Before & After

Written and Recorded in 1988 (Before) / Written in 1988 and 1995, Recorded in 1995 (After)

This is a tricky video that features a couple of my personal demo recordings from different eras. Whilst ‘Before’ stands for a sketch recording of the basic idea of the tune, roughly recorded in circa 1988, ‘After’ stands for a summarised edition of what was later written, based on the very idea in 1995. In my view, whilst the former was still in the realm of influence from the 1980s pop music, the latter reflected my desperate feeling at the time of recording; playing it rough like a Punk Rock thing with using a cigarette lighter to play the slide guitar. The tune was written for my band called Culotte, which had just lost its permanent drummer and in the lyric associated with this tune, I tried to pour out my irritation caused by that situation. In other words, ‘Before’ represents innocent and pure state of the tune, when it was born, while ‘After’ represents the same thing with ill-minded make-ups on, yet it is furnished with more aggressive and vivid tones of guitar sounds, in order to make it a bit more attractive, perhaps.