The video was carefully edited before I left England and I made several changes during the process. Some of the sequences talked about in Issue 3 were trimmed or dropped completely for the sake of continuity and as a result the final version is much more controlled, concise and evocative in mood. There is no performance of the song portrayed in the video, but a succession of highly personal images which work on several layers of meaning at the same time. The interpretation of these images rests with individual viewers and hopefully their enigmatic nature will encourage repeated viewings. Though made specifically for American Cable TV we are looking at the possibility of it being shown in Britain. Also as Mark mentioned in Issue 3 it seems certain that it will be used as part of the proposed BBC video retrospective of my work which will be commercially available some time next year. 

By the way the stills from the video in Issue 3 were all taken by Roger Groves, a very talented photographer based in Leeds. I plan to use some of them on the sleeve of the mini-album, talking of which.............. The mini-album (which was provisionally called "Sextet" until Ultravox brought out their 'Quartet' album),should have been in the shops by December, but due to unforeseen circumstances of the most frustrating nature, it will now not be completed until sometime January 1983. This unfortunately means that the February release date is Optimistic. There are eight songs awaiting final overdubs and mixing. Titles are:- "Another day another ray of Hope" "Acceleration" "Tender is the Night" "Glow World" "Illusions of You" "The Real Adventure" "Fear into Wonder" and "Everyday feels like another new Drug" Only six of these songs will appear on the mini-album, two will be kept for bonus tracks on singles or twelve inch singles. 

Whilst on the subject of records, the last issue's EP contained two songs (King of the Cowboys & Shadowland) recorded some years ago on my old four-track system. Intended simply as demos, for some reason I never got around to re-recording them in a proper studio. Despite the low-fi sound they are an interesting example of 'songs that got away' The two instrumental tracks are part of a huge backlog of home recorded instrumental pieces along the lines of the 'Ritual Echo' album. I hope to assemble the best of them for an album on Cocteau soon, but more about that later. 

As this issue of ABM brings to a close the first year of 'The August and Select Order of Nelsonians'(as we seem to have become known) I would like to take the opportunity to thank every single one of you for your care and appreciation during 1982. I have been thrilled by the number of letters you have all written to me and I am touched by your concern for both myself and my work. You have no idea what a morale booster they can be when things around me get a little desperate. Sadly it is a physical impossibility to answer each letter personally as it would literally become a full-time occupation. However I do receive your letters and they are read and very much appreciated so please do keep in touch. 

As for 1983, well it is already filling up with various new projects. Apart from the mini-album, there is going to be a new 'Invisibility Exhibition' style tour during February featuring tape machines, improvisations, film, poetry, Theatre, mime etc. I am currently recording at home the new instrumental tapes that I'll be improvising to live on stage. 

Another important commitment for next year is the "audio track" that I have been asked to create for the Jorvik project (The important new Viking Museum in York due to open in York in 1984-) This is a very elaborate high budget, audio visual experience using some extremely new highly sophisticated techniques to re-create in sound and vision a section of a Viking Town. The design of this museum is based on unique principals and will make it the first of its kind in the world. I am very proud to have been asked to create a musical ambience for this very special project and am looking forward to working as a member of the design team. 

Later this year there is a tour planned, with a band as yet to be formed to play songs from the last couple of albums. I've also been invited to play live with the members of Yellow Magic Orchestra at an open air concert in front of 100,000 people in Tokyo during the summer. 

Other projects for '83 are:- A co-written, co-sung, co-produced single with Yukihiro Takahashi, a new full-size album of my own things towards the end of the year, the previously mentioned BBC videotape, a short black and white film for T.V or V.T.R consumption; scripted, directed, and soundtracked by myself (if I can get the money to do it) plus of course the usual Nelsonic productions, singles and albums on Cocteau, more issues of this magazine and hopefully, lots of pleasant and special surprises!! All in keeping with our long standing commitment to value for Money and Content for Cash! 

Finally on behalf of Mark, myself, Jan, Elle and Elliot, let me wish you all a Very Happy Christmas (if this reaches you in time) and a healthy and prosperous New Year. 

Much Love 

Bill Nelson, December 1982

(First Impressions of Japan) 

Well William went to Tokyo, but didn't ride the bullet train. In fact I almost missed the train altogether. Let me explain....The day before I was due to leave for Japan, I had to catch a train from Wakefield to London. This was to enable me to get to Gatwick Airport early the next morning for the flight to Tokyo. I was cordially invited to stay at Mark's house overnight... a most generous offer, especially as I am in the habit of leaving articles of clothing behind when I leave. With my usual flair, I managed to arrive at Wakefield Station just as the Inter-City 125 pulled up at the platform. I hurried my copious baggage onto the train, found a seat, unpacked the Sony Walkman, bought a sandwich and a bottle of wine from the buffet-bar and settled myself for the two hour journey to London. 

As I reflected on how I had almost missed the train, a blue uniformed British Rail Inspector appeared and asked for my ticket. When he asked why I had got a ticket for London when I was on the Bristol train, well I can tell you chums that I was at a loss to explain...even to myself. It transpired that my watch was fast, I was not late in arriving at Wakefield as I had thought, and I should not have leapt onto the first 125 to present itself at the platform. In fact I should have stood on the platform for another four or five minutes, then the real London train would have pulled in!! I promptly hauled my luggage off the Bristol train at the first port of call, then had to wait two hours to catch another train to London (which turned out to be very slow and not equipped with buffet-bar facilities) What a great start to my latest adventure, I thought. Would my luck hold? It usually does in those situations. 

The next day, bright and early, I was up and about, practicing my fear of flying and phoning home to see if Jan had taken in lodgers yet. Mark, who was accompanying me for the first week of my stay in Tokyo, was his usual jaunty self..ie: behaving as if he was just going down the road to the corner shop, not halfway 'round the world. 

After a long and tedious journey through London's increasingly hostile traffic we arrived at Gatwick, completed the pre-flight preliminaries and presented our passports at the gate. (don't you wish you could see our passport photos...? Laugh..? I thought I would die.. I hate flying!) 

The air-line was called Cathay Pacific and the cabin was decked out in hideous shades of green...Hides the stains I suppose.. The stewardesses were dressed in lurid 1960's psychedelia and gave us each a little package containing fluffy green socks to wear during the flight, a small green comb to help keep check of the accumulating grey hairs, a plastic toothbrush which magically contains it's own toothpaste, and as you have no doubt guessed, a green plastic shoe-horn. No matter how hard I searched the package, I could not find the parachute. Just before take-off the psychedelic stewardesses went through their usual "in case of emergencies" routine. You know the kind of thing, put your head between your knees, kiss your backside goodbye, etc,etc, Anyway before long we were lurching and thumping our way across the sky in an advanced state of inebriation, (The travel brochures refer to it as luxury). 

Meanwhile, Mark was perfecting his usual art of being able to fall asleep whilst balanced on a sharpened stick. At this time I was pleading with the nearest psychedelic stewardess to refill my Bloody Mary and praying that the In-Flight movie would take my mind off the three hundred and fifty three million story drop outside the window. Let me tell you chums, that it is a very long way to Japan when you are as poor a physical specimen as your present correspondent. 

Twenty-six hours later, after landings and take-offs in such exotic places as Bahrain, Hong-Kong and Tai-Pai, we arrived at Narita International Airport, Japan. It felt like a week since I had got on the wrong train at Wakefield. I was tired, emotional, sick, weak at the knees, nervous, irritable, but still capable of bowing to the taxi-driver. Oh Yes! Let's get things straight..In Japan, honour is everything. The Japanese take the English concept of the stiff-upper to the limit. In Japan the stiff-upper lip extends to the back of the neck, via the face and the top of the head. A fact I was soon to discover. 

But seriously Bill, what was Japan really like, I hear you ask? Well sometimes it was hell and sometimes it was hell, but mostly it was confusing. Tokyo looks so much like New York at first sight that the newcomer is lulled into a false sense of security. After checking one's Mace supplies, practicing a few deadly self defense moves, making a will and ensuring that one is walking with a companion bigger and stronger than oneself, it seemed safe to move out into what on the surface appeared to be a carbon copy of one of America's most violent cities. I think it was at 10.30 p.m. when everything seemed to closedown, bars too in some cases, that I realized that my immediate impressions had been wrong. The order of the day is Discipline. It transpires that Tokyo, compared to most cities of that size, is a very safe place at any time of the day. The people, as you have no doubt heard, are exceedingly polite. There is both a deep under-current of humility and a voracious desire for success. Everyone seems filled with an air of positivism, so much so that upon my return, English citizens seemed grey and negative in comparison. What I did find difficult, probably because I am a Northerner, and used to more open demonstrations of affection (how quaintly regional, how nauseous..) was the apparent lack of personal warmth in many of the people. This I fully realize, is a result of my own conditioning, and not at all the fault of the Japanese, still Mark was somewhat thrown by it as well, so I was not alone. 

However once I had accepted this fundamental difference, the next thing to make an impression was......The Toy Shops!! The Japanese have elevated the design and manufacture of children's toys to the status of contemporary art. Even Hamleys in London paled into insignificance compared to the Toy Park, Tokyo. In a word it was wonderful!! The kind of place I dreamt about when I was eight or nine years old. I wanted to buy so many things, it became a kind of disease Robots by the dozen, sci-fi model kits, computer games, everything imaginable. Mark being an accomplished skinflint (or is it realist) managed to resist the temptation to purchase everything in sight. I however being of a weak juvenile disposition, lusted and drooled and wore holes in my American Express Card. I am the proud owner of a fully articulated Sonic Round Facer with battle armour, a Battle Valkyrie which turns into a jet fighter and back into a robot again, a six inch model of E.T. whose eyesight up and flash on and off, a tiny pair of hi-fi speakers designed for use with a Walkman, that contain their own battery driven amplifier, a cute little cartoon robot that stars in his own T.V. series and seems to lust after Japanese High School girls in a most salacious fashion.... the list goes on... Of one thing I am certain, Tokyo is a consumer paradise par excellence. 

Of course the real reason for my trip was to work with Yellow Magic Orchestra on their latest album. I contribute guitar, E-bow and synthesiser guitar parts and enjoyed myself tremendously although I felt very much the outsider for a while. The problem that concerned me most was how to integrate the guitar with all the computer controlled synths and drums. Orthodox guitar orchestrations would have sounded gross and vulgar and I wanted something uncluttered yet fairly sophisticated in concept. It seemed that the best approach was to think in terms of synthesiser parts, but played on guitar instead of keyboards. Using this technique and some fairly simple effect treatments on the actual guitar sound, I was able to compliment the general 'micro-chip' quality of the rest of the band. There were a couple of occasions where contrast was needed and I left the basic guitar sound intact and played structured chord patterns, but all in all, the guitar manages to sound reasonably un-guitar like, which pleased me no-end. I've got a cassette copy of the basic tracks with my guitar overdubs on and it makes a very nice instrumental album 

When I left Japan, the lyrics and vocal melodies for the album had still to be written. There were also more keyboard parts to be added so by the time the album is finished (some time early 1983) it will probably have changed shape yet again. I am looking forward to hearing the final result. 

True to form we do not have back yet any black and white prints of the photographs Bill took yet. So this is an unaccompanied article.

click here to see a larger (147KB) version of this drawing

click here to see a larger (73KB) version of this drawing

King of the Cowboys 

Here comes the king of the cowboys, Here comes Mr Big Wheel, Living off immoral earnings, Choking down another free meal, He's a No-No, All a big show, Just a No-Go-Go Dealing a low-blow... Here comes Champagne Charlie, Here come Captain Kangaroo, Sliding in and out of corners, Twisting with each turn of the screw, He's a No-No-No Just a big show Always a No-Go-Go, Dealing a low blow.. King of the Cowboys, King of the Cowboys, King of the Cowboys, And me... Here comes double-deception Here comes the slim cigarette, Running down the road to ruin, Running up another debt, He's a No-No-No, 

All a big show, Just a No-Go-Go, Dealing a low blow, King of the Cowboys, King of the Cowboys, King of the Cowboys, And Me... 

Shadowland 

When she stops to think, each second counts, In this empty space he takes his chance Shadowland... Walking on thin ice, he dreams of sleep, She was almost in another world.. Shadowland.... After many hours, she begins, He records this sequence of events.. Shadowland.... Watch him panic as her face unfolds.. Tries to keep his hands under control.. Shadowland.... 

 
The Beat That Can't Go Wrong Today 

Walking on air, Walking on glass, You've got the beat that can't go wrong today.... Watching my face, Melting like wax, I've got the beat that can't go wrong today Ignore those imperfections, Believe your flying lessons, Nothing ventured, nothing gained, If none of this is making sense, It's not artistic license, This is not a masquerade.. Without doubt, You will work it out Resist the beat that can't go wrong today It's nothing sacred It goes with the things you wear, This is the beat that can't go wrong today 
 

When The Birds Return 

There is ice across the world of windows, My breath is burning in the frozen air, Sound of crystal in the hollow distance, I will be with you when the birds return.. 

We walk half-naked through the snows of winter, I take a picture of your glowing skin.. Between the silences we lean together, Will this mean nothing when the birds return..? Love turns to wonder when the birds return..... 
 

Y.M.O. drummer Yukihiro Takahashi is also a clothes designer and has his own shop in Tokyo. He designed and had made up a pure grey silk suit for Bill which he will probably wear on some of the forthcoming live dates. 

Whilst in Tokyo Bill bought himself a black silk antique man's kimono and traditional wooden shoes. We will try and coax Bill to pose for some 'candid' photos in the next issue? Or then again? 

As well as working with the collective YMO, Bill also played on Yukihiro's new single. Playing E-bow and electric guitar and singing harmony on the B-side. Titles are "I believe in You" and "Are you receiving Me ?" All were recorded at Alfa Studio A in Tokyo. Bill also worked on a track for Yuki's forthcoming solo album, on an old Bryan Ferry song called "This Island Earth" Bill played E-bow. 

Bill and Yuki did a photo session together for a Tokyo fashion magazine. They both modeled Yuki's winter collection of clothes. 

The new Y.M.O. album was all recorded on digital 24 track and will be mixed onto two track digital. With the advent of the compact disc system you should be able to hear it exactly as it was recorded - no tape hiss. 

The Units album mentioned twelve light years ago is still not available for release, this is due to legal problems in the USA. Their old record company must be so short of money that they claim to need a ransom before the album can be released. Sounds more like blackmail to us. 

>From all the people who work in the production of the magazine and the merchandise business, we would like to wish you a very happy new year 

Well I wonder how many of you saw the Nelson family and house in the November issue of' 'Family Circle'? and it was in colour as well 

UK Club Draw Dec 82 

The following people have had their names pulled out of the bag, and will be invited to meet Bill in January, probably in the studio when he is finishing the mini-album: 

Stephen Smith - Hull, Paul Bennett - Swansea, Raymond Caniffi - Greenock, J. Browne - Barnsley, Tony Haine - Stevenage, Jonathan Taylor - Llanelli, Paul Gallen - Coventry, Alistair Patten - Cupar, Glyn Jones - Perth, Steve Hill - Bristol, Anna Dimes - London, Dawn Fisher - Ware.

Blackmail Corner, back again
Now this gem is even earlier than the last, and pre-dates Bebop signing to EMI.
Like the instant beauty spot ? 

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