YUKIKOTHEWITCHBLOG

AS SUMMER SLOWLY DIES

YTW — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 14:18:00 +0200

Summer comes to an end after a fabulous firework ending with the Ha-Za-Ma Europe tour 2009. The band played with Yukiko The Witch in France and Belgium, and also did some site seeing in Bruges, Amsterdam, and Lille.

HAZAMA LIVE VIDEOS

Was good to see our friends again, and make new ones. It truly left a black hole here in the north of France when they left. Ghastly train stations, melancholy airports! See you soon Roku, Ami, Itchie, Shuhei and Jean Pierre.

(Special thanks to family in Amsterdam who guided me back to the surface.)

And last but not least : NEW ALBUM OUT!!!! "Japanese Egg Timer" can be found at the YUKIKO SHOP

Lipstick and Cigarettes

YTW — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 20:25:00 +0200

Back on the Tram late at night. Notice a black old lady using eyeliner in a bizarre way. Couldn't say why. It appeared unnatural. Waiting for the tram to set sail, the old gal walks past and sits in front of a middle aged couple looking at clothes they had bought during the hot almost summer's day. In slow motion, the woman pulls out some red lipstick she had probably just smeared over her lips (as I couldn't remember seeing such bright colours a few minutes before), and begins to disgustingly use the lipstick as an inner makeup probe in both ear holes. Makeup for the soul, yes, why not? This isn't enough to scare the two off. The black lady then slowly reaches for a packet of lucky strike fags and slips a cigarette into her mouth, lights it up and puffs away without pausing until she finishes the first one off in less than thirty seconds. Of course smoking is prohibited in many places in France, though having someone smoke frantically in your face is more of an issue. The two politely get up and move to away to a less smoky carriage. Then out of "American History X" steps in some hot head thug with an attitude, as if following a script, and goes straight to the black woman and tells her to fucking smoke elsewhere, comon, get the hell out of here. Her eyeballs sleeping above her upper eyelids show no life, so the action man snatches the fag from out of her mouth and throws it outside. Three cops show up, one takes interest, questions the hag, gets nothing out of her, buggers off, the tram starts rolling. As if switched on, in synchrony with the electric trolley car, the front toothless heroin jumps to her feet, after coughing and spitting something lovely on the floor, and walks up to our antihero skinhead, spilling aggressive swear words and shouting at the latter with fury, grabbing her vagina under red trousers calling him a fag. Surprisingly, all the tough guy does is wipe the spit off his hands, as if he had forgotten his lines, and gets off at the next stop.

Red earsticks to draw attention to what is said? No smoking here please. Oh really, well take this Ghandi peaceful absence of violence and try to stop me doing what your invisible shackles wish otherwise. Both copper, thug and hag avoid violence successfuly, slipping at times with aggressive verbal behavior or spoonfed cinematographic footage that at the time felt good to regurgitate. No blood splattered over the diamond scratched tram windows* but still a city sickness breathing heavily down our necks.

At certain times of day the vandalism of pathetic lost youths becomes glorious when sunlight catches the windows at a specific angle and reveals golden light runes. The babble of kids with the hand of God is turned into art. God, did I just say that?

Sanshin expert Shino

YTW — Wed, 14 May 2008 17:35:00 +0200

A special moment in time, especially before the show with Shino, Kuni, Franck and I, as we improvised a wonderful song together for ourselves and YUKOTOPIA staff.

Sakura

YTW — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 17:00:00 +0200

It snowed in Spring. Not a rare thing you may say? Well this year, it replaced the blossom in the trees that was swept away by voraciously cold winds over night. Some celebrate hanami right now. Wouldn't it be nice to sit under cherry trees, and sip a few glasses of plum wine?

HAPPY NOODLE YEAR

YTW — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 19:22:00 +0100

Flowers of Yesterday

YTW — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 19:02:00 +0100

Yesterday's flowers, from Japan and France combined. Mainly from below the salmon rooftop where the weeds grow like passion.

44xTAK STRAJK VOL.2

YTW — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 18:20:00 +0200

I'll tell you about it later when I've finished downloading photos taken at the festival where I played with Le Polair, and at the Docks where I stayed. God Bless Lech Walesa, Sylvester, Kate, Magda, Mika, and everyone who made the festival possible. Love to Conrad, Maya, Dionysos, Majik, Lucash($), Karolina, and all those I spoke to in Poland, including the guards of the top secret dockyards that everyone left to rot and now are grabbing with all their might like starving children. Art shows the way then the artists get kicked in the teeth and swept aside so the important beings can take control... hey..

CONTROL!!!

Go to see this movie, and cry your eyes out like I did. You won't, but go to see it anyway. Ian Curtis is Alive! Another young raffined savage for the executive wolves to devour.

Nature Textures

YTW — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 05:19:00 +0200

Harmony Coincidence Connected

Hanabi

YTW — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 13:08:00 +0200

Fireworks on the 14th of July 2007. The fiery flowers rose in the night sky to the sound of "Somewhere over the Rainbow"!

Shitty Lights of Paris

YTW — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 17:58:00 +0200

The shitty lights of Paris' Gare du Nord train station. This is nature's way of giving humans a round of applause for their attempts to create an artificial world that will not have to worship the sun anymore or believe that the end of humanity is entwined with our planet's demise. Long live the light bulb. Surely we can create solar substitution by now?

A Red Rolls Royce

YTW — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 17:52:00 +0200

A red rolls royce for really rapid rabbits and rarely royal rats is rolling down the rapids

3 lil' kittens

YTW — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 17:48:00 +0200

two of the three litlle ginger kittens in Champety that my parents thought they should look after. Someone dumped them in a ditch. so what did the cats say to the witch? Lets live with the rich

They all three look just like Barley who was minced by a car in Linselles 10 years ago.

ZAISENU

YTW — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 13:28:00 +0200

Thankyou yojo and jiji. I have been hooked on this ethereal album for days. Check out their myspace. I strongly suggest you get hold of this album, not only for the music, but also for such splendid cd format. The cd has a vinyl aspect on top and brings record making back to when albums were made with a feeling of revolution running down the veins.

ZAISENU WEBSITE

YUKIKO THE WITCH WEBSITE

YTW — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 04:20:00 +0200

UPDATED!

Check it out. A few more things to modify and complete, but generally all there:

Yukiko the Samurai

YTW — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 03:47:00 +0200

Being a GTA, Rockstar Games enthusiast, here is gif file I made using Yukiko the Samurai from episode San Andreas.

and a second version...

Thanks to:

YTW MP3 Vault selection II

YTW — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 02:12:00 +0200

Lorelei, mermaid of the Rhine. These are her songs written beside the Tarn watching the flow rise dangerously as the rain kept falling, beneath the falcons and vultures (yes!) that reign in the valley.

Skulls and Candy

YTW — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 13:40:00 +0200

These are a few skulls from a collection I started in primary school. Back then, we were asked to bring to school whatever we collected, and I brought along my dead pals.

And the daily T shirt from Japan 07...

Ribcage of a Pineapple Lambscape

YTW — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 05:15:00 +0200

Back to the Future

Check out this old Yukiko the Witch album in the new massive YTW download vault.

Quite fond of these songs I wrote in 1999 while home town in England was in quarantine and sunrise and suns setting were replaced by burning cattle bonfires. Saw "Requiem for a Dream" around that time, and that struck a match in a firework factory! The songwriting became painting, like my oil paintings of surreal mindscape orchids. This was a turning point. Even though I looked back later at songs written five years before this album, skipping the in between period lost in rockadelic efforts to be the rock band we could never be with the drummer we had at the time, I felt I could be proud to play these Ribcage songs particularly. WIth Mr Arnaud Eurin another drummer, the songs were performed live for over a year. Come to think of it, I put this man through hell learning so many complicated songs and then writing even more complex ones, just to see how far we could go. That put an end to that relationship! Yet there was a sacred aura around what we were doing.

Recording

YTW — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 18:49:00 +0200

The band has been recording now for over 6 months with Studio Ka, and upcoming label "La Cabine". Guess how many songs we've got lined up? You guessed it, 2! And they still aren't finished.

This photo was taken during first days of recording there. Recorded over 5 songs in one day. All were erased to free space on the Ka computer... Glorious moments in a man's life.

Harajuku T shirts 1

YTW — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 17:16:00 +0200

Got this on the last day in Tokyo. Spotted a couple last year but had already wasted every Yen on DragonBall Tees! Harajuku is quite a place. My favourite Temple is there (Meiji one), I found ManGataro Chinyuki comics there. Kiddy Land, delicious gyooosa, cosplay, bands, etc