CHINA UPDATE – FOSHAN, TREES AND ICE

Foshan show last night was great.. such a trip. lots of support and really unique show. here’s a pic i took during dickson dee’s set. we projected images on huge blocks of ice. during our collab set an artist named kenbo lit massive sheets of rice paper on fire, placed on the ice.. yow. wish i had a pic of that but i was playing at the time.. so maybe someone else who was there can share.

+ trees in the middle of hong kong, from last week. trees trees trees trees trees.

IN CHINA + SHENZHEN POSTER

this evening, right after visa was finally issued we took a bus from Hong Kong to Guangzhou. huge thanks to dickson dee for working this out so well. we’re having a blast. for the shows we’ll be performing solo sets and one improvised set together. really looking forward to it..

CHINA TOUR – FOSHAN POSTER + SHENZHEN JULY 2 !

+ updated dates.. shenzhen will be july 2nd, due to equal china / usa visa silliness.
CHINA TOUR DATES

SOME JAPAN PICS FROM TOUR

live at metro in kyoto.. the first 5 images are by commmons main man and awesome friend nakashiro-san. if you don’t know, commmons is the label that our good friend ryuichi sakamoto founded. these were also posted on the commmons blog.

radio interview after metro show..

this was an amazing night.. i got to see Goro and Naomi at Honen-in temple the night after my show. they are amazing. def check them out if you are into bossanova.

yes, we dorked out and signed each others cds..

i visited commmons office the day before i left japan. amazing staff. they all are really so sweet. from there we went to the ABC in-store show that commmons organized. very happy to be working with them !

from super deluxe in Tokyo, June 14th.. sent to me from some nice person.

from osaka.. taken by rick. cool story here.. i was walking down the street in shinsibashi osaka the night before the show, and rick, who i’ve never met before, recognized me (!?), came out to the show, and we hung out. amazing huh ? very cool guy.

more images later.. will eventually set up my flickr page with tons of pics from tours and other stuff.

CHINA TOUR DATES – CHRISTOPHER WILLITS AND DICKSON DEE

Confirmed dates for China, right after last shows in Japan.. very excited for this.

:: Christopher Willits / Dickson Dee – South China Tour ::

JUNE 27th – GUANGZHOU CITY
Gula Space
address: NO.1 Jian She Liu Ma Lu, Guangzhou, China
http://www.myspace.com/gulatang
time:20:00
ticket:50 RMB
organized by: Noise Asia & Gula Space

JUNE 28th – FOSHAN CITY
Ninliho Gallery
add:No.1402,Hai’er road,Guicheng,Nanhai,Foshan,Guangdong
http://www.sayyes.cn/blog
time:20:00
ticket:free
organized by: Ninliho Gallery & Noise Asia

JULY 2nd – SHENZHEN CITY
Mooka Space
address: F3 Block,Mooka Space,Enping Road,Oversea Chinese Town, Shenzhen, China
http://www.myspace.com/mookaspace
time:20:00
ticket:50 RMB
organized by: Noise Asia
co-organized by: Mooka Space

links:

CHRISTOPHER WILLITS
http://www.christopherwillits.com
http://myspace.com/christopherwillits
http://www.overlap.org

DICKSON DEE

http://www.myspace.com/dicksondee

http://www.dicksondee.com
http://www.dicksondee.com/blog/

2ND TOKYO SHOW ADDED – ABC BOOKSTORE

just added after the kanazawa show.. on june 23rd. amazing book/music store in roppongi.

Christopher Willits at ABC Roppongi in-store live
2008/6/23 (Monday) from 20:00
Place: Inside Aoyama Book Center Roppongi
Price: Free – those who buy Willits+Sakamoto’s “Ocean Fire” on that day at ABC will receive a signed postcard.

SDLX SHOW LAST NIGHT + TOKYO CLUBS

the show last night in tokyo was awesome.
http://www.cubicmusic.com/japanese/event.html
esp the solo guitar/vocal set by misato kinochita..

this was my 5th time playing at super deluxe (sdlx).. and i need to say that, although i love this venue, sdlx need to find a new way to share at least *some* risk with show organizers. the unbalanced, no-risk monopoly of tokyo club operation, is killing off new independent and experimental live music in the city.

case in point, the organizer (and also an artist in the show) was forced to pay tons of money for the rental of the space, the use of a video projector and lights that are already installed in the space (?), sound guy, etc. these are a lot of expenses that clubs in other parts of the world include in a rental fee, if there is one to begin with (most often a club will take a percentage of the door, and keep bar sales). at sdlx there is *zero* risk for the club. the club is always paid huge amounts of money from the gross ticket sales first + they collect cash from the bar and food they serve. in the end, even if an organizer/promoter gets a couple hundred people in the door (all paying the $20 ticket price, yes that is common in tokyo) everyone but the club/space makes just a few yen (!). and if the rental fee was not recouped, the organizer is screwed and will need to pay this out of pocket. under these circumstances would you try to organize/promote a show in a space here ? probably not, it’s too much risk on the organizer’s back. luckily i had a guarantee arranged prior to offset travel costs (a rare expense from gross income), so i made out kinda unscathed, but super deluxe and other clubs in tokyo really need to change these practices or there will be nothing but bad jpop and half-baked rock music in this amazing city.
i’m trying to encourage my friends out here to have more parties in alternative spaces, and try to bypass this tokyo club greed racket. the difficulty there lies in that there are very few spaces, at all, for a big gathering.. clubs charge a lot because they can, since there is high demand for the space.
so how about rooftop graden parties ? let’s party with solar panels and plants.

WILLITS VIDEO INTERVIEW

here’s an interview by Ali MacLean of Vlaze.. 5 parts to this long interview, so definitely check out the others..

part 5:

part 1 :

Part 1
http://vlaze.com/227007/
Part 2
http://vlaze.com/227008/
Part 3
http://vlaze.com/227009/
Part 4
http://vlaze.com/227010/
Part 5
http://vlaze.com/227011/

SNOWGHOST RECORDING SESSION

since i’ve been back from the stars of the lid tour, i’ve been finishing lots of music.. including a new piece recorded up at SnowGhost in montana. it was an amazing experience, and i highly urge all of you to check out what they have going up there.

http://snowghostmusic.com/

here’s description of the project from the SnowGhost site :
“As we speak (or write), acclaimed guitarist and electronic musician Christopher Willits is recording in the studio. Right now, he’s layering tons of polyrhythmic guitars on top of each other, to decidedly mesmerizing effect. And breaking with his traditional loop-based recording stye, Chris is tracking everything live, to gorgeous-sounding DSD”

gorgeous is def accurate. we’re working on a rough mix now, and will let you know soon where this will be released. we also made a new XLR8R TV episode while up there about SnowGhost and their amazing montana studio. more of those episodes to come as well.