JapanSylvian.com

I found it highly amusing when i read once that the band were short of equipment, so were given £1000, and Sylvian blew the lot on the red leather jacket on the Quiet Life Album cover

I remember seeing Japan on the Sons Of Pioneers tour, Karn had been given a "Leadless" bass which kept malfunctioning and making strange "farting" noises which Sylvian was not happy at all about, Karn got his own back during the keyboard intro to Nightporter as Sylvian completly screwed it up...my one memory of that moment is Karn stood their with an oboe laughing his c**k off

was walking along the streets of Edinburgh with a friend of mine on Oct 26th 1982, heading down to The Playhouse Theatre to see Japan. Anyway just outside we were approached by a couple of guys looking to purchase tickets for the sold out show.

We spoke for a while and then wished the guys good luck in getting tickets, one of the guys had a rather wide middle parton in his hair and apart from that was a regular looking guy.

Anyway 10 minutes to show time and walking into the bar was the same guy with full make up wearing a Blonde Sylvian wig !

Still makes me laugh out loud thinking about it now !

Stoobie

Well, sort of Japan related is this story: Outside the gig of DD in Everett (march 2005) was this guy shouting "I'm David Sylvian!!! You would have been nothing without me" LMAO! And repeated the thing on and on while the cars of the Durans passed next to us and John waved at him

And then there's the "Are you Voyage72?" story with Rich, but you all know that one already

Now that we're talking about Richard 'I remember you' I like reading this, it's on the Nightporter site:

In December 2004 Richard Barbieri, while on tour in Europe, kindly agreed to answer questions provided by members of the Yahoo! Discussion group "Japan Pioneers"

Favourite/funniest Japan memory?

Well it's going to involve Mick whatever the memory.
Not sure how accurate my recollections are but something I found funny was when Mick (on a flight to Japan) decided to do an intentionally horrendous job on his make up to get a laugh out of us. He comes out of the toilet all dolled up , not realizing how close we were to landing. The seat belt signs come on and he can't move from his seat. I've got a picture of him at the time.

Bridget wrote:Now that we're talking about Richard 'I remember you'

Bwhahahahahahaaa!!!! Another truly scary moment!

I don't have a funny Japan story but I do have a related one...

I think I've mentioned before that when I was growing up I was the only Japan fan I ever knew. Now my school was a relatively small one (about 80 pupils in each year) so when the powers that be discovered that 'Japan' was written on almost every desk in the place, they knew exactly who to get to clean it all off...

Natasha

Did you have to clean too many?

I had to clean virtually every desk in school!

I didn't care anyway - I hated school and vandalising the desks was one way of showing that they couldn't tell me how to think!!!

Natasha

anortherncod wrote:I had to clean virtually every desk in school!

I didn't care anyway - I hated school and vandalising the desks was one way of showing that they couldn't tell me how to think!!!

Natasha

You little rebel! Was it just 'JAPAN' or did you carve individual members names onto the desks as well?

Astronaut wrote:

anortherncod wrote:I had to clean virtually every desk in school!

I didn't care anyway - I hated school and vandalising the desks was one way of showing that they couldn't tell me how to think!!!

Natasha

You little rebel! Was it just 'JAPAN' or did you carve individual members names onto the desks as well?

It was just 'JAPAN'. I kept my individual preferences closer to my chest!!!

Have I said it's great that you're back? I feel like I'm on the Leeds ring road here; check Hotmail, come here, go to PTF, back to Hotmail, back here, etc etc! This is how it should be!

Natasha

Thanks Natasha its good to be back here! I really get annoyed when my internet connection doesn't work for whatever reason, or there's something wrong with my trusty old laptop (should that be rusty old laptop)? I have a vaguely amusing JAPAN related school story too:

Back in 1981, there were several girls at my school who, for reasons best known to themselves, bullied me. Constantly. Anyway, one of them used to really make fun of the fact that I had written in felt tip pen all over my school bag, the names of all my favourite groups: Soft Cell, Duran, Japan (OBV) Depeche Mode, OMD and so on. I remember she was particularly nasty about Japan and DS being a "big blonde poof". This girl had very boring mousey brown hair until one day she came into school with her hair completely shaved off. I knew she was into SKA music and just assumed she was copying one of her favourite singers or something. However, my friend told me that bully-girl had actually been trying to bleach her fringe a la DS at home with one of those DIY peroxide kits ... she'd left it on far too long and not only scorched her forehead but most of her hair had become so weak and brittle that her mum had to take her to the hairdressers and shave it all off! I laughed so much I thought I'd cracked a rib!!!

LOL

That was well deserved!!

Astronaut wrote:

However, my friend told me that bully-girl had actually been trying to bleach her fringe a la DS at home with one of those DIY peroxide kits ... she'd left it on far too long and not only scorched her forehead but most of her hair had become so weak and brittle that her mum had to take her to the hairdressers and shave it all off! I laughed so much I thought I'd cracked a rib!!!

Just goes to show that what goes around comes around! Serves her right.

Natasha

Astronaut wrote:bully-girl had actually been trying to bleach her fringe a la DS at home with one of those DIY peroxide kits ... she'd left it on far too long and not only scorched her forehead but most of her hair had become so weak and brittle that her mum had to take her to the hairdressers and shave it all off! I laughed so much I thought I'd cracked a rib!!!

That's brilliant. I love it when vindictive people get their come-uppance.

I've just remembered a Japan story from my schooldays, which probably isn't funny at all if you weren't there, but I'm going to tell you, anyway.

At my school, we were sad, sad people who used to do something called a Valentine's bag in early February. It was like an Advent calendar, only for February, and it was supposed to predict who you would marry. At the end of January, you cut a piece of paper into 14 strips, on 6 of them you wrote names of guys you fancied, on 6 you wrote names of guys you despised, on one you wrote "Spinster", on one you wrote "Stranger". You then folded or screwed them up and put them in a bag. Every day of February, you'd pull out a piece of paper, and the one left in the bag on the 14th was supposed to hold the key to your matrimonial future.

There was a girl in the year above me who (a) was mad about David Sylvian and (b) started taking this Valentine's bag thing way too seriously. So she decided to cheat and wrote "David Sylvian" on all 14 strips of paper. But one of her friends decided it would be amusing to switch the last piece of paper without her noticing. If you'd seen her face on the 14th when she complacently opened up the last strip and found it contained the name of someone absolutely minging...