Q26: Could you explain more clearly what you meant when you said "in order to clearly discern good intentions, there is a necessity to transmit a accurate knowledge."
When I was twenty, all the people I associated with were in their thirties, people who had been involved with the student movement. They would take me out drinking every night to Golden-gai24, but they didn't teach that that kind of lifestyle leads to you poisoning yourself and dying before you're thirty. I lost so many friends, and that's why I want to communicate to younger people that if they do this they'll get sick, or if they play that kind of music things will work out this way - I want to give them accurate and correct information (epignosis). There are some older people who occasionally tell them that if they do this then things will work out this way, but in general they only have the effect of dragging people into the sphere of black and white magic. The kind of method where one person pretends to attack and another saves is really a set-up, and there was one girl who died that way. The whole idea of black seeming to attack people and white seeming to save them is a sham, and it's a sham that kills young people.
Q27: Tell us what you think of the following bands and artists.
a. Mayo Thompson
When I heard about his recent gig it sounded like he had played his last trump card to the world.
b. Otis Redding
I think that the thin guitar line that comes in after he starts singing on "Dock of the Bay" is most effective.
c. Mal Waldron
I like "Mal 4".
d. Syd Barrett
The kind of one-chord riffing that he would do in Stars is a technique born after all technique has been rejected at source, and it seems to create substance in front of your eyes. Like the soul food that a dancer who has lost the ground beneath his feet searches for, it was harsh food for a weakened soul. The person who is able to produce substance from energy alone is linked to sorcery, and thus that became a breeding ground for devil-worshippers.
e. Lou Reed
The ancient Israelites had no conception of singing, instead they had chanting, which existed between song and recitation. It's pitch was rather monotonous, with many repetitions and the emphasis placed on the rhythm. This kind of singing was only used for elegies. As a form, chanting placed less emphasis on musical melody or the simple adding of intonation or stress to speech, and this form was most suitable only for dirges or lamentations. Now there is a tendency to turn everything into chant - to obscure and to veil. That can bring consolation and acceptance, but it lacks a sense of hope. The current state of mind of the Jewish people is that they expect to grow outwards in every direction from one point in space, and then finally put down roots at the end. However, that goes against the rule that first there is a seed and then fruit. The legend of the New York punk scene - the vigour that comes from hanging isolated in space - owes much to Lou Reed. It begins in space from the reading of the 23 verses of the apostate Patty, and becomes as hard as a rock with Television's "See no evil". If you were to become an observer in New York and lurk around in corners, you'd become able to understand his songwriting methods in an instant. The street corner parade song included on Alan Vega's first album is another example of a song sung in from the same situation. As regards driving off without hope or road before one, Poe wrote that passion is worthy of our respect. I have no doubt that even now Lou Reed still sings dishonestly about being "between right and wrong".
f. Peter Perrett
(No comment.)
g. Hadaka no Rallizes
Now that I have gained a correct understanding of absolute north, the comical nature of all lyrics about passing through darkness has been revealed to me.
h. Keiji Haino
Often he speaks the truth, but his words are no more than a domga he has arrived at through his own efforts. There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. (Proverbs 16:25)
i. the reappearance of Yoshio Hayakawa25
I think that "Okujo" is a wonderful song, but if it's true that his wife is unhappy then the world can do without his songs.
j. Jonathan Richman
Yuzo Iwata, who used to be a member of Maher, married a Jewish girl called Jessie, and is currently the manager of a natural food store in Philadelphia called The Essenes. He told me that he compiled a tape of live Maher material and gave it to Richman, who was supposed to have been very pleased. Jessie once said that most Americans are embarrassed by his lyrics.
k. Roky Erickson
I live in Yaho in Kunitachi, so there's a slight connection there with Yahowa 13. Professor M. Reizel stated that the original pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton was Ef-a or Yafu-a. In reply, Canon D.D. Williams of Cambridge University stated that it was Yaho. In the revised French translation there appears a note to the effect that the pronunciation Yahobe is not certain and that there also exists the possibility that it is pronounced Yabo or Yafu. A certain German scholar in 1749 wrote that, "Diodolus of Sicilty, Macrobius, Clemence of Alexandria, Saint Hieronmyus, and Origenus wrote it as Yawo. The Sumerians, Epiphanes, and Theoderotus wrote it as Yaweh, Rudrich Capel read it as Yavo, Dorcius as Yahove, Hottinger as Efuwa, Merkerz as Jehovah, Castellio as Yowa, Le Clerc as Yaho."
l. Neil Young
I would prefer believe that he sings as though there were something that needed to be sung, and plays guitar as though there were phrases that needed to be played, not because of his convictions but because of his physical make-up.
m. Anthony Moore
If rock had continued to exist, he probably would have continued to exist in my mind as an existence not separate from my own.
n. Fred Frith
The ability of a chef to make a full-course meal out of a mixture of ingredients depends on his culinary skills and his wisdom. Fred Frith looks upon people as ingredients. Once when we were in the studio he told that he understood how I felt. It is possible that a chef could understand the feelings of his ingredients and still become a chef, but what does he mean by treating people as ingredients? Instead of doing that, I believe he should write an enka and make Japanese play it.
o. Tom Verlaine
(No comment.)
p. Suicide26
(No comment.)
q. Jutoku Kaneko27
(No comment.)
r. Hideo Ikeezumi28
He believes that music possesses a certain power. Your question assumes that we possess music as a common-ground, and you are trying to ascertain if we have any mutual motivations. For my part, I even see things that appear to be self-evident, like bands, CDs, venues etc. as strange and unnatural. One day pus began to ooze out of my ears because I had to listen to hundreds of useless tapes that had been sent to Takashi Sato29 from all over Japan. Being the owner of a record shop is a more dangerous than being an atomic gypsy, and it's an occupation that barely manages to survive thanks to him and others like him who share his frightening power.
s. Masashi Mitani30
(No comment.)
t. Hiro Nakazaki31
Nakazaki came from a different cultural background from me, Mitani and Shinoda. He had never heard of either Minor or Taco. The only point we had in common was probably the Sanya Sogidan. His background was in the counter-culture scene at Wako University. Yasumi no Kuni32 was a self-evident band for him. He worked for a year as a fisherman, and he also travelled by himself around Asia. We got to know each other when we were working as day labourers for Ogasawara Construction. According to Nakazaki, I arrived at the building site wearing work-clothes but changed into a suit and started to work. He saw me doing this and thought that I must have a really tough time getting by in life. We got our pay at the south exit of Shinjuku Station and went off together to eat at a curry place called Haiti. That was when he told me that he had a euphonium. I told him that I dug the way the fine guitar riffing and wind instruments on Mayo Thompson's "Dear Betty" combined with each other, and that I wanted to start a band that would aim at getting that effect. Nakazaki was a classical fan who would send in concert reviews to (classical magazine) "Ongaku no tomo", and he was also a big Zappa freak, but I soon saw that he wasn't a musician. He was like an academic cripple, caught between the written score and the sounds, and when he was playing he was unable to hear the other members' sounds so he couldn't play in a group context. That's how we were able to able to transform all Maher's performances into the Red Crayola's "Coconut Hotel". He lived in a wooden building called the Kunitachi Hall that used to be a brothel for the post-war US army of occupation. The best things about him are that he looks after many of his disabled friends, that he takes care over what he eats, and his sheep-like qualities.
u. Snooks Eaglin
From his lyrics you can understand that he knows what he is doing. For example, in one of his songs that has a gospel feel and chord progressions that lead you to expect lyrics like "down by the riverside", he deliberately sings "I don't want to study."
v. Brian Wilson
See the liner notes for Kitchen Tapes.
w. Others
No comment.
Q 28: What kind of music did you listen to in your teens?
I was 10 years old in 1968 and up until then I had been forbidden to listen to popular songs. I managed to get hold of a radio and that was when I began to listen to music seriously. The sweetness and tone of voice that all the big Japanese pop singers seemed to share, Marc Bolan's vocals, happy songs with simple chord progressions, singing in a way that somehow joined rock and doo-wop and enka, the feel of a song like "The rainbow-colored lake" where rock and Japanese pops combined, bottleneck guitars screaming like seagulls, refrains that went "from today.....", glissandos that connect one's natural voice to a falsetto, the feel of a thin woman screaming, the feel of an emaciated fat woman, the way Japanese folksingers would raise the ends of words when they were trying to copy Dylan, the rough sound of male chanson singers, the different feels of British and American rock bands. All of these things became fragments of nostalgia attached to my radio.
When I was in grammar school, because I played piano in a university big band I came into contact with Basie, Ellington etc. Some of the members of that big band had a smaller combo called the Eight Beats and we would get asked to play light stuff like "Unchain my heart" at summer beer gardens33 and kimono sales. I came up with a song that was used as a commercial for some company that was holding an exhibition on the second floor of the local agricultural co-operative. The compere for the exhibition tried to get some of the guests to sing it, but none of them would. When we played it, it turned into a cross between a nursery rhyme and trad jazz. I remember that one day my father came up with a tape of Oni Taiko-za34, and that I was so impressed by it that I seriously thought about going to Sado Island. I also wrote down some of the local packhorse drivers' songs in notation. We didn't have much money so I wasn't able to buy a record player until I entered high-school, but I remember collecting and listening to collections of folk-songs and the complete works of Satie and Furtwangler.
Eventually the big-band put out a record under the name Clash. A music critic called Yoza Iwanami was an old boy from the same university and he praised the record, saying that it sounded "rustic". He came to my house and left me lots of review copies of records he'd been sent. I listened to some of the compilations of Delta blues, ragtime, stomp, fifties gospel and so on, and that was how I became familiar with the history of black music. I came to understand the distinctions between West Coast, cool, bop, swing etc, and I generally grasped the direction of jazz at that time. I used to put on Coltrane in the mornings, and I'd go out to school feeling like I'd had my insides blown out. My favourite place was this coffee-shop called Shima that had a huge dark fountain and used to play tango music. From around this time I became enamoured of coffee-shops, and there was even a time when I thought I would have "Tori Kudo. He loved coffee-shops." inscribed on my tombstone. At jazz coffee-shops I would always request Stanley Clarke's "School Days" because I liked the title.
Q 29: What music have you been listening to recently?
0. Usually I don't listen to any music
1. Cicadas
2. The radio
3. My wife's songs35
4. Birds
5. I listen to what other people put on
6. I listen to jazz when we're entertaining
7. For myself, I repeat keyless phrases over and over
8. I listen to my own tunes when I'm mixing them
9. I listen to songs I used to like
I've been trying to practice the violin regularly every day, being careful that I don't spend more than a few minutes on it.
Q 30: You've apparently finished recording your new record. How did it go? Tell us about it, and about any interesting episodes that occurred during the recording.
We only recorded about half the songs that we'd planned to. There are a lot of songs that have already appeared on other records and tapes that we omitted. There wasn't any need to record them again, but I'd like people to listen to them once more.
Q 31: Who would you like to listen to the new album?
Hatashito Saito
Fukumi Nagaya
My mother
Shinoda's big sister
David Thomas
Q32: I heard that you'd prefer not to sell very many copies of your records. Why is that?
Because I only want them to sell well in Yugoslavia.
Q33: I really like the performance of the track on Tokyo Flashback 3. What do you think of it yourself?
We got a studio musician to play the drums on "Utsubyo no kusuri" so I thought it wouldn't be any good, but his performance wasn't bad for one of the enemy. Nappo played some great bottleneck on "Shokokumin no yoru". I decided to include "Intro - Taninaka" so that people could hear Ranta Suzuki's (ss) and Avibandan's (cello) model tuning (tuning usually kills the music before you play it).
Q34: I'd like to see Maher play live. Do you have any plans to play?
We played at an event called Soundmap at a park in Kunitachi on October 1st. I'll send you a sketch of the score. If it's possible to write the score after the performance has finished, it should also be possible to advertise the performance after it's over.
Q35: Have you any plans to play a solo piano gig?
During the summer I played in a piano trio at a place called Hijiri Kogen in Nagano. If they invite me back, I'll play there next year too. I'll think of a method to hold down chords properly in the next couple of hundred years, but for the moment I can play single notes. Usually only two or three people came to see my piano performances at Goodman, so if there's anyone who wants to hear me then either I can go to their place or else they can come to mine - that'd be fine. Do you think there's anything wrong with that?
Q36: Are there any plans to rerelease the Noise/Tenno record on CD?
The original recording was mixed by GAP and pressed at Kojima Recordings, but I don't know where the original open reel tapes have gone. If John Duncan would like to rerelease it then we wouldn't have any objections36.
Q37: Are you going to play with Che-SHIZU37 again?
Depending on the song I think I could play with them again.
Q38: What do you think about the current state of music in Japan?
I think that it doesn't have any value for me.
Q39: Would you like a major label like Sony or Toshiba to release your records?
I am very sure that they wouldn't want to.
Q40: What do you think of recent music magazines?
Of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh. (Ecclesiastes 12:12)
Q41: What do you think of recent music critics?
I liked the piece by Masaaki Hiraoka that appeared in the September 1980 issue of Music Magazine38. Which reminds me, recently there is no longer anyone who writes to the reader's letters columns of magazines who talks about "us". All of the current critics have become totally middle-aged, and it feels like they're just enjoying some communication while waiting for their lives to end. The next generation are all like Kim Jong Il, and it's impossible to expect them to be able to criticize anything.
Q42: What's your favourite make of piano?
A brown Eastein with three carved roses.
Q43: What do you imagine yourself doing 10 years from now?
Clearing up the rubble.
Driving heavy trucks.
Still living in Kunitachi, playing "Sky High" with Nakazaki and Shinoda and Shoichirio.
Notes
24 Area of tiny bars in Shinjuku. A hotbed for political revolutionaries and the underground in the 60s and 70s.
25 The lead singer of Japan's best garage band, The Jacks (whose most famous song "Marianne" has been covered splendidly by Fushitsusha on Tokyo Flashback 2 and laughably by Pain Killer with Koichi Makigami). After disappearing from the music scene in the late sixties to run a book shop in Kawasaki, Hayakawa reappeared at the start of the nineties with a string of disappointing records on Sony.
26 In the early eighties Kudo briefly had a group called Tokyo Suicide, in tribute to Alan Vega. Nanjo describes them as "electronic psych-punk with drum-machines". A tape exists on La Musica.
27 Founder of, and guitarist with, Kosokuya.
28 Modern Music / PSF label boss.
29 Owner of the legendary Minor coffee-shop cum experimental live-space. Sato was also a musician in his own right.
30 Bassist with Maher Shalal Hash Baz.
31 Euphonium player with Maher Shalal Hash Baz.
32 Seventies folk band, who were formed at Wako University.
33 Japanese summer tradition - many department stores etc open temporary beer gardens on their roofs.
34 Kodo-esque traditional Japanese drum troupe based on Sado Island in the Japan Sea.
35 Kudo's piano accompaniment to these songs can be heard on the fine Org CD "Fire Inside my Hat" (see review in Opprobrium #3).
36 This record has since been reissued with extra tracks on CD (Pataphysique) and on ltd. LP (Org).
37 Japan's most wonderful dream-folk-psych unit, featuring the inimitable er-hu and vocal phrasings of Chie Mukai. Their most recent record was a ltd edition LP on their own Aleutian Retto imprint. Kudo can be heard on their first LP (o/p) and on the amazing "Nazareth" live compilation CD on PSF.
38 Japan's most respected mainstream monthly music magazine.