I had a pretty full, fastmoving and exciting last couple of weeks. And looking ahead to May, there is no sign of slowing down!

I have been diligently working on finally finishing my solo cd over the last couple of months. We just did a final mixing at Airshow with James Tuttle. I think it’s turning out to be a beautiful record-a musical journal documenting the last 10 years of my wandering gypsy musical life. We are going to be working on the artwork and the BMI stuff and finally sending it to press. I am hoping for a mid-summer release!

Speaking of cds, BAS released its 4th album on April 1st. It’s called Caged Bird and it is by far the best effort from this group since we got together in 2004. My only compositional contribution is the 7th track on the disc called Cruel Monkey. It’s featured on the media page. Check it out! There will be a big cd release show at the Fox Theater in Boulder on May 14. Hope to see you there!!

In other news, my best friend from Singapore, York Sin is coming to visit us on May 11. He is currently on a world tour that includes big cities like Buenos Aires, London, Moscow, Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo. And then, there is Denver:) I feel honored and excited that he picked Denver so he can come spend time with my wife, Ellen, and I.

The month of May has a lot of new and exciting events to look forward to, including the above mentioned BAS Boulder CD release show at the Fox.

Going in chronological order:

May 1st, I will be teaching a world music fiddle workshop focusing on middle eastern, Brazilian, Argentine tango and chinese music stylings. 7-9pm at Swallow Hill. www.swallowhill.org

May 3rd: Tango Extravaganza at the Turnverein. I will be joining forces with some of the best tango musicians and dancers along the front range to present a fantastic showcase of this very unique art from. The evening also includes a free tango lesson, Argentine wine, tango fashion and art exhibit and social dance until at least midnight! www.tangocolorado.org/news

May 6th: More Afro Samba grooviness at the St Julien Hotel. We bring back the amazing Jesse Manno to play drums for us. Every Tuesday from 6:30pm to 9:30pm

May 8th: BAS @ Acoustic Alley in Gloden

May 9th: BAS @ Black Rose Acoustic Society

May 10th: BAS @ College of Santa Fe and Newman House Concert

May 13th: Afro Samba

May 14th: BAS CD release at the Fox Theater

May 15th: BAS CD release at Bongo’s in Salida with the amazing Driftwood Fire!

May 16th: BAS @ Steve’s Guitar in Carbondale

May 18th: Kailin playing solo at the Hell Yeah Church. Cafe Babu in Boulder 11am

May 24th: Beco Do Choro plays again!!! Bongo Billy’s in Salida 8pm

May 29-31: BAS @ Buffalo Commons Storytelling Festival in McCook NE

We’re keeping busy here at the House of Yong - in the process of planning a number of events in conjunction with the summer release of my first solo CD and the launch of the Kailin Yong Peace Project. Believing strongly in cooperative spirit and joint creativity, I am looking forward to playing with many good friends and like-minded souls this year. Stay tuned for more information on the upcoming Crestone BACA Wildlife Refuge benefits this Spring and Peace Project jams this fall. As you can imagine, causes like these take a lot of creative energy, volunteer effort and teamwork. If any of you have ideas for helping out as part of the team or helping sponsor these events - please let us know!

Peace, Love and a Joyous Spring to all of you!

Kailin

BAS was playing in Taos, NM 2 Saturdays ago. Our drive to the gig through the San Luis Valley was extraordinarily gorgeous. It was even more meaningful now that I am doing work to help save this valley from the insatiable appetite of the oil and gas companies.

Baca Wildlife Refuge Benefit Concert (Download PDF)

On our drive home in the middle of the night, it started to blizzard. Aaron was behind the wheel when our trailer caught a patch of ice; it fishtailed and sent our van crashing into the side of a mountain that fortunately was packed in 3 feet of snow. In the whiteout condition, we managed to flip the trailer back on its wheels and reattach it to the van and went on our way. Nobody was hurt. The shelfing unit was destroyed. The bass broke a bridge and there was minor damage to drum hardware and protective instrument cases. I took the wheel the rest of the way white-knuckling it through total blizzard condition until we hit Colorado Springs. A 5-hour tour turned into an 8-hour gauntlet.

Yesterday, as I was driving home from Austin, TX with the Hell Yeah Church Band, following our debut at SXSW, we got caught in a similar snow storm. Our windshield wiper quit somewhere between Raton NM and Trinidad CO making the drive even more treacherous. A 16-hour drive turned into 19 hours!

This transitional time of the year also brings with it the flu and all kinds of virus and yummy germs. Of the 8 years that I lived in Colorado, I have yet to experience a winter without catching a cold or even worse, getting hit by a stubborn virus, which happened to me 2 weeks ago.

I woke up one morning barely being able to open my left eye. It was angry red and swollen and felt like someone had poked it with an ice pick the night before. One week later, the swelling had gone down but the virus has decided to make my belly its playground next and proceeded to make my life completely miserable for yet another week as I lived in the bathroom. And of course, Ellen got it from me a day later and the both of us withdrew from society, lived on Campbell canned chicken noodle soup and wallowed in self-pity.

Mr. Spring, are you here yet?

It was barely a month ago that Ellen and I were sipping Singapore Sling with my little sister Ruiling on the beach in Singapore. We were also taking turns burping my little 2 month old niece Yi Qing. We were tromping through Little India shopping for bracelets and cheap suitcase, eating real prata and lamb masala in our t-shirts and flip-flops, having no concept whatsoever of being “cold”. We left winter behind. Far far behind. Great food, warm weather, loving family and adoring friends. Why did I return to the land of ice and snow and big mountains?

Right after we got off the plane, yours truly then climbed into the BAS-Mobil and went on a 10-day tour of the south eastern part of USA. We drove 24 hours straight to our first gig in Charlotte. 9 days and 13 shows later, we bid farewell to the wonderful Ms Rooster’s Wife, Janet Kenworthy and her family and drove straight home to Denver.

BAS had a couple of local shows after we came back. We played the Swing Station in La Porte for the first time and played Bongo’s again last Saturday. Clark cleared out tables and chairs so people could get up and boogie. What a fun night! But I was a little disappointed to not see my friends, Chelsea and Kyndra in the crowd.

I did however reconnect with David Bright who I have met last time BAS played in Salida. He had told me briefly about what’s going down in the Crestone Valley, about their fight against the invasion of oil and gas company. We had talked about how I can use my music to help support the cause. More on that later. For those of you who don’t know about Crestone, here is a couple of articles to get you started.

You can learn more about Crestone’s incredible spiritual presence and environmental struggles here:
http://www.usnews.com/features/news/sacred-places/sacred-places.html
http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/01/11/travel/escapes/11crestone.html?scp=1&sq=crestone&st=nyt
–Article from the Crestone Paper (see the main article on the page)
http://www.crestoneeagle.com/

Tonight we held a discussion group at the Brooks Center for Spirituality to brainstorm ideas of how we can help Crestone win it’s battle against Lexam. As I looked around the room, I saw like-minded, intelligent, caring and thoughtful people; more than half of them are my dear friends and colleagues in the arts. The other half are people I met for the first time tonight. Nonetheless, we were all there tonight because we cared. And I thought to myself: This, is why I came back to Colorado.

My 2008 got off to a great start as BAS ushered in the New Year at the Orpheum Theater in Flagstaff AZ! We had a great time and all the wives and girlfriends and families were able to join us on stage for Auld Lang Syne and champagne toast.

This year I will be working hard to bring more focus to my work/mission. In 2007, I played with a lot of my musician friends(Zebra Junction, Driftwood Fire, Gabrielle Louise, Laura Goldhamer, Melissa Axel, Paper Bird, James Han, Interstate Stash Express, Junior League etc) to help them with their music; I recorded on their albums, sat in at their shows, went on tour with them, gave  encouragement, offered spiritual and professional support. In 2008, I want to  keep doing that and more!

My Musical Goals for the New Year are as follow:

1. Finish my solo CD!

2. Get my new tango ensemble off the ground.

3. Do a big show in October to celebrate Daniel Pearl Music Day.

4. Give more fiddle workshops.

5. Play more with Beco Do Choro

6. Help start the house band for the Hell Yeah Church.

7. Take more vocal lessons.

8. Write more songs.

9. Use my music to promote peace & environmental causes. Help raise human consciousness!

10. Play music everyday!

11. Bring back the magic of Strings Of Tao!

The drive this morning into Boulder was breathtakingly beautiful, as the foothills are completely covered by a thick carpet of fresh, much anticipated December snow.

Today was a fine day. The sun finally came out and I played at the Hell Yeah Church of Love and Miracles with the boys of Interstate Stash Express.

I met Rev. Jane Ann Stansfield in Boulder some 3 weeks ago when Afro Samba played at the St Julien Hotel. She was sitting by the fire and having a conversation with my friend/mentor Cameron Powers, so I decided to go up and say hi. She was a very warm and spiritual lady and the three of us had a wonderful time connecting. She told us about the Hell Yeah Church that she founded and invited us both to come create positive vibrations with our music together with a rock band. So I did.

For the past two to three months, I have been reaching out to the Universe for Guidance, for Wisdom, for Ways to do a better, more focused job as a musician serving Mankind. I want to use my music to help support good universal causes, to help push mankind along on the path of evolution.

In other news, my good friend/vocal coach Ben Senterfit is relocating to Rhinebeck NY in the beautiful Hudson River Valley. His wife Ana Sanjuan got a job at the Omega Institute of Holistic Studies. Ben threw a big music party at the Oriental Theater last night and invited all his friends to play with him on stage. I was honored to be invited along with electric bass genuis Matt Skellenger, harmonica wizard Clay Kirkland, JT Nolan just to name a few.

In my reaching out, I also connected with a talented and beautiful young artist from Salida, Kyndra Brewer. She is a glass artist who does some pretty crazy miniature Chihuly-esque pieces. I discovered after hanging out with her for two days that she’s never even heard of Chihuly until we saw an installation of his in a gallery in Cherry Creek!

I also had lots of fun yesterday laying down some fiddle tracks on Driftwood Fire’s new and upcoming EP. Great songwriting, great vocals!

News from Singapore!!!

As of Nov 30th, I have been promoted to Unclehood! My sister Mei gave birth to a beautiful baby girl named Yi Qing. Ellen and I are excited about going back to see her and the rest of the family in January.

More local music news. This afternoon, I had the pleasure of working with some of my favorite musicians at the Tea Dance at the Avalon Ballroom in Boulder. We had Eric Moon (piano), Mike Fitzmaurice (bass), Jim Moore(drums), Susan Rogers (vocals). I think we have decided that we are going to name our band The Exuberents or The Exuberent Quintet or something to that effect. For a band that plays together three times a year and never rehearses, we pulled off some amazing on-the-fly arrangements that “took our own breaths as well as others’ away”. Next Tea Dance: March 9. Next Swing Dance appearance: April 12th.

Last but not least, the musical journey into the Land of the Anything-Goes continues at Michelangelo’s next Sunday Dec 16th. This time, James Han and I will be joined by bass man Doug Anderson. Hope you can join us for our crazy improvisation, on-the-spot musification:)

Stay warm and true to yourselves!

Show starts at 7:30pm

1 S Broadway Denver CO

I had a great time touring with JL through the Northwest last week and we played some of the venues that BAS used to play including the Alberta Street Pub in Portland and Axe & Fiddle in Cottage Grove. It was a pleasure to meet Alex, Eli and Rob and I was super glad that Lissy found such great people to be on the JL team. A special shout out/thank you to all the new friends that I met on the JL tour: Lee & Nikki & Libby for putting us up; Devon for her healing massage; Billy & Mputela for great conversation. I have also been meeting a lot of young people lately who are actively involved in making our world a better place. I am looking forward to joining forces with like-minded individuals in guiding the human race out of its unconscious and ego-centric existence that is destroying our planet.

I would also like to express my respect and gratitude to Gail Key, board member/strings coach of the Wichita Falls Youth Symphony, who has dedicated many years of her life to bringing music to the community. Special thanks to Ann Clarkson and Carrie Norris for putting us up and taking us out for Texas BBQ! BAS had a great time working with the young musicians of WFYSO; we premiered the orchestral arrangement of Bombay Sapphire and played Morning By the River with Scott McCormick playing piano in place of the marimba part. It was beautiful to see the kids grooving to the funk beat of Bombay even though it took a little persuasion:)

I am still not a cold weather person, but I discovered in Nova Scotia last weekend that I could tolerate the cold better if I had the ocean close to me…

We had a beautiful time at the 2nd International Ukulele Ceilidh in Nova Scotia. It was great seeing old friends again. And the ocean!! James Hill was the 2nd inductee to the Nova Scotia Ukulele Hall of Fame. He is hailed as the premiere uke player and uke composer of Canada. Please visit http://www.ukulelejames.com/ to be mesmerised by what James can do on his little four-stringed instrument.

BAS is getting ready to record our 4th CD. We have been adding a lot of cool new material. Scott McCormick has been churning out one great tune after another. Come see a live show to hear the new tunes. I have contributed two new songs as well. One is called  Cruel Monkey, which is a song about corrupt world leaders; the second song is called Sunset which almost made it on to our previous CD, Now.

This weekend, BAS will be in Wichita Falls TX to work with the youth orchestra there. We have arranged Bombay Sapphire and another BAS favorite, Morning By the River for the kids. It should be loads of fun! Next Monday, I will be hopping on a plane to San Francisco to catch the Junior Leaguers on part of their Northwest tour. Can’t wait to see Lissy and Dale and Martin again!

I also got introduced to 4 very lovely musician friends from New Zealand. Anna, Chris, James and Miranda are the new graduate quartet called the Tasman String Quartet who will be mentored by the amazing Takacs Quartet at CU Boulder. They played a beautiful rendition of Brahms A minor quartet for a small private memorial concert for  linguist/arts patron Bill Bright yesterday. I also played a short improv at the end to wrap up the evening.

I will be hitting the road with BAS tomorrow on another musical journey. This time through a lot of the midwest and SE and eventually to Nova Scotia for the 2nd International Ukulele Ceilidh. I can’t wait to see some of our old friends in Madison and Liverpool, Nova Scotia.

Please join me in sending out positive vibrations this month in memory of Daniel Pearl to help make the world a more tolerant and understanding place to live.