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The photo of UA there in this picture of a wall in my apartment is from an older issue of SWITCH that I picked up at a Bookoff quite a while ago. I got it for the several pages of pictures of UA taken by Nagashima Yurie, completely ignoring the main article about UA’s side project AJICO. Despite 10 years of Japan-time the only Japanese music I like (and know the artist’s names of) would be: Happy End, Suchadarappa (sp?), Ningen Isu (Human Chair), some Kahime Karie (for about 10 minutes), UA, and . . . in high school, Shonen Knife. But that’s about it.

But now after coming across the AJICO album in another Bookoff on Monday, I’m starting to wonder if there might be more great stuff I’m missing out on. I am not going to be a stuck up nerdy Music Guy, since I only have the time and energy for such elitism to be geared toward photography, and not music.
So if any of you all have a suggestion for further Listening, share away. (Ximer? Small Circle of Friends? I think I had some of their stuff on an MD back in the day…)

As long as it is not any kind of J-Pop, or by B’z, Mr. Children, or Bump of Chicken. Those bands are like natto, honest attempts have been made, but it is just not going to be allowed back into my system ever again.

日本人の方も、もし日本の音楽のすすめがあれば、ゼヒ進んでくださいー

Kicked it over to Urayasu again for the 4th or 5th time in 2 months. Okabe, Onishi, several Urayasu photo club guys, and I walked around the part of town where we will put on a photo exhibition deluxe in August. Pictures are going to be up everywhere, and we were claiming aged walls and bridges as places that our photos will be displayed. Okabe is going to show her work at a small food shop and Onishi is going to have his students exhibit their photos in trays of water by a well. You will stroll down this old part of town taking in the photography and there is going to be live music and Flamanco Dancing as well. It is going to be great.

This week’s weather has not been Golden by any means, but I still snapped a few digital pics (and only 5 rolls of 120 film) yesterday.

Normally (photographically), East Tokyo is where it’s at. After a few years of walking around Tokyo with a couple of cameras around my neck, I’ve found that Shimokitazawa in general and Setagaya in particular are really not that interesting of places to shoot. However- it is a great place to have a camera if you find yourself asked by people (a daughter of co-worker and her friend) to show them around, and who also are happy to be photographed. Spending the afternoon in Shimokita with two 19 year olds is quite different than tromping around by yourself.