Guest Writer Time #1 - When The Grass Left The Earth

As promised, here is the first guest composition - made by my good friend Will Purcell!

Will and I inter-railed through Europe together in the summer of 2007. On that trip we went to Sziget Festival in Budapest. 

I have a vivid memory of going around girls and asking them to pour sun block onto Will's face whilst I filmed it... it was funny at the time alright.

I asked Will to tell me about the video he made and here's what he said:

"I wrote the track last night and filmed it today at The Danebury Iron Age Hillfort near Stockbridge. When writing the track I was in a very reflective state. Having recently watched the 'Utopia' series I was thinking about the world and it's resources, and the possibility/probability of them running out at some point. Therefore, all of the things shown in the video how we know them would be gone/changed. That's why it ends with the empty broken chair in the shed; it's broken/useless/now unused. I thought it was a fitting place as it was used functionally but now isn't, it's a monument to what was."

Thanks to Will for submitting this and remember, if you want to have a go yourself send any work you have to leewoodmusic@gmail.com

Recommended Listening - Volume 1

Has anyone else ever had that experience where you listen to a song for the first time that you absolutely love, play it repeatedly for weeks and then forget about it only to listen to it again months later and get the same feeling?

This has happened to me twice this week, both from CDs that I bought in December.

1.

How To Dress Well - Suicide Dream 1 (Orchestral Version)

From the EP "Just Once"

The recurring vocal theme on this track works so well. It's a heartbreaking piece that has such a heavenly feel to it.

2.

The Bulgarian State Radio & Television Female Choir - Polegnala E Todora

From the album "Le Mystère Des Voix Bulgares"

I can't recommend this album enough! 

Some of the harmonies this choir throw into the mix blew my mind the first time I heard them. Sometimes discordant and they're not particularly amazing singers, but the timbre they create ingrained with their diaphonic cycles are brilliant. 

I'm already an avid enthusiast of eastern European traditional music and this album has only cemented my love.

March 11th 2011

It's hard to put into words the emotions that come up whenever I think about the tsunami. To this day it causes insomnia, mood swings and terrible pangs of survivor's guilt. I guess that shows the power of such an event as I wasn't directly affected long term by it, unlike my friends and colleagues who lost their houses, possessions and loved ones. 

Kuji on the map

I took a lot of photos during the first few weeks. One of them was even used as the cover of a BBC article. Kuji wasn't as badly damaged as Noda was 10 miles south, but a lot of lives were affected.

My photo on the BBC article

March 11th was my last day of work for the school year and I'd just finished my last lesson at 14:00.

At around 14:45 the earthquake alarms started going off on all of the phones in the staff room. This caused my friend sitting next to me to start panicking and screaming. To try and calm her down I pushed her under a desk whilst I went under my desk and held her hand. The earthquake was 6 minutes long in total, there was a lot of screaming, it felt like forever.

After the earthquake we lost all power in the school, the students were evacuated to the football fields in case the structure of the school buildings weren't intact.

We had a battery operated radio on whilst organizing the students into their classes and counting numbers. There were warnings of a tsunami coming in 20 minutes. The air raid sirens were now going off around the town too, telling us to get to higher ground. 

The teachers all got together for a meeting, after much discussion they decided... to cancel school on Saturday. This is why I love Japan, even during natural disasters discussing work was the main priority!

I was told to go home, I lived on the top floor of a four storey building so it seemed the safe thing to do.

Driving home was crazy as all the power was out so there were no traffic lights operating. In the center of Kuji a sushi chef and businessman were directing traffic.

I sat in my house and waited for everything to blow over for around 2 hours.

My house wasn't affected by the tsunami but the commercial park 2 minutes away got pretty flooded. These photos were taken two days after.

A few of us stayed at Erica's that night. There still wasn't any power and we had no way of communicating with the outside world, or with friends in other coastal cities.

As this was the case, myself and a lot of my friends were placed on the British missing persons list for some time (to the horror of my family), I actually managed to get in touch with my Dad by emailing him through a computer powered by a car battery as a sort of punk generator ( I have no idea how this worked).

The next day we assessed the situation around the local area and decided to spend the night at our friends printing factory in a big group as there was still no power or running water and it made us feel safer throughout the constant aftershocks.

The coastline of Kuji suffered heavy damage. All of the tourist attractions like the aquarium and the Alma diving museum were destroyed. In land, the damage was quite superficial, the river leading into central Kuji flooded. We found sea fish still alive on the ground about a mile from sea.

That night in the factory, we set up a huge gas heater (March is still very much winter in Iwate) and played folk songs and ate snacks - we had a good time. It was good to see my friends again. It felt very surreal considering the experience we just had and the things some of us had witnessed to be enjoying ourselves. I guess everyone has different ways of dealing with traumatic events.

Kuji river the day after

We listened to the radio at night. There were mentions of trains going missing and nuclear reactors but it was very vague. We knew a lot less about what was happening than most people in the world.

The power came back on in certain areas of the town very late that night, I remember looking at the Lawson store opposite us and seeing the lights flicker on slowly.

The next few days consisted of driving around, providing for shelters in the south. We went on a few runs to one of the schools my friend worked at that was now being used as a homeless shelter. One time an army helicopter landed in the field just as we had arrived. I caught it on my phone camera.

A lot of houses and cars in Noda were completely destroyed. The river passing through Noda became a sea of houses. It also didn't help that we were experiencing heavy snowfall as is expected in Iwate this time of year.

The aftershocks kept coming (and they still do), there were a few tsunami warnings over the coming months but nothing as serious as before. We had to evacuate our houses on several occasions.

I only wanted to write a short account about the events that happened as it's the second anniversary today and I'm sad I can't be there with all my friends for it. But I will say that I am closer to certain people in my life now because of what happened, and I'm thankful that my friends and family were there for me when I needed them. My heart goes out to all who were affected on that day.