I came to Tokyo in 1983 with a Japanese guitarist who had been playing with me in London. I came here to play music, and figured I' give it a year. I'm still here!

When I arrived it was very hard for foreign musicians. Hard to get gigs, hard to get people into them, and virtually impossible to get a recording contract. So I started Infozine to give us all a higher profile and appeal directly to the public. It worked very well. After about four years into my stay I managed to get work writing and singing for TV commercials, which I still do, although since the bubble burst it's a bit slack.

After seven years in Tokyo with almost no break, I was seriously thinking of getting out of Japan, not for the first time, when a friend invited me out to Hachijojima for the New Year. There were a bunch of nice people, refugees from Tokyo. The island itself is very beautiful, and I fell in love with it immediately. I'd always thought that one day I'd like to live in the country, and I just figured "Do it now!"

Where I live, in a very small village, it's extremely quiet. I'm probably the noisiest person around. From May to October the weather is balmy, barring typhoons, which are full-on and great fun. I've got a huge house and garden, very cheap, the air and water are clean, the sea is a pristine blue, there's always very fresh fish, and I grow my own vegetables. It's a good life. Surprisingly, there are more foreigners out here than you might imagine -almost 100 of us- although only a half a dozen at most are Westerners.

I handle my various job and personal commitments by telephone, email and fax, and by going in and out of Tokyo. I used to spend almost half my time in Tokyo, but now I don't come into town so often. For the last six years, my visits to Tokyo had been few indeed -everyone thought I'd left the country! But for the first six months of this year, I have been spending almost half my time in Tokyo, after starting Infozine again. My TV work had become slow, and I'd had a nice long rest, so when I decided to get back into the Tokyo music scene, I figured I'd pick up where I left off and start up Infozine again.

I don't really attempt to keep up with what's going on in the world; there's enough going on in my own backyard, and I rarely watch TV or read newspapers. I find life goes on just as well without knowing how messed up the rest of the world is! The only thing that reminds me I'm officially a Tokyo resident (Hachijojima, one of the farthest islands in the Izu island chain, a ten-hour ferry ride south of Tokyo, is officially part of Metropolitan Tokyo), is the Shinagawa license plates on the cars. I don't miss a thing about living in central Tokyo! Bad air, bad water -what's to miss? No, seriously, it's good to be doing and going to gigs again. Oh, and of course, getting my Classified fix!

To receive a copy of Infozine by mail, absolutely free, send a postcard with your name and address (romaji please!) to: Infozine, 886 Sueyoshi, Hachijojima 100-16.

Alan Kidd spoke to Dan Grunebaum.