Merry Christmas Almost Everyone

     This video is a pastiche of photos I took from a recent trip to the national park in Kirishima, a few from my time in France, and video of various guitarist friends in London or Saintes-Maries-de-la-mer or of fellow performers at a cultural festival Kei and I played at a couple of weeks ago. The masks were on display in Kirishima. To make this, I spent 5 percent of my effort writing the song, which took a day to do, minus a little air-brushing of the lyrics; 90 percent of it recording it under circumstances that were akin to a person being asked to engage an enemy at the helm of a tank for whose use he has no prior training; and, then, in a dash to attach images to the sound, the final 5 percent scouring through the contents of my hard drive.
     It was pointed out to me that no overtly Christmas imagery appears in the video. Fair enough, and I did skip over some Christmas tree shots and the like; but having the word "Christmas" appear three or four times in the song lyrics suffices, doesn't it? Who needs to see more of Santa, reindeer, snowmen, wrapped presents, illuminations and need I say more? The relentlessly rehashed imagery is part of the tyranny of Christmas music; it's as if the world's collective imagination hits a snow patch in mid-December. Besides, in keeping with the lyrics, the spirit of Christmas is something you've got to earn, and you can see me and Kei busting our butts here in the chilly bay-side air of a Kagoshima December, so don't say that this year we didn't try!

     Musicians who appear in the video: James Walton Ingham (opening guitar sequence); Gregorio Ibor-Sanchez (guitarist in flamenco trio); Ayako Ichiki (solo section violin) and Azumi Tanaka (solo section keyboards); Emile Ogoo (second guitar break); and Mohamed Niang (djembe).