Richard Archer [Hard-Fi]

I interviewed Richard Archer the singer/songwriter of HARD-FI by telephone from Japan on 30 June, 2006. He was in a café at London's Heathrow airport, having breakfast.

CBL: Hello...

Archer: Colin?

CBL: Yeh, hi Rich.

Archer: Hi mate. How ya doing?

CBL: Good. I hear you're at the airport.
Archer: Yeh, we're sat in a cafe trying to get some breakfast down before they call the flight on us in about 5 minutes. It’s a little bit tight.

CBL: Where you headed?

Archer [aside]: You've got to eat, haven't you. We're going to Berlin actually for the Argentina Germany game.

CBL: That's on in a few hours.

Archer: Yeh, so that should be quite exciting. We're in Belgium for the England game. So, there you go. You can't complain.

CBL: Well, wish them luck. Anyway, I'd like to say I was really impressed by the album and I consider myself a fan now.

Archer: Thank you. Thank you very much.

CBL: Right, so, it stood out a lot from a lot of the other records I've been listening to and it sounded quite different at first.

Archer: There are some great British bands out at the moment but there isn't much of a sound. It's like a guitar band. Sometimes you can hear a real comparison to Libertines to Arctic Monkeys, there is a common thing. Whereas we were always more dance music, reggae, so we would never try to be part of a scene or anything like that. So we sort of stuck out because of the music and that's been the continuing of the result.

CBL: I get the impression that a lot of the other bands are very historically aware of the music, like Franz Ferdinand, there seem very. clear references to 1980s bands like Magazine and so on. You're music when I heard it - at first - it was very hard to pin down, then, of course, I started to figure out the reggae, dub, ska thing, but its not so obvious.

Archer: We sort of sat there - thanks very much - we sort of sat there and didn't want to kind of like this, "Let's do a ska number." It was more like the spirit that influenced it rather than... Why try to recreate something like that because you're never going to be able to better it. It's kind of like a moment in time....so we kind of listened to a track and said, “Woah, that'll work...but just because we might use a reggae-type bass line, it doesn't mean that we have to have a reggae drumbeat. Why can't we play it over a drum and bass feel or something like this. At the time our plan was to release a record on our own very small label - Necessary Records and we weren't really thinking…

[untranscribed segment]

We weren't sat there thinking “What's hot at the moment there in London, and what's going on?” Rather we were doing what we liked, trying things out. We try out a lot of things. A lot of them are rubbish. A lot of things don't work. But occasionally you come up with something that sounds really cool.

CBL: I also got the impression that a lot of the quality of the music comes from the lyrics I mean…you alright there?

Archer: I think we were just then writing songs about what our own lives, and what we saw around us, what we saw in our friends lives. What we saw on the TV. “Middle Eastern Holiday” was written back in the day when the Iraqi war had officially finished and six military policemen were murdered by a mob in Basra. People say, “You know that could be me. That could be my mate.” And it starts making you think in a different way. You stop seeing it in black and white, and start thinking, “What if I was out there? I would be scared shitless.” Both sides should be at home doing what you are doing going out, washing your car.

CBL: Especially the circumstances in that particular case. I remember reading about that. It was a real cock up by the British army as usual.

Archer: Yeh, yeh. That was where we were at. We were trying to take it from thinking about people just like us. We've never seen ourselves like… You do get certain people, especially in the music industry thinking like they've got a superiority thing, where they think they're better than other people, to say “You don't read the right books, you don't wear the right clothes, you don't hang out at the right places, you don't know the right people, you ain't got the right haircut.” We've never been like that. My thing is you're cool because you follow your own path and you do what you want to do and you don't let other people influence you in doing what they think you should do. We've always tried to reach out for the ordinary people, the people who are just like us. Most people are just ignored. They are just sort of force fed what people want them to have, and they have to take it, and that's wrong. If people are not like the front page of the latest style mag or whatever, they're still the same to us....We've sold a million records and we've done five nights at the Brixton Academy, which no other band has done except for The Clash, Bob Dylan, Massive Attack and the Prodigy, and we've done all those things and yet we've never had an NME front cover, and like the NME's always cool with us but we were never one of those charming [around] with the press, so it always surprised people that we have been as successful as we are. We've bypassed those people and reached the real people out there.

CBL: I think the way it works is because you don't follow the crowd…and so you’re different. If you're different, you stand out and people notice you more. That seems to be working in your favour. Most bands are a bit arty farty aren't they?

Archer: Yeh, yeh. Always amazes me. What's so arty, what's so cutting edge? All these sort of art school bands that ever appear, they're so cutting edge: “Check this out - we've got drums, guitar, a bass, and a singer and we're going to play music that sounds like it was written 25 years ago.” Why is that so much more new and groundbreaking and cool, because you know it isn't. It's just like rehashing something.

CBL: I kind of see that in class terms, because that kind of attitude that you're describing there is a kind of a middle class thing and your music's much more of a working class thing. It's gritty and natural and saying what it means.

Archer: Yeh, I think so. It's always a kind of weird one when you start talking about class. We want to appeal to everyone. We don't want to appeal to just the working class. But a lot of people can identify us with that. But at the end of the day that's where we come from. We've never sat there ... That's the way it is. [to waitress] OK, thank you.

CBL: So, anyway, have you been to Japan before?

Archer: Yes, we have actually. We were there in November for a flying visit. We were there for a week. Had a great time, actually. One of those things where - we did a show in Tokyo and we did a show in Osaka, and. amazing, it was like another world, but similar in many ways. But a lot of people were saying that the crowds would be very polite, y’know, and they'll clap between the songs, and be aware of that. When we played Tokyo, the moment we hit the first chord the place erupted, it went crazy - quite like [gatrbled]

CBL: Yeh, it's quite different from the UK, anyway. For one thing there's not so many CCTVs hanging around spying on people.

Archer: Yeh, that's one of the things we've kind of found as we've been around lately is that people don't actually know what we're talking about in that respect. It has become a massive part of their lives. I'm sure it will at some stage. [garbled] That's our guitarist jamming in my ear.

CBL: In the wider social content. what do you think the advent of the CCTV camera symbolizes? ...Did you get that?

Archer: I think for me, it's always been about saving money. It's cheaper to get someone to look at 20 screens in a room than it is to actually say, “We're going to get enough policemen. We're going get them out of their fast car, and we're going to get them to actually reintegrate with the community to be…to go out there are talk to people and have a relationship with them. Rather than be like this kind of distant authoritarian force. Maybe you can stop things before they happen, rather than look at things on tape afterwards. But that costs money and takes time and it’s easier to put up new cameras and then deal with it later. The UKs always been about saving money, kind of a cheap fix.

CBL: Yeh, cutting corners. Yeh, one of the reasons they don't need to do that in Japan… Japan has much less crime and a lot less violence for sure. One reason they don't have to do that is because a lot of people share the same values. It's all soft power. In the UK, everybody's a bit different, right, and that creates a lot of aggro, and everybody's got their own agenda, and so society can't use that kind of soft power to keep everybody gently in line like what they do in Japan... did you hear that?

Archer: Sorry, I lost you on that last bit.

CBL: Yeh, I'm just saying that the main difference that I've detected is that in Japan they use a kind of soft social power. People usually share more or less the same values and so on, and in the UK it's much more diverse, and so that creates all these… Nobody really knows what's right and what's wrong anymore. You know what I mean?

Archer: I can see that. We kind of noticed that when we were there. Everyone has a lot more respect for each other, and so a lot of the situations don't arise. It's funny how one of the most technologically advanced nations on the planet doesn't need to rely on technology for keeping the streets safe or whatever.

CBL: So far you've been writing your songs very directly from your experience from where you've lived, and now with the success, you're lifestyle's changed a lot...

Archer: I'm still living in the house I've been living in for a lot of my life actually through various circumstances.

CBL: Yeh?

Archer: The thing is to try and remain in touch with the people who are your audience, your fans. A lot of what we done has always been out and about [garbled] People are so made up. It sort of gives them hope. It shows that it can be done. A lot of the songs were written while we were still trying to get this record out. It took so long to come out We did it ourselves but it was a lot of hard work.

CBL: Yeh.

Archer: I was writing all that time.

CBL: So, you're going to stay in Staines? You're not going to do a Billy Bragg and move out to some mansion in the country, are you?

Archer: Well right now, I'm still Staines. It's handy for the airport.

CBL: Yeh – aha!

Archer: It just takes 10 minutes. You're home in 10 minutes. No plans to move yet.

CBL: It fits in quite well, then.

Archer: Yeh - all my life I'm trying to get out of it. Now, when I'm away, I miss it and realize that it's quite convenient.

CBL: I was reading a piece in the Guardian about you opening pubs with the mayor and giving beer to a horse. Is this a kind of anti-rock star kind of thing?

Archer: Pub near the producer [garbled]… I had to jump on a plane and go and do a TV show in France, but all my mates could get drunk. There you go. Those are the breaks.

CBL: OK right, It's been very nice speaking to you Richard, thank you very much. That should be plenty to work with. Thanks.

Archer: yes thanks mate, I'm sorry it’s been a little bit noisy cafe.

CBL: Yeh, hopefully I'll remember most of it if the tapes a bit dodgy. OK cheers.

Archer: I'll hopefully see you. I think we're in Japan in September.

CBL: I'll be here. I'll be back from my Summer holidays. It's so bloody hot here.

Archer: Wow, I bet.

CBL: It's the wrong kind of hot. It's humid. You're coming at a good season. September , it's a good time to come here.

Archer: [garbled] Yeh, I'll see you then.

CBL: OK. Nice speaking to you. Right, take care. Goodbye.

Archer: Thanks Colin. OK.

Tomotaka Yasui, sculptor

I interviewed the artist Tomotaka Yasui on the 6th of November, 2008. The interview took place at the tiny Megumi Ogita Gallery and lasted about an hour. The interview is transcribed from handwritten notes and may include some slight inaccuracies.


CBL: About how many of your works are women, children, and animals?

TY: About 80% have been women. Recently I’ve started making children and objects like shoes.

CBL: Is this an attempt to diversify and offer more options to collectors?

TY: Well, maybe, but even with the smaller items, I’m still using the same processes and materials and that takes much time.

CBL: Can you tell me about the materials and methods you use?

TY: The first stage is I use clay to make an initial figure. I then make a mould round this using plaster. After I peel off the plaster moulds, the important stage for me begins. I make an urushi [lacquer] mixture and put this inside the two halves of the mould and reinforce this with linen. I do this 5 or 6 times. Then, I put the two halves together and take off the plaster. The material is a bit rough so I sandpaper it. I think it’s like making a car body. Next I put urushi painting on the surface and sometimes mother-of-pearl. I put white urushi paint on the surface as a background to the other colours. To get the texture of the hair, I mix sand into the paint. The eye is marble and obsidian.

CBL: Is this figure modelled on a specific person?

TY: No. At first I used models, but now I don’t directly use a model. But sometimes I check the parts I want to use and combine them.

CBL: What about the shiny boots?

TY: I use metallic powder in the paint. In this case I think it was bronze. This is a maki-e technique.

CBL: You use traditional Japanese techniques. Why?

TY: Before I used plastic paint, but I feel this stops things too much. Once painted, it doesn’t change. Urushi is breathing.

CBL: You mean artificial or chemical paints are dead?

TY: Well, dead is a little bit strong, but everything is too fixed. It’s too much for me. With urushi we can enjoy change.

CBL: Yes, “change” is very important. So, urushi is kind of fuzzy or flexible?

TY: Yes, that’s it. It’s flexible.

CBL: I’d like to ask you why you chose to work in sculptures of women?

TY: I was born in Belgium and I also lived in Israel. I was always looking at foreign people. It wasn’t easy to find Japanese people. For me foreign people were very interesting, their atmosphere…

CBL: But your figures are Japanese people.

TY: I like the shape of foreign people, but it’s very far for me. I like Western fashion but now I’m very interested in the Asian shape. I don’t put them in kimonos. The fashion is foreign style.

CBL: In this case the fashion looks very 1960s, what with the short skirt, boots, etc.

TY: I like the old things, old designs, old fashions…

CBL: So the 1960s is ancient! When you lived overseas and there weren’t many other Japanese people, did you feel a kind of loneliness?

TY: At first. If I had Japanese people, I think I would always talk with Japanese friends, but there weren’t. But I learned a lot from meeting and talking to foreign people.

CBL: Did you feel something was missing? I mean it’s interesting that you mainly do figures of women. Why don’t you do figures of men?

TY: I like balance. I like the women’s balance.

CBL: Is it because the male figure is top heavy compared to women where the centre of gravity is lower down?

TY: Yes, that’s a big reason. In the future I want to challenge male figures, but first I need to do lots of sketching. I don’t have the experience of sketching men.

CBL: So, before you start working in 3-D, you explore the form in 2-D. Is there a difference of feeling when you make figures of women and figures of animals?

TY: Animals don’t talk, so it’s not easy to communicate with words. It’s not so far. Women have more character.

CBL: Do you sometimes feel that she might wake up, like Pygmalion, the story from Greek legend about a sculptor who fell in love with his statue and prayed to Zeus to make her real?

TY: I don’t know that story, but I don’t think so. I don’t imagine any narrative. My image is more about silence, no meaning…

CBL: But when we see these life-sized, semi-realistic figures we can’t stop psychologically reacting to them like other people – at least in part. They spark off certain natural responses. For example this figure of the child here, you feel like patting it on the head or, if you’re Italian, maybe pinching her cheeks.

TY: I live in the city. Tokyo is very special. Everything is moving fast. The action is positive, but I don’t think every movement is positive. Sometimes stopping, not thinking is also important.

CBL: So these works are saying that stillness and silence are important.

TY: Yes, but when I made these I had to move around them a lot.

CBL: You had to dance around it! Because of the poker-faced expressions, the lacquer coating, the hidden hands, the figures seem to be avoiding contact, avoiding communication.

TY: But this is my style of communicating. If I didn’t want to communicate, I wouldn’t put on this show.

CBL: So, it’s communicating by not communicating. You’re trying to communicate. What are you trying to communicate?

TY: Everyday is very fast, let’s slow down. Let’s cool it. Change of pace is very important. In Tokyo I always see things accelerating like this [makes upward slashes with his hand]. I want to get away from always moving, and express silence and stillness.

CBL: Human relationships are complex and often noisy with arguments, misunderstandings, awkward emotions, etc. Your figures almost seem to represent a desire, a wish for that kind of relationship to be simplified and made into a kind of icon. Your figures may remind some people of the otaku culture, in which people who have difficulty dealing with real relationships are attracted to virtual relationships or relationships with objects that they can control. How does your art fit into the otaku culture?

TY: I’m not interested in the otaku culture.

CBL: Are you negative about otaku culture?

TY: Otaku was a discriminatory term in Japan. At first I didn’t like it, but now the meaning of otaku is changing. But, anyway, I don’t express otaku culture. I express ancient Egyptian or Buddhist artistic ideas through my sculpture. This is nearer for me.

CBL: Egypt is nearer for you! Interesting! I notice you don’t mention ancient Greek sculpture. I guess that’s because it has this feeling of motion which you don’t like.

TY: I think Greek sculpture is very far. Egypt is nearer because the form is not so realistic.

CBL: Well, realism means less freedom because your art becomes tied to the reality of the work. You have to serve the reality. Stylization gives you more freedom to do things as an artist your own way. Is that how it is for you?

TY: I suppose so.

CBL: How about other Japanese artists who have worked in human figures, like Simon Yotsuya and Katusra Funakoshi? Are there any affinities there?

TY: Funakoshi and Yotsuya are very different from me. I think one expresses otaku and the other the more traditional and European style of sculpture. He’s a Catholic, isn’t he?

CBL: The interesting point is that you were born overseas and have lived there for some years, but you don’t express this more traditional, European style.

TY: I don’t express my experience of living overseas in the European shape, but it was very important for me because it enabled me to see Japanese culture from outside. I could compare European and Japanese. Also I was influenced by Western fashions. Japanese fashion is difficult for me.

CBL: Did living overseas make you feel more Japanese?

TY: For me it’s difficult. I live in Jaoan and I now feel very Japanese. In Europe it was sometimes very difficult to speak, but I didn’t feel so different. Sometimes I wonder where my country is. I feel because my wife is Japanese… When she was small, she played Japanese children’s games, which I missed. Sometimes she says, “Why don’t you about this game?”

CBL: With your art, which uses traditional Japanese techniques, expresses Japanese artistic concepts, and which is focused on the physical type of Japanese women, I get the feeling that your art is a kind of coming back to Japan, a kind of homecoming.

TY: Now in foreign countries, all people hear about is otaku culture. I want to introduce other aspects of Japanese culture to other countries, Japanese style, Japanese atmosphere. Atmosphere is an easy word to say, but I guess I mean silence.

CBL: In a way, although your art may superficially look otaku, it’s actually quite the opposite, quite old fashioned and traditional.

TY: I think otaku people are the same age as me and I also sometimes play video games, but only for a few years. When I was growing up, while my friends were playing their computer games, I was going to Kyoto.

Tadao Ando, architect

In December 2006, I contacted the office of the renowned architect Tadao Ando in connection with an article I was writing on the new Tokyo Midtown project – a mixed-use high-rise building set in parkland, in which Ando had designed a small, free-standing exhibition facility, called 21_21 Design Site. After a few calls and emails, I got the following answers from the architect.

CBL: Tell me about your architectural brief for this project?

TA: This is a building providing exhibition spaces for “design” that will be built in the open space of the large redevelopment district in midtown Tokyo. The concept is that we should have an insight into the power of “design” that enriches our daily life and I thus aimed to create a new place of culture for the new century in Japan. Here “design” means the activities that discover new sights and thoughts and express surprise and emotion, in an effort to convey them to the general people. This building is required to house an impressive space for these activities as well as for new encounters and dialogue.

CBL: Where did you get the inspiration for the building’s design?

TA: The design of this building is based on Issei Miyake's idea of 'a piece of cloth': it is 'a sheet of steel'. One single sheet of steel measuring over 50 meters in length was used for the roof. This required a high level of technical skill and the spirit of the people working on the project and the strength of their desire for making things was the secret to our success.

CBL: What is the concept of the opening exhibition?

TA: For the special opening program, I wish not only express my own ideas, but also to show the high level of technical expertise and spirit of the Japanese people. I aim this building to become a place where visitors can find their own potential.

Vivienne Westwood, fashion designer

I attended a press conference at the Mori Arts Center Gallery, Tokyo, on the 22nd of November, 2005, to introduce an exhibition celebrating the career of Vivienne Westwood. While she was taking questions from the Japanese press through interpreters, I was able to ‘buttonhole’ the famous fashion designer and ask her a few questions. Immediately before I spoke to her, she had been talking about ‘propaganda’ and the way people’s minds are overloaded and distracted.

Loren Coleman, cryptozoologist

Loren Coleman is a well-known 'cryptozoologist' and expert on suicide behaviour. He is the author of several books, including "The Field Guide to Bigfoot and Other Mystery Primates" and "The Copycat Effect." I interviewed him by telephone in his office in Portland, Maine, on the 26th of February, 2008, and spoke to him for 34 minutes. Following his request, I also 'cleaned up' the interview.


CBL: Regarding cryptozoology, most people's first idea is that Japan is such a crowded island that it would be unlikely to find new and undiscovered forms of life. What do you think about that?

LC: Well, I think that your assumption that you're repeating from the general public is true, but I'm well aware that there are different cryptozoological reports from Japan, and there has been down through the years.

CBL: But what about the perception that Japan is this very overcrowded island, so that everything that is there should be known by now? Do you think that holds up?

LC: Well, I think that even most Americans now understand that there's different parts of Japan. There's urban centers in Japan and then there's more wild areas that cryptids like the Honshu Wolf, the Hibagon, and the Tsuchinoko could still exist in. It may be a misperception among people who aren't well educated that Japan is overly crowded, but most North Americans understand that Japan is very diverse.

CBL: Living here, that's my perception, that there are places that are, as people expect, very, very crowded, but there are also other areas that are almost completely left alone, and then there's also the aspect of ocean life with the very deep waters around Japan, so there is a lot of room for the unexpected to occur.

LC: All of the legends from the Devil's Triangle and sea serpents to ships missing and different things like that are pretty well known too.

CBL: I'm also interested in the factors that determine which creatures are not fully known, not just physical factors like environment, like having a large unexplored area in which to live and hide, but cultural factors. Often, you might get cryptids living in areas next to communities that are maybe not so developed scientifically, or which have a certain kind of culture or mythology, which, in a way, helps that animal to remain partly known but not completely known.

LC: Well. I think that's very true. I mean you have the Ainu, a dying native people of Japan, and I think, even among Japanese, the folklore of the Ainu is relatively unknown, but you come across some parts of their folklore. American culture, European culture, and Japanese culture can make their own assumptions about what’s there, even though to the Ainu, it may have a completely different meaning.

CBL: Western scientific based culture has this urge to classify and specify things, and some other cultures don’t have that. They're maybe more happy to allow something to have a peripheral existence and not to be brought into focus, to sort of exist in the corner of our eye.

LC: Well, that's very true. What you state about Western culture may look scientific from the outside, but from my fifty years of being involved, there are just as many Americans that will say silly things like the reason we don't know about Big Foot is because they can become invisible or that they're practicing telepathy. So I think even within the strict, more scientific American culture, you'll often get these very borderline kind of theories that have nothing to do with bio-science. When we go to Japan and try to study something like the kappa, imp-like creatures who live in lakes and rivers, the question is are they part of folklore or are they real animals that haven't been discovered? And I think the unfortunate thing that most ethnocentric cultures do is that they try to put their own values on another culture.

CBL: That's also a problem with cryptozoology in Japan. Comparatively recently Japan adopted our Western scientific approach to things. Less than two hundred years ago they had a completely different culture, which was much more based upon traditional ideas of animism and mythology, so a lot of times in Japan, you're dealing with folklore or mythology, rather than cryptozoology, aren't you?

LC: Oh definitely. I studied the whole period from 1945 to about 1950 in Japan, where a lot of their science fiction and a lot of their cryptozoology overlapped, so that most of the explanations had to do with the atomic bomb and radiation and mutation. So that very harsh period of the post war in many ways transferred from that calmer, mythological, spiritual sense of these creatures into where we have today. The whole tradition of Godzilla really comes out of that, that these aren't creatures that were cryptic. They're more creatures that were produced by atomic and hydrogen bombs.

CBL: So that gets in the way of finding and identifying new species and creates that cultural space for them to hide.

LC: Right. I've actually had two groups of Japanese cryptozoological researchers come over and visit me, and what I notice is that they came out of a UFO-based/ mutation kind of framework before they were really cryptozoologists. The extra-terrestrial, 1947-kind-of flying saucer culture seems to have taken hold in Japan before the cryptozoological framework.

CBL: Generally, there's a lot of fascination with that aspect, for example, the very large pictograms at Nazca is something they're very interested in. They're always looking for a greater significance to the universe, so there's a great hunger for those kinds of theories, no matter how outlandish.

LC: From my understanding of Japan those kind of outlandish theories, including the existence of the island of Mu and the ancient astronaut theory, are very interesting for them, so, to try to talk to them about abominable snowmen or sea serpents or lake monsters has really been an uphill battle. But on the other hand the Japanese were one of the first people to go over to over to Loch Ness with submarines. So, that's the other side of Japanese culture. They tend to really use technology. They were, in some ways, in the forefront of using technology to try to understand cryptids in a way that only Americans and British and Scottish people caught up to later.

CBL: Getting away from folklore and myth and focusing on the evidence that there is something that hasn't really been fully discovered, what do you think are the most realistic candidates for something to actually be discovered later in Japan?

LC: I think that the Japanese universe of cryptids is a really interesting thing. It goes all the way from the Hibagon, which is this ape-like creature that's supposed to haunt the mountains, as being very unlikely, all the way to the Tsuchinoko, which are the small, normal-sized snakes that seem to be vipers and venomous. Some of those stories seem to be much more realistic with good eye-witness accounts and officials interested in them, and hunts being organized. There are even some old drawings and the possibility that in the 17th century there may actually have been some captured and mentioned in scientific journals in Japan. Then there are populations of wolves on certain islands, that may actually be 'extinct' wolf species that are still surviving. So I feel there is a real continuum in the accounts that I hear about from Japan, all the way from the fantastic and creatures like kappa that really don’t have any tangible evidence, all the way to the wolves and snakes which may actually exist.

CBL: The ones that are more likely to exist are usually the less interesting ones, aren't they?

LC: Right. The lesser cryptids don't get all of the publicity, but they're actually the ones that are probably much more realistic.

CBL: With the Hibagon, that sounds like a local version of the Yeti. It's like they heard about the Big Foot and the Yeti and they've transposed that to Japan in some way. Then there's a lake monster down in Kagoshima, in Lake Ikeda, which sounds very similar to Nessie.

LC: Right. Very much so. I think that there's a lot of copycat syndrome that goes on, where people really see there's a lot of excitement about Big Foot or the Yeti. They hear different things and they kind of localize it. Actually there was a very famous movie "Half Human" made in 1957 that was supposedly about the Yeti in Japan. It was by Ishiro Honda, who went on to do Godzilla later. But his first film that he did, his first science fiction film, was about a Yeti in Japan.

CBL: Certainly since the Meiji revolution, Japan has wholesale imported technologies and mythologies, things like Christmas and Halloween, so I wouldn't be surprised by that. It's just interesting how they sometimes give it a local twist. Changing the subject, you're also very well known for your work on copycat suicides and cults, both areas that have relevance to Japan, which, as you no doubt know, is the leading country in the world for internet suicide groups.

LC: Right, in my book I did include some cults, where people would go to certain beaches and kill themselves. Some of those cultic kind of suicides have certainly occurred in Japan.

CBL: Yes, it's interesting that they do have certain areas where suicides actually go to kill themselves, and one of them is in the vicinity of Mt. Fuji. Those remote, isolated, romantic-sounding places often attract this kind of behaviour.

LC: In my book, I do a whole section on Japanese places that are very special, like Saipan, where there were lots of suicides right after the war, and I do talk about the forests around Mt. Fuji, which increasingly have suicides occur there, so much so that according to some research I did, the police have to go in there and remove bodies once in while.

CBL: You mention suicides in Saipan after the war? Can you tell me a bit more about that?

LC: Americans may over-dramatize the suicides that occurred when the war was ending, the whole business about shame and losing face, but what I bring up to date in the book is that many relatives, after the war, would take boat tours to Saipan, they would take the boats over there and kill themselves by jumping off the cliffs. So it continued after the war. That's the special-ness of the places that I was reffering to around Mt. Fuji and around Saipan. It's still seen as a place to go and kill yourself.

CBL: So, why do you think they would do that? What would be their motivation to actually go to the location?

LC: There were special places around the World, like Golden Gate Bridge. Fifty per cent of the people who die on the Golden Gate Bridge have to cross the Bay Bridge to get there. They don’t jump off the Bay Bridge. They go across, because it's the magnetism of certain areas and sites that for no rational reason they just become fixated on. There's places in England like that. There's a bridge in Quebec. In other words, there are just these locations, usually like cliffs and bridges and mountains, that become special in this way. There's a definite connection to height of the places.

CBL: I guess with the Golden Gate Bridge, it has a connotation of the kind of golden gates of heaven, as well, for a lot of people.

LC: It's a very beautiful place to die, according to the way people who have survived to talk about it. You're standing on the bridge. You look out over the ocean. It's just extremely beautiful, and when you're in so much pain that you want to die, you want to die beautifully I guess.

CBL: But with the suicides in Saipan after the war, there it sounds like they wanted to be with the people who were dead already.

LC: Right. That was more the connection to ancestors. That's very much a cultural thing that I deal with in the book. I think harakiri has been overblown in American culture and we don't really understand it, but deep down underneath it, there is a sense of shame and honor and a connection to ancestors that certainly is very prevalent in Japanese culture. For Japanese, it's very much connected.

CBL: It's also due to differing religious views as well, because the traditional view in Western society is that if you die you go somewhere. Maybe in Japan it's a bit different because of the animism. Maybe there's a lingering belief that you don't actually go anywhere. You just hang around, usually at the place where you left your body. I mean, that's very apparent at funerals. When people go to funerals here, after they come back, people throw salt at them to scare off the spirits of the dead who might have followed them home.

LC: I see. Well, I think the other extreme American view is that suicide is sinful, and I think it's certainly my understanding of the Japanese culture that it's not put in those harsh religious tones.

CBL: Now, in your work on the copycat effect, did you come across things like the otaku culture and the hikikomori phenomenon?

LC: I'm not sure. I might have written about them in a different way.

CBL: Well the hikikomori, they're basically people who disconnect themselves from society in Japan, and they do that in the most obvious sort of way, which is to stay in their rooms and to exist in a virtual world of computer games or whatever, so as to just not deal with other people. There are variations of that. For example, there's also something called sotokomori, which are Japanese people who actually go overseas because living overseas disconnects them from society also. It's all connected to the otaku culture which is people who become obsessive about something, something like computer games or comics. Also, another aspect of the otaku culture is the internet and communicating in a virtual way and then that kind of feeds into things like internet suicide clubs as well.

LC: No, I did not specifically get into that. In many ways, while the book came out in 2004 and though it was really written in 2003, I noticed that there had been this whole explosion of the internet suicide phenomenon after the book came out. But the otaku culture sounds like most writers that I know. In my book, I talked about the 1986 wave of suicides connected to a Japanese singing idol, Yukiko Okada, where she climbed to the 7th floor of her recording studio building and jumped off, and that led to a wave of suicides of teenagers jumping off buildings. That was an example of the more or less traditional suicidal cult caused by a lot of media fanning the flames of what was going on. Then I also wrote about the kamikaze, a form of suicide that was really in many ways classic brainwashing, where they were taken to certain islands to be indoctrinated.

CBL: Do you think there's something in Japanese culture or society that makes them susceptible to that kind of group nihilism?

LC: No. I think that that's cultural bias, I really do. I think there's just as much in Western countries. I mean Heaven's Gate and the Solar Order of the Solar Temple, and so on. There was even Jonestown, the phenomenon of African Americans in the San Francisco area moving to South America committing mass suicide. So I think that in almost any culture you can find a portion of the population that certainly will go in the direction of giving the control of their lives to someone else. I write about that in my cultic copycat chapter, where it really is those people who are often vulnerable and may have committed suicide on their own, who decide to do it as a group.

CBL: So the factors that determine it - apart from something like the kamikaze thing, which was tied to exigencies of the war - are that certain people are predisposed to suicide and that when they get into a group, that just triggers it off, and that is something that could happen anywhere.

LC: Right, it can happen anywhere. It can be very self-reinforcing, once you’re in that cult.

CBL: Right now, the example I'm aware of is in Wales, the town of Bridgend, there seem to be a lot of teenagers who seem to be behaving in this way, copying each other and committing suicide.

LC: Yes, exactly. I was actually interviewed by "The Independent" and "The Times" about that, and I've been in the papers quite a bit because they are now blaming the media for everything that's going on. The parents are erupting and yelling at the media people as they're coming round, so in Wales, the situation has really got out of hand.

CBL: But of course there are certain factors in cultures and societies that can actually reinforce this sort of inherent tendency among certain groups. Like in Japan, for example, the fact that they do have this otaku culture which encourages people to associate through the internet or not at all must be a reinforcing factor.

LC: Certainly in any culture you'll find certain mean behaviors, I mean average behaviors, and outside of those you'll tend to find individuals being reinforced in their tendency to suicide. One of the major morbid factors is isolation. If you have a culture or part of a culture that is reinforcing isolation that can strengthen this tendency. Also, as I said before, one of the things you've got going in Japan is that they are very culturally aware and technologically tuned in, so, if you have a culture that is wiring itself to the internet and reinforcing isolation, you may slowly get a higher rate of suicides that are quote unquote, "caused by internet communication." The copycat factor there can be quite high. I've seen waves of it going through England and certainly even some of the classic examples from America, where, after Marilyn Monroe died, a hundred-and-ninety-seven women killed themselves. We've also seen that with Kurt Cobain. And now you can see that in the internet age when certain methods, for example the use of charcoal grills inside automobiles, has been reinforced and spread by people talking about it on the internet. In Asia there are also texts being produced on how to do it. The instantaneous communication of the Internet certainly lends itself to the speed up in the copy-cat effect.

CBL: The Internet is famous for its ability to spread things in a viral way, but this suicide copycat phenomenon is like a mental virus, isn't it?

LC: Yes, the whole meme idea, the whole notion that it's like dropping a rock in a pond with the ripple effect.

Jamie Reynolds [Klaxons]

I interviewed Jamie Reynolds out of the Klaxons on a very bad line on the 11th of September. 2007. I spoke to him for around half an hour, but I have only transcribed about 20 minutes of the interview. In a typically confident, literate, eloquent, and well-rehearsed interview performance, he only saw the need to namecheck this blog once - a record low for a native English speaker.

Sugar [Bob Mould, David Barbe, Malcolm Travis]

In 1992, while visiting the offices of the rock magazine "Riff Raff," I was suddenly asked to do an interview with the band Sugar, regarding their forthcoming album "Copper Blue." I agreed to help out, even though I knew zilch about the band. (I later found out that they were quite critically acclaimed.) This is how Riff Raff used to operate and perhaps is one reason it is no longer in business.

The interview was at a hotel near Madame Tussaud's in London. I spoke to Bob Mould, David Barbe, and Malcolm Travis for around 50 minutes in an astounding interview performance that generated a veritable tsunami of 'y'knows' and other verbal tics.

Takeshi Yoro, intellectual

Dr. Takeshi Yoro is a Professor Emeritus at Tokyo University, a famous Japanese philosopher, and the author of the best-selling book, “Baka no Kabe” (The Wall of Fools). What follows is not an interview, but has some of the characteristics of one. In late 2006, I contacted Dr. Yoro and asked him to write an article explaining his philosophy for publication in the spring edition of a magazine I was editing at the time. Although we corresponded in English, the final piece was written in Japanese and then translated into English.

Kisho Kurokawa, architect

I met the architect Kisho Kurokawa on the 12th of December, 2006 at his office in Akasaka to talk about his new building the National Art Centre Tokyo. We spoke for around 90 minutes. I remember that he was lively, spoke good English, wore braces, and was looking at a collection of medals and awards laid out on a large table. Before I could finish transcribing the entire audioscript, however, the disc mysteriously malfunctioned and I lost the recording. This is why there are gaps in this interview and the end is missing. When Mr. Kurokawa died less than a year later, I retrospectively interpreted the loss of the recording as an omen of his death - spooky!.

Dr. Lakra, artist

I interviewed the Mexican artist Dr. Lakra on the 11th of January, 2008, during a visit to the Yokohama Museum of Art. He was participating in a group exhibiton "Goth: Reality of the Departed World," which also included Ricky Swallow, Pyuupiru, Tabaimo, and some others. I had gone there to interview the curator, Eriko Kimura, but got to speak to Dr. Lakra as an added bonus. I didn’t record the interview which is given here from my shorthand notes.

Adam Levine [Maroon 5]

I interviewed Adam Levine on the 12th of January, 2008, by telephone. He was in Los Angeles where he had been working on the video for "Goodnight Goodnight." I was in Urawa. The interview lasted around 20 minutes, during which he namechecked this blog a commendable 19 times.

Bruce Dickinson [Iron Maiden]

I interviewed Bruce Dickinson by phone on the 26th of January, 2008. It was 3:00 am (25th of Jan.) in the UK and he had just finished a day of rehearsing for the "Somewhere Back In Time" world tour at the Pig Iron Studios. The interview lasted around 30 minutes, during which he namechecked this blog a record-breaking 68 times (see bold type) - Well done, Bruce!

Hello Kitty, character

I interviewed Hello Kitty in 2005 in the guise of a 450,000-yen 'robot doll' with artificial intelligence and the ability to respond to human speech. It was one of my most in-depth and revealing tete-a-tetes. It was one of the few interviews where I actually used the entire audioscript in the subsequent article - money for old rope!

CBL: Hello Kitty.

HK: What you just said are words Kitty doesn’t know…Today is a relaxing day. Please speak in a big voice.

CBL: Hello Kitty… Hi.

HK: Goodbye!

CBL: You’re a terribly rude cat.

HK: Kitty can’t hear well. Speak up, please.

CBL: What day is today?

HK: It’s fun. Kitty likes having fun. It’s fun to play with one’s friends. When do you feel happy? …Oh isn’t it.

CBL: Please listen.

HK: It’s nice that you can feel happy everyday, isn’t it?

CBL: Yes, when I’m happy I sing. Can you sing for me?

HK: Kitty can’t catch your words. Please speak up.

CBL: Please sing a song.

HK: Let’s speak up just a little louder.

CBL: Please sing a song.

HK: A song, eh? Which do you want to hear, a spring song, a Japanese song, a foreign song, a dance song, a hit song?

CBL: A foreign song.

HK: This is “Yama no Ongakuka” [sings a traditional German song in Japanese] Shall Kitty sing another song?

CBL: Yes please.

HK: Let me see, Kitty will choose it, OK? [sings a Japanese pop song]

CBL: That was very good.

HK: Did you hear Kitty’s song?

CBL: That was enjoyable. Thank you.

HK: Kitty doesn’t understand. Your voice is so loud that it’s difficult to hear.

CBL: I said thanks for the song.

HK: Please use words that Kitty can understand.

CBL: Kitty, may I ask a question.

HK: Yes … the end.

CBL: Kitty.

HK: Please speak up a little.

CBL: Good morning. Good morning. Good morning.

HK: Hello. Now it’s the afternoon, so you should say hello.

CBL: What is Kitty’s favorite food?

HK: Kitty loves apple pie made by Mama. Do you like apple pie? Oh you like apple pie, don’t you?

CBL: Where is Mimi Chan [Kitty’s sister]?

HK: The subjects Kitty is good at are English and music.

CBL: Where is Mimi Chan?

HK: Do you like music?

CBL: Yes, I love it.

HK: Goody, that’s like Kitty. Kitty is very happy.

CBL: I’m also very happy.

HK: What?

CBL: I’m also very happy. Kitty, do you like chocolate?

HK: Kitty’s so happy to stay with you…Do you like carrots?

CBL: So-so.

HK: Mmmm. Next time, please eat Mother’s homemade carrot glace. It’s very delicious.

CBL: What is your dream?

HK: Kitty’s dream is traveling around the World making many friends. Kitty has many dreams. My Father told Kitty it’s important to have dreams. Please have dreams.

CBL: My dream is to live in London [Kitty’s hometown according to her official biography].

HK: Kitty doesn’t understand.

CBL: You stupid cat!

HK: Please speak a little quieter... We’ll talk later.

CBL: London.

HK: London has got so many beautiful parks. There are many people exercising in them in the morning. Do you jog?

CBL: Sometimes.

HK: Mmmm. Is that so? London Town is very beautiful. It would be very nice if we can go there together sometime.

CBL: Kitty, bye-bye.

HK: What happened? Are you OK?

CBL: Have a rest.

HK: Kitty loves having a rest.

Toyo Ito, architect (1)

I interviewed Toyo Ito, the architect, on the 6th of October, 2006, at the Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery. The interview lasted about an hour. Ito mainly used Japanese, but also used some English.

Liddell: Please sit near the microphone… I’ll give you my meishi (business card).

Ito: Thank you, and [this is] Florian from my office. My English is not so good so he can translate. You have already seen the exhibition?

Liddell: Yes, I liked the floor. I felt [it was] a little bit dangerous.

Ito: Yeh? But take off shoes.

Liddell: Yeh. But the holes. I was worried about falling into the holes… Anyway, let’s start with a stream of questions now. First of all, all your buildings, you seem to be trying to get away from straight lines. Do you hate straight lines?

Debbie Harry, singer

I wasn't able to line up a phoner with Debbie Harry from Blondie. Instead, I emailed her some questions and received the following rather dull replies (the questions aren't too hot either!).

The 'interview' took place sometime before the email containing the answers was sent to me on the 22nd of August, 2006.

CBL: What was the secret of Blondie's success?

DH: I think it was a combination of tenacity, creativity and good luck that made　us a success. You really struggle when you first start out and we worked　very hard to get where we are now.　

CBL: Various rock bands that have been around for years (Rolling Stones, etc.)　are still going strong. Why are Blondie calling it a day?

DH: We are calling it day for a variety of personal reasons. The band was just　inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame here in the US and it seemed like a good time to go out with that honor.

CBL: What do you think of the contemporary music scene?

DH: There is so much wonderful music out there now. It’s very diverse and that makes it exciting. Popular music has made us fearless of the new which is a good thing. Currently, culture and music are about the now and it wasn’t like [that] before. It used to be about what took place before and re-living the past instead of the present or future.

CBL: What do you think Blondie's main legacy will be?

DH: We will be remembered as being the forerunners of girl fronted rock bands for one thing. Blondie also broke with tradition by doing several crossover songs that blended rap, reggae, and disco into our music.

CBL: Do you have any interesting memories of Japan that you would like to share?

DH: We always feel our visits to Japan are too short and we don’t get to see everything we would like to or say hello to everyone we would like to. We are very interested in Japanese culture and history, both the past and present, and really look forward to being there. Can’t wait to see all of our wonderful fans in Japan. Hope to see everyone at the shows! Thank you.

Keith Jarrett, pianist

I interviewed Keith Jarrett on the 2nd of February, 2007 about a forthcoming trip to Japan. I phoned him at his home in rural New Jersey. The interview lasted around an hour and Jarret spoke fast, so the audioscript is long, so long in fact that I haven't yet got around to transcribing the final 15 minutes or so.


CBL: It’s going to be a trio. What kind of music will you be playing?

KJ: What kind of music will I be playing?

CBL: Will it be improvisational or will it be standards?

KJ: We never really know that ahead of time but I guess we assume that the core of what will happen, are probably some standards of some kind or another, but we don’t ever plan the music, so I guess the answer’s I don’t know, but I guess we will play standards at least part of the time.

CBL: So it’s your standards trio, yeh?

KJ: Yes.

CBL: OK. You’re also well known for playing solo. Which one’s easier – playing trio or solo?

KJ: Let’s see. Easy’s a funny word. They are so different. I can’t quite say if one is easier exactly. But the physical and cerebral synapses have to be working every second for solo, and with the trio it’s more in a way relaxed because we’re listening to each other and not only ourselves, so its sort of like communion together, but one of the worst things about playing solo is that I’m playing alone – ha ha – but that’s the only way you can do that. It’s much more risky.

CBL: It’s more intense as well?

KJ: Yes, it’s more intense. There’s nobody around you to reflect your thoughts, except yourself. So if you have a funny thought that’s worth nothing and you’re busy listening to yourself play that, and you realize that its value is not so great to yourself, how do you answer that as a player? You’re stuck with what you just said and you have to relate to it somehow. That’s the very hard part of solo playing.

CBL: So a trio would pull you out of a situation like that?

KJ: A trio is…in a way we’re all confronting the same challenge and yes pulling you out is not a bad way to put it. There’s an ability to find whatever is missing. Each of us can contribute to what is missing at that moment. But if I take away two out of the three people, whoever’s left has got a hell of a job in front of him. There’s no perspective…actually that’s one of the reasons I like solo too. That’s why it was hard for me to use the word ‘easy’ which is hard, because I think challenges make all the difference, so if a challenge is great the change of failing badly is greater but it is also possible that you’ll hit a new high, but, in this case, multiplying people can be a problem because if you don’t have the right people with you, you’re actually dividing not multiplying the possibilities, and, luckily for me, I found Jack [DeJohnette] and Gary [Peacock] way long ago, and they understood the principles we were trying to get to, so there is almost never a dividing thing. But when you add people… and then again that’s one of the great luxuries of solo playing. For one thing, you almost have to be playing a piano because it can be an orchestra by itself, and you can make things happen for an hour and a half that do not repeat, sound the same. Dynamically there is a lot of contrast, so the luxury is that you do have that freedom when your playing alone. When you’re with other players, you really have to depend on them to have gotten enough sleep and to be in the right state of mind and all that stuff. And you can’t really get them. Just as if you have kids and say now don’t do that or something. You can’t really tell another person what mood [garbled] to change to. Luckily they’re both so understanding of why we’re there that we all just snap into the right state of mind.

CBL: But it seems that three is quite a good number – I mean you don’t like to play with bigger ensembles?

KJ: Actually I do like to. I even used to love to accompany singers, for example, but then again with any additional people, the same principle starts to occur. One thing I don’t so much like is a player doing his thing then standing there holding his instrument because he did that and now it’s somebody else’s turn. With three, and especially with the traditional rhythm section, even though we might be taking a traditional way of playing some of the standards, we are aware that it might not have to happen like that, because, with three, somebody can stop playing. Occasionally Gary’ll… We might look at Gary as though he might be playing a solo next, but it has not been planned, and when that time comes Gary decides ‘no I don’t think I want to play here’ so he’ll stop, so either it’ll turn into a drum solo or Jack’ll look at me and I start playing and we’re playing a duet without bass. If Jack decided to stop it would still work, if I decide to stop…It still works with any of the two out of three, there’s still some music that can be made. When you add a fourth, there’s more possibilities in the arrangement of what you do. You can get colors you can’t get when you get a horn, but then the horn player ends up at some point just standing there and holding his saxophone or his trumpet and in a big band situation that’s always made sense to me, but in a small group… Even when I had my quartet years ago, I used to say I want everybody to feel free enough to go to the stage at any time and just start to play.

[Somebody rings on the other line]

Just hold on a second I think my wife will pick that up – yes. OK, so anyway my point was that it’s not so easy for me as a leader of a band to focus on the music if I know there’s somebody standing there waiting for his next entrance. It’s much more interesting and more like solo in some strange way to have to be able to close my eyes, not know exactly what we’re going to do anymore than the other two guys, even including what song might come to my mind next or whether we play a long [garbled] or something and not be thinking about this idle party or parties, away from my direction.

CBL: So, it’s avoiding distraction?

KJ: That’s right. That’s right.

CBL: And that’s very important to you, isn’t it?

KJ: Yes.

CBL: Especially with audiences as well.

KJ: Yes, the audiences too. I mean, it’s taken a long, long time but I noticed… I played in Paris only a few months ago, just some solo things, and there was a problem with some coughing in the audience. This has been a growing contagion all over the World, a kind of nervousness multitasking computers and all that stuff have had some effect on that, but what was interesting was that the take that people at the hall had on it was different from what it used to be. They were so correct at not being upset with me... They started to put themselves in my place – what would they be able to do under these circumstances if they were improvising, and when a person does that naturally they see a little more clearly into this. I just happened to be the first major figure to be playing in concert venues to demand things in a jazz arena that jazz players had not felt comfortable demanding. They actually needed the work so badly that they didn’t want to lose… they didn’t want to make enemies, and I remember getting phone calls – I wrote a few articles for the New York Times about the jazz world, and Keyboard Magazine, and I got a phone call at one point from several different people Lee Konitz called me and said he appreciated that someone would be able to say stuff like this. There was a pianist I won’t name, but I used to like his work when I was very young. He called me from the mid-West. I had never talked to him and he said, ‘y’know I just have to thank you for this.’ And much of all of it was about the mistaken view of the jazz world via the Marsalis brothers and especially Wynton, but that’s all gone now, I don’t have to worry about that.

CBL: So the interaction in the jazz should be happening between the musicians, but not across to the audience so much?

KJ: Well if there’s interaction with the audience that’s OK, but if it’s nervous coughing then they should just leave or something. I mean if they’re bored, I’d rather they just walked out. I’ll refund their tickets – ha!

CBL: It’s like you’re introducing the standards that are expected of a classical music audience, really.

KJ: That’s correct. Yes. And that was going to be my original point. The jazz world was made up so overwhelmingly of people, players who needed all the work they could find because they weren’t getting paid enough and it started out in clubs and in clubs there are all kinds of noise. In clubs there are waitresses, glasses tinkling and sometimes there were people eating dinner. But once it got out of that club atmosphere and into… And, in fact, the first concert halls the Trio played were in Japan because I felt they were the right size: not so big and, across the board, quite consistently good sound, and the pianos were taken care of really well. And, when I went over there with the trio, it was because of my experiences in Japan before that where we could actually get a lot of work done, like a mini workshop and a concert combined. We would be able to be experimental we did not at that point have any trouble with nervous coughing so I think the rest of the World and the multi-media thing, where it’s all being piped into you and you can go and get popcorn while it’s on and you’re not missing much, kind of effected everywhere. It’s certainly taken Europe by storm. In fact back when I’m talking about the 70s or the 80s the worst audiences were in the United States, and that’s almost reversed itself now. There are so many people who feel starved of innovative performances that they come to the concerts and they know their job is just to be quiet and that’s all. When you’re playing solo, you’re living in this wild, dynamic world, and I like to play soft, and there are times when I start playing soft and I realize no no no that’s not possible, because then I’m going to notice everything in the room. People don’t realize how difficult that is, and so some of the people in Paris who wrote things on the internet or that were starting to get it.

CBL: So Japanese audiences are very respectful of the whole process of what you’re doing, but also a lot of what you do is by definition hit or miss, isn’t it. Some things work and some things don’t. A Western audience might be a bit more prepared to make their decisions during the process.

KJ: Yes, that’s true. That’s true, but I think the essential politeness of the Japanese audience, even if they might have been wondering what to do they are essentially so polite that they would give us the space to experiment, whereas, within those years, if I had been trying to do something new in the States, the audiences would be quote unquote “jazz” audiences. They’re now make up of people who understand what I do, but back then it was pretty much tougher because I had people coming backstage and saying, ‘That wasn’t jazz – I thought this was a jazz concert.’ I mean this is way back and the category too has caused a lot of misunderstandings ‘Is this jazz?’ Well my answer might be ‘Does it matter?’

CBL: That’s also one of things I want to raise, the categories in music, because you’re also a piano player who’s very associated with classical music, and for you is there really any essential difference between jazz and classical music or is it just in the details like the fact that classical music is much more structured and usually involves more people.

KJ: There’s a yes and no answer to that. I mean if music is good it overcomes its own category for one thing. In that sense, there’s no difference between a great jazz recording of say someone improvising and a great recording of a classical work, but the real problem is that the potential before these things get played is completely different. I was in Washington DC getting ready to go on stage for a piano recital of classical pieces and I was trying to figure out why I felt so not all that excited about it, and the basic truth is I knew everything about what was going to happen. I knew every note about it. That could not be changed. And most of the audience, most of the knowledgeable audience, was knowledgeable in that piece and in those notes too. So I was acting as an interpreter. But in jazz you’re asked to be yourself and whatever risks that might entail are risks you have to take. And so does the audience. So that’s completely different. Everything has its own fan club, but what’s come true for me, I think, to a great extent, is the people who know what I do are coming from all these different fan clubs to the same concert, and they have their own way of listening. One of them will listen to my touch and that might be a classical listener, or the harmonies or the solo moments of the Trio. Other people love jazz and they’ll come to hear your playing, and in solo it’s the same thing. Someone told me they asked – they were also doing interviews – they asked someone whether they think ‘Do you think Mr. Jarret’s solo stuff is jazz?’ And this person who has been a fan of mine said ‘I’d never thought of that’ – ha ha ha – so he had no answer. Those are the people I think are… And I also have to add they are definitely not ‘World music fans,’ whatever that is. I always thought somebody made a big mistake when they coined that phrase. But jazz and classical music are essentially not in the same room together. You can take techniques from, let’s say, Mozart’s slow movements in the concerti and get to be better at playing a ballad trio. Those kind of things translate, but the actual music, doing it is a different experience.

CBL: So you can use pieces of classical music in the same way that you use jazz standards. You can take a piece of music that’s quite familiar to a lot of people and you can alter it in certain ways to make it less familiar.

KJ: That’s true.

CBL: And that’s the essence of a lot of music really isn’t it? I mean you’re creating patterns which are familiar, but once they’re too familiar they loose interest to a lot of people.

KJ: That’s right. That’s a symmetrical thing sometimes. All you have to do is make sure the symmetry is not so perfect because our brain patterns seem to love when you tie the bows together and, yeh, I would say it would be the same as a photograph of a stream flowing and the actual stream flowing is the difference between… The classical world would be that photograph of that stream because it’s all on paper already and you can look at it and you can… Looking at it and its never going to change. But jazz is and improvising is the stream flowing, at least for the player. That’s what jazz is. And in classical music, it’s the interpretation of the photograph.

CBL: So when you do play classical music, you’re trying to take that photograph of the stream and make it flow again?

KJ: Yes, but of course I have other people’s notes to do it with, so the challenge would be how close can you feel to other people’s compositions? And how much can you make it your own? And how much is legitimate actually… how much freedom can you actually have with, say, Bach before its not Bach? If you took enough rhythmic freedoms with it and sort of desynchronized the right and left hand you’d end up with some kind of modern music and I think Bach would be gone to some extent. If you’re free to come at your instrument, and, then again, if we took the subject of pianos, since I come with no material and even with the Trio I don’t come with any form of knowledge about what we’re going to be doing. When I go on stage for the sound check that’s the first glimpse I get into what the nature of the evening can be like. Now that’s a very magical thing to consider. That is the exact opposite if you go to do the sound check with Prokofiev, Beethoven, Mozart in your pocket, and you’re checking the piano. You can’t leave the stage and have dinner and come back or whatever you do… But in the first case you can change absolutely everything you did if you needed to.

CBL: When you’re doing spontaneous composition, how do you stay away from so many well known tunes? Because there are so many tune out there that you obviously know about and you’re trying to do something original and fresh in the moment. How do you avoid all the things that have already been created? Doesn’t that become a problem?

KJ: I don’t know, except I think it’s lucky that I’ve been playing so long and listening to so many thousands of composer and players and recordings that there must be a file there of do not go any further with this melody or it will become this. And must just be a giant memory file.

CBL: Some kind of radar?

KJ: Yes it is a kind of radar. And I think it’s a matter of how large the repertoire is and how much listening I’ve done that I can weave my way between everything and not have it be the same as anything. Also it’s important to forget everything. As much as its important to have a file for it, it’s also important to forget anything because if you have it in your head in any part of an accessible part of your brain, the chances are it could decide to come out at the concert. It could be something you heard on the radio that you wish you never heard.

CBL: Or the elevator.

KJ: Yeh, yeh. Which is why most of the musicians I know who are doing any kind of composing say they hate flying because of the music on the plane…

CBL: Are there any musical influences that you have subsumed from Japan?

KJ: I’m sure there are. I’m not sure if I could specify what they are.

CBL: From the way that you talk about music and the way that you create music, there is an element of Zen in there.

KJ: Those paintings made with one stroke after years of meditating or monastic life or whatever that are famous, I think, in Japan, were always very striking to me because they are not touching this page then they are, then they are not, and it is exactly what happens when one is truly improvising. You are touching the whole thing and then it’s gone. I am assuming that you can see Zen in that. You can also see…

CBL: Also, being in the moment is very important to you. That is also a concept that is central to a lot of Zen.

KJ: I also think that I relate to being considerate of the performer. When I first went to Japan I knew nothing about what would happen. The first thing that happened I learned – as soon as I was checking into the hotel, my suitcases were suddenly gone. I thought some thief had come in and stolen them. I remember checking in and I realized soon after that in the United States, and to some extent in Europe, I had to have this rider to my contract…..

[gap in transcription: talks about riders and how good the service is in Japan]

CBL: You’ve been to Japan so many times that some of the cultural influences must have filtered into your work. In particular I was listening to the Vienna album and I think it’s part two, near the start of that. It sounds very like a Japanese koto the way you’re playing, these kind of arpeggio scales.

KJ: As recently as the last solo tour in Japan I have… I did recordings of those… There are things on those tapes that would only have been played in Japan and it’s not because I’m thinking that I should be sounding Japanese or Asian or anything. It just comes out like that, and actually the same is true of many places that have strong cultural personalities. And singular unique personalities show themselves, especially if I do a solo concert there. They show themselves in the music that night. I was in Brazil.I will just use this small example, but it’s the best one, the only time I played solo in Brazil. I went there. I don’t think the people knew me that well, the audience was good but I don’t know how well I was known. The promoters came back stage and said, ‘That third or fourth thing you played in the second half, we know you’ve been listening to Brazilian music and in particular this one kind of dance.’ And I don’t remember the name of it, but they told me the name, and I said ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. No, I have not been listening to Brazilian music and also I’ve never heard of that word.’ ‘No, no, that’s not possible because you were doing exactly, precisely this thing.’ Now, I believe that from just breathing in the air and the vibrations of the place I’m in… In Japan, if Japanese music did not exist it would still suggest the same sounds that exist in Japanese music. Do you know what I mean? Imagine Jazz being born anywhere but the United States. That’s kind of hard to do. There’s something about language, there’s something about weather patterns. And all those things go into producing all sorts of music that any culture has.

CBL: So, if you completely wiped out Japanese music from everybody’s memories, then a few years down the line people would reinvent it. Is that how to visualize this concept?

KJ: Possibly, not in the modern world because people are over-connected to each other but in the way that seashells on the shore in Japan reflect a sort of grayness compared to seashells in the Caribbean.

CBL: Well, that sort of volcanic tone. The sand’s blacker here and that shows up in the shells.

KJ: Yeh, and I think everything is part of what happens everywhere locally, so when I land somewhere, because I’ve done it so long and because – solo in particular – if I have nothing to go on, if I have nothing to hang my hat on – let’s put it that way – about where I am, then, the music for me will be too generic. It won’t have a raison d’etre for that particular place. So I try to be vigilant to the signs of what the culture is about and, yeh, I think the music and everything intertwines with itself. There’s this book I have about how you can say that martial music was created by war, but you can also say that war has often come about because of the music. So the way people express their emotions – and they do it differently in Japan as we both know – all of that goes into what qualities the music has. It would be very strange for me to imagine Japanese music as 12-tone romantic or post romantic modern structured ‘fixed’ orchestral music.

[a further 15 minutes or so remains untranscribed]