Doko Demo World Song by Ken Tanaka Band どこでもワールド




EArlier this week we posted our song Doko Demo World. I wrote this song 11 years ago, but I only had the chorus (part sung by the girl in this) and the music. Last Fall Polo and TEruko and I got together in Polo's studio to record a version of Nanatsu no Ko (karasu) and when we finished, I mentioned this song. We played around and this is what we got.
I met Polo surfing in Los Angeles, and I met Teruko when she was working at an art show I had work in.

Youtube was kind enough to give me some credit at BH camera earlier this year, and I used it to buy the canon SLR rebel t2i camera. It's a bit hard to shoot on for me, since I'm used to making videos with a camcorder or flip. Takeo is a professional photographer and cinematographer though, so he was able to make the Rebel T2i work great for this video.

We shot for 3 days in Los Angeles. We were lucky that the flowers were in bloom :-) They don't last very long. Most of the footage is shot on a 50mm lens, but some is also on a 18-120 zoom lens.

I'm very happy with how the video looks and I hope it makes you happy.



This is the studio version. This was us recording with my Flip the day we were first working on the song. We recorded it with Polo a few days later. Polo is a master producer and did all the recording and sound editing.





I Lately I've been very satisfied by getting to make this song, and also my book Everybody Dies, and the gallery show that is up now. It goes till July 9th, so if you haven't seen it and you are in LA, please stop by. We will have a closing, signing party on July 9th (SAT) from 2-4pm


Ken and Takeo at Torrance ARt Museum Charity Event



On March 26th TAkeo and I visited an art charity event at Torrance Art Museum. I had a few pieces in the show that I posted on my blog a while back. The event was a big success and raised more than $7000.

My t-shirt event from a few weeks ago also raised $400. I'm happy to see so many people donating their work and money to help.

Takeo has also been active in organizing and donating.

If you don't know Takeo, here are a few videos we have made together.


I first meet Takeo



We made this "How to speak fluent Japanese" without saying a word video



We made these songs


We won a 2010 Japan Youtube Award. やった!




Takeo and I were recently nominated for the 2010 Youtube Japan Video awards for our video Scream of Slacker ニートの叫び。



I'm happy to say that thanks to all of you and your support we won the award. I would also like to congratulate Ericsurf6 and Ciaela who also won awards in the nature and How to categories.  皆さん応援してくれて本当にありがとうございます。

We definitely could not have won without your votes, support and love. Thank you all so much.

Last year, I was also lucky enough to receive a youtube award for the video below "I Am Robot". I got a nice trophy in the mail from Youtube. Thanks so much for continuing to support me and my videos.

Ken Tanaka Band live in Los Angeles Monday 13th

This coming Monday 13th, I will be performing a live show at 2nd Street Jazz in Los Angeles.
366 E 2nd St
Los Angeles, CA 90012

The show goes from 9-11pm and I think we will go on around 9:45. Tickets are $10. PLease make sure you tell them you are there for Ken Tanaka when you buy your ticket.

I will be playing about 20-30 minutes and probably doing 6-8 songs with Takeo, Polo and our new guest vocalist the very handsome Teruko-Chan. Three of the songs are brand new and we've never played them for an audience before.

You can hear Teruko singing a song from Urusei Yatsura here.


Here are some of the songs you can hear.






Butterfly on head 頭に蝶々



This is the new song by Takeo and I. This song started as an improvisation and then we changed it a little bit and added some things. It's in Japanese but with English subtitles. If you are studying Japanese, please see the video description on YouTube to see the lyrics written out in romaji (roman alphabet).


Takeo and I also made this song, which YouTube was nice enough to feature on the Japan website. Last week we got a call from a Japanese TV show asking if they can use our song in their show. I don't think it ended up happening though.







We also got to perform that song live in Los Angeles.


How to Speak Fluent Japanese Without (Hardly) Saying a Word Part 4



This video is part 4 for of my Japanese learning videos with the very handsome Remi February. Takeo also joins us in this video and we teach some common Japanese vocabulary words.




Here are some of the other how to speak Japanese lessons with me and Remi.


Lesson 1





Lesson 2



Lesson 3



Bonus Lesson How to Speak Japanese by speaking English

Onstar parody video by my friend Takeo (PG13)




You probably know Takeo from my videos. He is a white man who was born and raised in Japan (chiba) and came to America to go to film school. Now Takeo has graduated and he just made his first film.

It's a very short 40 second parody of and Onstar commercial. If you don't know Onstar you should watch this commercial first. That's an original Onstar commercial.

Takeo was able to get some real Hollywood actors to star in his short. Reid Ewing is the character "Dylan" on the popular US ABC TV series Modern Family. Shelby Young is on a soap opera called DAys of Our lives.
Tara Sands is a well known voiceover artist.

I guess Takeo must be pretty good to attract all these famous and talented people.



Takeo's video is a little too....adult....for my youtube channel, so we made this video to put up on my channel instead.



If you don't know TAkeo, you can meet him here.


Ken Tanaka and Takeo Live



Last Saturday, Po-Lo from the band Nirf, invited TAkeo and me to perform our "No Job" song at 2nd st. Jazz in Los Angeles.
Here is a video of it.
The video also shows Shoko Watanabe singing a handsome version of the SAints go Marching in.


I also posted another video of Po-Lo and I doing a harmonica/guitar blues jam after the show.





We are all having lots of fun making songs. Takeo-Kun and I have 2 or 3 more we are working on and hopefully we will make videos of them soon.

Ken Tanaka and Takeo perform "No job" song tonight in Los Angeles

Monday, May 24th 2010 Takeo and I (Yamato Natadekoko) will perform our song from youtube at 2nd Street Jazz in Los Angeles.
We go on at 10pm with our friends, Japanese grunge band Nirf. There are two other bands too. Tickets are $10....PLease Tell them you are there to see Ken Tanaka and Takeo.
This is the song



2nd street Jazz is located in LIttle Tokyo.
www.2ndstjazz.com
366 E 2nd St
Los Angeles, CA 90012
(213) 680-0047

New Japanese Song - Yamato Natadecoco



I made a new Japanese song with my Friend Takeo, who you might know from some of my other videos. Takeo is a white man, but was born and raised in Chiba, Japan. He comes from a family of musicians.

Takeo plays guitar in the song and I sing. We made this song through improvisation.



He played, and I sang to it a few times. Afterwards, we changed the lyrics from the improvisation and arranged it a little bit.

Improvising music is one of the funnest things in the whole world.

We will be making more songs soon. I hope you can enjoy this one :)