HOME
CASE A
CASE B
CASE C
CASE D

 

1. Books in a Toaster (1990)
Yukio Yung putting two novels by André Gide into a Morphy Richards pop-up toaster. The books are Strait Is The Gate and La Symphonie Pastorale/Isabella.

YY: I'm not really sure why I thought this was a funny idea. But I did...


3. Up yer arse... (1996)
Yukio has suffered with a gut condition since his late teens. The diagnosis peridocially shifts between Crohn's Disease and ulcerative colitis - evidently in around 15 percent of cases it's difficult to state unequivocally which it is. Consequently, he has to have a colonoscopy every few years. Which is nice. This is a photo of the one he had in 1996.

 2.: "Crawford Of The Town" (2000)
This song is from the album Unconscious Arithmetic by Chrysanthemums. It was supposed to be released on the US Flamingo label in 2001 - but they went out of business before it was pressed up. The song merges the story of Ipswich Town footballing legend Ray Crawford with the original King Kong movie. Andy Ward played drums; YY did everything else. To hear the track, click on Ray's photograph; right-click (PC) or ctrl-click (Mac) here to download the mp3.

4. Yukio Yung's All Music Guide entry (2000)

Yukio Yung is the pseudonym of Terry Burrows, a London-based singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist with an apparently limitless appetite for both pseudonyms and side projects. Aside from his best-known alias, which he first used in the mid-'80s as one-third of the psych pop group the Chrysanthemums, Burrows released instrumental prog rock as Push-Button Pleasure, acid house dance mixes as YooKo, and free jazz-influenced pop art experiments as the Jung Analysts. To top it all off, Burrows released albums of avant-garde minimalism under his own name. All of this is in addition to his day job as a prolific author of computer manuals and music instruction books.

Born in Ipswich, England, on January 14, 1963, Burrows taught himself guitar, bass, drums, and saxophone as a teenager, in addition to pursuing a classical education on piano that had begun at the age of five. Although influenced by punk, it was more the anti-record industry D.I.Y. ethos that attracted him than the music. Burrows' influences included Syd Barrett, the Kinks, the Who, and the entire Canterbury Scene with its prog rock sound that centered around the Soft Machine and its various offshoots, along with other '60s-influenced post-punks like XTC and the Television Personalities. By the mid-'80s, Burrows had started his own indie label, Hamster Records, releasing albums by his first band, the Jung Analysts, and similar non-commercial artists. A chance meeting with singer/guitarist Alan Jenkins, whose psych pop cult band Deep Freeze Mice had just broken up, led to the formation of the Chrysanthemums, for whom Burrows was lead singer and keyboardist between 1986 and 1991; the band name, like Burrows' newly adopted stage name of Yukio Yung, came about as part of his fascination with Japanese culture.

Burrows released three albums and four EPs as co-leader of the Chrysanthemums before the band's original lineup splintered in 1991. Retaining the name Yukio Yung, he released his first solo album, Tree Climbing Goats, in 1992. A follow-up vinyl-only LP, Art Pop Stupidity, followed in 1993, with a CD of entirely new material, A Brainless Deconstruction of the Popular Song, appearing later that year. Jeff Lynne, a 7" tribute to one of Burrows' personal heroes recorded during the Art Pop Stupidity sessions, was released in 1994, followed by the single "Keep the Black Flag Flying." The B-side of that single, "Reservoir Girls (Yukio's Dream #6)", is an inspired oddity featuring Burrows re-creating the opening scene of Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs in a variety of computer-altered voices, with some parts sung in an operatic voice to fragments of classical music, before swinging into a dead-on cover of Ray, Goodman & Brown's slick-'70s soul classic "Girls".

Burrows' next releases as Yukio Yung were a related pair of 10" EPs on the German Pink Lemon label, Goodbye Pork-Pie Brain and Hello Pulsing Vein. These discs found Burrows progressing in a more pop-friendly direction, although Goodbye Pork-Pie Brain did include the Can-like 15-minute drone-song "Yuri Gagarin". Four remixed songs from these EPs were released as the almost Brit-poppy CD EP (Mostly) Water. As Yung, Burrows also collaborated with R. Stevie Moore on the seven-song CD EP Objectivity in 1995, each covering one of the other's songs besides co-writing four others; the EP also includes Yung's lovely version of Robert Wyatt's "God Song". In 1996, Burrows rejoined with his ex-Chrysanthemums bandmate Martin Howells to form a new version of that group, re-christened with the cute visual pun Chrys&themums to differentiate it from the Jenkins lineup.

All Music Guide www.allmusic.com

5. On the Riesenrad, Vienna (1991)
This picture was taken during The Chrysanthemums' second European tour. This is the ferris wheel from which Orson Welles delivers his famous "cuckoo clock" speech to Joseph Cotten in Carol Reed's The Third Man.

YY: Actually, I always thought that bit of dialogue sounded a bit stilted and rather tacked-on. But what do I know about that - or anything else, for that matter?
6. Portrait of the artist as a purple line (2006)
Yukio as seen by his 2-year-old son, Louis.
7. Yukio Yung's Dad (c. 1950s)
This is Ronald Frank Burrows.

YY: No idea where or when this was taken. In almost every photograph of him as a young man he's seen with a cigarette in his mouth. He died in 1997. From lung cancer...

8. Review of Yukio Yung's (Mostly) Water EP (c.2001)
Original Sin webzine demands to know why Yukio Yung is "not a household name in today's pop".

The German quality-label Jar Music that recently released the album by The Conspiracy is presenting you this little masterpiece of Yukio Yung, and even if the name is Japanese, this man is born in London and only chooses the name because of an obsession he had for Japan in the 1980s. Honestly said I'm a bit suprised because the quality that's been presented on here and once again dissapointed because this is drove back into the underground circuit but there are so many dishonest things in life that you start wondering why you still should complain it!!!! IĠd say Yukio Yung is a sort of singer-songwriter in the tradition of Jeff Buckley but enriched with the modern indiesounds from Pulp or even later stuff by Marc Almond. All I can say is as simple as that: why is this name not a household name in today's pop????

YY: I think this is/was a French site that for some reason was published in quirky English. Jeff Buckley? Marc Almond? I suppose it makes a change from being compared to Robyn Hitchcock..

11. Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer (2002)
"Art is that thing having to do only with itself - the product of a successful attempt to make a work of art. Unfortunately, there are no examples of art, nor good reasons to think that it will ever exist. (Everything that has ever been made has been made with a purpose, everything with an end outside that thing, i.e., I want to sell this or I want to make me famous and loved, or I want this to make me whole, or worse, I want this to make others whole.) And yet we continue to write, paint, sculpt and compose. Is this foolish of us?"

 9. Mysterious deflating tyre incident (1991)
 The Chrysanthemums struggle with simple vehicle maintenance in rural Germany. Bassist Vladimir wields a jack with purpose while singer Yukio and guitarist Alan watch with interest. Drummer Robyn counts his fingers and cameraman Rachel counts her boxes.
10. Catfish II (1992)
 Paul Smith (left) and Yukio (right) recorded one track for the German Candy Bars compilation on the Little Teddy label. Then they called it a day. Their sole effort was a one-minute version of the talky section from "The Legend of Xanadu" - a 1960s hit in the UK by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Titch.

12. We are normal and we dig Burt Weedon... (1994)
Yukio meets the legendary Burt Weedon at a book launch in Denmark Place.

13. Invention of the "Harry Secombe" cocktail (2006)

Developed at around 17:30 on April 30. Superb!

1. Take a classic cocktail shaker and add plenty of ice.
2. Pour in one measure of vodka and one measure of cherry brandy.
3. Squeeze the juice from half a lemon.
4. Shake vigorously.
5. Divide contents into four large champagne flutes.
6. Top up each glass with champagne.
7. Add a single drop of angustura bitters to each.

14. Studio disaster(1988)
Rain comes gushing through a leaking roof into the control room of Yukio's Surgeon's Lab studio in Acton, London, drenching the mixing desk, tape decks, effects and speakers. Amazingly, only the desk was damaged.

15. The dogs (2001)
Lena, Max and Illy in Caithness.

16. Review in US magazine, Amplifier (1999)
The Baby's Head by Chrys&themums (Jar Music, Germany)
East London singer/songwriter Yukio Yung (his mum named him Terry Burrows, under which name he's a much-published author of guitar and computer instruction books) is a stunningly prolific, remarkably brilliant popsmith who nowhere near enough people, especially in the United States, know about yet. The continuum of eccentric British popsters that began with Ray Davies and has continued through Robert Wyatt, Andy Partridge, Robyn Hitchcock, Bid, Daniel Treacy and Martin Newell. Likewise, Yukio has a remarkable knack for melodies that stick in your head for ages on one listening, love songs with choruses like "It's time we tried to make our molecules collide" ("1000 Tiny Pieces") and almost-conversational shaggy dog stories like "Founding My Religion." The Baby's Head, the latest release by one of Yukio's many projects, Chrys&themums (formerly The Chrysanthemums, under which name they released a song-by-song cover of the Zombies' entire Odyssey and Oracle album) is an excellent introduction to Mr. Yung. Here's a singer/songwriter skilled in any number of styles: psychedelia ("The Things Around the Picture"), insistently catchy guitar pop with a strong British Invasion influence ("Like Billy Ocean Said," "Not That Much"), pleasantly spacy explorations not unlike the Bevis Frond at their poppiest and least wanky ("Getting Off A One-Way Train" and the lovely extended closer, "Never Knowingly Understood"), garagey instrumental raveups ("The Test Tone Five") and heaping doses of pure pop bounce (the brilliant "Rainy Sunday Saints" and the unbelievably Kinks-ish "We've Gone Too Far"). Perhaps the most remarkable thing about The Baby's Head beyond its melodic and lyrical strengths is its construction: Every element of this album, from Yukio's guitar, keyboards and vocals to Vladimir Zajkowiecz's bass and Andy Ward's drums was in some way manipulated on Yung's Macintosh so that the album was finally entirely computer-generated. This in itself is not at all uncommon - artists from Nine Inch Nails to Wire have done this before. But never before have I heard a computer-made album that sounds so... well, alive. This music has a very human heart at its core. Either under his own name or with Chrys&themums, Yukio Yung is an undiscovered treasure.

**** 1/2 (out of possible 5)
www.amplifiermagazine.com
17. Live at Kaufbeuren (1991)
This was a Chrysanthemums gig at Das Pic, Kaufbeuren, in the South of Germany. The club was run by a splendid chap named Peter. We played there a couple of times and always had fun. At this gig, my friend - and opera buddy - Mike Plummer turned up unexpectedly. He was holidaying in Germany and decided to come to Kaufbeuren for the day. Apparently he spent half the gig at the bar with his hands over his ears, and then rushed out with a pained expression on his face - not a wholly unusual response. It transpired that this was his first "rock" gig and he'd been completely unprepared for anything that loud. To this day he's never been to a similar event. He took this photo before he left.
18. Gary's Glitter Bar:
"The Leader of the Snack"(c.1994)
YY: I was an editor at a publishing company when Gary Glitter opened the Glitter Bar on the corner of Leicester Square - near to where I worked. If I remember rightly, it was a tiny little sandwich bar pretty well opposite Planet Hollywood - which in itself is quite funny. It went out of business very quickly (almost as quickly as it would if he tried to open one now - incarceration notwithstanding). For some reason I kept the bag my sandwich came in and pinned it on my studio wall. Perhaps I thought it might one day be a valuable piece of memorabilia of one of the our great pop icons. Well that didn't work out, did it...

19. The "Ramases" Guitar
My first "proper" guitar was a late-1960s Epiphone, produced at the Gibson factory in Kalamazoo. I bought it when I was in my teens - around about 1978 - from a second-hand music store called East End Bargains in, Ipswich. The guy who owned the shop wanted £70 for it, but said I could have it a bit cheaper because it had the word "Ramases" scrawled on one of the bouts in biro and then varnished over. He told me that the previous owner - Ramases - had killed himself, and his wife had come in from Felixstowe with all his old gear. Subsequently, I used the guitar on pretty well every album I've recorded. It's also appeared in a good half a dozen of my books.

The story takes a slightly interesting twist when in about 2001 I decided to research the guitar's history on the Internet. I quickly found a South African website dedicated to Ramases, an obscure prog rock/psych artist from the late 1960s. He sounded a pretty odd fellow. The few biographical details revealed that he'd assumed the name following a visitation from the Ancient Egyptian Pharoah in a dream. And that he had, indeed, committed suicide in Felixstowe in the late 70s. So this was clearly the same man. I sent my story to the website. A few months later I received an e-mail from David Tibet, the man behind Current 93, who was also part of Nurse With Wound and Psychic TV. David revealed himself as an obsessive collector of anything related to the man. Having read my tale on the website, he himself had a dream that Ramases - the musician - appeared to him and handed him what has now become known as "The Ram Guitar" (or more usually "ramgtr") to complete the album he was working on at the time. So he made contact to see if I would sell him the guitar. As my first decent instrument, I couldn't easily part with it, but I did offer to lend it to him. But this, it seems, wasn't in the spirit of the dream. David's a terribly nice, and very interesting chap, and we've since become friends. He even sent me a Ramases album - Space Hymns - to which I ritually played along on the Ramgtr. Every few months we have a flurry of e-mail communication in which he, again, asks me to sell the guitar. I'm now waiting for guidance in the form of my own dream visitation from Ram. As yet that hasn't happened. And the Current 93 album that was in progress at the time of the David's dream evidently remains unfinished.

The Ramases website is: www.rock.za/ramases
Current 93's web site is: www.durtro.com
19. Recording at Yukio's Parent's Front Room (c.1983)