TTimothy debuted a new band, in January of 2007. The new band, "Drive-Thru Exciting ドライブ スルー エキサイティング" features Rino Honda on vocals, Mikkie on bass, Takke Matsumo on drums, and Timothy on vocals, piano, and guitar.
Timothy's other band, which featured lead guitar player, Tokita Yasushi, previously with Ozaki Yutaka's band, bass player from Saitama, Takumi "Bill" Wada, and drummer from Miyagi, Mitsunobu "Mi" Sato, called "Southern California Sunshine", has now disbanded.
Their debut performance was at the Jozenji Jazz Fest, during the summer of 2006.
They played a few great shows together and are now going their separate ways.
Timothy's newest CD, "Acts of Sedition; Classified CIA Files" (Listen to it at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/harada2) is a compilation of the best songs on his 3 previous CDs, and includes all the songs from his most recent "Love: The Only Proven Way to Fight Terrorism" (listen to it at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/harada)
The Love CD was a great departure from Timothy's two previous CDs of sad and introverted songs. (Listen to those previous CDs at http://store.mixonic.com/timothy )
With his marriage to Junko Harada, he has finally put his sad song days behind him.
Stay tuned for his next CD, which goes way beyond love to address world issues and issues of human happiness and self empowerment.
Timothy's novel, "Myth Shattering", which is a semi-autobiographical account of his early stoner, punk rock days in Huntington Beach, California, will be out in paper back by the end of February, 2006 by BookSurge Publishing. Stay tuned for the publication of his second book, "Correct Me If I'm Wrong: the Collected Writings from Soka University of America," which should be out before the end of 2006.
Timothy's History:
Born as Timothy Gianakos in the mountains of Big Bear, California to hippy parents, who were escaping the civilized world, Timothy Harada grew up surrounded by music. His mother's love for classic rock and especially David Bowie, gave him the dream at a very young age to be a singer/song writer and musician.
His mother joined Soka Gakkai International (SGI-an international lay Buddhist organization, which focuses it's activities on promoting peace, culture and education) before he turned 1 year old, against his father's wishes (which eventually led to their divorce 2 years later)
Timothy and his older brother were raised for 7 years by their courageous single Buddhist mother, from whom they both developed their strong practice of Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism.
Timothy had his debut musical performance with the SGI Junior Pioneers (an SGI kids organization) where at age 6 he was scheduled to perform on the recorder at the Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles (However, he lost the recorder at a practice before the show and had to go on stage playing air recorder. Luckily he survived the stage fright to continue his music career).
Growing up too poor to get private music lessons, Timothy first learned to play music in the SGI Brass Band, where at age 10 he began playing the trumpet and performed his first parade in Washington DC at age 11.
It was at this young age, when he first read an essay by Daisaku Ikeda, written for the SGI brass band that he confirmed his dream to be a musician for world peace and to, as Daisaku Ikeda wrote in the essay, "spread [his] music to all corners of the world [for the sake of peace]."
In Junior High School, he joined the symphonic band, where he learned to read music and play the saxophone at age 13.
On his own, he later picked up the guitar, piano (no, he didn't literally "pick it up", it was too heavy), and French horn at about age 16.
In the SGI Brass Band, he performed in many world peace cultural festivals: in Hawaii at age 14, in San Diego at age 15, in Seattle, Washington at age 17. (He was scheduled to perform at Madison Square Garden's in New York, with the brass band at age 16, but he wasn't able to get the money together, even though he practiced the music and routine with the brass band up until the week before they left to New York).
In high school and college, he sung and played in many musical groups (jazz bands, rock bands, a gospel chorus, a salsa band, chamber singers, symphonic bands, marching bands, and more) and he began writing his own music about 12 years ago.
He has thus far, written over 30 original songs. His song lyrics reflect his Buddhist belief in the unlimited potential of each human being to transform their life and the world in a positive way.
Outside of school, he was a sax player in a hippy-trippy, funk music band called Zumbuladelic, where he did many shows in Hollywood and throughout Southern California.
One of the songs on his first demo tape, "Song of Triumph" was featured on Orange County, California's KSBR Radio's "Local Artist Spot Light".
The highlight of his Orange County, California music life was for 3 years he played throughout Southern California, Big Bear and on Catalina Island in a 3 piece original and classic rock/acoustic band called "Stranger's Milk," where he gained the confidence to eventually start playing solo original gigs, singing and playing piano and guitar.
After doing a study-abroad program in Japan, where he played his first concerts in Japan and where he met his wife, and after graduating with honors in the 1st class of Soka University of America in Orange County, California, Timothy packed up his bags and moved to Sendai, Japan to give the Japanese audience a taste of his music.
There he changed his legal name, which was Timothy VanCampen to his Japanese's wife's last name, Harada.
After less than 1 1/2 years in Japan, he has already played many duet concerts with his new act "daDoodz", featuring guitar virtuoso, from New Zealand, Richie Gill, which has now become a trio, with the addition of Takke, an incredible drummer from Tokyo. They have played at the 16th Annual Jozenji Street Music Festival, LLL (Love, Listen, Laugh), The Izumi Park-town Golf Resort Restaurant, Antre Lounge, The Green Shamrock Irish Pub, Club Shaft, the Satin Doll and Charly's Lemon Country, all in Sendai.
"With You; With Me", the second song on his new CD, "Love; The Only Proven Way to Fight Terrorism" had its first playing on the largest FM radio station in Sendai, Japan, Date FM, 71.1 on Honma Chan and Chicka Chan's Friday Air Jams Show, February, 2006.
His newest recording, "Will You Be My Wife?" was played on NHK FM, Sendai, Sept. 2006.
Most recently his live solo recording of his original "Come Alive" at Soka University of America was played by Maynard, the singer of Monkey Majik on his weekly show, "Monkey House Music" on Date FM, Novemember 16th, 2006.
Timothy is all set up to kick off his all Japan tour starting the end of June, 2008.
Stay tuned as Timothy Harada's music spreads throughout Japan and the world, and eventually makes it's way back to Southern California.
Please sign up on his mailing list with your home address, so he can add your city to his upcoming world tour, probably toward the end of 2008 or the beginning of 2009.
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