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"An Issue of Identity"Rafu Shimpo July 14, 2004 By Mikey Hirano Culross, Rafu Staff Writer Growing up in L.A.'s Silverlake district, Kiyoshi Graves was aware that he was different. "At that time, in the 70's, there weren't many half-Asians around me, so I didn't really have role models-music or sports stars-that I could fully connect with." As an adult, musician Graves is constantly reminded of the underrepresentation of Asian Americans on the live stage, a fact that became a call to action. This Thursday, July 15, a group of musicians headed by Graves will perform at Chop Rock, a showcase of Asian American music at The Derby in Los Feliz. "We put the show together to create a venue where Asian Americans could see themselves represented in a live music setting," Graves said. His group, the Kiyoshi Graves Band, will share the bill on Thursday with internationally-acclaimed Mia Doi Todd, electronica artist George Sarah, composer Scott Tang, and Bay Area performers Goh Nakamura and Odessa Chen. "I just don't see Asian faces on stage, I can't go out readily and see that," Graves explained in a conversation at The Rafu Shimpo office, along with Sarah and Tang. "So we decided to really focus our attention on this, because there's plenty of club nights, plenty of DJs, plenty of hookup situations, but not many Asian American artists playing live music." Graves, a graduate of John Marshall High School in Los Angeles who holds a music degree from Sonoma State University, connected with the online Asian American magazine Chop Block, which had been considering this kind of musical event for some time. "I want the audience to know that if they want to see themselves represented in music, they can start to find these artists. While we all want to be open to all kinds of expression, sometimes you want to connect with your own ethnicity, because you identify with that." Sarah, born in Seoul, also grew up in L.A. and has been a professional musician for the better part of a decade, specializing in intrusmental electronic music which incorporates live musicians . He has scored 28 shows for the Discover Channel networks, has had his music featured on the CBS television drama "CSI" and has appeared on the WB's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Originally from suburban Philadelphia, Tang began to write music shortly after his family relocated to L.A. when he was nine years old. After earning his music degree from UC Berkeley, he worked as a songwriter for Polygram in Hong Kong, while living in a Buddhist nunnery. He returned home and began to concentrate more on performing himself, at venues around the city. "I met Kiyoshi at an open mike night at Highland Grounds in Hollywood," Tang said about how he first became involved with Chop Rock. "I told him I'd be happy to help him organize it and we started coming up with ideas of artists who might be a good fit." Through internet searches and e-mail contacts, they found Nakamura, a San Francisco-based singer songwriter, who will showcase his 1960's-flavored rock, playing solo along with sequences. Chen, also from the Bay Area, will perform Thursday night on guitar with a drummer. She has played with Nakamura as well as with Todd, a veteran of the L.A. club scene. "It's exploded into this big thing, much bigger than what I originally envisioned," Tang said, describing how support has come from many non-musical areas of the community, like his martial arts academy and college students. "It seems people at the college level are moreinterested in becomming involved in the Asian American events because they're just now starting to come to grips with their identities and communities and find out who they are," he explained. Sarah described how being Asian American, but not fitting into long-defined stereotypical roles has been a particular struggle for singers and songwriters who desperately try to avoid being simply a novelty act, such as "American Idol" castoff William Hung, cute-rock stars Shone Knife, or Japan's 1970's pop icons, Pink Lady. "In our society, there are strictly defined roles for who does what, like in movies-if you see an Asian in a movie, more often than not they fit a purpose in the movie as an Asian. Very few Asians are there in roles where being Asian doesn't matter," he said. He added, "it's kind of amazing that in order to be accepted into unconventional roles, we have to put together this kind of showcase." Graves, perhaps searching for an inward connection, said, "Issues of identity are so strong that they're hard to get a handle on sometimes." Sarah is confident that good music will always find an audience. "As artists, it is frustrating sometimes, but if you really focus on what your work is, the honesty and the purity of what you do is going to start speaking to people, slowly, one by one." © KIYOSHI GRAVES |
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