September 20, 2009, Kobuchizawa, Japan

At the invitation of my friend Satomi Yanagisawa, I am visiting her and her adorable three-year-old daughter Sola, and performing at a local festival sponsored by the Mori Café near Kobuchizawa, Yamanashi Prefecture, that is, in the Japan Alps.

Here’s the festival poster!

Satomi and I (and our friend Akiko) catch a rare glimpse of a cloudless Mount Fuji from the car window on a bridge on our drive to the festival from Satomi’s home in Miyota Village, Nagano Prefecture.

“Mori” means “forest” in Japanese, and this café sits in the middle of a forest, which is viewed on all three sides of its geodesic glass tetrahedron dining room.

Prayer flags made of t-shirts adorn the entrance path to the food court of the festival.

My friends Tabou and Hiro-san are doing the sound engineering for the concert.

Tabou also performs a two-part harmony and guitar set with his wife Kyoko, including my favorite of their repertoire, “Our House” by Graham Nash, translated into Japanese. This is a totally appropriate song for them, as they are living happily in an exquisite house in the woods, designed and hand built by Tabou. I performed a concert at their house in spring 2008.

Warm and gracious singer/songwriter Yoshie, blessed with a gorgeous, resonant voice, and whom I first met at Mother’s Day celebration at a Zen Temple in Ako City in 2007, sang a wonderful set as well.

I bought a rainbow hemp bracelet from a sweet hippie lady whose booth was next to the one where Satomi and I sold my CDs and books.

I played last on the program. I sang and played songs from my last two CDs. I am wearing culottes presented to me by Little Eagle, Japan’s leading organic fiber folk wear fashion company, and a short antique kimono that was a gift from Satomi. And, of course, the rainbow hemp bracelet, plus Ugg boots and a lavender rayon scarf, in deference to the crisp mountain air.

Joe Dolce and I, along with Nick and Tanya Alva, did a live radio interview and performance at 10 PM PST, Thursday, November 13, 2008 on KPFA Pacifica Radio in Berkeley, on Derk Richardson’s show Hear and Now, followed by two concerts in the next two days, one in Sebastopol and one in San Francisco.

Joe Dolce and I are friends from our commune days in the early 1970s. He lived for a while at Star Mountain, the music commune I started in 1971 with the money from the Random House advance for Living on the Earth. We also both lived on Maui in the 1970s.  He’s been living in Australia for nearly 30 years now, but we’ve been in touch by email, and he visited me in Hawaii four years ago.

Recently Nicholas Alva created the Morningstar musical, based on the story of Morningstar, the first Open Land commune, which begat Wheeler Ranch (where I wrote Living on the Earth), which begat Star Mountain (where I met Joe Dolce). Nick solicited original music from people who lived on those communes, and selected some of mine, some of Joe’s, some by Ramón Sender Barayón, and some by Lou Gottlieb, the founder of Morningstar, philosopher, and comedian/bass player of the Limeliters.

Joe, Nick and I cooked up the idea of this concert by email, and I insisted that Nick reprise Joe’s and my songs from the show with the original cast (in full hippie regalia) as a grand finale. And so it is.

Do come if you’re nearby, and please forward this blog post to any of your friends in the Bay Area who might want their minds expanded over that weekend.

Alicia tells a story at Studio E in Sebastopol, California.

April 13, 2008, Hazu, Japan. Meet Shige and Mik-chan, the organizers of the Rock on the Rock Festival in Hazu, a beach resort just outside of Nagoya city. Shige owns a nightclub in Tokyo called The Loft Project, where I am invited to play next on my next tour. Mik-chan produces music events in Nagoya. This is their tenth year producing this festival.

They did this festival with a lot of style. For one thing, all of the musicians and staff were guests in a first class hotel…

…with a view of the ocean from every room and TWO onsen (hot springs spas) downstairs.

I was issued an All Access Pass, so I could go anywhere during the festival..,

…and a festival t-shirt…

…with my name on it as a headliner. Wow!

Here’s the festival schedule. I play in the afternoon on the second day.

Kaorico gave me a gorgeous set of new clothes to wear at the festival…

…and she sold my books and CDs at her booth…

…and what a booth it is…

…complete with driftwood sculpture.

Here’s Kaorico with one of her staff at the festival, both resplendant in Little Eagle clothes, handmade in India in a fair trade factory from organically grown cotton.

Next booth over from hers is the Slow Turtle (referencing the Slow Life movement) t-shirt booth, owned and produced by her ex-husband and dear friend Haru.

I love Haru’s sign “Welcome to Heaven.” That’s how it felt at the festival that day.

Looking down to the dome stage and the beach from Kaorico and Haru’s booths…

…and the driftwood gate through which festival goers passed to visit the booths.

Behind the booths was a picnic area for staff only, overlooking the ocean, with barbeque grills beside the tables. We were offered trays of vegetables, fish and meats, which we could grill on the barbeque. Kaorico and I made a vegan selection and she grilled it for us. Oishi! (Delicious!)

Down by the dome stage, where I played later, stood two more booths…

…one of which, Paraiso, was a beauty salon that also sold records and books.

The next day at the hotel, owner of Paraiso told me he’s going to carry my records and books in his store!

Before my set, I enjoyed listening to an avant-garde piano and drum duo…

…And just before my set, the world music band Tayuta, with their wonderful singer, Hirono.

The audience was dancing wildly to their music.

The day after the festival, I met the members of Tayuta in the hotel lobby and we planned to meet again in Tokyo.

My wonderful translator, Mackie, is the leader of a rural commune based band called the Mountain Rockers.

We kept telling jokes. We had the best time. People said we were like an old married couple.

I couldn’t have wanted a more ideal environment to present my music as that psychedelically decorated dome. I’m playing my Pro Series Traveler Guitar, a great little electric guitar that fits in the overhead compartment.

Of course, I also brought my good old workhorse Guild F45CE, in a sturdy Gator flight case. I need two guitars when I perform, so that I don’t have to bore the audience by re-tuning the guitar every time I change from standard to open tuning.

The next day, Kaorico and I drove back to Hayama, and were blown away by a sunset view of Mount Fuji as we passed the town of Fujikawa (Fuji River).

On April 10, Kaorico Ago, founder, owner and designer of the fabled Little Eagle Designs, Japan’s premier natural fiber folkwear clothing company, met me at Tokyo’s Narita International Airport. She treated me to a quiet green car seat on the airport express train to Zushi, where we were met by her kindly father, known to me only as Papa-chan (Papa Dear), greeted at the front door by her sweet mother, introduced to me as Michiko-baba (Grandma Michiko), and Kaorico’s athletic and musical 12 year daughter Ryoo. I slept deeply at their home. The next morning I looked out from the balcony of Kaorico’s third floor room (which she sacrificed for my stay; she slept in another room) to the coastline of Hayama, the closest beach resort town to Tokyo.

Kaorico is, IMHO, a woman of deep spirituality, which expresses itself in her activities (walking in Dennis Banks’ Long Walk for Freedom), her company’s motto (“live for journey, on the road forever under the blue sky”), and her decor (lots of natural and handmade things, and lots of altars).

Here is her “on the road” altar.

I offered her a print of my four “Feeling Good” paintings and she placed in on one of her driftwood altars.

In her living room, with a sunken dining area in the center…

..Kaorico served our elegant breakfast: miso soup with tofu and green onion, Michiko-baba’s homemade pickled cucumbers, a small green salad with grated daikon and strips of nori, and rice.

After breakfast, I took at long hot soak in the furo overlooking a bamboo grove.

After the bath, I repacked my things for a three day jaunt to Hazu, a beach town outside of Nagoya city, to sing at a rock festival where Kaorico and her staff will be selling Little Eagle clothes.

We packed up Kaorico’s car and drove for six hours to Nishio, where the Little Eagle warehouse is.

This is no ordinary warehouse. For example, check out the door handles on the front door. Handmade from driftwood with peace sign hardware.

The staff were busy coating wire hangers with strips of rags to make funky-elegant shabby-chic, recycled, display hangers.

Sakura, the ten-year-old artist daughter of Kisaki, the warehouse manager, was busy weaving strips rags into a beautiful fabric.

Kaorico (on the left) and her staff were delighted to see each other, and preparations for the clothing booth at the festival were going apace. Another example of Kaorico’s shining heart and soul in the material world.