It’s time to say goodbye to the year of 2012 and I want to do it by saying thank you to all you wonderful people who have been involved in one way or another in the events surrounding the release of my solo debut album Soundshine.
To do so I have put together a four minute long slide show that will take you through memorable moments from recording sessions in Stockholm and at Abbey Road in London to gigs in Tokyo, Osaka, Madrid, Burgos, London, Stockholm, and Piteå. But more importantly it shows some of all the great meetings I’ve had with music lovers, music colleagues, fans, friends, family, band mates, record label and music publishing people, and a couple of idols as well.
The soundtrack consists of a medley of all the songs on Soundshine in a “don’t bore us – get to the chorus” fashion. The photos were taken by among others Amy Campbell, Paula and Carol Muñoz Macaya, Kiki Fukuzumi, Jonas Förare, but also by many more… thanks!
So, from the bottom of my heart – thank you to each and everyone who has supported the release of Soundshine (and that includes all of you who didn’t end up in the slide show as well)!
Hope to see you all again in a not too distant future!
And so the final day came! The day of my first live appearance in Tokyo with a band since the Merrymakers played three songs in front of record business people in 1997 with Andy Sturmer (Jellyfish) on drums!
For more than fifteen years it has been on my “to-do-before-I-die”-list to play in Japan again – but with a full band – AND for the people who actually bought the records, for people who actually have heard my music, for people that actually bought a ticket to come and see the show. And now with my solo debut album Soundshine recently released in Japan (before anywhere else in the world) the dream grew even stronger. And suddenly the day came! It happened on January 11, 2012, at the Powerpop Academy Party that took place in the very hip and happening rock club shimokitawa THREE.
The club is located in the coolest of Tokyo areas which is called Shimokitazawa and is Tokyo’s answer to New York’s Greenwich village or London’s Camden Town. Here’s a picture of me inspecting the neighbourhood in the hours before the concert.
The evening started with two brilliant support acts. The first one called hello! from which the lead singer Yasu also played in my band. I loved their colorful, charming performance and their music reminded me at times of an old favorite band of mine, Ben Folds Five. The highlight for me was when they made a very creative, and inspired version of “April’s Fool” by the Merrymakers. For any songwriter having your songs covered it’s a great honor and a thrilling feeling – and for me it was very touching to watch their cool version of our old song. A similar, almost surreal, feeling hit me when I watched the second band Doacock (which by the way also was a brilliant and highly energetic band) when they made a Merrymakers cover as well. So cool!
And then it was time for my own performance. I started of by playing a few songs on my own – switching between piano and electric guitar. Among the songs I played was “Monument of Me” which was the Merrymakers big radio hit in Japan back in the day – but also “April’s Fool” which had been heard in a “new” version earlier in the evening.
But I couldn’t wait until I got my new backing band up on stage! We played a bunch of songs from Soundshine and it all went incredibly well. The band was tight, inspired, and rockin’ – and the audience seemed very enthusiastic (at least from what I could tell up from stage!). They clapped, cheered, sang-along, danced, and I couldn’t have been happier. When we reached the end of the show with the in Japan famous song “Boom Boom Beat”, and my single “Got you where he wanted”, the house was truly rocking! Also – significantly for Japan – the sound was pristine! I wouldn’t expect a highly professional sound in a small basement rock club in other parts of the world but here the sound was really super. For a performing musician to be inspired and relaxed that is of highest importance.
The show was captured by a film team so hopefully it will be possible to see the show in the future but for now – please enjoy an amateur clip from a cell phone to get a “glimpse” of the first song from the concert “Cut to the chase”. :
I want to say thank you to everyone in the audience who came to the show. You received me with open arms and I will never forget this day! I also want to thank my backing band (you rock!!!) – for the evening dubbed “The Merryfakers” – for an incredible performance. And thanks to boss of Thistime Records / PowerPopAcademy Shinsuke Fujisawa who put it all together with his colleagues and thanks to shimokitazawa THREE for a great evening and for great sound! Please enjoy a slideshow with more photos from the gig, and meeting music business partners, friends, and fans below:
[slideshow]
This was a true “milestone” in my career. Now I have to go back to Sweden and “reality” for a while – and start planning the launch of Soundshine in Europe which is planned for late March. But I will always treasure this memory of Japan – and I can’t wait to come back hopefully sooner rather than later!!! Domo arigato gozaimasu Japan!!!
Thanks to Kiku Fukuzumi for slide show pictures (except the one in the street taken by Ryuji Gotoh), Akky Yasui for picture at the top of the blog post, and to Miyuki Kimura for video clip!
How was 2012 for you so far? Personally, I started off by jumping on a plane together with my wife Paula with destination Tokyo and have spent 25 of the first 32 hours travelling. We had only just got home from a very nice New Year’s dinner with close friends when it was time to get going again, ignore any potential hangover, and now we’re here! Here’s a picture from the Narita Express:
The reason for suddenly being here is that it’s now time to make a so called “promotional tour” since my album Soundshine was pre-released in Japan just a few weeks ago.
On Wednesday (Jan 4) I will make a one man acoustic performance at Club Wonder in Osaka which you can read more about by clicking the poster below:
On Tuesday (Jan 3) I will make an appearance and an interview in Radio Nippon.
The “grande finale” of this promo tour will be the Power Pop Academy party arranged by Thistime Records at Shimokitazawa Three on Wednesday Jan 11. There I will make another live performance – this time backed up by Japanese musicians!! Very cool!!! They are Ryuji Gotoh from ONEPERCENTRES on drums, Osam Watanabe on bass, and Yasu Hashiguchi from hello! on guitar. I am very humbly thankful that they seem to be willing to learn my songs to back me up and I hope it’s going to be great party night!! So if you happen to be around Tokyo, make sure not to miss out on this (click picture below for more info about the party):
Apart from the promo activities we are hoping to do some shopping, see old friends, catch Matthew Sweet in concert on Friday, eat lots of delicious Japanese food, and of course sing some karaoke!
When I travel and come to new cities what I enjoy most is to just ”feel the vibe”. The best way to that is often just to walk around a little bit, sit down at some café, grab a bite to eat at some restaurant, and maybe (probably) enjoy a beer or two at some nice bar. With that, my life as a traveller is almost complete. Especially if I’m in good company. I can even do it on my own for quite a while – as long as there’s wifi in the cafés and bars so I still can be in contact with my loved one, my friends and family, my fans, and try to get my career going (for the 20th year in a row!) with e-mails, social medias, and so on… It would take many, many hours to get me bored as long as I have my MacBook Pro, a power plug so I don’t run out of battery, and a high speed internet connection.
As for other activities when coming to a new city I must admit I don’t care much for museums. I often find myself thinking: ”I could look this up on the internet anyway instead of standing in front of a wall and reading a sign…” (is this strange?), my legs get tired, and I start longing for the computer and/or the café/bar/restaurant life that I enjoy so much.
“What about shopping then?” you might ask… Well that’s another area where I easily get stressed, nervous, sweaty, and tired (like every man does, or is that just a prejudice?). Again, I keep longing back to the same things mentioned above. This is even more true in modern times when every city has the same kind of shopping complexes with the same kind of chain stores (H&M, Zara, etc….) selling the same things. Quite frustrating actually!
I do get excited occasionally if there are stores that sell things that are unique and appeal to my interests, like Liam Gallagher’s clothes shop Pretty Green on Carnaby street in London. I mean; who can resist a store that have the good taste in marketing a new ”Lennon jacket” for every season. That’s an example where I don’t mind going shopping. However my wife gets worried and frustrated when I start waving around with my credit card since things there are about ten times more expensive than the kind of clothes she normally buys. So I try to not go there too often…
But the one single thing I miss the most from the last few years of travelling is the record stores that suddenly all just disappeared! Such a tragedy! That was like the ”oasis” in every shopping area where I could sneak in and spend long hours just browsing around, looking at record covers, listen to music, check out rock’n’roll biographies and just enter a room that in itself was a ”world of music”. Today everyone carry their own ”music world” around in their iPhones and that’s of course great (I am one of them) but the expereience is no longer shared the same way and there’s nowhere to spend your shopping hours anymore. The last time I remember doing at home here in Stockholm was at Pet Sounds which can be seen in the video for “Looking for a life”:
I completely agree with what my ”good friend” Paul McCartney said when supporting Record Store Day a couple of years ago: ”There’s nothing as glamorous to me as a record store…” ”…what fantastic memories such a collection of music brings back when you see it all in one place.”
Even in the world’s largest cities the record stores are few and far between. When I come to Tokyo the next time I will make sure to visit a few of the remaining ones. I will take my responsibility to try to keep them alive by buying at least ten CD’s this time maybe for instance Tim Christensen’s, or The Jayhawks‘ latest album. It’s true that I put my CD collection in the basement already in 2003 so the CD’s will ultimately end up in a shoebox. But I miss the feeling of the phsycial CD and the record store so much that I will pay the price. The fact that I’m supporting the suffering artists, producers, musicians, sound engineers, graphic designers, and record label people at the same time makes the decision even easier. After all music matters!
