Acquitted by Mirrors, Issue 7

Bill is working really hard at present as you will see, so the easiest way to get him to tell you all about his Japanese trip was to sit him down with a tape recorder and let him talk:

I went to Japan to play some concerts with Yukihiro Takahashi, the tour was called the "Are you Receiving me" tour and was to promote his new solo album which was called 'Tomorrow is just another day'

I went out on Japan Airlines over the top of the world, via Anchorage in Alaska where they sell the most expensive hot-dogs in the world and where you get shot at by Russians. When we were coming back we stopped in Anchorage again and while we were there the Korean airliner was there as well going in the opposite direction. After we left to go to London the Korean one left on its flight and was then shot down. It was a little close to home.

Anyway I went over and took Leon Phillips with me to look after my guitars, he has been working with me a lot as my engineer on recordings of late and had not been there before. When we got there after the fourteen hour flight we were met by Hiroshi from Staff Gang who were the promoters for the tour. They had got us a flat in Ropongi which is the swingingest place in Tokyo, the place stays awake until 8 am, restaurants and clubs, you can get a drink and food at all hours there. We were put up in a lovely apartment complete with stereo TV set. One channel in Japanese and one in English, they broadcast a lot in stereo, music programmes.

Then having got there I got thrown into everything - The first day of rehearsals I stood up ALL day. The SG guitar that I was playing is quite heavy, and overnight my left foot swelled to enormous proportions very painfully and so next day I could not walk. So for virtually two days afterwards I was lifted around and helped around the place and then I sat down for all the rest of the rehearsals. It was the result of not having stood up on one foot, all day for a long time, operating pedals with one foot and a the weight being on the one shoulder from the guitar strap.

Anyway I had I think twenty songs to learn in the five days rehearsals including inventing parts for some of them. A quite incredible work load. The rehearsals were being held at Alfa Records studios in the 24 track studios and every day they used to give you a cassette at the end of the day of what had been done. So you could go away and listen to your errors. We anyway a couple of days into the rehearsals I was just standing chatting to Leon during a small break on the fifth floor at Alfa, all of a sudden it felt as though someone as wheeling a very heavy flight case cross the wooden floor just behind us. There was this low rumbling and it got more intense, when we looked around we noticed that everyone had disappeared out of the room. The building carried on shaking, and then they realized that we did not know what was happening so they shouted 'Earthquake' at us. When we ran out of the room they were all hiding under the mixing desk. It turned out to be of magnitude 5. The buildings all collapse at magnitude 7, there is no building in Tokyo that will take a 7. That was a 5 and it lasted about 30 seconds. When we knew what it was afterwards it was a strange experience, my heart was pounding quite a bit, it was quite scary Not long after that we had a typhoon. You had to stand at the corners of streets if you were crossing the road and sort of put a leg out to test the wind strength around the corner, to see if you were going to get blown off your feet if you stepped out. There were lots of little people being carried down the street by their umbrellas, flying in the opposite direction to the one they wanted to go in. That did not last very long, it just lasted a couple of days. Both were new experiences to me though.

Another incident was when we played one of the open air gigs, I got stung on the end of my first finger on the left hand, by a mosquito. So by the following concert the end of my finger had swollen up, I was spraying pain killer on it and trying to play as well. Every time I touched it to the metal strings, the pain was.........

Well in all we did five days rehearsals then we did the first gig. It was an open air concert in Hakone, it is rather like a holiday resort in the mountains near Mount Fuji. Hakone is situated by a lake I found it rather like the Lake District in England but much higher up. The lake is full of fantasy boats in the shape of swans and pirate galleons and they are all plying about with holiday makers on. They were large and small boats, there were for example some two men swans. Great! It is surrounded by forest and we played right in the centre in a clearing in the open air to about 7000 people. That was filmed for television and shown a few days later on national TV. Yuki was headlining so we were the headline act, the other bands were all Japanese and it was called Pop '83. We had a hotel to change in, went to the concert and got in a tent to have our pre-gig psych-up did the gig went back to the hotel and had a meal and then drove back to Tokyo. It was about a two hour drive

The line up of the band was Yukihiro Takahashi vocals, keyboards and drums on one number when one of the other guys sang lead, and Yuki played Rhythm guitar on one number as well. Hajimi Tachibana who played saxophone generally and some keyboards. Keichi Suzuki played keyboards. David Palmer played drums. I played guitar and sang - Harry Hosono played at Hakone

When we did a gig it was all very disciplined and thorough, we all had to stick to the rules. The initial preliminary sound check was done by the road crew. Each member of the road crew had to learn who ever he was looking after's parts. So the drum roadie would actually play Yuki's drum parts exactly the same and so on; Leon was supposed to learn my parts but he said .......to that, here' a chord, how loud do you want it... Then when we arrived we did a soundcheck with the musicians . David Palmer and myself were doing most of our parts live, most of the rest was on backing tapes. They had two eight track machines with mix downs of the album tracks, percussion, keyboards and bass, voices etc The real live stuff was guitar because there was no guitar on tape at all and some drum parts. There was a lot of electronic percussion already on the tape plus high hat. The others just played along with themselves on tape. Leon and I had great routine for changing guitars. The show was very tight with about four or five numbers between announcements I had to change guitars like lightening between numbers, there could not be any hanging around waiting for me to change guitars, tune it up, plug it in etc

I had to change guitar all the time because some of the numbers needed E-Bow guitar and some of the numbers needed Fender Stratocaster with tremolo arm. My Yamaha SG that I use for E-Bow does not have a tremolo arm, so where I needed to do something with more plectrum work and extremely bendy solos I would use the Stratocaster. Now whereas in my own sets I always structure the set bearing in mind changes of guitar - obviously as this was not my set it was more important that Yuki's needs were dealt with. Often I was needing to change every number for four numbers at a stretch. I ended up with a very good routine with Leon where he would run onto stage with the guitar and plectrum and drop it into my hand as we swapped guitars. Also we were using radio packs on the guitars so I could spin around on stage and move from one side to the other without having to worry about leads. Everybody else was going to wear headphones , but I find that a little bit claustrophobic on stage so I had to have a monitor speaker and Hovimi the saxophone player also preferred monitors because he dances around so much so he used mine.

The concert at Hakone was on the Saturday, we got in in the early hours of the Sunday and then had a day off. Monday the l5th was the Shibuya Kokaido in Tokyo, one of three concerts we played there. Leon and I went there by taxi, it took about three quarters of an hour because of the traffic. Tuesday 16th was there as well. Then we had a day off and on the 18th we traveled on the bullet train to Osaka. It is about 200 miles south west of Tokyo, near Kyoto. All the musicians went by train, the equipment went by road the day before I imagine. We stayed in Osaka overnight and then traveled back the following day.

Saturday 20th was the last of the concerts and that was at the Shibuya Kokaido again. That was the one at which the accident happened with the TV camera. They were going to video the concert in the evening for another thing, either TV programme or home video. They needed some close ups of musicians on stage and they were concerned that they did not annoy the audience by having lots of cameras on stage during the concert. So during the concert they were going to shoot footage of the audience and the band as seen by the audience. So in the afternoon soundcheck they were going to do all the close ups when the camera men could get on stage. We therefore had to have all the stage costume and make-up on. There was one sequence where we each had to do something silly on our own, without instruments, a silly walk across the stage and so on, I did mine, it was OK. I was the first to go and it went without a hitch. Then everyone else did theirs and as they did them they got sillier and sillier. Yuki did a ludicrously silly one, so they said would I do mine again now. So I was on stage wheeling around and this guy was going in and out with a camera and he was looking through the wide angle lens all the time. That lens gives a very distorted sense of distance and perspective. He did not realize how close he was to me, and he swung his camera and hit me above the left eyebrow. I thought I would have a huge bump and bruise and grabbed my head immediately. When the pain subsided I took my hand away and blood went everywhere. Even then I thought that a bandage would do it and it would be all right. I went down to the dressing room, would not look in a mirror 'cause I get a bit squeamish about those things, the people there looked at it and said Oh my God. You could see the colour drain from their faces it must have been pretty deep. So I was taken off to hospital and had four stitches and a plaster that would absorb make-up, so that they could disguise it as much as possible. Special show biz plasters !! I went back and literally combed my hair and went straight on stage, and played a two hour set. It felt as though someone was sitting on the back of my head hitting me with a hammer. I had a shocking headache. I actually played better at that concert than all the others knowing that it was the last and also that it was under a certain amount of duress.

There was a crazy party at a club called 1999 afterwards, which ended in absolute riots of hilarity. They had this trick - it seemed to be traditional well at least they all knew about it - they produced this tray of probably half a dozen tumblers full to the brim with very large whisky. In those six tumblers was probably more than half a bottle of scotch. The congregation would clap and chant the name of a person. That person had to stand in front of everybody and drink all these glasses as quickly as possible. Whilst others poured ice cold beer down your back. I thought I was going to be left alone but Yuki told me to take my Anthony Price jacket off. My trousers were stiff the following day and so was the shirt.

So all in all we did five concerts and I enjoyed them all enormously. Its funny, I was absolutely terrified at rehearsals, but at the first concert,

the Hokone one, I was bubbling over with adrenaline and enthusiasm and excitement for it. Poor David Palmer had eggs ! and he had rehearsed for days before in England and several days before I got to Tokyo. He constantly had a Walkman about his person with the tracks on and could be seen tapping the fills out on his knees whenever we were not doing anything. Me being older and just having to put my faith in it with just the rehearsal I had done, it was quite a different approach. Funnily enough with all his preparation I think he was far more nervous than I was, and I think that was quite a shock to the rest of the band. During rehearsals when I really was nervous with all the scrutiny that was going on, I was really quiet and introverted about the whole thing. The first gig just because it was in the open air in beautiful surroundings and in front of 7000 people, I just steamed in down the front of the stage, guitar solo, wiped the guitar over the mike stand, and the rest of the band just froze - what's going on ! He's gone mad ! Does he do this all the time ? Hajime loved it, he loves the pose, he came running down the front and blew his saxophone deafeningly in my ear.

The concerts were really enjoyable! the first set of dates I had done with a band since The Practical Dreamers. I had got to the point where there was no attraction in being in a band, on the road, it was a pain the arse. Packing and living out of suitcases. You also get to the stage because of the number of times you have done it that you question whether it is dignified. Going hawking yourself around the country like some kind of musical prostitute. When I got on stage for the first concert that minute I thought Oh yes, I miss this, this is great, this is really nice; and it was much easier than it used to be. When you are young, with BeBop, you take it so seriously it's all so intense- It means so much to have everything just so. When you are younger you are incapable of seeing that its pop music, not art, not classical music, not neurosurgery, pop music is pop music. There is no mystery to it, you should just do it, enjoy it and have a laugh. There are certain elements obviously, of music that I take very seriously. I treated it as fun and was rewarded the same way. If I had got paranoid that I was still bluffing my way through the set three or four gigs in......... After that all the pressure went off and then on again as Yuki and I went to do a single together in Alfa studio A. At the same time I was also writing some lyrics for Sandi and the Sunsets which is possibly going to be called 'Walk Away' That seemed to be the title that I ended up with. Yuki and I co-produced, co-played, co-sang a single together. The B Side is a old Neil Young number which was a relic from both our pasts, a skeleton from mutual closets. A song called 'Helpless' which we still like very much, I think it was on Deja Vu. The way it came about was that one evening we both went for a meal together in a Korean restaurant, the more sake we consumed the more we got into Oldies but Goldies Do you remember the intro to and the bass drum pattern from... So we went through the sixties and seventies recalling the records we grew up with. So we got onto the subject of Neil Young and the first one we were enthusing about was 'Cinammon Girl' Then Helpless suddenly popped up from somewhere and we both thought that that was more adaptable to a modern style. So we did Helpless - I still have to put some guitar on, re-do some synth bits and vocals and mix, here in England. The A side is something we were working on in Tokyo and I am going to write lyrics, vocal melody and various arrangements for synths and guitar I will record the vocals and bits when I have written the lyrics, then send it back to Yuki for him to do vocals and harmonies and mix it there. We have almost used up all the 24 track and so we are going to bounce it onto a 32 track digital machine to give us the extra tracks. I guess it will come out next year by we have both finished it. I enjoyed it a lot there. The Japanese life style and the English one are so different, it is easy to be offended by nothing, there seems to be sometimes a coldness or coolness and a lack of informational exchange. But in fact that is just on the surface. Underneath it there is a lot of warmth and respect. Respect to them is Respect and does not have to be demonstrated too loudly. I went through my normal paranoias, why is no-one talking to me etc , to only find out that they were equally as worried about my reticence. So in the end those things did not really count and underneath there was a very deep respect I feel, on both sides. That started to come home after a week or so. Then once we had got past the hard bit, learning twenty songs in five days it was so enjoyable even before you did it. Going in the studio as well was a luxury, I always feel at home in studios anyway, and we had the best of everything Roland MC4 Micro Composers, Prophets,Yamaha DX Digital Synths. I also had a few days where I got to meet up with other people I know and we got to see a little bit more of Tokyo, we got to see some clubs, meet some people and see their lifestyle. It was a very odd feeling preparing to come home.

Dancing Music

This is not dancing music U will repeat This is not dancing Music This is just off-beat Here we go...oh,oh Quick, quick, slow,oh,oh Here we go...oh,oh Quick, Quick, slow, yea,yea,yea...! In extremes I can be Totally discreet Just relax Trust in me Try to be oblique Here we go....oh,oh Quick,quick,slow..oh,oh This is not dancing music This is just off-beat This is not normal music If I could repeat... This is not dancing music This is just white heat No, this is not dancing music No more time for me to prove it In your head you're dancing to it !

The world and his wife

Behind the red curtain where nothing is sure or certain two chairs and one table a place by the fire light enters the hallway from windows whose views are always like facets in jewels too perfect to lose.... The world and his wife are home tonight alone in their living room they send their regards the world and his wife are listening to rain on windows closing the door on the night closing the door on the night Time winds up its staircase Ascends to the stairs or someplace beyond the first landing at the top of the stairs sleep waiting in the bedroom the windows here frame a full moon like clockwork at midnight a clock strikes the hour......

Mr Magnetism himself

Who's the man with I.C. eyes.? Mr. Magnetism himself Never lives and never dies...? Mr. Magnetism himself Ever detail realistic.......? Mr. Magnetism himself Say hello to the scientific..? Mr. Magnetism himself Who's super cool, who's hyperactive? Who's got the power to remain attractive ? Who's heart of gold never skips a beat ? Who makes me feel obsolete ? Mr. Magnetism himself Purpose built and anti-static It's Mr. Magnetism himself Irresistible and enigmatic It's Mr. Magnetism himself I'm sure he's got a vital spark somewhere I'm not invited to touch him there But I could pull the plug on him Oh yes I could, and I would 'Cos I couldn't care less Oh Yes I could and I would, but I won't Who's the man with perpetual motion..? Mr. Magnetism himself Who never needs the sun tan lotion...? Mr. Magnetism himself

Savage Gestures for Charms Sake

A six track mini album, this is being released as a result of all your letters about tracks that have been listed after recording - but never been released. We are seizing the contractual lull and getting on with it. Five come from "The Love that Whirls" era and one from "Quit Dreaming and get on the Beam" Titles are: The Man in the rexine suit, The Meat Room, Narcosis, Another Happy Thought (carved for ever in your cortex) and Portrait of Jan with Moon and Stars - all TLTWI and 'Watching my Dream Boat go down in Flames' from QDAGOTB

Watching my Dream Boat... the basic track is a loop that was recorded in The Echo Observatory on four track, which I chopped into a loop of tape about four or five foot ong and we took into the Stones Mobile and strung between a tape-recorder and a microphone stand so that it would play eternally and transferred it onto a 24 track and then I overdubbed E-bow guitar. Before you all write in the other thing you ought to know is that Rexine is a kind of leatherette, a kind of artificial vinyl textured stuff. I do not think that anyone ever made rexine suits, rexine was used for covering chairs and tables in the fifties. It was one of those earlier washable man made fabrics, stiff and textured like orange peel. On that track there are what appear to be New York street noises and car horns - they are not, they are all a mini moog. All the tracks are of course instrumentals

NEWS TIME

As it is not so long ago since the last magazine there is less general news for us to tell you. As we go to press there is no final decision as to the major label deal - yet. We seem to have narrowed it down to a choice between two labels. We will see what happens over the next couple of weeks. All this makes planning for the next six months hard, as each decision rests on a previous one. It looks unlikely at this moment that Bill will be able to put a new band together this side of Christmas. So our plans for an Autumn tour fade gently away. At present we are planning to record in January '84 and to do so with a band. We could the then tour afterwards UK, USA, Canada, Japan and maybe Europe as well. We can but hope.

After Bill has finished his parts on the Yuki/Bill single he goes back in the studio to finish mixing The Units album for release next year. They should have a mini album out in the USA some time soon with one of Bill's tracks called 'More Alike' and a NY club mix of it done by Ivan

With this magazine you should also have a card to reserve you a copy of Bill's box set that he has alluded to before. Called 'Sensoria(the book of Splendours)' You can reserve a copy with no obligation to buy if you return the card within the next two weeks. It gives us an idea of how many to reserve for you from the limited edition

Contrary to the statements in the last two mags. This issue should include your '83 membership card. Please write your name in and the number that appears on the label of your envelope. That is your membership number and please use it if you write or order. Its helps me decipher your scrawl sometimes. All '83 members who were not '82 members will also have received the club badge, if all has worked according to plan. If anyone has lost their badge and wants another please send 50p for the replacement. OK ?

Jive Records released a remix of 'Talking' by the Seagulls that Bill had produced for their last album. Bill did not have time to do it as he was part way through the Units album at the time. I have not heard it yet so I cannot comment on the job the engineer did.

Your second club EP of '83 should be somewhere inside this package in one piece, the three songs come from the Quit Dreaming era and have not been available on anything before. Bill plays all instruments except Ian on Sax.

I hope you watched Riverside recently, try writing to the and asking them to show some of the Bill/Yukihiro concerts: BBC TV, Wood Lane, LDNDON W12.

Blackmail Corner. We show the photos that time wishes to forget. Early BeBop Deluxe here in all their period costume. No freaks Eh ?

It is now looking very likely that Bill will be giving a lecture on the subject of J. Cocteau at Canterbury College of Art on the 10th November. It is to be filmed for public showing later. I will try and arrange a club get together in December and let you see the Japanese concert video as well. Is this a good idea? Further details in a separate mailing.

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