Rainy Day Woman # 12 & 35

And on a rainy Sunday we meet Nanako. We've made some pizza and talked a little.

Nanako is small and outgoing, very friendly, and Pollyanna loved her. She also loved her name. Nanako, loved the pizzas, and we won the title of best pizza in Japan. Modesty aside, it is deserved. And we are also spreading the banana pizza. Everyone is surprised and love it

Nanako speak English very well and lived in America for some time.

We talk about the bands we like and, for you who are curious about the Japanese bands here are two suggestions by Nanako: "Go! Go! 7188 "and" Southern All-Stars ". I already knew them. The "Southern All-Stars" is a band that is already on the road for some time. As soon as I came to Japan I saw a special about them on TV. The coolest is that they play different styles. "Go! Go! 7188 "is a punk trio with two girls and one boy.

Then we made our first experience. Nanako recorded some melodies. Everything went well. And for a first day of work the result was good.

Now each will develop their ideas and within a few weeks we will meet again.

On that weekend we started to work on some of Kit’s songs too.

With this vocal stimulus, things that were stagnant started to walk again. The biggest problem now is time.

Another source of inspiration is the new Brian Wilson CD: "Lucky Old Sun."; released this month. It was on the third hearing that I notice how good it is! It has a bit of the experimental sound from "SMILE", a bit of the Pop from "Imagination", the structure recalls "Mt Vernon and Fairway (A Fairy Tale)” and it even slide on literary ground thanks to Van Dyke Parks’s poetry.

Interlude

Here I take a small break to present a friend’s band. The name is Erga. Check their sound.

Synchronicity

Some periods of my life are full of synchronicities. For example, in the same week that I decided to begin to work on this new album arrived in the mail, from Brazil, the new book by Mateus Machado, good friend, poet and lyricist with whom I worked. It was more or less as if something says: "go ahead, what you need will be provided". I pick a music that was ready for a long time and that never get recorded and begin to work.
Hence, when I saw the photos with TP4 I fright a little. Dudu, the keyboardist of the band, was doing the vulcan greeting. And he used the same to autograph the CD. It happens that my music, the one that started the works on the album, in a certain part of the lyrics says "she's the final frontier, and no man has gone there before. I'm gonna be your captain Kirk, I gonna go everywhere that I can". This could be another sign? Then in the midst of all these references to "Star Trek" maybe something is trying to tell me " to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before."
Or perhaps I’m just like Casaubon, the character in Humberto Eco’s novel "Foucault’s Pendulum". Finding meanings where there is none and creating a web of fantasy to the point where reality is changed.
“Live long and prosper”!

So You Want To Be a Rock'n'Roll Star

While waiting for news from Nanako we take the Sunday off and went to Pato Fu and the Trash Pour 4’s cancert in Toyohashi. That’s Me, Kit, Pollyana, Ana and Masao. That's right, Brazilian bands in Japan! September 7 is Brazil’s Independence Day so several events such as "Day of Brazil" ocuurs all around the world. In Tokyo the show was by Jorge Benjor, and it seems that in New York it was by Lulu Santos. But we chose the Pato Fu and Trash Pour 4 that are more in line with our taste. 

Before the show we talked a little with the guys (and girls) from Trash Pour 4, take some photos and a few autographs. They were very nice. Of course that if it were a chat in a bar table, the thing would be much better, but it is worth. 

Despite the delay, some little problems in sound, and the adjacent freak show, it was a good show. kit loved everything and is really excited about Brazil. According to him, this was the best festival that he has seen in Japan. And this comes from the guy who was in Fuji Rock a few weeks ago! But I can understand. Near the passive and silent adoration of the Japanese audience, the interactive chaos of Brazilians is much closer to the xamanic trance of Rock'n'Roll proposed by Jim Morrison. 

And guess who make contact in the middle of the day? Nanako. I think we will soon have good news. 

At the end of the day I was already tired. Satisfied never! But as we come to this world to suffer, the Gods of the East charge dearly for any small pleasure. Monday was hard, with more than 15 hours working!

Beggining to See the Light

Yes, everyone! Your attention please! After almost three years, here I am again, André Luis Fujiwara, working on a new album. The last album I made was "Dancing on the Bottleneck". Since working on the last album there has not been much happening with me musically so far as recording goes, but I have a new work in progress and it is quite different from anything I have ever done before. I'm still working independently in my own studio, but for the first time with the participation of a producer: Kit Frymier.

Kit is a friend and a kind of cultural agitator. He is American (which only means that he was born in that given geographical area), and before coming to Japan to teach English, he did a lot of different things. What you might find very cool is that he knows some 3D animation. In other words, he worked in the American movie industry in Hollywood! He got involved in music heavily when he moved to Nagoya, Japan 4 years ago and has played in 2 bands since his arrival, as a bass player in a rock band. We are still in the process of composing and pre-producing the new cd currently. From the beginning, I have been trying a different approach toward creating music than ever before. While on all the other albums I have done, the lyrics gave form and structure to the music but this time I chose to ignore the lyrics and only focus on creating musical backing tracks, which has created some good results.

At the moment, we already have ten songs. These songs are in the hands of a japanese-english speaking singer, Nanako, who will create the lyrics and melodies on top of our musical tracks. I am anxious to work with her.

This is the beauty of having a producer on this album: not having to worry about anything and being able to focus on just the music only. I really love it; it is what I’m good at as a guitarist. If I need a drummer (and drummers are always a problem in bands in my experience), Kit arranges two! If I want a singer, all I do is mention it to him and there he comes up with Nanako. If I need to record music tracks, he gathers together all the necessary recording equipment I need. He gives me great suggestions and ideas too! Wow!

Some of my friends have asked me about the new songs and how they are. What I can tell you is that you will have to wait patiently until the CD is finished. So far, I am very pleased with the outcome and what we are making.

We are hunting a name for this band (although, so far, is not exactly a band). We are provisionally calling it "Amorpho Phallus", which is the largest and stinkiest flower in the world. Despite having a relationship with my past band "Les Fleurs du Mal" (Flowers of Evil), I am not satisfied with the name just yet. Kit likes it, but we haven’t finalized anything yet. I think Amorphus sounds too much like “death metal". So, I am accepting band name suggestions. I have a name that I love, but I do not know if it fits: "Mind Expander Mobile Unit."...MEMU...or even MEME... (popular culturally topics on the minds of modern men worldwide.)