Yuki Show Diary: 4/18/09 Luna Music

We got asked to play Record Store Day at Luna Music. They've been pretty good supporters of us, so it was kind of a no brainier. Of course, playing at 2 pm on a Saturday afternoon was kind of early for us, but we were helped by beautiful weather and people were out and about in good numbers.

It would seem that we had a good number of people there. I really am not sure because I wasn't looking out at the audience much. I think we had a lot of people listening outside. Yeah, we're a little loud for a small shop like that.


(Photo by Jen Hughes)

Anyway, I feel pretty confident in saying that performance wise, this is the best we've done in a while. I really felt good about it on the way out and I rarely do. I usually hear the mistakes (especially mine) but I really didn't hear many. I hope a video of this show turns up somewhere as this would be the time I didn't see anyone filming.

Fun day though and I go to finally meet Scott, who I've known online for ages, and Koven was there as well. That was the coolest, just having people I've never or rarely see around.

(Photo by Scott Bolderson)

And I got to play my new drums. They rocked, but I'm still not happy with the snare.

Yuki Show Diary: 4/4/09 Zaines Too

Even though this was pretty close in genres to the line up at the basement show last week (we even played before Stand and Deliver,) I felt more out of place last night. Or maybe it was playing a bar with no band beer that put me in a bad mood. Whatever the case, this was a night where as hard as I tried, I was just not feeling it.

Again we were filmed and I'm not looking forward to seeing this one as much. I felt like I was really sluggish with the tempo (probably compensating for last Saturday where I'm sure everything was way too fast.) I will say this, I had enough stage to set up the entire Vistalite kit, which was pretty cool. I'm not sure how much more I'll be bringing all that out, as it's really a lot to lug around (and it needs reheaded badly.)

I don't know. I guess there isn't much else to say. Not a disaster but just a slightly less than average night.

Yuki Show Diary: 3/28/09 Basement Show

I felt kind of out of place as I knew very few people and it was a basement show with hardcore bands and whatnot. However, it was a show for a good friend of Jason's who passed away recently, so I was more than happy to do it. It was kind of a rough evening though as it was raining a lot and we had to park half way across town, it seemed. Plus there were a lot of people there and that always wigs me out a bit. Luckily Bob Fouts from Stand and Deliver was loaning me drums, which made the night a hell of a lot easier.

So we got there and I think we were all anxious to play and kind of figured we'd go over pretty poorly as we were kind of out of place. It all worked out though. After the line up stopped changing around, things got better. Of course, when we actually got to play, things came together in a big way. I guess I was steaming and I'm amazed I didn't catch pneumonia. I felt our playing was better than in Chicago. Probably looser, but the energy was stronger. I don't know why. Maybe it was the whole basement show vibe.

Oh and yeah, people seemed into it. It was really pretty nice. I'm sure there were people who didn't care for us at all, and that's fine, but we had a pretty packed room from what I could see. I forgot that people at these shows tend to be supportive of all the bands because you don't usually get asked into someone's basement if you're going to really suck. So that was nice.

Anyway, this has been kind of hard to type as I'm in pretty poor shape. I think I was slamming the hell out of Bob's drums (sorry about that.) My left hand especially is blistered and I'm missing a chunk of skin on my pinky. How that happened is a mystery.

Yuki Show Diary: 3/27/09 Darkroom, Chicago

(I just realized I forgot to do one of these for a show we played earlier in the month. Oops. Well, the 11th, we played the Melody Inn. A good time was had by all and the turnout was strong for a Wednesday. The end.)

Anyway, Jason has been on a booking frenzy and got us a date at this bar in Chicago called the Darkroom. Originally, it was to be a different date, but something fell through and we ended up with this night instead. Worked out better, I think, as this was a monthly show called The Equalizer sponsored buy The Onion and KEXP. Kind of cool, as we're all big fans of The Onion.

I'm still kind of amazed we landed a Friday night as a pretty hip bar in Chicago being that we really don't have a name for ourselves. I guess the power of Yuki is just too strong.

I'd gone back and forth about bringing my own drums since Kristen and I were going up early and are driving a Canyonaro right now. Ultimately I was talked out of it, as Tiger Spirit, who we played before, said we could use their gear. Nice folks and an enjoyable band.

So, I got to play on this old Slingerland kit with large drums. It was fun, but I walked the line between getting things set right and knocking things out of whack for the drummer who's kit is was. Plus I felt like an idiot for forgetting my pedal and throne. The drums were fine, but my playing on them was a bit off because of that.

But I had good monitor for a change and, for the most part, I think we played well but not particularly inspired. The show was taped, so I'll get to hear it, but I'm guessing that it's going to be tight and mostly correct but missing some of the fire we've had in practice lately. So it goes.

The audience was bigger than what I expected and they were polite and more attentive than I'd expected. However, we only sold two shirts, both to family, so I guess the proof is in the pudding.

ADDENDUM: Two things I almost forgot. One, we were interviewed by KEXP and I'm sure it will be absolutely embarrassing. Two, upon entering the club, I was told that if I wanted some moonshine, it was $10 for a jar. Sure enough, a couple hours later, I got a Ball canning jar wrapped in newspaper with a clear liquid in it. I waited until I got home to sample it, but it's fairly smooth going down, but once it hits, it burns all the way up.

Yuki Show Diary: 12/27/08 Radio Radio

By the week of the show, I think all of us were regretting taking it. There were a number of factors, mostly dealing with the time of year and that most of would just be back from holiday traveling and just want to relax. For me, this was compounded by a party we'd hosted the prior night and that I was feeling so much the shattered man.

Regardless, we continued on and I didn't follow through on my threat to bring an old Rhythm Ace instead of my drums. The night started on a bad note for me as I discovered I'd lost one of my fitted earplugs. Luckily, I happened to have another pair where I'd lost the opposite one, so I still have a matched pair. It's just that they were halfway across the city.

The show itself was better than I'd expected all the way around. We had a very good turnout, which was really surprising given this hadn't been one of our finest promotional pushes and it was two days after Christmas and bad weather was looming.

It took me a while to get my footing though. Tempos have been creeping up in practice and I've been trying to pull them back a bit, but between that and feeling like a chewed piece of gum, I overcompensated the first half of the set. Had a few minor mishaps, but as long as I didn't think about what was going on, I was fine.

The combination of the humidity outside and the club not being ready for 60+ degree weather in December made for a very sweaty night. I think I lost a gallon of fluid on the stage. That was the worst part. Well, that and loading out in the pouring rain. That really sucked.

Yuki is READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL!!!

A huge thanks to Dave Lindquist at the Star for putting our CD in the right hands to make this happen. Crazy.

In other news, the EP is finally available through the iTunes music store, however, Apple seems to think our name is Yu-Ki. Grr. Hope to have that straightened out soon. Also SnoCap gets the big thumbs down. The information on how to embed their store in a MySpace page is totally wrong and their customer service apparently doesn't read emails. So we're at 50% for the download stores.

Yuki Music Store Test

Alright, in addition to the other ways one could buy the Yuki EP, should one want to (and they should,) we have a Snocap store up, which I guess is the only way you can sell your stuff through MySpace. So far, I'm 100% unimpressed with SnoCap, but you can embed your store everywhere, so that's neat. I'm going to try that here, so this is a test post. Please stand by:



Thanks for your patience.

Yuki Update

Sorry I haven't written anything in a while. Been kind of busy. And speaking of busy, things have been taking off with my band Yuki, which is a good thing. The first run of the CD is just about sold out. You can probably still find copies at Luna Music or Indy CD & Vinyl around town. For those of you not local, you can download a copy at Amazon or from eMusic. (iTunes and MySpace are taking their own sweet time getting these tracks up.)

Additionally, we've received airplay on X103's local music show and one of our songs off the EP is going to be featured in an Indy Star slideshow recapping a Colts game (we're still not sure what about us says "are you read for some football?" but apparently they see something we don't.) And we're going to be playing with Kristeen Young at Radio Radio on December 27th. (We've had a bunch of other show offers that haven't worked out for various reasons, it's a tough time of the year to try to schedule things.)

Other than that, we're just working on new material, hoping to have a followup EP out soon. That's kind of it. Reaction from the show and EP have been great and we're just trying to keep moving.

Yuki Show Diary: 10/11/08 New Albany, IN

Again, I'm doing this after the fact, so bear with me.

We got asked to play this fest for the New Albanian Brewing Company. The whole situation was pretty sweet as we were paid in advance, they put us up at a hotel, fed us and the beer was free flowing. The only issue was getting there.

We'd thought we were playing at the brewery, but that turned out to not be the case. There was this Harvest Festival in downtown New Albany and we were playing kind of adjacent to that. Unfortunately, our contact didn't have a cell phone and the people at the brewery/restaurant weren't exactly the best with helping us out.

Actually, I lied when I said that was the only issue. We asked for backline as the largest vehicle we had was a Subaru, which we packed to capacity with gear and merch. Someone usually gets the short end of the stick on the backline and Saturday that was me. The kit was one drum and one cymbal stand shorter than what they said I'd have. The four piece kit, I can hang with, but I ended up playing with a high hat and one cymbal. The stand didn't even have a nylon sleeve on it, so I wasn't going to put my cymbal on there. Ended up using their cymbals, which were junk, but ended up being the least of my concern.

The biggest issue was, the heads on this kit were completely dished on both sides. Really, if I can just digress a moment, heads aren't that expensive, at least if you're not buying bass heads. When they get to the point were they are cratered like the moon and won't hold any tension anymore because they've been that stretched out, it's time to replace them. Flipping the drum over and doing the same thing to the resonant side head is not an acceptable substitute.

I tried to get as much as I could out of that set but, of course tuning was impossible as the heads were that shot. I ended up just cranking them down so I at least had some response, but half way through the set, they'd loosened back up. At least I was being miced so you could hear me as there's no way I'd have much volume with that pathetic setup.

Alright, so what about our set? Well, we played between a banjo playing one-man-band kind of thing and a band called Sativa Gumbo. Yeah. We went over better than I'd expected, and we played better than we had at the Mel the night before, but it really wasn't our audience. Still, by the time the flaming hoola hoop girls came on, we had a bit of a group at the stage.

Did I mention the flaming hoopers? They were supposed to do their thing before we played, but ended up not. We wanted to try to coordinate something with them, but didn't. Then, halfway through our set, we were told they were coming out. Sucks that we didn't have much notice (as there were better songs to do their thing to) and now the group that was up front watching us got pushed back as they roped off about 12 feet in front of the stage. Kind of buzz killed a bit, though we would have loved to work something out in advance with them. Maybe next time.

The show itself went well, with one exception. About halfway through, I had what I can only describe as a Stockdale VP debate moment. I knew what song was next, I obviously knew how to play it, but I just blanked out. I recovered, but it was really weird sitting there and feeling like I'd just forgotten why I was there. This is bothering me more than it probably should.

Checking out the next day, this kid with a chipped tooth and looking pretty rough asked me what I though of the Harvest Festival. I said I had a good time. He said there were too many fights. Looked to me like he hadn't won many of them. I'll take in to consideration his advise not to go to the skate park after dark.

We hit ear-X-tacy and this cool shop Ultra Pop! in Louisville on the round about way out of town. Ultra Pop! had this awesome Godzilla vinyl I really wanted, but I'm not quite readly to drop $175 on a toy. Yet.

Anyway, all in all a good time and I guess we're going back to play Louisville December 13th. Groovy.

EDIT: stumbled across a Flickr of photos from the show. Check it out here: http://flickr.com/photos/ivoryocean/sets/72157608206409188/with/2958154339/

Yuki Show Diary: 10/10/08 Melody Inn

I'm writing this a few days after the fact, so forgive me if the memory is a little hazy. Anyway, we (meaning Yuki) played the late show at the Melody Inn with Red Light Driver and Small Arms Fire. RLD asked us to play, which was cool as I haven't heard them in a while. The show invitation gave us the motivation to get our CD done and all that, as we'd decided not to play a show until we had a CD to sell. Everything came together on the merch front, even though it was a little last minute. The CDs were ready and the shirts were down to the wire, but we got 'em. Groovy.

Alright. So I don't know for sure what happened on the promo front, but there was a good sized crowd for the show. We opened and ended up with a ton of people checking us out. Ended up selling a bunch of CDs and shirts and getting some really great feedback from people. Most often heard was the slightly backhanded compliment "I like this so much better than Svetlana." The intention was well meaning...

Our set went off alright. It's hard to get good sound on stage at the Mel and the vocals suffered a bit as a result. Jason was cranked up louder than usual, so we probably weren't balanced correctly for that anyway. Unfortunately Jarrin, our sound wizard, had a paying gig, so he was on the road and couldn't be around. The Mel is kind of hard to get good sound in anyway.

The other thing about playing the Mel is the set up and size of the stage. Somehow I managed to fit the full Vistalite kit on the stage but I think I was crowding everyone else out as a result. If you were wanting to check out the Vistas in all their glory and didn't show up Friday, you may have missed your chance. Don't think I'll be bringing all that mess out again. It's a drag to have that much gear to cart and set up and tear down.

Other than that, I dropped a stick (and recovered alright) and I knocked a rivet out of my sizzle cymbal. I don't think there was any other gear catastrophes, at least not for me, but I'll know for sure next time we practice. I'll be amazed if there was no other cymbal damage as I was really having to whack those suckers to keep up.

Oh yeah, we were videoed, but our volume completely overwhelmed the camcorder mic, rendering the footage pretty worthless. Boo.

EDIT: check out this rad photo gallery of the show from Charlie Clark at Nuvo!

Shameless Self Promotion: Yuki

Y'know, I don't think I've mentioned anything about my band because I'm the world's worst self-promoter. So, since I actually have good reason to, allow me to rectify that situation today.

We are Yuki and Yuki is a four piece shoegaze/dream pop/noise pop group from Indianapolis. Loud, pretty, tuneful, ethereal; I think we'll cop to any and all of those.

I've had many people ask me whatever happened to Svetlana? Well, the answer is Yuki. Yuki is pretty much a continuation of Svetlana. New songs, slightly poppier, one fewer member. That's about the difference.

So, I said I had a reason to bring the band up. Well, I have a couple. First off, we sent the EP off to get manufactured. That is really exciting as we've all put a lot of work into it and we're all pretty happy with it.

The second (and third) is that we have a pair of shows coming up. First up is a show October 10th at the Melody Inn with Red Light Driver and Small Arms Fire from NY. This is going to be our debut show and a CD release of sorts.



The following day, October 11th, we'll be playing the New Albanian Brewing Company's Fringe Fest 2008 in New Albany, IN. We're really looking forward to this one and, from what I hear, they're quite looking forward to us as well. Should be a pretty awesome time.

That's about all the band news I have at the moment. Please come out and say hi if you are in the area on the 10th or 11th. I'll have more info on the CDs and where outside the show you can buy them when I know for sure.