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Straight-ahead Texas blues rock rolls out of KyotoFirst in a series A Kyoto native blues rock guitarist, Sanda makes his guitar sing “wah-wah” in Kyoto, a US military base, Texas, Australia, and Tokyo.By Yas Mamemachi
In particular, the spirit of rock music stimulates me when I hear the sound of wah-wah pedals. The wah-wah pedal is an electric guitar effect originally created by an American company in 1966. The pedal changes the tone of the signal to create distinctive effects to sound like, say, a crying baby. My mouth moves as part of the tune is played on a guitar with a wah-wah pedal. The great “wah-wah pedalists” for me include Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton of Cream in "White Room, "Stevie Ray Vaughn, and Clem Clempson of Humble Pie in "I Wonder," from the band’s best album, "Smokin"; the ones who mainly known as blues rock guitarists. One “Sunday” rock guitarist I know says he uses the latest multi-sound effects machine, not a classic pedal. I was very sad to hear that, wondering if wah-wah pedals will only remain alive in people’s golden memories of the late 60’s and 70’s rock music. I find it difficult to accept. The only thing I can do is take a detour and meet people who still love wah-wah pedals professionally; or, let’s say, wah-wah pedals love them. As mentioned, the wah-wah pedal reminds me of blues rock musicians. And, if my memory is correct, Kyoto, the old capital of Japan, used to be the center of Japanese blues rock and/or blues. So, I searched under “blues/rock/Kyoto/wah wah” on the internet, and got the name of “Texas blues rock musician,” Satoshi Sanda. He manages his own blues bar, where he also teaches blues guitar in the daytime. I listened to the third CD of his group, Out Loop-Way Blues Band. The CD started with a Texas blues rock tune with wah-wah sound. It made me feel as if I were driving on an unknown dusty road in a “virtual” American South. After his acceptance to an interview for Detour Japan, I boarded a super express train that got me to Kyoto from Tokyo in about three hours. Starting from Kyoto His bar is located near the present center of the old capital. I walked along Takase River, a historical narrow stream that used to be used as a canal. The boat with a shallow bottom specially made for the canal went back and forth in rhythm with the boatmen’s chantey. Today the narrow street along the river is crammed with restaurants, bars, and even porn shops. The 41-year-old guitarist was waiting for me in his small, cool bar on the second floor of a building. Sanda started playing guitar in junior high school in a Rolling Stones cover band with his friends. He wanted to know more about the music that the British rock band had admired: blues. First, he was interested in Muddy Waters, a legendary Chicago blues musician; and then became more impressed by the guitar-centered Texas blues, which seemed to him to be more innovative. According to Sanda, this African American music was newly interpreted by white guitarists like Johnny Winter in the 1970s and Stevie Ray Vaughn in the 80’s, both from Texas. With their creative guitar sound Texas blues rock was firmly established. Sanda has followed in these Texas blues rockers’ footsteps since he turned pro after high school. As for wah-wah pedals, “I think that the wah-wah sound connects blues and rock,” says Sanda. “In other words, no wah-wah sound, no blues rock.”
“Until I was 35 years old, I really thought, ‘Who could play blues rock without wah-wah sound? In fact, I was stepping on my wah-wah pedal over and over again on stage, back then,” he continues. Today, the wah-wah pedal is always near him on stage, though he says he does not step on it as often as he used to. And yet, “I feel comfortable knowing the wah-wah pedal is next to me on stage,” he says. Trying the US military base in Japan After turning pro, as old blues musicians have been told to do, he and his band went wherever they could get a chance to play their music. They always dreamt of playing in the United States, especially in Texas, while they performed at one local club after another in Japan.
In 1997, when his bar opened, Sanda took “kamikaze” action to make this dream come true. Their main target was one of the US military bases in Japan: the one located in Iwakuni near Hiroshima in the western part of the main island of the Japanese archipelago. Sanda learned an English word, “appointment,” in high school, but would have few opportunities to use it practically. He and two other band members drove his old van with their instruments from Kyoto to Iwakuni (about three hours by super express train). When they neared the base, he walked to the gate and said to one of the guards that they were a blues band from Kyoto, and wanted to play their blues rock on the base. They did not have an appointment, though. He could not speak and understand English as well as he does today, so all he could do was repeat the same line over and over: Let us play blues rock in the base. Soon, a Japanese officer from a police station next to the base approached and asked them what they were doing there. “I said the same line, `We are a blues band from Kyoto, and let us—,` in Japanese to the police officer,” says Sanda. “Then, the officer said, `That’s not what happened. Don’t you understand? Get out of here, and go home.`” “You know, we came all the way down from Kyoto. We couldn’t go back home with nothing,” the guitarist continues. There are about a dozen US military surplus stores near the base. He visited all the stores one by one, asking them whether or not they knew anybody on the base. One of the stores was a used American car dealer. The manager of the store was a retired military person who could speak Japanese better than the guitarist could speak English. The veteran told him to try the entertainment department of the base and gave him the name of the operator who would be able to speak Japanese. Sanda called the base and his call was switched to the entertainment department. The officer of the department who answered his call could speak Japanese better than the guitarist did English, again, since his wife was Japanese. Thanks to the officer’s generosity, the guitarist could hand his demo tape to him, and the band got a chance to play their blues rock in front of about 300 soldiers at the base, since the music recorded in the tape made blew him away. “This is you playing this music on the demo?” he said. A female friend of the officer’s wife managed the band for their first show. With her network and management, the band was set to play at other bases in Japan. However, she ended up pocketing the band’s performance fee for the first show. Their first show became the last one at a US military base in Japan. What if no September 11th had occurred In June of the following year, 1998, an Australian musician, Kyron Howell, dropped in, saying that he heard about the bar through the grapevine, and wanted to join some of the jam sessions held at the bar.
Sanda asked him to come back the following day because the other band members might show up. The open-minded guitarist was always accepting of anybody as long as he or she loved music, especially blues rock. Howell was supposed to become just another guest for him and the bar. But he was not. The Australian, who was knocked out by the band, asked him if he could manage the band, while playing keyboards on stage from time to time. The Australian tour of the band started the following year, 1999, and their annual visit down under has continued for about a decade, except for 2009 when the band played at a blues music festival in Taiwan. Their venues were local music bars and blues festivals. In 2000, after their second tour of Australia gave the band a performance fee that was more than their air fares between Japan and Australia, Sanda and the two other members returned to Osaka International Airport, about an hour from Kyoto, but did not return home. Sanda called his mother in Kyoto and asked her to bring the band’s demo tapes and live video tapes to the airport. “When we got money from the Australian tour, we decided to go straight to Texas in the United States via Japan,” says Sanda. It was April in San Antonio, Texas. With their demo and video tapes, the band visited local music bars that might allow walk-on performances, even for a short time. They got a rare chance at one bar. Sanda talked to a leader of the band playing that day during the break between the first and the second shows, explaining that they were a blues rock band from Kyoto, Japan, and wondered if they could play one or two songs. Any challenger tends to be treated warmly and generously in the United States; that’s the American tradition. The tradition was applied to a band a long way from home. Sanda and the band were given a rare chance to play a couple of Stevie Ray Vaughn songs. The band leader loved the blues rock played by Sanda and his band. They got another chance to play their music in San Antonio in September. “We were supposed to go back there to play at the San Antonio blues festival in the fall of the following year, which was 2001. But the September 11th--, well, you know,” says Sanda.A gentleman from the Texas Blues Association said he was afraid that the band would not be able to get into the United States for the festival. Since then, the band has not returned to Texas or the United States. Australian angels Many thanks to Australia. The band’s presence there has been strengthened with various events and experiences over the past decade.
“The tour of local clubs is not easy sometimes. Some customers come to the bar to listen to our music, but some don’t because they are not charged for the show,” says the guitarist. “In this type of bar customers are always first. They can request us to play music they want to listen to from time to time. So, it seems like, we play many songs requested by the customers, entertaining them and making them happy and satisfied, and then, we can play our blues rock tunes during the period of time they have been satisfied enough. But we have never forgotten who we are: We are a blues rock band.” And, it has been proved in an unorthodox way that they are on the right track. “In any given year we get the chance to play locally well-known bars for the so-called Hell’s Angels, a gang who loves large motorcycles, particularly Harley-Davidsons,” says Sanda. “Obviously, most customers in the bar are gang members and/or related, and we were taught by Kyron that some of them might be white supremacists. Actually, I had noticed a note on the door of the bar saying no Asians welcome,” he continues. “Why did we decide to play such a place? The performance fee is much higher than the ones paid at other local bars.” When the band was ready to take the stage, the Australian manager warned each member to not say a single English word except hello and thank-you. Otherwise, one word could be misinterpreted in the wrong way, and all of them might have a very big problem. “So, we were just playing our Texas blues rock. No tricks. No gimmicks. No jokes. We just played hard,” says the guitarist. After the show, what was waiting for the band was unexpected: loud cheers and requests for an encore from the audience. “The leader of the Hell’s Angels was so impressed and excited by the music. He invited us to his own customized motorcycle shop and gave each of us a T-shirt from his shop,” says Sanda. In the first decade of the Twenty-First Century Sanda and the band revealed their enthusiasm for Texas blues rock under the spotlight of various live houses and music festivals in Australia, the United States, Taiwan, and Japan. Asked if he would continue to play Texas blues rock mainly in the coming decade, Sanda replied, “We might be interested in R&B, while continuing to play solid blues rock.” Wah-wah sound for 20 supporters in Tokyo On January 26, 2011, Sanda and Out Loop-Way Blues Band played in one of the long-established live houses in Koenji, Tokyo. It was the last day of their first national tour of the year. The band started from Kyoto on January 9 and toured around Okayama, Gifu, Fujisawa, Sendai, Fussa (Tokyo), and had the last show of the tour in Koenji. When I went to the live house about one hour prior to the show, a couple of people were already relaxing with drinks at their tables. When he saw me, Sanda came and said with a smile, “Thank you for coming. We were worried about how many customers would be coming to the show, since Tokyo is not our hometown, Kyoto. So, another person will make the show different. I will use the wah-wah pedal a lot more than usual just for you tonight.” Right before the show started, there were about 20 customers sitting at tables and at the counter. The number might have been disappointing; however, all had come to listen to the band’s blues rock. The show started with a road-running type of blues rock tune and went to the second song which was a Stevie Ray Vaughn style blues rock song full of wah-wah sound. Sanda loves the wah-wah pedal, and the pedal loves Sanda. The story of the wah-wah pedal continues. |
Sanda on stage in Okayama.
When I was in junior high school, I listened to rock music almost every night. I was fascinated by the colorful sound of the electric guitar, which was and is the lead instrument in rock. I still like “old” rock music and improvised solos by legendary guitarists. These days, I mostly enjoy jazz.
Wah-wah pedal is always with Sanda on stage.
Satoshi Sanda (guitar and vocal), Tokuji Kojima (bass), and Yuji Nogami (drums) are the Out Loop-Way Blues Band.
Sanda and Kyron Howell (left), the Australian musician who manages the band, at Sanda’s bar in Kyoto.
Sanda playing at a bar in Australia