ally's journal

this afternoon...




i lay on the grass reading my book in the sun. i don't usually get very comfortable when i attempt to do this and i'm always curious as to how people can lie on their front and read for long periods of time without cramping up or getting really stiff and sore. anyway, i amazed myself by working out a good position and was able to read for quite a long time. here's another nice photo from today.




i always try and find a space in the park that's not busy coz i feel self-conscious. the spot i had today was just right, the slope of the grass just perfect. i kept getting alarmed at the smell of manure but i reasoned that i only smelt it when the wind was blowing in a certain direction, so it must have been spread somewhere else in the park. i really hope i'm right about that....

finally one last shot then i walked back home which is where i am now. tonight i plan on eating till i explode. why do sundays feel like no other day? or is it just me? ever since i was a kid laying out my school uniform for the next day, sundays have felt bad. the death of the week maybe. apprehension.



i'm worried now. i can still smell manure. uh oh.
or maybe it's all in my mind.....

i'm in a really reflective mood tonight. as ridiculous as this sounds, i think it's just hit me what happened a few weeks ago in japan. i think it's taken that long to sink in. i was flicking through the photos and i came across the one below. i took it on the way out to japan, totally unaware of just what lay ahead. i couldn't have imagined how it was going to go. it was beyond my wildest imagination. i wonder where in the world that photo below shows.

and on this theme, this is very cool http://earth.google.com/ . download the programme and whizz around the globe.

nama tamago wa tabemasen

i'm in a weird mood. last night i recorded (very very roughly) my new song on my pc. it's extremely rough sounding and as i don't have any lyrics yet i just made words up on the spot. i really just wanted to hear how it could sound and i'm very pleased with it as a song. anyway, today one minute i seem to be happy and then sad. i dunno what's going on with me.

here's my poem for today. it'll probably be my only contribution to the world on this tuesday morning.

i'm a big angry chicken
flying through the sky
but at least i'm not a nugget
on a plate with oven fries

how very strange. i was just playing around on the guitar for the first time really since coming back from japan and i hit a chord by mistake, it was one i've never played before and i've written a song that i really like using this chord (and a few others). i wonder how it'll sound in the cold light of day? i've recorded it very roughly so i'll have a listen tomorrow. i'll sleep on it. i wonder if i'll wake up and remember it, that's always a good test. anyway, the chorus is swimming around my head so that's quite a good sign. okay, i should quit while i'm ahead and go and get some sleep. good night.

i was thinking about my ambitions and how this week i had set my sights on achieving a decent mushroom stuff. i think i can go beyond that though, i think i have to set my goals higher. i'm not thinking of bigger vegetables to stuff, like peppers or even an aubergine, let's not get carried away. no, i'm thinking in a non-vegetable way.

i'm thinking i have to learn to play the harmonica once and for all. i bought a harmonica in the key of C when i was in malaysia in 2004 and i've maybe played it a total of 23 minutes. that's not good enough. i used to be a really good learner but somewhere on the way i've forgotten how to learn or i've given up being ambitious to learn. i might take up guitar lessons, but that's another story. so, i have to just sit and keep practising until i can play it. my good friend struan was telling me how he had learned to play harmonica whilst working in mineappolis as an ice cream man. when it used to pour down struan would park the ice cream van, pull out his trusty zinc/nickel-coated musical instrument and play along to country songs on the radio, the rain bouncing gently off his massive plastic whippy cone on the roof. there's something quite lovely about that image i think. so, he learned from just playing along to the radio. maybe i should try that, though i'll have to attempt it in my flat as i don't own an ice cream van or any kind of mobile food outlet for that matter.

so this is my ambition. i have no one to hold me to it though. i think that's part of my problem. at school there were teachers and parents quizzing you about doing your homework and learning. these days i have no one doing this, therefore more has to come from me. that's another ambition actually, more has to come from me. i've not written any songs for a little while, but that's okay. that's natural for me. sometimes i can write three in a week then none for months. the key is not to force it. but this can't be my mantra when it comes to learning mechanical processes, like playing better guitar and learning harmonica. i'm going to do it.

here are some photos for now. i'll be adding some live pictures from osaka, kyoto and tokyo in due course so forgive me for there not being any just now. this should give a little random flavour of the japanese tour. more will be revealed in a little slideshow/video feature that'll go up on the site in a few weeks time. maybe:P

this is my meal on the way out from amsterdam to tokyo. anyone who has read my blog before knows i'm a sucker for a good photo of an airline meal. i present to you a half-eaten salmon teriyaki courtesy of KLM. to the left of the main event you'll see some sort of coleslaw concoction, above that was a tasty fruit pudding. to its right you see a piece of sushi and a bread roll (lukewarm). i remember enjoying this meal so i'd give it 7 out of 10. several bottles of wine (red) completed the dining experience.

this is tokyo from 27 floors up

i feel a bit dizzy just looking at it...

amazing city.

tokyo at night. it's a really spectacular looking place. an obvious statement i suppose but it's worth stressing how much of a glorious assault on the senses takes place walking around shinjuku or shibuya for instance. this is shinjuku.



moving out of tokyo towards kyoto and osaka and below you see akira on the far left (from the band plectrum), yasu our fantastic leader/organiser!, takata (also from plectrum) and glasgow's finest geetar player mr chris leonard. this was taken in kyoto. we all travelled from tokyo to kyoto to play our first gig.



we travelled on one of these bullet trains (shinkansen). they're a bit better than virgin rail.



i can't work out how to write down the side of these photos so for now this will have to do...
this next photo is of takashi (far left) and geing with me and chris. we were fortunate enough to have these guys play bass and drums respectively on five songs (calling out to you, do you believe, another winter's day, all alone again and without you) at the tokyo gig and they were amazing musicians. this was taken after we'd rehearsed with them for about 20 minutes the night before the tokyo gig. they knew the songs really well and it was a pleasure to have them join us on stage.



and this is chris sporting a rather dashing cotton shirt at the club que venue in tokyo before we went on stage.


me and yasu.... in tokyo



a startled looking japanese lady on tv in the hotel room.



our hotel was in an area called shibuya (below)



me and akira at the tokyo aftershow. as you can see he's wearing a nice t-shirt (also available in red) that was for sale at the shows. some are still available :P



wow, look at all these people below. this was taken at about 7am after we'd celebrated the success of the tokyo show. there were so many kind people who helped organise and be involved in this tour and it was great to all go out together to talk after each show. this photo is really special. hopefully more photos of osaka and kyoto will emerge as we had great times with the people who helped/played/watched there too :)

“Stopping touring is like stepping off a speeding train” – Henry Rollins

This was the subject title of an email that greeted me the morning after arriving back in Glasgow from Japan. The night (or was it day?) before I had been drifting in and out of a really light sleep on a plane coming back from Tokyo to Amsterdam. I need to learn how to sleep on planes. I actually used to be able to do it. Now I think I’m too aware of trying to get comfortable and trying to force myself into entering the land of nod. But getting to sleep was the least of my worries. The plane nearly dropped out of the sky twice. People screamed then laughed. Screamed then laughed. I’ve never experienced turbulance like that in my life. My plastic glass of white wine went all down the side of my leg and onto the carpet of the airplane maybe two hours flying time out of Japan’s capital. If the plane had being going down I would have got on all fours and starting sucking that soaking carpet I think.

My hand started to shake a little bit so I fumbled for the tightly screwed bottle I’d stored in the front pouch in front of me and had a quick gulp. I looked round at Chris who pulled a slightly scared/slightly jokey face. For quite a few minutes (though it seemed longer) I thought anything could happen here. I was tired, emotional and had been a little on edge since hearing about the bombs going off in London at a train station on the way from Osaka to Tokyo on Thursday afternoon. I’d had very little sleep that night (and the nights before) following a successful gig in Osaka and a lovely aftershow party so when I heard the news the next day from scanning a newspaper I felt very strange. Lack of sleep doesn’t work for me, especially when combined with beer and an uncertain feeling in my heart. So I woke up for the first time in Glasgow and read the email from my good friend Barry, keen to find out just what had happened all week and in that quote he’d managed to capture exactly what I was feeling. And we were only doing it for one week!! It felt like I was waking up from a fast-paced dream so I thought I’d wait a few days, slowly digest everything I’d felt, seen and experienced then start typing it out into the trusty old blog. Which brings us right up to date.

The trip was amazing. It was exhausting too, but it was exhilarating. Every minute of every day we seemed to be on the move, meeting fantastic people along the way. I felt quite spaced out upon arrival and for the first couple of days but by the time we were on the shinkansen (bullet train) to Kyoto from Tokyo with the wonderful Plectrum I was beginning to sharpen up. Well, maybe a little bit:P I did feel dazed for periods of the week.

On the first trip out of Tokyo we nearly got crushed on the early morning commuter underground as we set off for Kyoto. It was terrifying. Chris had a big, weighty rucksack on his back and I had my guitar on mine and the carriage had what seemed like a never-ending succession of people pile in to the point that the pressure on my back and chest made it difficult to breathe and hard to even just stand up. My legs went to wobbly jelly and were shaking and Chris was in front of me, his arms gripping the metal rack and trembling under the sheer volume of pressure being dug into his back. He went beetroot red. My heart was pounding. It was very scary but fortunately the journey was only one stop. The doors opened at our connecting station and everyone literally fell out onto the platform. By comparison the bullet train that was next was luxurious in its space and comfort.

We arrived in sunny and hot Kyoto and spent time wandering around doing a little sightseeing before heading off to soundcheck for the evening show which was great fun, really nice, chilled vibe and I met some great people for a chat after the show. We received excellent hospitality and stayed in a lovely home in Kyoto following a good few drinks afterwards. Osaka followed where we met the support bands Spaghetti Vabune and Margaret’s Hope for the first time. I really enjoyed listening to both of their sets along with Plectrum’s too. I received some lovely gifts there and chatted to some great people after the show.

Back onto the Shinkansen and Tokyo then bed beckoned and arrived in a haze of sleepy, blurry Japanese scenery, but not before rehearsing that evening with two great musicians – Takashi and Geing who would be playing bass and drums respectively at the Club Que gig in Tokyo the following evening. One 20 minute rehearsal on Friday night and we were ready. Wow. These guys are good. In Osaka we’d been using some backing tracks featuring bassist Al and drummer James and they were superb too. I kept talking about them at the Osaka gig too. So the next day we checked into the venue in Tokyo on Saturday afternoon. I was well rested by then thankfully and was really up for the show.

I always get nervous before playing and most of the time I become introverted as I gather my thoughts and focus on the task ahead. The excellent Apila and her band were supporting too and the show was really busy and a success. One twenty song set, two aftershow gatherings later, lots of beer, food and chat and by 9am it was time to collapse into bed in the hotel in Shibuya, Tokyo. The week had been frantic but fantastic. I learned a lot about myself and about coping with pressure and also how good multivitamin jelly drinks are when you’re on the move. I need to work on being able to take in lots of new information whilst not thinking too much about existing information. That’s my challenge. The energy from Yasu was incredible, he kept everything moving and flowing and all the people who helped, came to the shows and I talked to seriously reinforced my faith in humanity and the goodness in people. I can’t wait to return to see the new friends I’ve made :)

Photos will follow …….

Meantime there’s a video clip of a new song we performed at the Tokyo gig here: http://www.allykerr.com/videos/index_videos.html

It’s one of the quieter moments of the set but one I really enjoyed and I hope you do too.

i finally pulled the last few things out of my red suitcase over the weekend. i'm a slow mover sometimes. i've got so many cds i was given in japan to listen to and lots of things to sort out. i've lots of people to write to. i've written a little, brief account of the trip that i'll be posting up soon once i sort through some photographs. i finally allowed myself to have a look at the footage from the gigs/trip on saturday night. there's definitely the possibility of putting up a couple of songs from the shows on the website i reckon. i can't believe that was a week ago.

i'm feeling a little bit flat, like a fizzy drink that's been lying out a bit too long in the sun. my bubbles have gone. i'm sure i'll be fine in a while though. last night i slept for 12 hours. i can't believe how long i was zonked out for. i was lying on my bed after eating a big meal (i've been trying to eat more coz i think i lost weight on the trip) and next thing i knew my head was resting on the pillow. my hair was a bit wet coz i'd just showered so when i woke up this morning i looked like i'd just received an electric shock. i looked crazed.

i need carrot juice this week. green tea, veg and lots of fruit. i also need a hard bed coz the one i have is just awful. maybe i can sleep in the bath.

my goal this week is to successfully stuff a mushroom. i like to set my sights high.

i'm back from japan, feeling slightly dislocated and very reflective. i'll gather my thoughts together and write much more over the next few days. during the last week we were so busy, constantly moving so i didn't have time to really reflect but i think it's important i do so over the next few days. the people i met in tokyo, osaka and kyoto were all just so warm and friendly, i was so touched by the kindness of everyone.

it was really confusing when we got off the plane in glasgow coz it was so hot! it felt like we were in tokyo again. glasgow's never that hot.

yakitori please :)

well, my case is nearly packed and i'm off to japan early tomorrow.
konnichiwa and sayonara :)
kudo made onegai shimass!