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Mac “The Knife” Okuyama & Friends – dRinking buddiEs

Submitted By: Jimmi Harris 9 December 2008 1,092 views View Comments

Mac “The Knife” Okuyama brings his drinking buddies out with him on this mostly blues album with some blended rock, surf, and swing in there that is driven with some serious pickin’ and licks on the guitar. Especially, since Mac has a way with the guitar that is incredible and credits within his influences Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Those guitar greats’ influences are prominent on this album, which references them in the lyrics and even with an instrumental track titled “One for Jimi.” The album even though it seems to have such a wide range of sounds as a whole has a great flow to it and Mac covers the Guitars and shares Vocals on a couple of tracks and is backed by a number of his friends on Drums, Bass, and Harmonica, hence the name of the album, drinking buddies.

The CD comprises of 12 tracks with 3 bonus tracks for a total of 15 tracks.

drinking_buddies

Mac also has newer CDs available now…

Taken from the Max Blues Myspace page:

Mac “The Knife” Okuyama was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1971. In 1990, he went to Vancouver, Canada as an exchange student, where he fell in love with live music and started playing blues/rock guitar. His influences include: Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, The Faces, The Rolling Stones, Tim Hearsey and the Powder Blues to name a few. After playing with several bands in Vancouver, he returned to Tokyo in late 1997. Since then, he has been a regular on the Tokyo music scene performing at several venues and festivals including the “Year of the Blues Celebration” at Roppongi Hills where he performed with Guitar Shorty and Melvin Taylor.

In April of 2006, he organized memorial concerts in memory of Eddie “ The Ed-man “ Stauffer, his former manager and friend who founded “Blues Alive”; a music production company that brought over foreign acts, such as Harmonica Shah and Matt Corcoran, to Japan. Eddie was also the man responsible for naming Mac “The Knife”. Participants in the memorial included L.A. Jones and Steve Gardner.

Mac is currently lead singer, guitarist, and songwriter for the blues/rock band Max Blues. He is also in Messin’ With The Blues, Tarantula sound and The Good Buzz. He can also be seen making guest appearances with Rude Boys, Inc. ( R. B. I. ), the J.J. Vicars band, SUPERFUNKTION and T.K. and the Blues Blasters and many other bands.

He also hosts the acoustic jam / open mic night at Ben’s Cafe in Takadanobaba every 3rd thursday. http://www.benscafe.com He also hosts the Max Blues jam night at Dogs Bollox in Ikebukuro every 2nd and 4th thursday of the month.

MAX BLUES launched three new CDs in August 2007. They are available at gigs. Tarantula Sound just launched their 1st CD, ” BLUE POP ROCK ” in February, 2008 and it’s available at gigs. Keep the BLUES ALIVE!!!