Hi Steve :-) someone (SNB) is thretening to write a book about you Japan. Does anyone have the possibility to publish a book about you Japan? We have ’74-’84 A Foreign Place by Anthony Reynolds, a Japan biography which I’m veeery happy of (I guess he will soon publish a new one covering following years up to Rain Tree Crow) Wish you and your Mates the Best Marta

SNB writing a book about JAPAN would be SNB writing a book about SNB. The only thing I’d like to read from SNB would be his bank statements covering years 1979~1983 but I suspect he feels that would be too much of an invasion into his private affairs, despite never being shy of spouting rubbish about others.

I contributed to Anthony’s book because his stance on digging below the surface of the true dynamics within the band and how the work was achieved had never been approached before and it seemed like a good idea to help shed some light on that. I genuinely feel it’s informative in that sense. No one else is going to write such a comprehensive, unbiased portrayal incorporating such a wide variety of meaningful sources, I don’t think. I decided not to contribute to the follow up mainly because post JAPAN involved too many personal struggles and the fact that I was involved in everyone’s work might’ve resulted in me having too big a voice in it whilst not actually having half as much output artistically due to problems with lack of support from both label and management at the time. I also had no desire to discuss other people’s various solo projects let alone any aspects of their personal lives post JAPAN. I trust Anthony has managed to do a good job regardless.

comment: The Nine Horses track ‘When Monday Comes Around’ is often my favourite Nine Horses track . Just finished listening to it for the first time in a while . There’s an intriguing “rattling” sound to the kick drum, which leads me to believe it’s not a traditional kick drum . The snare has a more “clean” sound . I also hear something that sounds like a shaker but with a quieter, more organic sound . Do you remember recording this track, what you contributed to it and are those muffled American sounding voices speaking frantically from a television ? The creaking doors are quite comfortingly creepy — if that’s what they are — and the “notes” they play don’t clash .

The rattling sound is on the ‘snare’ beat actually, whereas the bass drum is fairly normal sounding. What I was in fact playing was a ‘cajon’ which is a box drum, the type you sometimes see street performers using and which are thought to have originated from Peru. It can simulate a drum kit fairly well. I endorsed a manufacturer of the ‘cajon’ who called themselves POPercussion. If you follow the link there’s a comment from me down the page. Photos were also provided.

The shaker would have been one that we had in the studio, the background tv ambience was no doubt a random room recording (it sounds Australian to me when the guy says: “yer fucking kidding me” at 4:54) but I can’t recall what it was. We added various other samples. The more organic sounds (creaks and scrapes etc) were recorded in the studio. I believe the creaks were actually tension ropes on an ethnic drum but I’m not entirely sure … it was more than a decade ago.