Thanks to our customers, we have printed the third impression of the first edition of Free Jazz. Get your copies now, from our online store!

Atomic Books of Baltimore MD has started selling Dokkiri. I assume you can get it through their website. If there are other book or music stores that want wholesale prices (starting with orders of five or more copies) let us know.

The first draft of the translation of Gaseneta Wasteland is now finished. There will be some polishing, and possibly negotiation with the folks at Disk Union about including some kind of CD with the book. Shouldn't be too long.

I have started to translate Mikami Kan's autobiography. It's another weeks-long project, but it is fun to read and think about. Hopefully the finished product will include other writing by Mikami, including other autobiographical writing, lyrics, etc. Again hoping some kind of CD can be part of the package. Working title is A Life in Folk and Other Bitter Songs.

I farmed out work on Wajima Yusuke's history of post-war Japanese pop music to a kid I know and she hasn't pursued it with the same passion I have, so we are behind schedule on that. Still hoping to get all of these out by around year-end.

It's the rainy season, and a serious one here in Kansai, with rain almost every day. Rain is fine, as long as your feet don't get too wet.

As you may know, the proprietor of Public Bath Press has to make ends meet with a day job as a teacher. I'm looking forward to summer vacation, still a few weeks off in Japan, to get to work on our next projects.  Anyone who has requests for books to be translated or topics for other books, let us know. There will be a rush of titles later this year!

If you read Dokkiri! you know I really like the seventies best. I'm thinking of doing something on 1970s Japanese music (not indie) but really need an organizing principle. I don't want to do one of the (ugh) catalog style books that are common here. I suppose I can extend the basic majors vs. good music argument into the heart of the majors? Any thoughts?

Public Bath Press sees itself as a service as well as a business, and as such, we are hoping to present some books that won't have much commercial potential, but which will serve to widen the serious audience's appreciation of Japanese music. When I get some more money back out of the Dokkiri! project, we will release a translation of Wajima Yusuke's history of enka, and we're also working on a book of Boredom's genius guitarist Yamamoto Seiichi's writing. Possible projects include a translation of Gaseneta history Gaseneta Wasteland and maybe, just maybe, folk legend Mikami Kan's autobiography.

we'd really rather you bought something here, since we have to pay a big chunk of the list price to amazon for the service. More funds rolling in here will help with our plans for new issues. Thinking about a book on enka, a collection of essays on Japanese music and movies, possibly some translations from very hip Japanese authors.