Tuesday, April 22
We had to wake up early that morning to hit the road again. As we moved further inland during the second half of the tour, the distances between cities got noticeably longer—this drive took us about six and a half hours.
Tumbleroot Distillery in Santa Fe turned out to be a bar and live music venue with a big terrace out back—classic New Mexico vibes. The further we pushed into the interior, the more the landscape shifted toward dry desert and the air began to carry a distinctly Mexican scent.
Ever since the Los Angeles show, something’s felt off about our performances. It’s like the energy has slowly drained out of us. Or maybe it’s just me—I’ve started to lose track of where to focus my energy on stage. After more than two weeks of nonstop touring with barely any days off, playing the same setlist night after night, this kind of fatigue starts to creep in.
And it’s not something you can fix with willpower alone. So I decided to stop trying to push through emotionally. For these last three shows, I made up my mind to approach them mechanically, with one single goal: get through without making any mistakes.
I guess you could call it a kind of touring monotony.
Even so, there’s something about the sound of a cheering crowd that helps bring you back. And our performance quality has kept improving, so in the end, the Santa Fe show wrapped up on a high note, with loud cheers echoing through the venue.
We made $1,660 in merch sales that night, leaving only $1,365 in remaining expenses. Judging by our average earnings so far, we should be able to break even at the next show.
That night, we stayed—once again—at a friend of Mikey’s (just how many people does he know in the States?). His friend Cody is a surfer who lives in Santa Fe. When I asked, “Wait, isn’t Santa Fe landlocked?” Mikey replied, “He surfs in rivers.”
Cody’s place only had one bed and one couch for us to share, but we were all so completely worn out that we didn’t care. We curled up in sleeping bags and passed out almost immediately.
Wednesday, April 23
This morning was the earliest of the entire tour—we had to be out the door by 7:30. It was rough, especially this late in the tour, but Mikey probably had it the hardest. Once we get into the car, we can at least sleep through the drive. But for him, every early morning means another long, punishing stretch behind the wheel.
Even he was starting to show signs of fatigue. I remember Zézé, our tour manager on the Europe tour, hitting a similar wall toward the end—so much so that we began to worry about him. Being a tour manager might be rewarding, and maybe even fun if you love to travel, but it’s also a seriously grueling job. Personally, I could never do it.
Since the Grand Canyon, most of my days in the van have blurred together—I’ve either been asleep or lying down writing this journal. I don’t remember much else. I guess the exhaustion has caught up with me too. Even the conversations in the van have started to fade out.
It would be nice if we could stay lively and cheerful the whole time, but that’s just not how it works in real life.
Then again, maybe the fact that we can sit in silence and still be comfortable with each other says a lot about the strength of this band.
Our next stop, Resonant Head in Oklahoma, was a live music bar on a quiet, slightly run-down street corner. Depending on the turnout and merch sales, this show might be what finally pushes us into the black. We summoned what little energy we had left and powered through the soundcheck and show.
There were maybe 100 to 150 people in the audience. It was a small town, so naturally very few—if any—had heard of us before. Still, we could feel how much they enjoyed it.
The PA engineer was probably around our age, and I remember how he danced along while working the soundboard during our set. That stuck with me—it reminded me that even in the smallest corners of the country, there are people who truly connect with the music.
So, while the turnout at this small venue was decent, what really had our attention was the merch sales. If we could end today in the black, then anything we made at the next day’s festival—Austin Psych Fest—would count as pure profit.
And the result? A total success. We brought in $1,380 (about ¥200,000) in merch revenue, officially putting us in the black for the entire U.S. tour.
The sense of accomplishment we felt that day was overwhelming.
When we first started planning this tour, nearly everyone told us the same thing: “You’re not going to make your money back the first time—just think of it as planting seeds for the future.”
I remember how gut-wrenching it was to watch the money we’d worked so hard to save slowly vanish—just from making music and trying to share it. Each time I made a bank transfer, it felt like a piece of my soul was going with it. I kept asking myself: Is this really worth it? Is this a smart investment? Should I really be cutting into my living expenses to do this?
To be honest, those doubts stayed with me right up until the tour began. We kept telling ourselves, “Well, at least we’re buying an experience.”
But once we hit the black, all of that second-guessing disappeared.
From that moment on, the U.S. tour had transformed into something entirely different: a project that gave back more than it took. It had become a tour with nothing but reward.
To be continuned.
Click here to read the full series.
maya ongaku US TOUR dates 2025
Apr 08 Seattle, WA, US｜Neumos
Apr 09 Bellingham, WA, US｜The Shakedown
Apr 10 Victoria, BC, Canada｜Wicket Hall
Apr 11 Vancouver, BC, Canada｜The Pearl
Apr 12 Portland, OR, US｜Wonder Ballroom
Apr 14 Chico, CA, US｜Argus Bar + Patio
Apr 15 Oakland, CA, US｜The New Parish
Apr 17 San Luis Obispo, CA, US｜SLO Brew Rock
Apr 18 Jacumba Hot Springs CA, US｜Jacumba Hot Springs Hotel
Apr 19 Los Angeles (LA), CA, US｜Teragram Ballroom
Apr 20 Flagstaff, AZ, US｜Coconino Center for the Arts
Apr 22 Santa Fe, NM, US｜Tumbleroot Brewery & Distillery
Apr 23 Oklahoma City, OK, US｜Resonant Head
Apr 24 Austin, TX, US｜APF 25: Kickoff Party
maya ongaku
maya ongaku is a three-piece band formed in 2021 by Tsutomu Sonoda, Ryota Takano, and Shoei Ikeda, hailing from a coastal village near Enoshima, Japan. Rooted in an organic, psychedelic sound that feels both grounded and untethered, their music draws from collective improvisation and the atmosphere of their local music scene.
The band’s name—maya ongaku—is a coined term, not taken from ancient history, but imagined as a landscape beyond the visible frame, hinting at the spiritual and the unseen. The group sees their beginning as a kind of spontaneous emergence—like life arising from non-life—something that simply happened, without pretense or planning.
In May 2023, they released their debut album ‘Approach to Anima’ via Guruguru Brain and Bayon Production, followed by a successful EU/UK tour in November and a domestic tour across Japan in December.
Their latest EP ‘Electronic Phantoms’ was released in August 2024. That same month, they hosted “rhythm echo noise” in collaboration with WWW, inviting Dutch artist Felbm to Tokyo. The band was also named Best Breakthrough Artists at the inaugural TOKYO ALTER MUSIC AWARD 2024, a new platform highlighting emerging voices from Tokyo’s independent scene.
maya ongaku has performed at major Japanese festivals such as Mori, Michi, Ichiba, FFKT, FUJI ROCK, Asagiri JAM, and FUJI & SUN. Internationally, they have appeared at festivals in Korea and China, steadily expanding their presence in Asia and beyond.
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