DAVID BOWIE

© Photo by Masayoshi Sukita, courtesy of Tomoyasu Hotei
One of Bowie’s more wellknown
and direct collaborations
with a Japanese artist is his starring
turn in Nagisa Oshima’s 1983
movie Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence.
Something of an all-star assembly
of talent, in addition to the
celebrated filmmaker Oshima, the
piece starred Takeshi Kitano—or
“Beat Takeshi”, as he is known
in Japan; Ryuichi Sakamoto, who
also did the score, for which he
won a BAFTA; and Tom Conti. The
flick premiered in competition at
the Cannes Film Festival, and
both director Oshima and actor
Bowie, as well as Conti, were
much lauded for the challenging
work examining the explosive
topic of British POWs in a Japanese
forced labor camp in Burma.
One connection that started as
Bowie influencing the Japanese
artist but turned into a lifelong
friendship was the relationship
with Hotei. The Japanese axman
began his career as a founding
member of the hugely popular
band Boowy. Reached for this
piece, Hotei told Metropolis, “My
eternal hero and inspiration …
David Bowie is the one who truly
changed my life.”
Hotei notes he first met Bowie
in 1994 when he interviewed the
British pop icon for Japanese TV
in London. Two years later, Hotei
was chosen as the opening act for
Bowie’s concerts at the Nippon
Budokan on The Outside Tour. He
relates, “After finishing rehearsal
for the first night’s show, he came
to my dressing room and said with
a laugh, ‘Hotei-san—he always
called me using “san” after my
name—come and play guitar as
a guest during my set as well!’”
Hotei performed the next night
on the Bowie hit “All the Young
Dudes.”
“Can you even imagine the
joy and amazement of playing
next to David Bowie?” enthuses
the Japanese master guitarist. “It
literally felt as though I was rising
up to heaven.”
“Whenever you met him, he
always gave such a dazzling
smile, and he had a way of taking
away any tension people might
feel, and creating a softness in
the air around him,” says Hotei,
summing up his friend. “With
both a rock star aura and the
calmness of a gentleman, he
was a man who embodied the
expression of an avant-garde
artist, enveloped in true charm.”
And of Bowie’s connection to
Japan, he surmises, “He took the
splendor of Japanese culture and
delivered it to the world through
his performance. I am so grateful
to him for this.”
Rob Schwartz is Tokyo Bureau
Chief of Billboard magazine.
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