Then I realized that that’s really not helping me, that’s why it didn’t feel good.  I need to focus on where I want to go, instead of where I am.  You don’t get to the destination just by looking at the current location.

So, here’s my current wish list of sorts.

First and foremost, I want abundant time and resources and demand for creating my music.  It’s so much that realizing what I have in my head, it’s what I do all the time.  And to know and have people around me who are really appreciative of what I do.  I work hard to create uniqueness and authenticity in my songwriting and guitar playing — and they don’t go unnoticed.

To go with the above, I want to invite more champions in my life.  My singer Bob is one of my champions — more people like him.  More people who think highly enough of what I do that they make it their business to help me do what I do.  Like Bob’s singing and arranging of gigs/performances, others can contribute with their interests and gifts — executing marketing plans, web development (I can do it, but my time is needed elsewhere), design, photography, legal, organizing, proofreading, social networking, and most of all, putting a gun to my head and demanding music.  ;-)

I would like to equip myself with tools that make production effortless.  A new quad-core MacBook Pro with SSD, my two electric guitars serviced and set up with noiseless pickups, finish assembling my pedalboard, 1-2 quality mics and mic pres.  A new pair of glasses are needed, too.  After that, I am dreaming of putting together a custom guitar, one that reflects the unique person that I am, just like Brian May’s guitar.

I want time to organize my office/studio — so that I can get rid of everything I don’t need and have a uncluttered space, all set up and streamlined for making music and playing my guitar.

So that’s where I am going.  I don’t know why it’s so scary to come out with naked desires like this, but there I have it.  These are what my heart desires, as of March 13, 2012.

I made a mistake when I released and promoted my first solo album in 2007.  I did not know about the First Follower.  I had a First Follower (well, I think I did, in the hind sight — now I’ll never know for sure) but I didn’t think it amounted to much.  After all, it was just one fan!!  I got discouraged and burned out, and I stopped promoting my album, the best and proudest thing I’ve done with my music thus far.

Bummer.

Fast forward to last year.  I’ve been so, so fortunate to have been working with my singer Bob Yang.  9 months after starting our collaboration, he continues to just blow me away.  (Note: many of my projects didn’t last 9 months)  The other day I played a gig with him, for the first time in years.  We played three of my songs (and a cover).  Bob’s wife was in the audience and she seemed to have known every word of my songs we played.  I was not expecting for anybody to sing along, let alone recognize my songs, and this freaked me out.

It occurred to me recently, that in Bob I did find my First Follower.  Well, he’s more than a follower, as he’s now my collaborator, a duo.  But while I had lost faith in the musical value of my first album — my excuse was that I never cut it as a singer — somebody else didn’t let that get in the way of finding value in my offering.  Apparently Bob’s been playing my music to his family and friends.

I’ve always dreamed of finding fans, of learning that my offerings have made an impact on somebody.  Bob thinks highly enough of it to join me.  Saying that I am happy doesn’t really do my current state justice.  I feel bewildered, still in a state of shock and disbelief.

We are only a few weeks away from releasing the most ambitious piece of music to date — Bleeding Redwood.  This is the first from-scratch new music Bob and I are releasing.  It’s a piece I’ve been wrestling with for over a year — but thanks to Bob (and my friend Adam Lutz who played bass) I’m almost at a point where I can get it out of my systen.

It’s been amazing to co-create with someone who’s a fan.   I am excited to find more people like him, as I share more of my gifts.

And here’s the music video I made for our first song “The Must-Save List.”

I loved my studio.  It was my little empire, a place nobody else could go without my letting them in.  It was a crammed, ugly little space (as most band rehearsal studios tend to be) without any windows, but I loved my studio.  I was safe there.  It’s been almost 2 years since I started renting that space.

The problem was that my studio was 6 miles away from home.  When the weather was nice, I biked there.  It took me about 25 minutes one way, it was a good exercise.  But during winter, I take the bus.  Which is a bit more stressful, because the bus came once every half an hour.  It’s often late, but obviously I don’t know until I get there.

To top it off, this year they’re doing constructions for Light Rail on University Avenue.  It’s about to be shut down for the winter, but for a week or so in November it took me a full hour to get home.

The week before Thanksgiving, I was downstairs in our basement, and the thought occurred to me.  I should set up my studio here.

Now, my wife has been asking ever since we bought our house this spring — why don’t you work from home?  And every time she did, I’d say, no, I don’t have a place for me to work at home.  By that, I was referring to my sacred little space — the privacy of having a detached, personal room, where I can belt out some Guns n Roses tunes (which I cannot sing) without care as to what others would think.  I needed that safe space.

Plus, we were going to use the basement more — we have an old gas fireplace there that, amazingly, puts out NO heat.  And our central heat has no ducts coming out there, strangely enough.  So we planned to replace the fireplace with one that emitted actual warmth.

But, over the course of this year we decided to spend the money on insulating the house properly first.  It’s partially because we didn’t use our basement very much, although it’s fully finished.  We don’t need that space right now.

The basement isn’t getting used.

That thought, and the fact that it took a full hour to get home, must have really settled in.  I loved my studio, but here was an empty space at home, where I didn’t have to spend one precious hour each day getting to/from, and I didn’t have to pay additional rent.

So over Thanksgiving I brought it up to my wife, who pretty much welcomed the idea with open arms.   I moved my essentials that Sunday to basement and tried working from there the next week.  Sure, I can’t turn up the volume as loud when I was playing music — but I could still listen to music with my beloved speakers.  I didn’t miss the privacy very much, in fact, I sort of liked being there because kids would actually come down and play in the basement.  It’s a little distracting, but not as much as I feared — and I enjoyed having them around.

So this last weekend I rented a moving truck and moved everything back home. I originally was going to move on Sunday but in came Minnesota winter with a bucket full of snow, so at the last minute I switched to Saturday and made the move.

The funny thing is, there was nothing heavy to move that day.  The heaviest equipment I own was my guitar amp and that was already moved.  My desk and my sound insulation boards are bulky but not heavy.

But I lightly twisted my ankle while moving by landing on it funny, and I hurt my back after that because I was moving things around while compensating for my painful ankle.

Which is funny because I also hurt my back when I moved in to that studio 2 years ago.

I didn’t have any reason to break my back, I wasn’t carrying anything heavy, nor did I feel overtly stressed about moving.  I was sort of surprised myself by how quickly this move went from conception to execution, but still.

But it seems that moving a studio is destined to be a back-breaking experience for me.

It’s really fine, really.  A couple of days spent working from bed really isn’t a big deal, in the grand scheme of things.

But the next time I move, I’m going to see if I can do it without breaking my back.  :-)

Nothing else is changed except for the vocals, but what a difference it makes!  I hope you enjoy it.

With special guest Tou Saiko Lee.  Now I wanna record a version with rapping – have been searching long and hard about introspective and poetic rap artists, haven’t found one yet.  Maybe this kind of collaboration will inspire someone.  :-)

I have a strong tendency to identify with the struggles, hardships, and tragedies.  If you read my lyrics, you’d think I’m having a teeth-gritting, strife-ridden life!

But I’m proud to say, 2011 has been a year when many things really fell in place.  Hmmm, that sounds like I was lucky — no, I take full credit for making everything happen, or at least having played major roles in creating my own good fortune.

Today I’d like to share those major milestones this year, to recap the first three quarters of 2011.

• Our house: We bought a house in February and we continue to feel totally grateful for the great house and neighborhood we find ourselves in.  Many factors lined up that enabled us to purchase this house — under other times we wouldn’t have been able to afford it.  I, for one, am so happy not to be in a fixer-upper — I have building experience, but it’s really not my thing.  ;-)  This is a place where my family can really thrive, and that’s so important.
• My marriage: My wife and I are enjoying the best relationship we’ve ever had, after 15 years of marriage and 18 years of being together.  That’s amazing to me, and I feel super grateful — I’m sure everyone wonders this when they’re getting started, but I just didn’t know how a relationship can stay strong and fresh after many years.  Actually, though, it seems to keep getting better — our good phase didn’t just happen, it’s more about how we finally figured out how to make our relationship tick.  So I believe we’re not only going to stay this way, but it’s going to get even better.
• Finding a singer: As of this writing my singer Bob and I’ve been working together for about 3 months now — and every time I get together, I continue to be amazed by how compatible we are.  Bob is the person I’ve been dreaming about working with in just about every way.  He is confident, laid-back, flexible, respectful, creative, and of course, gifted.  We have a great deal of common interests and values, and our needs intersect in such a beautiful way, that our partnership makes so much sense.  I can’t wait to share the music we’re making together, and I’m hopeful that we can sustain our collaboration for a long time.
• A new job: And here’s the latest development — I also have a new job, which is an upgrade to the old one I had in just about every aspect.  When I set out to change my employment, I wrote down what I’d hoped to find — and I was being rather ambitious — and my new job is pretty much it.  It’s 100% telecommuting, with opportunities to consult, lead a team, and work on some very challenging projects that command 6- and 7-digit figures for budgets.  It encourages me to learn new things constantly, and tasks are varied and ever-changing.  Wow!

So, those are like four of the biggest pieces in my life — residence, marriage, life work, and employment.  I positively feel like I’m firing on all cylinders.  Having brought about these major positive changes does add to one’s self-confidence.  I feel like I successfully graduated from surviving to thriving.

Of course, I’m not done — there are smaller areas where I am pursuing changes right now.  I feel confident that I can make those parts fall into place, too, since I’ve been able to achieve bigger milestones in more important areas.

And above all, I feel tremendously grateful and blessed.  I am finally in a place where I can spread my wings, where I don’t have to hold back and make myself less than what I am.  It still feels a tad scary and uncomfortable, but I can get used to this.  :-)  It’s OK to have a good life, and now I can start to live a life that creates the kinds of impacts I always thought I was capable of.  By that, I mean doing works of bigger scopes and higher caliber, and raising a healthy, whole and conscientious family, where our children can thrive and eventually go out into the larger world, ready to make the greatest contributions they can.

Yep, I arrived exactly where I meant to.  Thank God.

I’ve been working with him regularly for the last 6 weeks or so, and at this point, there’s really no doubt in my mind about our chemistry.  I don’t know if it’s our shared Asian roots or what, but we just have so much in common — from work ethics to goals to values.  And above all, he is an amazing singer!

Check him out:

So, I am happily fired as my lead singer.  Bob and I are forming a partnership of sorts, where he’s going to be the lead vocalist for both my heavy and light material.  Really, I don’t feel like opening my mouth much, when he’s singing next to me!   I’ll be making some changes to my music structures over the next few months — name changes, new recordings, we may even do play some gigs.

I couldn’t be happier about this major milestone — working with a great vocalist has been a dream of mine for years.  I’m super excited about the music we’re gonna make together.  Plus, I also feel extremely confident about my ability to find the right people to work with — I feel that I’ve really honed in on a method that works.  Being able to find compatible collaborators is a really integral skill — now I feel even more equipped to produce success, as I can find people to help me in areas where I am lacking.  And that’s a very powerful feeling.

So — please look for new music from Bob and myself in the near future.

I just got my first smart mobile device.

It’s not even a smartphone. It’s a used, previous generation iPod Touch.

I know. Here I am, a supposed web professional. But the truth is, I’ve never been an early adapter of new technology. In fact, I’m down right conservative, always letting others take the frustration of debugging new technology. Waiting until industry standards emerge, until something becomes so common place that not having it means you’re not with the times.

Well, it’s clearly reached that point with smart devices. But you know what?

I really hate this thing.

Professionally, I definitely must own one. I need to have a feel for how everybody else is accessing the web. But personally, this thing not only fails to meet my needs — it really is more distracting and annoying than not owning one.

First of all, I really don’t talk much on a cell phone. I use TracFone — whose service I really can’t recommend — and I tolerate it, because it lets me buy 240 minutes of airtime once every other month. $15/month average cost, no contracts. I’ve looked but other carriers don’t have such small-scale plans.

Which brought me to iPod Touch. But this thing does its main role — playing music — much more poorly than my 3-year old iPod Nano. A dedicated music player with some hardware buttons for doing just that, obviously, is simpler and easier to do just that.

That leaves my iPod Touch as a mobile internet access device, but it falls short on that front, too, since it can only act as such when it’s hooked up to a Wi-Fi. Plus, it’s so darn cumbersome to type on that thing, so it’s really frustrating as a mobile e-mail device. Which leads me to a point/opportunity I see in the whole technology sector — technology often is at a point where it’s so limited that humans have to operate more machine-like to be able to use it. Manufacturers and software makers aren’t going the extra mile yet to make machines accommodate humanity.

Well, I know that by being clear and specific with my requirements, I can usually come up with solutions that meet my needs. So here are my wishlist for a mobile internet solution:

• Small enough to fit into a pocket
• Runs on either iOS or Android
• Isn’t a phone, or if so, comes with super low-usage plans
• Runs on a reliable 3G/4G network (Mobile HotSpot a real plus)
• It can sync with Google Mail, Calendar and iTunes
• Has hardware buttons for typing, or at least music play/pause and volume