The Shirts get a drummer!

After 18 months of playing as a three piece, using sequenced tracks and/or "borrowing" drummers for live shows, The Shirts are stoked about the new guy: Rob. Rob and I played way back before squadcar in a band called Bender, had quite a large repertoire of original rock and cover songs, and did regular shows at live houses around the place. We even did a demo at M7 in Koiwa which I finally heard last week after around 6 or 7 years. Saturday saw us rehearse for the third time with Rob at Ongakukan-bis in Shibuya, and as we quietly drained the Chivas bottle supplied by the fifth shirt Andy, Kazue was kind enough to take a few pictures, of the rock!

Hotwheels..

This near perfect example of complete radness is often parked just up the road, and is, in my completely unbiased opinion, right up there with the Durcus One. Can't be too comfortable to ride though..

Donald Richie

Donald Richie is an American-born author who has written many books about Japanese culture and cinema. Born in 1924, Richie first visited Japan in 1947 with the American occupational force, and quickly became fascinated with what he saw, and particularly with Japanese cinema. He decided to stay on and has now been in Japan for well over 60 years. Recently a friend and I were invited to play at a book launch party being held for Donald's newest book Botandoro, and hence were lucky enough to experience Donald reading some of his work, as well as view an experimental film that he had directed in the early 60's. The book is "a Miscellany" of previously published and unpublished work from 1941 through 2005. He was truly a man of elegance and inspiration and I will definitely make a point of seeking out some more of his work..

Random night shot.. 07

Station kiosk lady, Shin-Koiwa circa 2003. A perfect place to buy beer, cigarettes, gum, and newspapers you can't read..

Qualia

Qualia rocked Electro Lust last week at The Baron in Nishi-Azabu. A calculated blend of electronica and rock, not unlike the early stylings of New Order, with the amazing rhythm section of Issei Kobayashi and Zak Bond holding together Scott Mintz's plethora of squelches and bleeps with the utmost of precision and groove. Qualia have only played a couple of shows so far and have a lot to look forward to, especially when the clock starts sending properly.

Band photos by Basak Ulukose..





Short mini-movie from Qalia's debut live at the Garage, October '07:

People of the night..

Tokyo is most definitely a night city, to some extent almost defined by it's restaurants, bars, and clubs. One thing I have realized after all these years is how this inevitably effects your (already insanely busy) lifestyle, in both good and bad ways.

Which brings us back to Tasuichi. I can't give this place enough credit for it's consistent energy and its virtual guarantee of providing a platform for almost random interaction and fun. This place rocks, every night of the week.

People of the night..

The Durcus One

My new pride and joy was finally put together by the guys around the corner at Triple Rock Bicycles Shibuya. W-Base is the local distributor for Durcus bikes here in Japan, and I got loads of cool parts from a huge shop in the states called Dan's Comp. I surely be enjoying being back on the bike!

I also added a little blast from the past, from back when lake jumping wasn't thought of as being insane, and the Shepparton lake wasn't full of crap..

Bye bye Shoto #504

You will be missed..

Squadcar: Making Misses (Glenn version)

Misses was a mini-album that squadcar recorded with Christopher McGuire, who was at the time drummer for uber-cool Japanese band Quruli. The sessions became stuff of legend, though not always for good reasons. Ryan Skelton made a mini-doco about the sessions (that I will post later) from footage that I took throughout, but I wasn't really happy with it, and Christopher DEFINITELY wasn't happy with it. I made this one kind of as a reaction to that, it contains footage also of a video that students from the Tokyo College of Creative Arts made of the title song..

In Ryan's defence, he didn't think much of my version either, and he's now making a million dollar movie!

Looking for an apartment in Tokyo #9

>_<

Maruyamacho: 2 LDK, 250,000 (negotiable)

See how this goes....

Looking for an apartment in Tokyo #8..

Shinsen Kouwa Palace: 2LDK, 155,000 per month

Deep breath, this could be the one.....

*edit: knocked back again, even after having been told "foreigners okay" for 3 weeks! This isn't fun at all..

India

Feels like ages since I got back, I wanted to put some pics up but not necessarily on this blog soooo, here's one and a link to a whole page full of pics..

The Flea Marketeers

There's a bi-monthly Flea Market down at NHK park, these are from a couple of weeks ago, it was pretty crowded (and cold!).

Looking for an apartment in Tokyo #3..

Shinsen, 1LDK: 160,000 per month

Feels like the story of Goldielocks and the three bears after a while, as this one was nice but just not quite in the right place..

Looking for an apartment in Tokyo #1..

It's just not an easy thing to do.

Udagawacho 2K: 172,000 per month

This one looked great, perfect location, brand new, but it turned out to be tiny (33 square metres).

Snow!

The stairs to my apartment.. two years ago >_<

The Shirts Haircut Live video..

For some reason this video has gotten heaps of hits..

The Shirts new pic!

Deguchi-san used to say that if we put gold on our album cover it would be good luck, he woulda loved this shot...

We are the Shirts!

rerepost of the shirts movie.. enjoy!

The Shirts debut live..

The Shirts, live at Heavens Door, Sangenjaya Tokyo, November 3 2007. This was the first song 'Trains going by'. See other Shirts videos here.