On May 28th, 2017 The Bay Area Stick Circle will be joined by Kai Kurosawa. It will be held at my house in Sunnyvale, CA.
Start between 2PM and 3PM and end whenever... probably go out for dinner to enjoy each others company away from instruments.
Please send me a PM if you are interested in attending and I will get you all the details of the event.
This event is open to anyone who is interested in the Stick or other tapping instruments and styles... even if you don't own an instrument. This is a laid back gathering and everyone is encouraged to play, share, talk, ask questions, etc...
A PA system will be provided but feel free to bring your amp if that is your sound...

For those of you who do not know Kai Kurosawa... he is not a Stick player...
Kai is known for playing his custom Beartrax tap guitar. Not only is he a really great person... he is an amazing player and teacher of tap method. He incorporates a lot of his thumb bass playing as well as the one handed chord-strum techniques.

Here are a couple of his videos:

Really cool, man. If I lived a bit closer, I'd be into it!

Wow, me too! Dean, he's amazing! That's quite an instrument too! I'd love to hang out a bit and watch him play. Thanks for the video and y'all have fun with that.

Adds: that pinky!!!!

I remember seeing a video where he rationally thought out all the motions his fingers could make on the instrument. At the time I didn't think much of his string layout, or his pinky strumming, but he's done so much with it!

I would love to hear him play with a good percussionist.

Those look like wrapped strings on the bass side. I tried them for a week on my Stick. Didn't like it. The machine heads don't really fit them well, and I didn't care for the sound. I can always eq down the brightness of a regular string, but it's hard to adjust the brightness up on a wrapped string.

my 2 cents.
R

A reminder of the gathering happening at the end of this month.

Here is a new video from Kai.

Extremely cool! Sounds awesome!

Bump...

The gathering is this Sunday!

If anyone is going to be in the San Jose area and would like to attend, please send me a PM.

Start at 2PM, Play, Jam, Talk, Fun! Then go out for dinner.
I will have a small PA set up. Welcome to bring your own amp but I have neighbors (it's a mobile home park) so volume has to be kept to a reasonable level...
BYOB and snack donations will not be turned away...

We had a wonderful gathering on Sunday.
Started with Kai plus 3 (JRJ, Skydiver, H3dg3h0g).
Kai kicked it off with some tunes on his Beartrax custom tapping instrument. Kai is very talented and gets amazing sounds. We were most impressed with the fretless bass sound and the multitude of techniques he incorporates... from tapping to strumming and plucking with just one hand. JRJ on the 12 string and myself on the NS/Stick played a few tunes for the group as well.
Kai was gracious to let each of us experience the Beartrax. What a BEAST! It's light since it's a hollow body and very comfortable with the strap over both shoulders. I had a hard time with the inverted tuning. Kai plays in a mirrored 4th tuning.
Towards the end, Bob Culbertson showed up and showed off his skills on the Beartrax. What a trip it is to see Bob playing anything other than a Stick...
Afterwards I had the pleasure of having dinner with Kai and Bob and get to know them a little better personally.