Arrived back in Tokyo from Okinawa, at Haneda Airport. Rode the train into the city. Coming from Okinawa, I felt so energized, like a different person, I felt my energy would move Tokyo, but it is not so. Nearly every one here looks tired, exhausted, unexcited … oblivious to the changed person that I am, oblivious to the experiences that I’ve had. I can’t move this city.

Leaving Okinawa tomorrow. It felt intense standing on this cliff above the Okinawa Peace Memorial Museum. The sky was heavy and near to rain, the beach looking dark, the waves coming in steady one after another, without consciousness. The history of this place is so tragic. When America bombed this area in World War II, it was nicknamed the ‘typhoon of steel’. It is said to have been bombed so much that the landscape changed. I read that a third of the Okinawan people died.

This interview with David Toop was done in the Tokyo office of the British Council. Toop was in Japan for some lectures and a conference. I was an English teacher in Tokyo at the time, and I did this interview on my way to work.
This is one of the last interviews I did during the era in which I published Space Age Bachelor magazine. As it was, I never ended up printing another issue of Space Age Bachelor. The transcript for this interview ended up being published in another music zine called Sound Collector.
Here’s Part 2 of 2: