Ongaku Ichi is this weekend. Ongaku means “music” and ichi means “city or town or market”, so I take the meaning to be “music town”. Ichi also means “one”, but that meaning has a different kanji - I used to think this event meant something like “first music” or something, where new bands were promoted. Actually, I just noticed it’s right there in English across the top: Okinawa Music Market 2005.

Obviously, I’m an idiot.

Moving along, we (Zero Sen) play on Sunday the 3rd - that’s our kanji on the right side just above “Crimson” - I think we go on around 4pm, but I haven’t seen a schedule, that’s just what I heard. I’m thinking that the bands on the top half are the “inside bands”, which play inside the convention center, and the bands on the bottom half are the “outside bands”.

I don’t really know many of the bands that we are playing with that day. The Maybe-Z rock, of course and mimichiribouzu is cool, but that’s about it for guys I know. So, I’m looking forward to checking out some new stuff - hope it’s good. One year they had these two girls come out and play mainland Japanese-style samishin, which can be quite fast (in contrast, most Okinawa-style samishin is extremely slow, and uses about 3 or 4 notes.). That was cool. Another time, they had a juggler who juggled to music, matching the beat of the song - that was cool, too.

Anyway, it looks like there’s about 36 bands over the entire weekend, and I think the outside stuff is free, although it does cost to get inside (but we’ll be playing inside so it’s hella worth it!). So, if you’re looking for something to do come out and say hello…

Location: The Okinawa City convention center out by Gate 2 Kadena. If Gate 2 were open, and you left it and made a left onto that road (I think that’s 329, but I’m not sure), the convention center is just about 3 minutes down on the right. It’s within walking distance from BC Street, although a fat bastard like myself wouldn’t walk that far.