tomorrow i head to Porugal for the OFFF Festival for a Post_Piano gig with Kenneth Kirschner. the organizers of OFFF are always wonderful, it is the 3rd time i’ve played the festival, and i’m greatly looking forward to it.

this year will be great for 12k as there are a number of current past 12k artists performing:
myself, kenneth kirschner, sawako, steinbruchel, antti rannisto, and sebastien roux.

quite the 12k turnout…

we’re all looking forward to hanging out, eating and drinking great things… taking some photographs and listening to great music. if you’re around, stop by and say hello.

the OFFF website

here are two photo sets of the recent 12k Japan Showcase trip. images are courtesy of Moskitoo (sanae) and Fourcolor (keiichi).

http://picasaweb.google.com/mosmos1978/17thInTokyo19thInKyoto?authkey=eIuBugRdMxs

http://picasaweb.google.com/frolicfon/12KSHOWCASE2008?authkey=u52a0M3wLFg

the new 12k and LINE releases are now available, there are also MP3 previews online as well

12k1047
SAWAKO “BITTER SWEET”
www.12k.com/1047.html

12k2009
TAYLOR DEUPREE “NORTHERN” (RE-ISSUE)
www.12k.com/2009.html

LINE035
RICHARD CHARTIER “FURTHER MATERIALS”
www.12k.com/line/03_releases/03_a_35.html

back from japan.. quite bleary-eyed…. fantastic trip, 2 great gigs, and lots of great food and people. i will be posting a photo series in the coming days… stay tuned for that.

3 of many.

tokyo show last night was amazing. Minamo.. one of the greatest live sets i’ve heard in a long, long time.

no photo yet.. as i may have left my camera cable in tokyo….

today’s arrival in kyoto was in the rain and a bit of a chill, but it subsided as we went to yoshi’s house. yoshi is kind enough to support artists from outside of kyoto to stay at his house in a very quiet area of kyoto. it’s very nice. arigato, yoshi-san.

we went to a very very nice bookstore today… it took a long time to find it! many artists books, objects, photographs… bought some lovely things and then ate an incredible meal along my favorite street in kyoto (don’t know the name of it! its the street with the small canal.. very pretty)

the restaurant was very nice.. 2 old ladies cooking and just wonderful food.. some of the best i’ve had in japan.. and also the tea.. we all thought the tea was quite special.

after that off to e-fish. cool cafe for more food and drink.. and a “milk me” t-shirt…

all a bit abstract. the way it should be.

the 7am sleeping pill netted me about 2 more hours of sleep before i dragged myself off to Shibuya to go meet the record buyers at Tower Records. a nice surprise was that Carsten Nicolai was at P-Dis, our japanese distributor, when i got there.. it was good to see him. he’s in town setting up an exhibition at the ICC. carsten, masami, and i went to Tower where we had to pose for photographs at the respective 12k and Raster/Noton displays. it was there i also met up with Hirono, who is the artist Gutevolk, on Happy.

after Tower and some lunch Hirono took me to a very cool cafe in Shibuya where we sat for many hours talking to some artists, eating food and drinking beer…. it was raining and we didn’t want to move. despite how crazy shibuya is… how trendy.. the energy is very

after that was the tokyo subway experience (when no more people can fit into the subway car, put 20 more in).. and back to Keiichi’s house to dry off and make some music.

it was a day with friends, which is the best way to spend them.. thank you hirono, masami, + carsten!

i forgot the sun rises in tokyo at this time of the year at, like, 3 in the morning.. that coupled with a 5.7 earthquake off of Honshu that rattled me awake.. and i’m downing a sleeping pill at 7am… and writing this blog… not a good night sleep…

after a fairly livable 14-hour flight from JFK, i’m in tokyo. Keiichi (fourcolor) and Sanae (moskitoo) were kind enough to pick me up at the airport… from there we went to P-Dis, 12k’s distributor in Tokyo to say hello to Masami… and then made our way to Keiichi’s apartment. after a short refresher we headed out to some sushi… the starter dish was crab meat salad and topped with, no one was quite sure, if it was squid or crab.. brain or guts… we all ate it anyway.. quite a thing to eat after 8 hours of no food…

and, i must add, bicycling around tokyo at night is really magical.. if you’ve never done it before..

very tired right now… tomorrow, hopefully seeing friends… going to tower in shibuya to say hello to the buyer.. might hang out at Keiichi’s and make some music, too.

goodnight.

thank you to Kyo and everyone @ P-Dis distribution and Tower Records in Osaka. a nice 12k listening station in anticipation of my arrival in Kyoto next week.

can’t wait.!