I have considered using my Japanese name professionally at various times in my career, and it was a natural opportunity when I launched my Japanese music act Satomi and the Sound last year.

The only other time I’ve used Satomi was when I studied abroad in Japan, back in 2008.

Essentially, SATS is still Robert and I (same as the Pan-Tones), with more of a focus on Japanese music, language, and culture. It’s very much just a shift of marketing angle, and it seems to be effective.

This month we ended up doing a lot of Japanese music- a presentation for the UNT Japanese department, and four shows for Panda Fest in Dallas and Austin. The timing was very convenient- Panda Fest invited me two weeks before the Dallas festival, which was the same week we were presenting at UNT. We had the music ready, and it was a great opportunity to do a little touring, so we went for it.

Overall, we had a great experience. Festival performances are pretty low key, where we’re mostly providing atmosphere to people already there to have a good time. The MC introducing the event kept mentioning “Asian jazz,” and it took me until our last (fourth) show to realize he was talking about us! 😛