Month: August 2019

 

From 2002 to 2008 I lived in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. During that time, I had a little band going with myself on Guitar (and occasional vocals), Mosh on Bass and Yasu on drums. We were a truly international outfit with me coming from Germany, Mosh from Malaysian Borneo and Yasu from Japan. Our preferred rehearsal place was the Guitar Store in Desa Sri Hartamas, a suburban entertainment district of KL. We spent entire weekends there playing music and hanging out with the staff.

 

I fondly remember Fadily, a formidable blues player and a great guitar tech who expertly upgraded my Yamaha Pacifica guitar with Seymour Duncan pickups and new electronics. It is still my preferred guitar to this day. Thanks, Fadily!

…and I will never forget my good friend Mosh. He was a gifted bass player and a great buddy. Unfortunately, he was diagnosed with colon cancer and despite a swift intervention he never recovered and passed away in 2010 at the age of 32.

RIP my dearest friend!

 

 

https://m.facebook.com/theguitarstoredesasrihartamas/

On Christmas 1991 I went to Chichijima in the Ogasawara Island Group. The islands are governed by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government but located about 1000 km south of the Japanese capital. There is no airport so the journey by the weekly supply ship takes about 28 hours from Tokyo, one-way! Most likely, for this reason, I was at that time the only tourist on the island.

As there were no hotels, I had arranged my stay with a family in Omura, the only small town on the island. Exploring the small community I made the acquaintance of Eiji Tanaka.

He told me that he used to be a broker at the Yokohama Commodity Exchange, however, one day he decided to change his life and consequently moved to Chichijima. Initially, he lived in a self-constructed treehouse in the jungle near the village but the townspeople were not at all thrilled about his living arrangement and gave him a small plot of land. He described how he used wooden packing crates to build the little house he lived in and from where he sold his self-produced souvenirs to the odd tourist. I bought some bars of lemongrass scented soap and the red T-shirt.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chichijima

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonin_Islands