In October 2019 we went to Japan and Korea, supposedly to play 7 shows and it’s true: we did do that.
We also caught many very fast trains, ate some delicious food out of boxes, met the most respectful but friendly people (like Rumi) , washed stains off our trousers with holy water, cycled around Kyoto on and off pavements to holy shrines, a taxi drivers cafe and along a river, never bothered to lock the front door of our Airbnb because you don’t have to, nearly fell in a number of ornamental lakes, dropped our sunglasses into a number of ornamental lakes, worried about football sized spiders dropping on our heads and pretended we were mediaeval horsemen taking part in an archery contest (I kid you not. The evidence is below).
I discovered a forgotten song which had become an underground hit (more on that here https://duncanreidandthebigheads.com/2019/10/31/the-wilderness-years-begin-and-a-lost-song-is-discovered/ ) which we rehearsed and played at the magical Poor Cow bar run by the charismatic Fifi (http://tokyodeep.blogspot.com/2015/10/bar-poor-cow-in-shimokitazawa-powerpop.html ).The rehearsal is captured below.
And in all of this we were lead astray by a Welshman, Russ Mainwaring, pretending to speak Japanese to uncomprehending locals while filming our every move, begging us with all his heart to buy a “go everywhere” train ticket so as not to be forced to queue at every station, while rescued by an army of super lovely and efficient Japanese women like Chihiro Isadora.
Big thanks to Russ for making it happen and for recording this home movie which we will always treasure: