A couple of months ago I met with musician, producer and author Saeki Kenzou for an interview, part of which appeared as part of a couple of features I wrote for The Japan Times on the Drive to 2010 punk and new wave festival at Shinjuku Loft. The event forms part of a series together with 1979's Drive to 80s and 1999's Drive to 2000, all of which focussed on Japanese punk and new wave music. I wasn't able to use all of the interview, and I was forced by space restrictions to cut, edit and paraphrase more than I would have liked, so here's a slightly less edited version of the interview.

Tell me a bit about how the "Drive to..." events started.

Drive to 80s was organised by Jibiki and Shimizu at the old Shinjuku Loft. Different to the current one, with maybe a capacity of about three hundred people. Drive to 80s was perhaps the first time there was a standing gig in Japan, in the style of CBGBs. Before then there were standing gigs in smaller places. Before that, gigs were all seated, and actually Drive to 80s was originally conceived like that. At first they were supposed to make that gig sitting on the floor, but once it started it was too crowded so everyone stood up.

There was already a connection with the New York punk scene from some of the musicians though, right?

Some of the people who were playing at the event had played at CBGBs previously. They knew about the CBGBs atmosphere. Reck from Friction had played in The Contortions and done sessions with DNA as well. This was the era of punk rock in America so sooner or later that culture was going to come over here. On one day there was three hundred people, so over six days that's two thousand five hundred people.

The first event was a mixture of "Tokyo Rockers" type bands and new wave, and since then the new wave influence has grown. Is that thanks to your influence?

In Drive to 80s, the Tokyo Rockers scene was the core of the event, but then added to that there many other kinds of bands played, like P-Model. P-Model were the first successful band of that style, and then bands like the Plastics. Basically the central theme was punk though.

I began booking in Drive to 2000. For example Crazy Ken Band, who are now very famous, but at that time it was before they got their break; and then there's Dip in the Pool, who are here this time as well, who have a kind of soft vocal and high quality sound; Shishido Rumi, who was an idol.

But everybody at this event has a sort of new wave sense, because new wave influenced so many different kinds of music. For example kayoukyoku, had a strong new wave influence. I wrote the lyrics for Kyoko Koizumi's song "Muscle Peach" (from the album Flapper), the music was written by Akiko Yano and it was arranged by Masahide Sakuma from the Plastics, which was a very new wave song.

And it keeps getting bigger each time.

Yes. In Drive to 2000 one hundred bands gathered for ten events in seven days. Every time it expands. This time we've billed it as thirty days, but actually it's thirty-six days because there are some all-night concerts. Maybe two hundred and fifty or so bands.

Can you tell me about your own music?

At first I played in a band called Shonen Homeruns, which was kind of the prototype for Halmens, my next band. In fact Nomiya Maki, who was later in Pizzicato Five, sang for the first time in my band. After that I formed Pearl Brothers. I did collaborations with lots of Chiba musicians and then I moved to the Chuo Line, Ogikubo. I always work with other people. I did a French album a few years back, although it was still in my own style. I basically do the same thing every time.

What do you think are the differences between the first generation punks and the bands nowadays?

Bands nowadays are kind of clumsy. Now musicians are flexible and you can do anything with many kinds of sounds or effectors, but I think a simple band that kind do so many things is attractive to me now. Because they have so much choice, they get lost in it.

When I was forming my first band, I had to try really hard to make my sound, but now people can do it so easily. Back then we were trying hard to make our sound. Sometimes things went wrong, so we'd try to make it better; band members would sometimes fight, but when it went right, we could be happy. The value of making the sound was different to what people making music have now.

There was a world or an image that I wanted to express with my music, and there was a kind of anger too. About civilisation, the direction of the nation. The point was clear, things like the environment and the emergence of the computer age. Technology at that time gave us a great sense of uncertainty. On the one hand we were expecting wonderful things from it, but on the other hand we were expecting it to make everything worse as well.

I say 'angry' because young people nowadays have less feelings of anger, but I think twenty or thirty years ago, people who were playing rock music had this sense of rage.

Lately there seems to be a kind of nostalgia for that innocence and uncetainty, even extending to mainstream chart acts, especially Nakata Yasutaka's work with Perfume.

Back in the late 1990s there was a movement in Tokyo called 'New Wave of New Wave', and now we have a kind of 'post-new wave of new wave' situation, where groups like Perfume are borrowing a lot of that imagery, but there's often something a bit critical or ironic in the lyrics. Irony is very important.

So what do you think the attraction of some of the older bands this time is?

It's really interesting that there are bands like Hikashu who are still playing music and even now we're still listening to it and it's still interesting. Old people are interesting -- old is the new new. Young people aren't interesting!

I'm playing Halmens songs with Boogie the Mach Motors, who are a younger band that I think are interesting.

Ten years ago the younger generation of bands were the most interesting thing, but this time round, there are a lot of really legendary first generation of bands like Lizard who have come back, and that is the really outstanding point.