About Usual Pets
No art, no life! Artistic process is a potent means of enhancing everyday life. Join “Usual Pets” Richard Gilbert & Jeff Cairns, twice monthly as they share original music and art, discuss art-process, practice, and artistic life lived day by day in a usual way. Come here to listen to tales of shakuhachi, meditation, haiku, philosophy, and more, from the slopes of a volcano on the island of Kyushu, Japan.
Richard Gilbert is at times a professor of American literature, poet, audio engineer, musician, meditator, and sailor. In 2019, he founded the Heliosparrow Poetry Journal and the Haiku Sanctuary. His most recent book, Poetry as Consciousness is published by Keibunsha Press (Japan, 2018).
Jeff Cairns – musician, improviser, producer, teacher, and lover of nature. Basically a wind instrument player, Jeff has been heard playing a variety of transverse flutes, saxophones, clarinets, bagpipes and shakuhachi on his 8 CD releases: Shirakawa – Stands and Cairns (1996), Lip Service – Mother Tongue Project (2004), Silent Letters, Secret Pens – Jeff Cairns, Izumi Fujikawa (2006), ZenZen – Jeff Cairns, Jeff Bird (2013), Out For When – a BigFish Jam (2013), Wild Silence – Trio CaBiKi (2016), Concert in the Woods – JECAPRO (2019), Atmospheres – Mother Tongue Project (2020). Co-builder and founder of a state-of-the-art recording studio BigFish Studio in Kumamoto, Japan (2008 – 2012) with Richard Gilbert. Jeff also teaches kinko-ryu shakuhachi in Kumamoto, Japan.