Omni San Music

I recall being a kid, spending hours hunched over my Korg Trinity (I know, I know), clicking and clacking, until I churned out a song.  These days I create in small deliberate steps and don’t allow myself to get into flow.  It has also become mechanical, and for an outcome.  It has become clear that I have been forgetting that this was supposed to be fun.  No, not fun, but cathartic and meaningful.  Creating just for the sake of creating, for some reason has fallen by the wayside.  The necessity to understand the technical and business aspects of producing music has normalized stress.  Time to come back to one.  Time to create art. 

Happy to get back on stage this Saturday with Nicolette this Saturday, February 3rd, 2024!  Bob Marley Bday Bash!  Kansas city has a progressive live music scene.  You just gotta tap it.

Sometimes you need to scale back, cut the fat.  The idea of the gigging musician that plays with 5 bands in one month is no longer appealing.  It’s time to concentrate efforts.  Stay tuned my newest music release with rapper, stylist, and podcaster, Falah.  The Gods And The Gangsters.  Hint: it will be in March! 

Log 1.21.24

It’s been below 14 degrees for well over a week now.  The weather breaks today.  This is good for getting charts made for the band.  Not so good for the brain or body otherwise.  Gotta keep pushing.  The creeping voices of doubt are real.  Counter to what I believed when I was younger.  I will be announcing our new single release date soon.  It took me 20 years to muster up the courage to share it with world.  Take it from me, if you are an artist, it does none any good if no-one can experience it.

"Hard Work" I find, to be an interesting phrase.  It suggests activity that produces sweat and gritting your teeth.  For musicians, the creative work is often more nuanced, but still, the work is often hard, or at least undesirable at time.  

In my journeys learning to put together a music business, I have been practicing the skills of starting and finishing work.  This area has not been my strong suit in the past.  As a freelance musician, playing for various bands I was often spared the tasks of scheduling rehearsals, arranging charts, marketing, coordinating with venues, etc.  I could just focus on (more or less) playing and sounding my best.

I have had the privilege to work with great minds and “hard working” musicians.  During rehearsals for a huge show one year, My friend, J. Jerome, composer and producer at Chromatic Contact put it eloquently: it is easy to “convince yourself that you have done something” when in reality you haven't.  It took a while, but when the words set in, I realized that I've spent a TON of time and energy talking (to myself and others) about and getting ready to start projects, publish my music, achieve this, or that.  I needed to be okay with making incremental steps.  I also needed accept the fact that I was creating a separate reality in my head.

Today, what this process looks like is being okay with adjusting my expectations.  I may not complete the cover art for the upcoming single Gods and Gangsters today.  BUT I can identify one type font to use for it.  Today, I may tell myself that I will to change my guitar strings, replace the cork on my saxophone, and release two teaser tracks on social media.  But today, the HARD WORK means deciding to start on one of these tasks and convince myself that I am making progress….because I am.

-Omni

I get a lot of questions about the name, Omni San.  Those that know me from before I coined the stage name, may have been taken by surprise.  I will say it has been very odd to hear the moniker out loud, especially from my own mouth.

Omni: Being from mixed racial, cultural, and musical backgrounds, I have always felt out of place.  That is until I re-framed this sense to actually mean that I am not necessarily split between worlds, but I am actually the embodiment of them all.

San: Translates to “honorable Mr/Ms." in Japanese.  I incorporated this word, in a way, to get in touch with my Japanese ancestry.  Through most of my life, I have had much more exposure to my African-American roots.  

This name serves to communicate the intent to embrace all of my identities artistically and in terms of self-identity.  This name serves to convey my wish to share my “all-ness”.  My next creative venture is in the form of a band.  I truly believe that live music will be the saving grace of a music industry that seems to be saturated by “studio rats” (me included).  Kansas City has a lot to offer, and I am excited to re-join the scene in a new way.

Stay tuned!

-Omni