We had the most amazing time in Japan. The culture is subtley and not so subtley different and it was a real learning curve for me. An amazing politeness, a zen approach to each moment, and a really hard working ethic.
The audiences were attentive, shy and after the show wanted autographs, pictures and so many of them bought us presents. Extraordinary.
The streets are filled with people who pay attention to their appearance, often in extreme interesting ways, and at nights there is a sense of real energy for having fun.

It is so long since I last posted, partly because I get all these stupid bits of spam responses. You would think at my age I would be more resilient…..
We have performed at two All Tomorrows Parties in Minehead and that was a real treat. We played to so many people and had a great stage sound and the whole event was such a pleasure to be at. I had never been to Butlins before, and boy do they have a good swimming pool with amazing slides and this fabulous current that carries you round the pool like a duck with a number on your belly as you spin and swirl. Then we played at the Scala, the whole of our first album, and several of those songs hadn’t been played for 30 years. Black and White was fabulous and we had Verity from Electrelane playing wondrous sax on it.
We are off to Japan next Monday. Ana and I have been wanting to play Japan for years and years… and our dream is coming true…..

Been ill with middle ear problems… how horrible it is to be stuck in that state of just having landed and having completely blocked ears. They have now been blocked for about 4 days and it is really horrible. According to that reliable source self diagnosis via google, it usually lasts about a week. So here’s hoping. I do have anti biotics, anti inflammatories etc but they don’t seem to be having any major effect.
It makes me feel pretty anti social, so haven’t posted for a while!!

Just packing my bag to catch a train. Actually I am looking forward to sitting on a train for four hours, kind of feeling purposeful, doing nothing. We are going to hear Kenneth Anger talk tonight and show some of his films and tomorrow The Gluts play our first proper full show and I will see the fully installed video at Vane..

The Raincoats perform The Raincoats
for Don’t Look Back in London
Thursday 20 May 2010
The Scala, London, UK

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Have any of you been to The We Love 77 show at The Merchant’s Hall in Islington? Two guys have painted pictures of many of the bands around at that time. One paints the left half and the other the right half and to my surprise there was one of the Raincoats. It looks like we are crossing Abbey Road, but Victor one of the painters who painted Ana and is Portuguese assured me, it is supposed to be New York. Zilla’s film was interesting. There were so many different scenes around in punk. We all had such a different experience as well as so many parallel ones. I sometimes teach and the students often like to write about punk…. which punk, whose punk, what time?? There’s no such thing as history, only people’s perspectives. Make sure you get your voice heard!!!

Beautiful sunny day… Lei lei is roller skating up and down the living room and I am trying to fill in an application form for a film festival in Taipei for ‘The Gluts Go To Copenhagen’. The Raincoats are going to play in Japan in June. That’s a first for us. We have talked about this possibility with enthusiasm for years… Hoorah it’s really going to happen!