We ran into our old friend, music writer Tadd Igarashi, over near the Gan-Ban stage off the Oasis. This weekend he curated a series of performances and interviews with several singer-songwriters playing at the festival, in collaboration with Acoustic Guitar magazine. He told us he’d been trying to get something like this started for some time and the opportunity came with an offer from MTV and Gan-Ban, the record store/promoter who’s been associated with Fuji Rock from the beginning.

On Friday, he interviewed Ron Sexsmith, and on Saturday Priscilla Ahn and Shugo Tokumaru. On Friday he did a joint interview with Ryuhei Koike and Horyuki Nagakubo. After a few songs, Igarashi would chat with the artists, talking about the songwriting process, and then fans could get autographs. Gan-Ban, of course, supplies CDs of these artists for signing.

“They had 60 CDs of Priscilla Ahn’s album, and they all sold out,” Igarashi says. “Suzanne Vega was also planning to be interviewed, but at the last minute her schedule wouldn’t allow it.” Apparently, Vega had to go to Tokyo right after her Field of Heaven gig on Saturday. They ship them in and ship them out real quick.

Igarashi said that he tried to get Aimee Mann to participate, too, but it was the same problem. She couldn’t stick around. “She tweeted that she was in Japan for Fuji Rock,” Igarashi said. “But by the time her fans read it she was already gone.”