Bill Nelson recalls working/meeting with David/Japan

Talk about anything Japan-related.

Bill Nelson recalls working/meeting with David/Japan

Postby deadbees on Wed Aug 08, 2007 6:32 am

I am a huge fan of Bill Nelson and he is more than happy to answer questions via his website's forum.
This was my recent question;

There have been a couple of threads regarding the first time people heard Bill's music, in my case it was on the 1986 David Sylvian album Gone To Earth.
I was though aware of Bill before as he was photographed alongside the then recently split Japan at Hamilton's Gallery at David's photography exhibition (Perspectives) in 1984.
The photograph was in a magazine called Bamboo, a Japan fanzine (they commented that he didn't purchase any of the photographs!).

My question to Bill is this;
Was this the first time you had met the band Japan/David, did you
receive a personal invite to the exhibition and was this the point where David asked you to contribute to Gone To Earth.
Can you also provide any recollections of when you co-wrote/recorded Answered Prayers, as this is a favourite track of mine.

(NB I kind of assumed that all the artists (incl Bill/Japan) who contributed to Masami Tsuchiya's album Rice Music (1982?) were not in the studio at the same time)

[b]And this was Bill's answer[/b]

Yes, this was the first time David and I met. He invited me to the exhibition after seeing me review his 'Brilliant Trees' album on a television programme. I seem to remember saying I liked the album very much but I cheekily suggested that David appeared to be a little too self-consciously and artificially 'romantic' or melancholy and should perhaps get out to the pub with his pals a little more! I guess that was the down-to-earth Yorkshireman in me, always suspicious of anything vaguely suggestive of artifice. (Which is, of course, an entirely different thing from art.)
I was surprised to soon after receive a call inviting me to his exhibition and equally surprised to find a somewhat more grounded person than I'd expected.

Can't recall whether the invite to play guitar on Gone To Earth happened on that day or later. All of the work I did with David and Rain Tree Crow was created in the studio over a basic 'skeleton' of the track. Guest players such as myself and Robert Fripp would improvise freely over the pieces, different takes being later 'comped' together to build the song's final structure...an egalitarian approach that allows each musician a more open brief than working to someone else's pre-conceived idea of what the song might require. I've never particularly enjoyed 'session work' so this open-ended approach was much more comfortable for me.

I seem to recall that there had been some talk about me getting involved in the production of Japan's 'Tin Drum' at one point in the past, quite some time before David and I first met. One of Be Bop Deluxe's old stage crew had become involved with Japan's tour production and it may have been through him that I heard about the idea. I was impressed by Tin Drum when it eventually came out, though I wasn't particularly aware of the band's music previously. It would have been really interesting to work with them on Tin Drum but I certainly couldn't have done anything near as good as Steve Nye's wonderful work on that album.

I had played some guitar on Masami Tsuchiya's 'Rice Music' album, (my first work with a Japanese musician,) but it was just Masami and myself in the studio when I recorded my contribution.

It all seems so long ago now and so very, very 'eighties. I tend to think of much of that era's music as being the perfect compliment to Thatcherite yuppie sensibilities. Working class kids seeking some sort of glamour and status via pop music, expensive hair-cuts and clothes. Understandable in terms of social psychology but, with hindsight, utterly superficial. For the commited musicians amongst us, it was just a phase we went through and soon grew out of. Just part of growing up, I suppose.
But, amazingly, (like every era in pop,) there's always a percentage of fans that get marooned there, forever locked in one stylistic straight jacket or other, whether that be '50's drainpipes, 60's mod suits and parkas, mid-'70's long hair and flares, late '70's ripped and torn punk threads or '80's shoulder pads and glam-revival eyeliner. Music and fashion used as a security blanket, a lifeboat in life's stormy sea. Again, perfectly understandable but somewhat frustrating for musicians who have moved on and even more frustrating for those fans who haven't. But that's the way it goes and, probably, the way it should be. That's where the challenge lies for all of us.[/b]
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Postby Burnsjed on Wed Aug 08, 2007 7:00 am

Interesting read.
I guess like many on here, I first heard of Bill Nelson through GTE, and actually preferred his pieces at the time to Fripp's.
Bought his album shortly after, can't remember the title, had a painting of a naked woman on the front, and wasn't overly impressed.
Was very pleased to see him on the first Sylvian Tour mind.
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Postby deadbees on Wed Aug 08, 2007 8:02 am

[quote="Burnsjed"]Interesting read.
I guess like many on here, I first heard of Bill Nelson through GTE, and actually preferred his pieces at the time to Fripp's.
Bought his album shortly after, can't remember the title, had a painting of a naked woman on the front, and wasn't overly impressed.
Was very pleased to see him on the first Sylvian Tour mind.[/quote]

I believe the album you're referring to is Chimera. (Mick Karn played on one track)
Bill Nelson didn't play on the first Sylvian tour, main guitarist was David Torn.
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Postby heartofdavid on Wed Aug 08, 2007 8:15 am

Interesting stuff, I especially like his recollection about the RTC recording process.

@ deadbees - do you like Nelson's work with Be-Bop Deluxe? That's how I first heard of him, at the start with Axe Victim, fortunate for me that one of the Chicago FM stations really championed BBD. I've followed some of his solo career (too many recordings to keep up with though, lol), pretty much like it all.
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Postby deadbees on Wed Aug 08, 2007 8:43 am

[quote="heartofdavid"]Interesting stuff, I especially like his recollection about the RTC recording process.

@ deadbees - do you like Nelson's work with Be-Bop Deluxe? That's how I first heard of him, at the start with Axe Victim, fortunate for me that one of the Chicago FM stations really championed BBD. I've followed some of his solo career (too many recordings to keep up with though, lol), pretty much like it all.[/quote]

Yes I like/have pretty much everything Bill has done, some 80 albums I reckon.
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Postby The Analog Kid on Wed Aug 08, 2007 10:46 am

what a great text there by Bill - and superb muscian and I am a big fan of BBD!

I love his ever so subtle rant at artifice, 80s music and people being marooned in that (or any other) musical period hehe - i had a good laugh about that
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Postby sisterlondon on Wed Aug 08, 2007 2:10 pm

This was a great read! Thanks for posting!
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Postby tallulahtaurus on Wed Aug 08, 2007 4:01 pm

That was indeed an interesting read ta v much. It also seems to be very true what he says.

I heard of Bill Nelson before Japan. Someone on livejournal sent me one of his albums Quit Dreaming and Get on the beam and I adore the song "Life Runs Out like Sand" - its heavenly, v eighties sounding but heavenly all the same.
"This island of blue
Where life clings to your hands
Like water and sand
Will loose it's way when you're gone"
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Postby The Analog Kid on Wed Aug 08, 2007 6:36 pm

tallulahtaurus wrote:I adore the song "Life Runs Out like Sand" - its heavenly, v eighties sounding but heavenly all the same.


wasnt that supposed to be ...Like a pocketfull of change? ;)
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