PARDON?

A year ago I damaged my hearing while attending a Shonen Knife gig in Osaka. While I couldn’t really think of a nicer bunch of ladies to lose my ears to, it was a bit of a blow to someone whose life has revolved around music for the last thirty-two years.

Back home, after a series of frustrating visits to non-English speaking doctors, and with no real idea of what had happened or what the prognosis was, one thing was very clear – I could no longer listen to music.

That’s right, goodbye iPod.

For three months I couldn’t listen to any kind of music at all, not even on speakers. It was painful and distorted. And not only my Napalm Death albums: I mean everything.

I had to use my noise-blocking Sennheisser earphones to block out the piercing shrill sounds of everyday urban life that hurt my ears, rather than for music.

Raging tinnitus twenty-four hours a day. Even the voices of interlocutors sometimes caused me to wince in agony.

Imagine that, for a man with 18,653 songs in his iTunes library and a passionate desire to create music as a major driving force and means of expression in his life.

Twelve months later and things are immeasurably better.

I am rarely troubled by the horrendous distortion that previously afflicted me, and the tinnitus in my left ear is barely noticeable, even at night.

Recently I’ve found I can listen to the iPod again, albeit at the lowest volumes.

Some chart thingy designed to show something about hearing loss...

I can sit down and enjoy music on speakers again. The first time I found I could do that I cried like a baby.

My hearing is still not as it was – I suppose it has been permanently damaged in some ways. I can never go to concerts again. I still have to put earplugs in at the cinema. Some frequencies, particularly bass ones, are still problematic.

One surprising, and positive, consequence of my sonic difficulties has been my return to the techno genre as my main channel of musical creativity.

Stephen Patrick's astute observation...

See, like Beethoven, there was no way hearing damage was going to stop the muse from visiting me. And fortunately just before my ears were shredded, I’d started to get serious about learning Apple‘s superb Logic Pro 9 music software. Beats Beethoven‘s old Bechstein any day.

Even at its worst, I found that I could still compose using this software without having to use headphones, with just the minimum of volume over the iMac‘s internal speakers.

Recording the kind of alternative rock I’d been doing for the last decade or more was out of the question, since this necessarily involves headphones and relatively high volumes to enable backing tracks to be audible over amplified guitars or bellowed vocals.

And so I was forced out of necessity to return to techno, a genre I had been an early convert to, but had not dabbled in since 1997.

And so do old deaf bastards...

How great, then, to be able to discover once again the sheer joy in the organic process of creation that is in many ways much more fluid and open-ended than the composition and creation of guitar-based rock.

What’s the difference? Well, in rock you are pretty much bound by the need to fully shape the song before you begin recording. Only then can you begin to program the drums, followed by the rest of the instruments and vocals track by track. Once arranged, there’s little scope for experimentation.

Not so techno. Here, the composition is simultaneous with the recording : you actually write the piece as you go along, taking whatever twists and turns you feel like along the way.

Logic Pro's ES2 synth, not a spaceship's control panel...

The starting point is different, too. Instead of working up from a set of lyrics or a melody, in techno your inspiration could be anything from a particular synth sound, a drum beat, a bass line or a sample.

You record a bar, then loop it, then think what else would go well with it. Rinse and repeat, and the piece unfurls almost magically, new sonic ideas and discoveries sparking the imagination to further experimentation, cutting and pasting to taste.

Rinse and repeat - you dirty long-haired fuckface

Rather than a formal composition, the techno track is more like a free-form collage unbound by rules or convention, spontaneously created, morphing as it grows, finally reaching completion at that mysterious moment when it just suddenly feels ‘right.’

Does that mean I’m done with alt rock?  No way! The ears can now perhaps stand a bit of headphone usage, but for the time being I’m happy to remain within the anarchist-friendly medium of electronica.

KANSAI CRAP #1

Every year I exit Hiroshima during the ‘Golden Week‘ holidays of early May to escape the foul artificial frivolity of said city’s Flower Festival.

This is where a huge swathe of central Hiroshima becomes a hellish cacophonous mass of screaming infantage while their over-indulgent parents are cajoled by minor mafia members into buying overpriced and unhygienic blobs on sticks for sustenance. Some floats go by, filled with either old crones or tiny girls attempting to perform in the dance medium of their respective eras. Nobody cares.

Oh, so wrong, so horribly wrong...

So, here I am, freshly arrived in Osaka for a 4 night stay, and what an amazing contrast! The streets are lined with poplar trees, bluebirds sing and not a soul impedes my pedestrian’s progress through the thoroughfares of Umeda, the northern hub of Osaka.

Alright, so that’s not strictly true. In fact, it’s just as much a crowded noise-filled hell-hole as Hiroshima, perhaps even more so, but at least it’s alien and anonymous. The fact that it’s not Hiroshima is an attraction in itself.

And here’s a charming little first observation from this non-Hiroshiman conurbation.

Ever seen toilet paper in public lavatories with adverts printed on it? Me neither, but that’s just what I found in Umeda‘s ‘Ing‘ department store.

Osaka's Umeda area - there's a department store called 'ing' in there somewhere...

That’s right, as I pulled off a few sheets with which to clean the appliance in a pre-defecation anti-swine flu manouver, I gasped to discover some commercial slogans emblazoned upon the poo-paper in bright red ink.

Hmm…how to feel about this latest corporate act of shame? Be outraged that the free market has penetrated one of the last bastions of privacy? Or just laugh at the thought of reeking bodily effluent defacing company logos in a gloriously appropriate fashion?

Poo-paper fresh from Osaka

ZEN AND THE ART OF FINDING GOODNESS IN SHITE

Well, that was 2008 and good riddance to it, I say. Frankly, Mr.Shankley, it stank. One of the worst in blogging memory, or as Her Royal Dummy Highness Queen Elizabeth II might say, an annus horriblis, translated by many an uneducated oik to mean a bum year.

Her Dummy Royal Highness

A year that was filled with a multitude of sicknesses both mental and physical, real and imagined, afflicting both myself, various family and friends and even the poor old cats didn’t come off unscathed, either. From athlete’s elbow to elephantiasis via knobrot and arse-rash, they’ve all put in a cheery little appearance.

Add to that a flurry of financial nightmares, Kafka-like situations involving non-compliant offshore banks, disappearing debtors, massively increased taxation, dwindling income and threats of redundancy, and that was mostly all before the Big Crash of October, which of course, was just around the time I decided to finally get some investments sorted out to cover my theoretical dotage. Nice timing, sir!

K contemplates the fate of his futures portfolio

Now I’m not essentially a gloomy soul, and indeed my recovery rate from setbacks can be amazingly fast. Zen-like focusing on the moment, I wake up each day, putting the bad memories of the past to one side, and consider only the goodness in the world as I skip merrily down the road in my flat cap, radiating working-class cheeky scamp bonhommie to all around me as yet another bucket of rotten fish offal is dumped onto my poor noggin.

Mr.Grimsdale! Mr.Grimsdale!

And so, in the interests of balance, and to counteract the lake of maudlin collecting around our feet, I will now list all of the nice things that happened in 2008, for it was not all bleak Dickensian squalor and consumption.

• iMac – last December’s change over from PC to Apple was a great move, and I’m still marvelling at that sleek sexy trouble-free machine residing regally upon my desk.
• iPhone – it costs a bloody fortune to run, but hey, it’s been a boon, what with it’s internet abilities and numerous pointless but fun applications to kill commuting time.
• Logic Pro – Apple’s music production software has recently served to totally re-energise my creativity in this field, and the last few days have seen a veritable outpouring of new sonic fare from this wonderful device.

Kajagoogoo's "Too Shy" seen in wave form in Logic Pro

• Single Malt Whiskey - the hard times have been enlivened no end by my recent obsession with collecting and sampling these delightful alcoholic concoctions, and what better thing to do than drink when recession looms?
• Cosmology & Quantum Physics – never thought I’d be reading science books, but these subjects are fascinating and awe inspiring, containing all the weirdness and mystery one needs to replace the quackery and nonsense pedalled by the paranormal believers.
• The Roman Republic – still captivating, I continue to plough through original source accounts as well as university lectures and TV documentaries on this incredible period in history.

Where's Anthony Hopkins?

• YouTube – my videos of Joy Division basslines have surprisingly garnered a lot of 5-star reviews together with appreciative and supportive comments, which has warmed the very cockles of my heart. Who says the internet is just populated by pimply abrasive adolescents who can’t spell?
• Paris – just there for 4 nights in September, and it cost me a fortune, but it was as magical as ever.
• Domestic Travel - Osaka, Kyoto, Kanazawa, Matsumoto, Nagano, Nagoya – all very enjoyable and reminds me that there is still much to like about Japan.

Kanazawa - Geishas oot for the lads!

• British Comedy – my sanity has been maintained by nightly dips into the insanity of The Mighty Boosh, Black Books, Spaced, League of Gentlemen, Monty Python, Snuff Box, The Office and Red Dwarf. Thank the Deity for DVDs and Amazon!
• Starbucks – yes, it’s expensive, and those of you out in the civilised world may not think it anything special, but my frequent jaunts to my favourite branches have provided me with oases of warm tranquility in an otherwise hostile and smelly universe.

KANSAI QUICKIE

Sitting back on the splendid bullet train now as we power out of Kyoto after a lightning two-day one-night visit of epicness to the great Kansai region of jolly old Nippon.

Kyoto's majestic station building

Came up Tuesday morning into Osaka, then braved the Pre-Christmas throngs to meet up with the Williams Nerds in Umeda, the city’s northern shopping area, there to gawp in gigantic music stores at guitars a plenty.

Back down to central Osaka to check in at the wonderful Chisun Inn in the bestest busiest most happeningest part of the city known as Shinsaibashi. There I fell asleep for a couple of hours, but but not before paying (very apt) a quick visit to the Apple Store.

See, even though I’m broke, I decided that I needed to upgrade my Logic Express music software to the full-blown Pro version, weighing in at a cool $340. Now you might think that a software upgrade might entail just a fistfull of DVDs, but no, bugger me lengthways if the product didn’t come in an enormous box weighing (and I kid you not) six kilos. The jolly salesman laughed and said that you could safely chuck most of this baggage since all you really needed were the discs. Indeed, back at the hotel I discovered the box to be comprised mostly of two gigantic manuals in Japanese, the first running to more than a thousand pages! No, matter, it’s not needed, since the software comes with built-in PDF content with the same information in English. I hope!!!

6kg of pure Logic

More guitar shop gawping, then meeting up with the Williams Nerds again for the main event, namely the annual Shonen Knife “Space Christmas” gig at Club Quattro!!

Well, the Knife didn’t disappoint, and armed with a vile free plastic cup of Wild Turkey I headbanged my way through all 24 songs played. The lesser Williams Nerd stole the show, however, by appearing atop his Dad’s shoulders carrying a placard requesting his favourite ditty, a cover of The Carpenters’ ‘On Top of The World.’ Like a masthead he ploughed through the moshpit until singer Naoko spotted him, and granted his wish in the first encore. He was truley a star, gaining applause and approval amongst even the hardest cadres of the assembled punks.

The iPhone totally fails to record Shonen Knife live at Club Quattro, Osaka, December 23rd 2008

After the gig, the band did a ‘meet & greet‘ in the lobby, and like an oik I barged past the bespectled geeks awaiting autographs, grasped Naoko’s hand, thanked her for the great gig and presented her with a copy of my latest STAVKA CD ‘Heavy Casualties in the Charm Offensive,’ which she accepted with bemusement.

Thence out into the night to trawl the streets of Dotombori amid the parrot-headed touts and garish neon, beers and takoyaki in hand. Takoyaki is an Osakan speciality. Chop off the arm of an octopus, boil it, then shove it inside a ball of batter with some chives and coat liberally with mayonaise and a thick pungent brown sauce, and there you have it. Best served so hot that it takes the skin off the roof of your mouth.

Takoyaki, baby!

Next morning we speed off to Kyoto and try to hire bicycles (see, those Williams boys are two-wheel fanatics), but apparently a new law does not allow 3-year olds to be appended to the aforementioned peddle-powered vehicle, so we had to be content with a stroll down Kyoto‘s tranquil Philosophers’ Walk, dropping in at the odd temple and battling in word play with the nascent linguistic skills of the young Williams unit.

Evidence of Bigfoot at Kyoto's Honen-in Temple

Back on the bullet train at six, hurtling homeward to Hiroshima and the impending non-event that is Christmas, and a lid was verily placed on the top of the Kansai Quickie jaunt.

Your humble narrator searches for his bullet train at Kyoto station

COMPOUND INTEREST

I’m off to Osaka tomorrow.

Now I said to myself that this summer I would eschew my usual ‘week out of here.’ This is where I bugger off to either Tokyo or Osaka/Kyoto straight after classes finish at the end of July, for no real reason other than to escape the often claustrophobic feeling that the humid weather brings to Hiroshima‘s village-like ambience.

But not this year, I vowed. You see these last eighteen months have seen me shed wads of cash like…er…something that sheds something very often and in large amounts. So, in the interests of financial rectitude (more tea, vicar?) I vetoed my wanderlust and spent the last month skulking around various local shopping malls in search of free air-conditioning.

And yet now, here I am, about to thrust a few socks into a haversack and hit the road for Osaka. Why? Ironically because of money!

It’s a long story, for which a future post has already been composed, but the bottom line is, I have to haul my bottom to the British Consulate, there to have my visage compared to my visa by the governor-general-consulmeister resplendant in his tropical suit and pith helmet. Once gold has crossed his palm, a parchment of authenticity will be issued which will enable me to unlock a treasure chest of dubloons a gang of pirates in the Channel Islands have been ‘looking after’ for me.

I told you it was a long story.

Well, and so it seemed daft to go all the way to Osaka just to spend a few minutes inside the sandbagged compound of the British Consulate and then bugger off straight home, so I decided to spend a couple of nights there, to sample once more the cultural delights of the Kansai region such as the Apple Store in Shinsaibashi.

As luck would have, my fellow Hiroshima rogues the notorious Williams brothers will also be in town, so what better than to hang around with my old pals, get irritated by their unreasonable behaviour, shout at them and then go and do my own thing?

OSAKA JAZZ

Just back from the Big Kansai in what is becoming an annual excusion to avoid the hell that is Hiroshima’s ghastly ‘Flower Festival‘.

Amazingly, although I’ve been to Kyoto dozens of times and even lived there for a while, I still found numerous new bits to explore, and the photographic proofs will be up on ardle.net just as soon as I can be arsed.

And again I find that I rather like Osaka, most probably because (a) nobody knows me there, (b) I know a secret ‘Starbucks‘ where you can always sink into a nice deep brown sofa, and (c) it has shitloads of well-stocked guitar shops.

‘Twas in the latter that I had another little wallet-emptying incident. Well, I was in the market for one of the following: a Rickenbacker 330 or 620, a semi-acoustic or something with a tremolo. No Rickenbackers showed up, which was kind of a relief in a way, since the loss of ¥220,000 tends to offend.

Next, I clapped my peepers on a browny Epiphone Casino semi-acoustic with a rare add-on Bigsby tremolo. Aha! Kill two birds with one plectrum, eh? I didn’t like the shitty colour much, but I plucked the little fellow off the stand and plugged it into a huge amp. Hmm. None too impressive tone-wise, crappy action, and the Bigsby was a big ungainly monster which quite frankly, blew.

I then noticed a red Fender Jazzmaster. Now I’m no stranger to these puppies – I’d actually used one in a real recording studio in Berlin circa 1991. It has a tremolo. It has that cool twangy Fender sound, and yet is not a cliched crappy-looking Stratocaster. It has underground music kudos, being the axe of choice of folks like J.Mascis out of Dinosaur Jnr. Only one problem – I hate those dark-wood Fender fingerboards. Now your Strat and your Tele have light varnished maple alternatives, but not your Jazzmeister.

Casting my misgivings aside, I plugged in and ran through a few licks, and blow me if I wasn’t blown away, not only by the cool grungy sounds, but by the slick and speedy neck and fingerboard! Of course I bought the darn thing immediately, dragged it to my secret Starbucks, and sat there nonchalantly sipping a Coffee Jelly Frapuccino while a whole succession of birds eyed my red instrument appreciatively.

1,2,3,4!

Spent a few days in Osaka last week for the customary ‘get the fork out of here’ end of semester trip. You, know that need I have to vanish and reappear somewhere nobody knows me and I don’t know anyone after an arduous few months of ‘teaching‘ in goldfish bowl Hiroshima – ah, that Anonymity, she’s a fine lass indeed.

Stayed in the Chisun Inn Shinsaibashi – a great central location in Osaka’s ‘Minami’ area, just a hop, skip and a weave your way through millions of slow-moving ant-like natives away from the ‘action‘. Whatever the ‘action‘ is. I don’t know, because I never seem to encounter it. Or perhaps I do, and I just don’t recognize it for what it is. No, officer, I haven’t been drinking. The Chisun chain of hotels are highly recommended, though. I often use the one near Shin-Osaka station and have also frequented the swish one in Tokyo’s Akasaka area. Reasonsably priced, they do a good job of disguising the miserable Japanese business hotel phenomena and make you feel as if you’re staying in a European hotel with tasteful decor, arty colours and sheets that aren’t white.

I arrived on a Friday evening, having come straight from my final classes, throwing teaching paraphernalia to the winds and already eschewing the dreaded badly-ironed shirt and tie for cool street clothes. Despite being somewhat wobbly and sick, as is my wont, I reached the hotel without incident by 4pm, and sallied forth immediately to check out the gaudy baubles on display along Shinsaibashi’s huge covered shopping malls. Umm….fantastical guitar emporiums to dreamily lope around…the same chain stores on display in Hiroshima, only bigger and better and filled with Folk Who Don’t Know Me. And all around the thronging crowds of Osakans, a heady mix of the trendy well-dressed set, both younger and older versions, and a substrata of scummy ruffians and trollops amid the throbbing neon.

Next day I busied myself in that oasis of cool the Apple Store, gawping like a slack-jawed yokel at all the shimmering white and brushed aluminium goodies on display, a heady level of sophistication unthinkable back in the village that is Hiroshima!

From thence to Osaka’s Umeda district, to browse at all manner of electronic wonderment in the unfeasibly huge Yodobashi Camera, which despite the name, sells just about anything with flashing lights and buttons on it, from computer-driven bidets to the latest nerdery in the gadgets department. A veritable home from home!

However, my main purpose in coming to Osaka was not to fritter away time in the pursuit of geeky technology, no sir! For indeed, at 6pm I sauntered into Club Quattro, there to see my favourite J-Band Shonen Knife play their customary Christmas hometown gig. Well, I’d had a larf at their sparsely attended Hiroshima show in the summer, so what better than to see them on their home turf?

The club was packed – a sold-out show, no less, and I arrived during the set of the support band, a rocking combo whose name I can’t now recall. Well, I lasted about 10 minutes in the pit before beating a hasty retreat out into the foyer where I pretended to send an email on my mobile phone. Why? They were shite! It was cabaret more than rock – every cliche in the book trotted out and hammed up for the masses, and the final straw came when the Iggy Pop-wannabe vocalist climbed out onto the speaker rig and suspended himself above the moshpit from some overhead piping while the fans below pulled all his clothes off. Yes, all of them! If you’re going to get naked in public, at least make sure you’re equipped with a reasonably sized todger, but no, this ape’s dong was barely visible through his bush, such were its puny dimentions! So I thought, I didn’t pay 3,500 yen to look at this knob’s diminutive…er…knob, so I buggered off out.

No, fear, soon the mighty Shonen Knife appeared and launched into their trademark melodic pop-punk thrash. But alas! all was not well with the sound! After a couple of songs the band themselves noticed that something was amiss and began frantically retuning their axes. However, yours truly, with his expert knowledge of audio engineering, knew at once that it was the mix that was at fault – the bass was way too loud and was distorting horribly. Unfortunately the tossers at the mixing desk (alleged professionals) either didn’t notice or couldn’t be arsed to do anything about it. Still, as seasoned troupers the Knife played on regardless, and had soon turned it around into a great gig despite the sonic shortcomings. The moshpit was wild and your narrator headbanged his merry way through a blistering nineteen song set. Yay!

Long live the Knife!

KANSAI’S UNIQUE GLOW

Back from a fabulous week in the wonderful Kansai region, having visited Kyoto, Uji, Nara, Osaka, Himeji and Kobe. Stinking hot ‘n’ sweaty, of course, but nonetheless great to get away from the ‘Shima and the mindless routine of work. Sometimes just to be walking along unfamiliar streets, taking cans of Pocari Sweat from unfamiliar vending machines and buying cheap T-shirts in unfamiliar branches of UNIQLO is enough to recharge the batteries. Full set of 70 photos appearing on the website any moment, not to mention a serialized travel diary on the Podcast, but in the meantime how aboot this?

THE HEADMASTER RITUAL

Well, well, three weeks have just flown by in which I haven’t had the time to update this here blog, let alone press on with the renovation of ardle.net that I hoped would have been finished this summer.

Brother was duly picked up in Osaka on September 17th and shown the sights of the Kansai region, then shipped back to the ‘Shima for a further ten days of whatever the ‘Shima has to offer. Strangely enough, this turned out in part to be Yamada Denki, one of the city’s major electronic goods emporiums. Brother just could not keep away from it, thereby confirming that nerdom runs deep among the Lightfeet. But more of this later, when some sort of photographic journal appears on the site (after the Prague one, of course).

(It has just come to my notice that I began the last sentence with the word ‘but’, something that I always tell the students of my writing classes is unacceptable in English. The hypocrisy!)

Work has again reared its ugly head, and as usual, I’m attempting to begin the new term (or ’semester’ as the say here, after the Amis) as ‘calm, friendly, laid-back‘ sensei. I turn a blind eye to students who transgress my class rules; I deal with non-participants and the attitudinally suspect with a gentle admonition and a smile; I forgive wrongdoers easily and unhesitatingly grant all requests to ‘go to the rest room’, regardless of the dubiousness of the petitioner.

Sigh. I know it cannot last. Sooner or later, like Amon Goeth’s brief flirtation with forgiveness in Schindler’s List, my affable class persona will crack and the classroom will once more become a battlefield. Martial law will be reinstated, as epic struggles break out over who gets to control the air conditioner. The educational process will become adversarial, as the feeling grows that the inmates of Hiroshima’s establishments of higher learning are seeking to get one over on poor sensei, to reap the rewards of academic achievement without having lifted a finger in their attainment.

Oh, one can almost see the tweed jacket with leather elbow patches apear on sensei’s back as he reverts to the archetypal Stuffy Old Git and emits the kind of platitutinous utterances that he himself railed against twenty-five years ago….

The horror!

ON THE TRAIL OF THE TRIAL

Back from a riotously successful trip to Prague in which overblown adjectives stumbled over each other in an attempt to describe that wondrous mid-European urban entity. But who needs words when a picture is worth a thousand (of)? (Unless it’s digital, in which case I reckon only about 1,247, but let’s save that little rant for another time).

Well, while we wait for a full write-up and a veritable feast of imagery to appear on this here site in relation to said trip, here’s a little taster: We bring you, all the way from Praha, the glorious Tyn Church in the Old Town Square!

The jet-lag has barely worn off, but already we must hoist rucksack aloft once more, for tomorrow we sally forth to Osaka to attempt to meet up with an incoming brother, and thence to Kyoto for four days.

After that cultural gem has been duly absorbed, the poor bastiche must somehow endure ten days back in the ‘Shima at Lightfoot Towers. He has been forewarned that the maximum touristic potential of these here parts is three days of sightseeing tops – after that a deck of cards and computer wargames must suffice.

We will see how he fares…