We are not good at blogging. These days, most of our time is spent reading about radiation from other (real) bloggers. But today, Lesley and I did something that we could write about.

HOPE International Development Agency is a fantastic group located here in Nagoya. For the most part, they are usually sending volunteers to developing countries to dig fresh water wells and paint schools. But since the earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011 was literally in our backyard, they have focussed some of their resources to helping the survivors of this disaster.

One such initiative is the collection, transport, and distribution of
Personal Hygiene Kits.

This most recent donation request is two-fold.

First, while some of the evacuation centers are less crowded, there are many gymnasiums that are quite full. Medicines have been washed away, and there is worry about disease spreading through the centers. Hygiene kits will help the people to stay clean and prevent the spread of disease.

Second, these folks have been without water.
And a clean change of clothes.
And food.

And sometimes, it feels really, really good to just brush your hair.
Your teeth.
Wash.
Cut your fingernails.
Shave.

Water is still a problem – there is no running water or electricity in many areas. But as bulk donations of bottled water are arriving, they will be able to use it not just for drinking, but also for cleaning up.

So today, Les and I hit the 100 yen shop to gather items needed to make 10 Personal Hygiene Kits.

*NOTE: we were not keen to go to the 100 yen shop for this, we wanted to get the good soap, the good toothpaste, etc from the drugstore. But HOPE has asked us to make these kits as similar as possible, so we’re going with generic brands that are available at every 100 yen shop.*

The Daiso is the big 100 yen shop around Aichi prefecture, where we live. After a 10 minute wander through the shop, we had two full baskets – enough to make 10 kits.

The total came to 9,600 yen, which is just over $100 Canadian.

We came home and packed the goods into large zip-lock bags. Everything fit perfectly, which I guess the HOPE folks counted on when they asked us to all buy the same things.

Then Les hopped on her scooter and headed for the Hilton Nagoya. The hotel will be accepting donations from 9am – 4pm every day until April 10, 2011, and have donated one of their larger rooms for the “Supporting Japan” meetings as well. Thank you Hilton~

So we just wanted to give you a look at our day. And to ask you something.

To our friends who are not in Japan:
Donating money to the Red Cross is an amazing thing, and we thank you if you have already done so.

Because we live here, we are able to be more ‘hands-on’ with our donations. For example, our friend, Chris, is a helicopter pilot, and with the Japan Mercy Flights team, has made over 70 flights to the affected areas within the last three weeks. Helicopter gas is EXPENSIVE. They are volunteering their time and their machines, but any money that we have raised so far has gone directly from my hand and into his, so he can put gas in his helicopter.

Putting together Hygiene Kits is another way that we can spend our money, take it directly to the trucks that will drive up north, and know that it is reaching the people who need it.

We would like to ask you to help us put together more of these Hygiene Kits. If you are so inclined, we can work something out where you deposit cash online into my RBC account in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada or Lesley’s Westpac account in Dubbo, NSW, Australia. We will take your money and make up more Hygiene Kits. We will send you the receipt from the store for the kits that were made with your donation.

We are not Red Cross. I can’t give you a tax receipt. But I can guarantee you that your money is going directly – DIRECTLY – to helping people feel cleaner, happier, healthier. They really need our help, and will continue to need help over the next months, and more than likely, years.

If you would like to chat more about this, please email me (Coleen) at col.the.fiddler@gmail.com.

Jalbum – Useful for Editing New Myspace Pages

I found that Jalbum was a very useful and versatile photosharing program when trying to customize the new Myspace pages. Here’s a quick “how to” for downloading and installing Jalbum!

Create a Jalbum Account

Downloading the Desktop Application

On the top menu, go to Downloads > Desktop App (the one with the frog face). Each operating system (Windows, Mac, etc.) has a different set of installation instructions. Just follow the instructions (and remember to donate if you like!).

Close the browser window.

Firing Up the Jalbum Desktop Application

It’s very important to have all of your photos and images organized on your desktop before getting started in Jalbum, so if your bits are a bit scattered, now is the time to get sorted!

Follow this link for information on how to use the Jalbum desktop application to upload images and photos to personalize a fullscreen background on the new Myspace.

Creating Your Album

If you liked what you saw, you’re ready to publish! If not, you can change the skin, mess about with the settings, add descriptions and tags… Preview as many times as you need until you’re happy with the page.

If you have your own site that you’d like to upload to, here is where you enter in your server name (usually ftp.sitename.com), your username and password. If you don’t have your own site, you can use the Jalbum account that you created when you installed Jalbum.

You’re all set! The best pages will result with experimenting, so take your time, and have fun!

Coleen Wickdahl, Fiddler for Nagoya band Semi-On

The New Myspace – Marquee

This is where you can put your band’s photo, branding, or anything else you’d like to have show up “above the fold”: what your visitors will first see when they come to your site.

Continued from the tutorial “How To Personalize the New Myspace : Background”, where we finally got our background image to look right!

If you haven’t already, here’s a link on how to upload and install Jalbum. I use this free photosharing software for fixing bits of what Myspace wrecked with their new layouts.

The Banner, or The “Marquee”

The ‘Customize’ Box

To access the ‘Customize’ box, at the top of your Myspace page, scroll over ‘My Stuff’, and under the word ‘Profile’, click ‘Customize’. Then click on the ‘change Layout’ tab, and this will take you to your page layout options. Check the ‘Add a “Marquee”‘ box.

The Dimensions

Myspace will allow the height of your Marquee to be anywhere from 1 to 999 pixels. When the page loads though, a maximum of 250 pixels is visible, and the user must click “Show more” to see anything beyond that. The Marquee width should be no more than 960 pixels.

For my band’s Semi-On page, I messed about with my image in Photoshop, and using Save for Web and Devices, used the highest quality settings and saved my 960x250px image to my desktop, for easy access.

Uploading Your Image – Jalbum

If you are familiar with the first part of this tutorial, you have already had experience with uploading photos to your own photosharing webpage. Here’s a quick reminder of what to do:

• Follow this link for quick and easy instructions on how to download and install Jalbum.
• Drag your Marquee image from your desktop into the white space in the Jalbum window. Name your album ‘marquee’.
• Go to Album > Settings > Images, and change the ‘Image bounds’ to the dimensions you want.
• Don’t worry about the Thumbnails dimensions, you won’t be using that page. Just type in the ‘Images’ dimensions to your image size. It should look like this: 960×250 – not this: 960 x 250. Do not leave a space between the numbers and the x.
• Click ‘Make Jalbum’, then ‘Preview’. Double-click the thumbnail, then right-click on the image and open the image in a new window. Make sure this is the size you want it to be.
• Close the preview windows, and close the ‘Making Album’ window.
• Click the down arrow on the ‘upload’ button, and click ‘Publish/Manage’. If you have your own site that you’d like to upload to, here is where you enter in your server name (usually ftp.sitename.com), your username and password. If you don’t, you can use the Jalbum account that you created when you installed Jalbum.
• It will create a location for your album called ‘marquee’. Click ‘Upload’. Don’t bother including a hi-res image. Click ‘OK’.
• A new window will open, and you can click on the photo to go to the album. Once there, double-click on the thumbnail. Then right click on the resulting picture and Open the Image in a New Window.
• Copy the http:// address – this is what you will need for the Myspace ‘Customize’ box.

Uploading Your Image to Myspace

Back at your Myspace page, minimize the Customize Box. When you scroll over the blank space that was created for your Marquee (under the menus and above your profile information), you will see the word “Marquee” with a gear icon under it. This is the settings button, go ahead and click it.

• Enter the height of your image in the top space.
• Enter HTML. Properly coded pages are much-loved by search engines, and will get your indexed quicker, so please use the following syntax:

<p>
<img src=”http://www.YOURSITE.com/YOURIMAGE.jpg” alt=”YOUR BAND NAME AND ANY OTHER DESCRIPTIVE INFO” />
</p>

• Click ‘Save Changes’

Please remember that the URL (http://www….) you enter is from the address you copied from the Image Opened in a New Window.

And there you have it! Your image should now be visible. Close the Marquee settings box, and click Publish in the Customize box if you’re happy with what you have. If not, swear a little, then start again.

We can fix the mess that is Myspace, one element at a time.

Coleen, Semi-On band Fiddler

How To Personalize the New Myspace: Background

One fine morning, I awoke to find myspace had gone to shit. Where is my HTML? Where is my CSS? And how do I edit the ugliness you’ve done to my page?

After trying out Myspace’s crappy ‘customize’ box, googling, swearing, googling, going back to the crap box, walking away, swearing…. I managed to figure out a couple of things.

Now, I guarantee you there are likely easier ways to do this. But this is what worked for me, and because I had a terrible time trying to find the answers online, I figured this might be a good place to start. In the end, it looks like this: here’s the Semi-On Myspace page I created.

The Background

The ‘Customize’ Box

First things first, to access the ‘Customize’ box, at the top of the page, scroll over ‘My Stuff’, and under the word ‘Profile’, click ‘Customize’. Then click on the ‘Build My Own Theme’ tab, and this will take you to your background, colors, fonts, and style options.

The Dimensions

I have a bit of Illustrator experience, so I created a 1600 x 1024 image (that’s in pixels) in Illustrator and placed it on my desktop for easy access. I made it this size because this is the largest width that Myspace allows, and I wanted it to fill the screen (almost) entirely, then to fade away into the background as the user scrolls down. Myspace will allow background images up to 1600 x 1600 pixels.

Uploading Your Image – Jalbum

This was hellish. Using the ‘Customize’ box in Myspace, I tried the photo uploader. It downsized my picture every time, no matter how much I swore at it. So I needed to do the URL method, using a photosharing site.

Photobucket and Flickr downsized my image width to 1024 and 1280 pixels respectively, and I couldn’t quite figure out how to get my original 1600 x 1024 image to remain that size using these programs.

I use Jalbum for my Semi-On website – I’m able to upload photos and they each can have a unique HTML address, so I tried that. It worked! And was relatively easy (everything is relative…)

• Follow this link for quick and easy instructions on how to download and install Jalbum.
• Drag your background image from your desktop into the white space in the Jalbum window. Name your album ‘background’.
• Go to Album > Settings > Images, and change the ‘Image bounds’ to the dimensions you want.
• Don’t worry about the Thumbnails dimensions, you won’t be using that page. Just type in the ‘Images’ dimensions to your image size. It should look like this: 1600×1024 – not this: 1600 x 1024. No space between the numbers and the x.
• Click ‘Make Jalbum’, then ‘Preview’. Double-click the thumbnail, then right-click on the image and open the image in a new window. Make sure this is the size you want it to be (if it’s 1600 pixels wide, it should stretch across your screen).
• Close the preview windows, and close the ‘Making Album’ window.
• Click the down arrow on the ‘upload’ button, and click ‘Publish/Manage’. If you have your own site that you’d like to upload to, here is where you enter in your server name (usually ftp.sitename.com), your username and password. If you don’t, you can use the Jalbum account that you created when you installed Jalbum.
• It will create a location for your album called ‘background’. Click ‘Upload’. Don’t bother including a hi-res image. Click ‘OK’.
• A new window will open, and you can click on the photo to go to the album. Once there, double-click on the thumbnail. Then right click on the resulting picture and Open the Image in a New Window.
• Copy the http:// address – this is what you will need for the Myspace ‘Customize’ box.

Uploading Your Image to Myspace

Head back over to your Myspace page. In the Customize Box, click ‘Type a URL’, then paste the address from the previous step into the space available. Click Done.

If you find that your image does not show up (there’s an X or a ? where your image should be) check that you used the URL from when you opened your image in a new window.

Experiment with the Stretch and Tile options. I wanted the background to scroll with the page, and I set the background position to Upper Middle (the arrow pointing straight up).

That does it for the background image! See, not hard at all… Now that you have Jalbum installed, creating the Heading, or the Marquee, for your new Myspace layout will be a snap.

Cheers!  Coleen, Semi-On Fiddler

Now you see, this is what we weren’t supposed to do… let the blog go untouched for 4 months. Sorry about that.

Autumn was lovely.

In September, we were still a bit stifling, but on the upside, made many trips to the river. We headed to Osaka for the Kansai Music Conference, where we played at a great little Indian restaurant, Kitahorie Bindu. Here, we met Stuart O’Connor, a touring musician from the UK. We convinced him to make a stop in Nagoya, and we invited him to play at Plastic Factory on October 1. He’s acoustic, with pedals, and dreds, and a voice you can’t help looking at.

We had the chance to play at Nagoya Festival again this year, back in October. On the same day, RAN Magazine hosted “Oktoberfest”, and although they made off with one of our mic stands, it was a nice event. A beautiful day for playing in parks, it was. A couple weeks later, we played at the Kakuozan Creators Autumn Festival in Nagoya, and followed up that evening with Harmonium Parlour in Imaike.

And speaking of Harmonium Parlour, we hosted our open mic and art space event on the last Sunday of each month. But not this month. We take this month to escape to places far and wide (read: cleaning the house and taking day trips to Sakae). We’ll be back again in January, with the photography of Bruce Macarthur in the upstairs gallery. If you’re about, you should come down and join us for a night of entertainment at Plastic Factory in Imaike, Nagoya, on Sunday, January 30 from 7pm until last train.

In November, we played at the Foreign Artist’s Exhibition after party. The FAE has been up and running for 25 years now, and Bry has participated a couple of times – she had an exhibit set up this year as well. It was a great party! Lots of dancing and debauchery.

Wait. No. The most dancing and debauchery (and tequila) was at the Gaijin Sounds Live event on November 19 at OZON, Sakae, Nagoya. Holy crap, that place was pretty great. We shared the stage with Blanka, one of our most favorite ever disco funk bands here in Nagoya, and the top always get knocked off when they’re around.

Which brings us to December! It’s been a relatively quiet month for the band – in Japan, this is the season of work ‘Bonenkai’ parties, and we’ve all been up to our ears with Christmas parties for kids. Hard Rock Cafe in Nagoya will be shutting it’s doors soon, and we played the Sayonara Party on the 10th, sharing the stage with many other great Nagoya bands. Les and I had the chance to catch Fatblueman‘s final concert at Hard Rock on the 22nd – so good! Good-bye HRC – you had so much potential…

John, Bry, and Tavers are in Hawaii with John’s folks, Kaz is in Kyoto and spending some time with friends and family, and Les and I are camping out at home this year. We’ll head up to Hakuba on Wednesday to ring in the New Year with the mountain people. It’s nice to drive to snow when you want snow, then drive away from it when you’ve had enough

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy New Year, etc etc!

Coleen

Semi-On: Nagoya Gypsy-Funk Band

We received this most excellent email yesterday from Tony at Bugbear Promotions in London, England.  These cats set up our gig at The Constitution – our first ever gig in the UK – and were great to work with.  His kind words…

‘Really fucking amazing!’ was just one of the comments shouted in Bugbear’s ear’ole as Semi-on filed off the tiniest stage in Christendom recently, in The Constitution, Camden [ Camden's finest canalside pub/venue...]

An electic mix of East Euro folk, vaudeville, twisted country pop and Beefhearty avant blues, the cheekily entitled Jap/Brit/Aussie outfit get good and “knowing” on yo ass [in fact downright Biblical..]

No wonder they’re doing a 5 night stretch at the Edinburgh Festival, the entertainment factor here is immense and they manage to cross pollinate Rock and Roll with cuter cabaret leanings incredibly successfully.

And fashionistas take note- they wear toe shoes onstage, a la Japanese workmen – a strange choice of footwear you may say but it enhances their poetic vulnerability as they rock out to such an extent that they appear  even more loveable…

So make room for Semi-on. A mere inch or two away from going straight to the top…

Tony

Bugbear Promotions

40 Dunford Rd

London N7 6EL

020 770 0550

020 770 0880

E-mail: info@bugbearbookings.com

Website: www.bugbearbookings.com

I’ll even forgive him for not mentioning the Canadian part of the band

Col

www.semion.org
semionjp@gmail.com

After a magnificent time in London, Goostery, Knutsford, and Edinburgh, 3 out of the 5 have returned to our stomping grounds in Nagoya.

We were able to play an impromptu show at the Pear Tree on the afternoon of the 10th, and due to a scheduling discrepancy with our booking folks that night, we wound up with the evening off – welcomed by all, to be fair.  We were pretty knackered after the week in Edinburgh, but have never had such a great time together.

Kaz and Les returned on the 12th.  Kaz learned a new English word… “melancholy”.
“I feel melancholy,” followed with a sad face that made you just want to tell him he could stay in the UK as long as he wanted instead of coming back to Japan so soon.  No worries Kazzy, we’ll go back!

I had a return ticket to Canada, so I flew home for a fantastic 32 hours before heading back to Japan.

So!  Some thoughts about the trip:

• The weather in the UK is the chilliest I’ve ever experienced in August – never went out without a sweater – yet it was the most comfortable I’ve been in August in ages.
• The people who work in the Toronto airport are rude.  Yes, all of them.
• Londoners are in a hurry, Edinburghers are not.
• The roads in England’s countryside are skinny and wind about in ways that make you fear for your life, especially when that tractor comes ripping up over the hill straight at you.
• John logged an amazing 100 hours driving us around in our rented van – half of that was in the wrong direction.  But fast.
• The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is huge and friendly, exciting, and makes you feel just… happy to be there.  We couldn’t stop smiling.  Next year, we all go.
• Too much fish and chips = line ups for the bathroom.
• The crowd at The Constitution in London was awesome – the folks who booked us asked us to come back, and we will!

Ok, this is the first installment of thoughts about the trip… the jet lag is kicking in.  Again.

Most importantly – to all the folks who helped us along the way, we thank you.  We couldn’t have done this without the help of Rebecca and Sophie (Bry’s friends – where we stayed in London), Bill and Janet (Bry’s parents – who fed us, let us take over their home, set up gigs for us, and let us use their equipment throughout the trip), Janet again (the most wonderful grandparent ever, who looked after Tayvian throughout our entire trip to Edinburgh), Jade (leant us her drums for the trip), Marianne and Terry (where we stayed in Edinburgh), and on a personal note, to Gina, who is my best friend in Canada, and to Earl and Val – my Mom and Dad – who helped me with my tickets and helped refill my heart again when I stayed in Canada… I really needed that.

There are a hundred more to thank and acknowledge, and I will write more soon… but for tonight, bed beckons.  8:30pm.  See you at 3am.

Coleen

www.semion.org
semionjp@gmail.com

We have this midnight gig at a place called the Newsroom. We go on after a great little act called ‘Sh!t Theatre’.  Two young lassies from London – Louise and Becca – with a lot of spunk. Very funny, check them out.

It’s tough to pull in a crowd at this time of night. Especially when you are in the basement of a club and everyone leaves after ‘Sh!t Theatre’. Last night looked like being just a practice for us as only Bill (Bry’s dad) was in the audience. The crew from ‘Sh!t Theatre’ have stayed the last two nights (thanks guys!) but had elsewhere to be this night.

The bar guy leaves not long into the set and leaves us to our own devices. It’s dead. Solution? Prop open the door and hope that the drinkers upstairs wander in on their way down to the toilets. Result? About 10 folks drift in. Enough to inject a little life back into the band and have people dancing beside their chairs. Phew.

An intimate crowd but fun nonetheless. An Aussie couple actually confessed to having seen us in the Fringe guide and purposely came to see us. Nice!

Anyway, we have  gig at 5 today in a beer garden at the Pear Tree. Outside and a Sunday… should be good!  Hoping to catch up with some friends from Glascow who used to live in Japan. It’s always great to have buds in the crowd.

Having a blast!

P.S No more fish and chips. Seems to be sending sensitive stomachs down the hatch.

Les

www.semion.org
semionjp@gmail.com

minasama ogenkidesuka?

semi-on wa ima England ni imasu.

soshite senjitu chyotto kawatta tokoro de live show wo yattanode sonokoto wo kakimasu.

bokutachi wa Bryony no home town ni aru Ushi-goya(barn) de live show wo surukotoni narimashita.

sono bokujyo wa totemo yoitokoro nano desuga,nioi ga totemo kyo-retu de,umaku ensou dekiruka shinpaideshita.

saisyoha ammonia to tatakai nagara setteing wo shiteimashita

demo,jikannga tatu uchini narete kimasita.ningen wa sugoidesu ne.

yoruni nari ushi-goya live show ga hajimarimashita.

ushi-goya wa hito de ippaini nari,totemo moriagarimashita.

minna hontoni  yasashii hito bakari deshita.

barn dance wo odottari,gayagaya to hanashiwo shinagara tanoshii jikan wo sugoshimashita.

boku wa England ni kitekara cider ni hamattesimai,storongbow wo takusan nomimashita.

soshite bokutachi ga live show wo shita sono yoru ippiki no koushiga umaremashita.

sono hanashi wo kiite  ammonia wo gamanshite yokatta to omoimashita.

kaz

www.semion.org
semionjp@gmail.com

If you don’t know the british comedy show “Phoenix Nights,” you should look it up on youtube or something.  That will give you the idea of the place we played in Knutsford.  It is officially called a ‘working man’s club,’ which means it is run as a collective and doesn’t generate a profit.  Booze is as cheap as you can get it, which was a great bonus.  THe show itself was a chance to warn up and practice at full volume in front of a, somewhat limited, audience.  We were promised at least 3 men men and a dog, and were pleasantly surprised to find an audience of 7 men and 3 women.  Sadly, we were unpleasantly surprised that the dog couldn’t make it.  Three hours later we were feeling great about having gone through every song we needed to practice at lest once, well almost every song…(Les?)

The next day was Tuesday night and our barn gig.  We had no idea what to expect (except Bry and I who had performed there as a duet 3 years ago), but we met by Jill the owning who can only be described as “salt of the earth.”  We set up our gear and had a brief run through of a couple tunes, before heading home to relax.

The gig in the barn was amazingly good fun…or in brit English…heaps good.  Bryony’s dad and his partner in crime Chris played a few tunes to open up both the first set and the second set.  We started slow and pretty in the first set.  We opened with Earlybird and really listened to each other.  This really helped us for the rest of the show.  We got faster and ended the first set with Coffee Shop, we thought about ending the show with it, but we wanted to play it before people had to leave (It was a workday the next day afterall!).   As Les said, “It’s amazing what a little booze will do,” and boy was she right!  THe second set went off like a firecracker.  It was great energy from the start and about 6 songs in after we played ‘Long Train Running’ the crowd got up to dance.  This was 14 year olds to 60+ year olds up and givin’ r.  We fuged our way through a few dancy tunes we didn’t practice as well as a couple requests…”More Johnny Cash!” was met with a chance playing of ‘Cocaine Blues,’ which I think we were all amazed we that we pulled it off so seemlessly.  (Thanks Mr. Beer!)

The aftermath of the show was over 30 CD’s sold and a lot of love and support.  We were also surprised to make waves in the local papers as well as to find that Christian’s (Bryony’s brother) picture – from behind the band looking out at the crowd – made the greater area newspapers, which is Cheshire county wide and a few other surrounding cities.

So far, I felt like our time in England was already a success.  We were definitely ready for Edinburgh and the fringe festival…

John

www.semion.org
semionjp@gmail.com