Zebra finches and a Les Paul (WN0029)

Came across this gem of an artistic idea today via The Guardian - an art installation with zebra finches alighting on the fretboard of a pugged-in, switched-on Les Paul. Delicately natural grunge. The installation was assembled by French sonic artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot. It's currently being shown at London's Barbican.

As the gallery says:

As the birds go about their routine activities, perching on or feeding from the various pieces of equipment, they create a random and captivating soundscape.

I'm unlikely to be able to make it along there myself, but the above video gives a delightful flavour of the experience. And yes, The Guardian has already used the 'rock chick' gag...

Of beasts and cocoons

T-Rex, the animatron

My wife and I spent the day in London today. The weather was on our side, with glorious sunshine for this time of year, and we had one of those days that just work on every front (despite Central London always being pretty exhausting to get around in the daytime). We got in some good food, with a sushi selection from Harrods, and I finally managed to take her to see Big Ben - something I'd promised to do since we moved to the UK but somehow hadn't had the time to sort out.

In the afternoon, we paid a trip to the Natural History Museum. I hadn't been since I was a child (and a good few of the exhibits don't seem to have changed since then), but it was great to visit again. One of the highlights was the dinosaur area, which brought back memories of my earliest aspirations in life. As a boy of about six or seven, I envisioned myself growing up to become a palaeontologist, travelling the world and uncovering creatures buried in the shifting sands of time.

As far as I can remember, the intention to work with the natural world carried on for some years after. Then, at fourteen I went to stay with my uncle in Germany and heard 'Rubber Soul', thus getting me hooked on The Beatles and changing my ambitions to rock 'n' roll instead of old bones. I got closer to that than I ever did with palaeontology, but it's probably an even more difficult path to make a living from. Totally unrelated to either, these days I teach to put bread on the table. I guess we all have to run with the practicalities when life becomes a reality rather than a dream.

After the bottlenecked walkways at the beginning of the museum's dinosaur zone, with its Triceratops skeletons and all manner of other beasts low-lit and suspended by cables from the ceiling, we came across the treat in the video clip above - an animatronic T-Rex. I must admit, it was very effective and slightly eerie too. The creature seemed pretty lifelike and when the imagination wandered a little, it wasn't too tough to picture him edging forward from his patch and taking a chunk out of the crowd. While there is so much to criticise in terms of government policy over the past decade, I don't think that making the museums free is one of them.

The Cocoon, which houses the Darwin Centre

In a complete contrast of lighting, we wandered past the Cocoon too, which houses the newly opened Darwin Centre. Unfortunately there wasn't enough time to head in and see what was going on inside, but there was structure, space and light to appreciate from the outside all the same. Darwin was my first childhood hero, way before I'd ever heard of John Lennon, and I'm pleased to see that he continues to play a significant role in the public imagination.

London's museums being as vast and crowded as they are, we didn't get to see much of the rest of the place. Perhaps in another 20-odd years, I'll make it back there again. There'll be a few more modern treats to reflect whatever innovations are going on at the time, but I expect there'll still be the same old shabby lions in glass cases, gathering yet more dust. Much like the rest of the country, really.

Shelf Life UK tour report

It might be three months overdue, but better late than never, I suppose.

At the end of August this year, Shelf Life undertook their first ever live dates outside of Japan, with a mini UK tour. The band played The Prince Albert in Brighton and The Good Ship in Kilburn, London.

Above is a short film made by members of the Peace Not War collective, featuring interviews with the band plus footage from the London show. The film is in Japanese and English, and appears without subtitles.

With me already in the UK, the boys arrived from Tokyo on the Monday with a small entourage in tow. Staying in London while I was working up in Scarborough, they managed to squeeze in some UK rock sightseeing and played impromptu shows in Hyde Park and on the banks of the Thames while they were there.

On the Thursday morning, we all met up at Brighton station, for the first time since January. It was a happy reunion and the visitors were notably impressed with Brighton's laid-back hippy vibe.

While wives, kids and other guests took in Brighton's sights, the band headed off to a rehearsal studio to get in shape for the evening show. They had been practising hard back in Tokyo and the set had evolved a little to include more of a Japanese twist on some of the material, with a little taiko drumming here and elements of traditional Okinawan folk there, all mixed in with our rock 'n' roll.

The Prince Albert's live space is a cosy, sweaty room above the main pub and right near the station. It is also the same place that I played my first show with Headland, ten years earlier, so was a bit of a homecoming show for me in more ways than one.

Once enough audience members had filtered in, proceedings could kick off. Viper Suzas hit the stage first, a loose, hard rocking two-piece used to turning up the noise and bantering with their home crowd. Featuring just guitar and drums, their slack but pounding riffs got the night off to a lively start.

Shelf Life followed. I'd managed to get a few familiar faces to come down and show themselves so it wasn't a completely cold crowd, but nobody had seen us before. Brighton audiences, overfed on a dearth of live music in the city, can be notoriously tough to please at the best of times, meaning we had to work extra hard.

This doesn't tend to present a problem at our shows though as we're a very lively band ourselves, plus were wearing matching Japanese costumes and bandanas to add an extra gimmick. To engage with an audience, I think it's very important to stand out from other bands. We threw all we could at Brighton and won the crowd over pretty swiftly.


I'd expected that it might feel a little strange to be performing back in the same place I'd played so long ago, but it wasn't. The band has played together a lot and have developed a good onstage rapport by now. Brighton, then, was just another Shelf Life show.

As usual, we invited the crowd and members of the other acts to join us on the stage for the chorus of 'Endgame'. This proved to be quite a hit and we filled the stage (The Albert having a fairly small one).

The Hornblower Brothers went on after us and topped the bill. A lighter, almost whimsical, folky sound, with a rich sense of humour running through their songs, they were a big hit with the crowd - many of whom had come to see them anyway.

Inspired by 'Endgame', at the end of their set they also invited the audience to join them. The rest of Shelf Life had gone to catch their last train back to London by then, but as I was staying in Brighton that night, could hang on until there was no more hanging on to be done and took to the stage one last time.

Brighton ended up as a very successful start to the tour.

The next day (the second and final date) was London. I'd never played in London before so was pleased to have the opportunity. Although it was a lot of work finding a venue and convincing them to put a band with no British fanbase on, I managed to get us a show in the capital.

Before we could make it up to Kilburn, there was only one place a band forged in a bar called Rubber Soul could go to grab that obligatory souvenir photo. We met up at a Kensington tube station and all trooped off to St. John's Wood to grab our own 'Abbey Road' moment.

I'd visited it once before, nine years previously, and had tried to get a picture of myself crossing the infamous pedestrian crossing outside The Beatles recording studio, but somehow the picture never came out. It's not quite the same with one person either.


Abbey Road being Abbey Road, and seeing as it was a warm sunny day in August, the place was absolutely packed with people from all over the world trying to do the same thing as us. A simple photo of four guys walking across a road in North London should be pretty straightforward. In the end, it must have taken us an hour and a half to finally capture the shot we wanted!

Picture taken, we made our way to the venue. It was a bigger space than the previous night, which was fun for playing but more of a challenge to fill. The Good Ship also has a projector and a blank back wall, so I brought along some DVDs as video backdrops.

Kyoko Rathmell opened the night with a solo acoustic set of Smiths-inspired numbers. Our inclusion on the bill seemed to have triggered off a Japanese flavour for much of the bill, she having Japanese roots.

With two of the original acts having pulled out, I chipped in with some help on filling the bill back up again. Vinyl Gypsy is an artist from New York that I'd gotten to know pretty well through the internet, from the work I did with Peace Not War Japan.

Funnily enough, we'd never actually met, despite her having been in Tokyo at the same time as me once before. As luck would have it, she was actually doing a few dates in Europe at the time and happened to be in London, so ended up being added to the bill.

The music on her MySpace page doesn't give much away, so as well as never having met before, I'd not really heard any representative music either, and was looking forward to hearing what she sounded like.

With a live drummer and herself on laptop and vocals, the set kicked off with ambient atmospherics and some rich, promising lines through the mic. Unfortunately, some inexplicable bug in the system caused her loops to cut out and Mac to die. I've still yet to hear what she sounds like, but if I'm ever in NY and she's got a show on, I'll definitely head down to check out the rest of the sound.

With head down in jobhunting mode for most of the summer and living in a place where singing practise is not too easy, I'd not had as much chance to get my chops in shape in time for the shows. The day before in Brighton, we'd rehearsed for four hours and then played a show (followed up just a little partying afterwards).

When I woke up the day of the London gig, I had almost no voice to speak with, let alone sing with. I sucked singers' lozenges, drank hot lemon and honey at the venue and tried not speaking, in order to keep my throat in as good a condition as I could by the time the show came around.


With little choice, I took to the stage with almost no voice - something I'd never had to do before. We kicked off with the first song, a lively rocker at the best of times, and I could barely produce a sound. On top of that, the space was bigger and audience more spread out than the previous night, so the whole thing could have died quite easily.

I threw as much energy into the performance as I could, no matter whether I could be heard or not. Despite the circumstances, we just about managed to pull it off and even got some people dancing down the front. I'm sure it helped too that we had a video montage of movie samples playing behind us too, making it feel like a bit more of a 'show'.

When it came to 'Endgame' however, it was much harder than in Brighton to get people on the stage with us. A couple of the artists on the bill did venture on and luckily so did some old friends of mine who'd come down for the night.

From the feedback I got afterwards, it seemed like I'd managed to get away with it - to my great surprise.

On next, The Electric Red Drive were a Japanese three-piece based in London and with a good rock sound. Joan & The Shindig Addicts topped the bill, and although I didn't get to see much of their set, they sounded great, seemed to bring the house to its feet and had some strong poppy material.

Tour over, we all trooped off on the Tube to our respective hotels and bid our farewells to each other. As for where and when (if, even) Shelf Life will play together again, I have absolutely no idea.

It does remain an interesting experiment in keeping a band going from opposite sides of the world, albeit sporadically. Perhaps online collaborations over some new material will be the next move.

In time, I'll also put together a short doc on the tour and pop it up on YouTube. Given that this report has taken me three months to get the time to write up, it may take some time!

Brighton 8/10
London 6/10

Shelf Life UK tour dates announced

Shelf Life are coming to the UK for our debut British tour dates. It's been quite an operation to organise, particularly when my priority has had to be on job hunting, but we finally have our first gigs outside of Japan. When I left Tokyo, the idea with the band was to try and continue by trying out new ways of working, collaborating remotely over the internet for example. We do have to be all in the same country at the same time to be able to play live though (at least at the moment)

We will be playing at The Prince Albert in Brighton on Thursday August 21st and at The Good Ship in Kilburn, London on Friday August 22nd.

Other acts at the Brighton show are with The Hornblower Brothers and Viper Suzas. Doors open at 20:00 and entry is £4. This will be a special homecoming show for me, having spent many years performing with other bands in Brighton. The venue is at 48 Trafalgar Street, just below Brighton Station. Radio support for this show comes from Plug Cast at Brighton's Radio Reverb - listen out for a Shelf Life track in the stream on Sunday August 3rd at 19:00.

The London show runs from 19:40 till 04:00 and features several other new acts, including Joan And The Shindig Addicts, plus DJs. The Good Ship is on 289 Kilburn High Road with Kilburn as the nearest Tube station. Entry is £5.

Our album 'Best Before End' will be on sale at both shows and there is an iTunes launch for the collection set for August 18th, the week of the tour.

If you're in either town and have the time on the above dates, please come on down and show the boys a welcome.

UK live promoter wanted

My band are coming over here in August for our first ever live dates outside of Japan. I've put a video ad together to try and get us a promoter in order to organise some shows (don't quite have enough spare time on my hands to do it myself).

We are planning to play shows in and near London (such as in Brighton) on August 20th, 21st and 22nd. Support slots, festival dates, all gigs considered. It's only a couple of months away now, so I'm hoping to find someone soon.

If you or someone you know are up for doing some live dates this summer with an energetic Anglo-Japanese rock 'n' roll band with a well-honed live act, drop us a comment on the video, get in touch through our MySpace page or send us an email to shelflifemusic(a)gmail.com.

Promo CDs available on request.

Thanks!

British Summer Time begins

So, as it probably always was going to do anyway, the Japan adventure has come to an end. Six weeks ago, I left the city that had been my home for four and a half crazy years and came 'back home', to Britain. Although it had all seemed so alien to me when I first arrived, I had made Tokyo into my home, having done and experienced things there that I would never have dreamed of five or more years ago. It changed me in countless ways, mostly all positive (I think) and made me into a different man from the one that stepped onto a Japan Airlines flight in September 2003, bound for the other side of the world.

In October of last year, whilst I was actually in Buenos Aires taking in my first spring in the Global South, I was one of the roughly half a million people that fell foul of the biggest consumer collapse in Japanese post-war history. The company that I had been working for, a vast corporation with about a 60% share of its market that was spread all over the country and symbolised by a peculiar pink cartoon rabbit with a yellow beak, a giant that had been teetering on the brink of collapse all year, finally fell with an almighty crash.

This was unfortunate enough to say the least, but given that my fiance and I were intending to relocate to the 'green and pleasant land' from whence I'd come and our pending nuptuals were looming ever closer, it necessitated an early return to Blighty for me - 'man goes ahead to lay the foundations before being joined by the missus at a later date' sort of thing.

January in Tokyo was spectacularly cold and we had a fair amount of snow, unusual for that city these days in our times of shifting climate patterns and rising global temperatures. I felt somewhat cold inside as well as outside, for I had grown to love the place and in my heart wasn't fully ready to go. Still, when a man has finally found his perfect women he must do all that he can to hold on to her and there was to be no future for us in Japan, other than visits to the in-laws and to show the kids the other side of themselves, when they finally come along.

I wrapped up my activities, played a final farewell show with the band, bid farewell to close friends and business partners and set off to hand my ID card in to the customs official at the airport, promising to all that I would be back and that it was not the end but merely the end of the beginning.

That heavy heart sank a little further upon alighting at the other end, as the reality of three months away from my beau spread and I was once again faced with probably my least favourite of all airports - London Heathrow. With hindsight, I got in just in time given the recent debacle of the much trumpted and then heavily maligned opening of the new Terminal 5. Touted by The Queen as 'a 21st-century gateway to Britain' yet described in The Guardian as 'more like a 19th-century doorway to Calcutta', I did at least manage to avoid that level of misery. Still, none of the tubes were working when I got out of the terminal that I did land at, so at least I got a little bit of business as usual.

After the slick, machine-like efficiency of Japan in general and Tokyo in particular, to describe it as a shambles doesn't quite come close to an understatement. I wonder how on earth this country is going to cope with having the Olympics in 2012, knowing too that the Chinese will be setting the bar very high for this one.

Dropping my suitcases at a parental loft on the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors, I spent my first month back running around the country, crashing on floors and grabbing job interviews whenever I could. The picture above was taken a couple of days after arrival, when I discovered a nearby mere coated in ice and shrouded in mist, making for a slightly eerie but essentially English looking scene - the likes of which I'm much more alert to these days.

Not having a base anywhere in particular was pretty unsettling as in my mind I was pretty much still in Tokyo anyway, yet my eyes and tastebuds were deceiving me. I took a pair of chopsticks with me everywhere, maintained the good habit of taking shoes off in the house (which makes for dirty socks in England, though I keep this custom up in any country I visit now) and marvelled at how much bigger everybody looked. Still, it was probably a useful exercise in reaquaintance with my old country as I fitted in a number of visits to London, plus Brighton, Wales and swathes of Northern England, which must have grounded me in the reality of being back.

There have, however, been many very pleasant surprises too. The new St. Pancras International terminal in London, depicted above, proves that Britain can sometimes get a major engineering project just right. The concepts of 'green living' and 'ethical consumption' have become completely mainstream now, with organic food, carbon concerns and fair trade initiatives having become as British as rain. 'Reverse culture shock' and no longer being considered 'exotic' aside, it does also have to be said that the British are essentially very nice people too. Even in London, I got smiles from strangers - a rare sight indeed in pressure cooker Tokyo.

Traipsing across the sprawl of London for an interview or a floor to sleep on, I was also able to take in some of the wonders of the place. A look at 'The Gherkin', an amble around St. Paul's, a stroll over Millennium Bridge, a potter through the Tate Modern, all of which served to remind me what a wonderful city London is in so many ways, despite the frustrations of the tube or the cluttered rush of it all. It's actually quite a beautiful place really. Where Tokyo screams vibrant youth at you, London kicks back and wears its old age gracefully. Mind you, it's still got its troubles too, as the poor fellow in the picture below demonstrates. Some things are unlikely to ever change that much.

Last night, the clocks went forward by an hour, thus heralding the official beginning of British Summer Time. After a foul and wintry Easter, it finally feels like spring is in the air. The daffodils are in bloom and a light breeze ruffled my hair today instead of the howling gales that first greeted me.

I have now got used to being back here again and although it looks like it might go right up to the wire in terms of landing that 'back on my feet again' job just before the wedding kicks in, I feel positive that it's all going to turn out for the best.

And that's got to be a good thing!