Indonesia. Thanks to all the characters above, and particularly Daddy Peet, I have arrived at a sound I am happy with, and I must say, it has been an exilirating ride.
So here I am now, out of Japan, and back in South East Asia, with my second album,
Dark Sun Big Rain released by Rock Unite Malaysia and distributed by Universal Music.
You can check out the music here or buy the album at any good music store:)
Peace
managed by
ROCK UNITE T-MANAGEMENT
contact GERRY at +60 13 660 6121
e-mail:
[email protected] Also check out...GIVE ME SANITY ( 2000 )
More info on
website...
Here's my
Namahage Blues, home-made Vid:
