Lyrics and poems : David Sylvian
Art Direction : David Sylvian and Yuka Fujii
Design : Vaughan Oliver and Chris Bigg at v23
Cover photography : Shinya Fujiwara
Illustration manipulation and textures : v23
Portrait : Ingrid Chavez

Published by Opium (Arts) Ltd
49 Portland Road, London, W11 4LJ
First Edition January 1999
Format : 15 x 21 cm
Pages : about 80

ISBN 0 950 9550 2 7

for Ingrid

Trophies II contains his lyrics between 1989 and 1999 listed in chronological order. But there are quite a few songs that were left out from the collection - for whatever reasons. The missing songs are: Cloud #9, Darshan (the road to graceland), Earthbound, Endgame, Under Ingrid's wheels, Come morning, Maya, Ti ho aspettato. You can also spot some mistakes in the lyrics. Lines like "But they've taken to their wings" in Jean the Birdman instead of "He's taken to his wings", or missing passages in Heartbeat. Interesting that the text to Jean the Birdman is filed under Part 1, the Rain Tree Crow era. But makes perfect sense when you look at the Crow related theme. Also interesting that Damage now carries the subtitle (bringing down the light).

Pop Song

PART 1
Every colour you are
Rain Tree Crow
Pocket full of change
Boat's for burning
Blackwater
Blackcrow hits shoe-shine city
Cries and whispers
Jean the birdman
Tallow moon
A Victim of stars

STEP FIVE
Heartbeat

STEP SIX
The first day

PART 2
God's monkey
Firepower
Brightness falls
20th century dreaming
(a shaman's song)
Damage
(bringing down the light)

STEP SEVEN
The golden way

PART 3
The church bells strike... [poem]
Slow fire [poem]
Shadowland
[alias How safe is deep]

PART 4
I surrender
Dobro #1
Midnight sun
Thalheim
Godman
Alphabet angels
Krishna blue
The shining of things
Café Europa
Pollen path
Wanderlust
Darkest dreaming
I do nothing
Cover me with flowers

PART 5
When the little one came
[poem, performed on Sakamoto's album "Discord" in "Salvation"]
The gold and the crimson tulips... [poem]
Snakes and ladders [poem]
Gone from the landscape... [poem]

Lyrics and poems : David Sylvian
Art Direction : 23 Envelope
Design and Typographie : Vaughan Oliver
Still-life and Portrait Photography : Nigel Grierson
Cover Illustration : Russell Mills
Cover Photography : Jeff Veitch

Published by Opium (Arts) Ltd
First Edition : January 1988
Second Edition : April 1988
Format: 15 x 21 cm
Pages : about 68

ISBN 0 950 9550 1 9

for Yuka

Includes also previously unreleased poems such as Nagarkot, The Colour of Roses, Lilith and Ride. Ride used to be the so called "centre piece" of Secrets of the Beehive but was never finished due to budget and time limitations. Missing songs in Trophies would be: Bamboo Houses, Bamboo Music, Some Small Hope, When Love Walks In, Promise (the cult of Eurydice). You might also add his Sandii & the Sunsetz contributions.

The book is long out of print and has become one of the most wanted Sylvian trophies. Mint copies been rarely seen sold under 60 UK pounds.

CONTENTS:

STEP ONE
Ghosts

STEP TWO
Forbidden Colours

PART ONE
Pulling punches
The ink in the well
Nostalgia
Red guitar
Weathered wall
Backwaters
Brilliant trees
Nagarkot [poem]

PART TWO
Taking the veil
Laughter and forgetting
Before the bullfight
Gone to earth
Wave
River man
Silver moon
Lilith [poem]
The colour of roses [poem]

STEP THREE
Buoy

PART THREE
September
The boy with the gun
Maria
Orpheus
The devil's own
When the poets dreamed of angels
Mother and child
Let the happiness in
Waterfront

STEP FOUR
Ride

Very rare, large format tour programm.

Sound engineer/head technician : Dave Kent
Tour co-ordination : Tim Hook
Lighting & Stage design : Haruki Kaito
Design coordination : Yuka Fujii
Artist management : Richard Chadwick for Opium (Arts) ltd.
Graphic Design : Laurie Haycock Makela and P. Scott Makela for words and pictures for business and culture USA
Photography: Bill Phelps
Pages: 24

Promoter : Seijiro Udo/Udo Artists. Inc.
Sound : Hibino
Stage : Shimizu Butai
Trucking : JEC
Mechandising : Start from Zero
Printing : Tenprint. 4

The tour is humbly dedicated to Sri Sri Mata Amritanandamayi and his family.

You won't really find much content in this program. The words of the Slow Fire poem are scattered over the pages of the tour book.

Then the book lists the concerts in Japan. (Yokohama, Osaka, Fukuoka, Nagoya and Tokyo) Under those names there are Japanese signs. Possibly the addresses of the concert halls and the starting hours of the concerts.

Then there is a text about one page in length in Japanese. It is signed by Masa Matsuzaki. October 1st, 1995.

This program was made for the Japanese tour not for the concerts in Europe. I don't think there were tour programs for the European tour. (I don't know this for sure). I saw his concert in Gent, Belgium and of course bought the program there.

The page before last gives a graphic overview of the albums released by Sylvian (solo), Japan (not all albums), Holger Czukay and Robert Fripp.
The pictures who serve as background for the poem are mainly close ups of his hands, fire, etc.

Tour dates

Brochure and Merchandising Design: Vaughan Oliver and v23
Darshan Images : Jim Friedman
Portraits : Kevin Westenberg and Phil Knott
Biographies : Paul Tingen

Format : 17 x 24,5 cm
Pages : 34

The road to graceland 1993 tour was dedicated to the memory of Edie Fripp and the birth of the child of David and Ingrid Sylvian (Ameera-Daya).

Should you be still looking for this tourbook, I have a few last copies to sale. See my market place for further info.

Besides lots of pretty pictures and colours (many sliver mat pages) the tourbook includes the lyrics to The First Day. the complete tourdates and biographies of David Sylvian, Robert Fripp, Trey Gunn, Pat Mastelotto, Michael Brook and Hakuri Kaito (who did the lighting and stage design). The bio of David Sylvian also includes following funny sentence:
"Further recorded collaborations with Robert Fripp are expected, as well as a long awaited fourth solo album."
That was in 1993.

Tour dates

David Sylvian : Vocal, Keyboard, Guitar
Robert Fripp : Guitar
Trey Gunn : Stick
Special Guests : The California Guitar Trio

Tour Manager : Peter Carr
Sound Engineer : Peter Singleton
Keyboard and Guitar Technician : Iain Robertson
Stage Technician : Andy Fox
Monitor Engineer : Thomas Bowen
Technical Advisior :Kendall Wrighton
Lighting Designer : Stephen Hall
Lighting Assistent : Richard Bryce
Sound : A.V. Systems
Lighting : SuperMickLights
Coordination/Management : Richard Chadwick
Agency Representation : Neil Warnock, The Agency
Promoter : Time Zone Festival, Bari - AZ Music, Roma
Catalogue Design : Mick Lowe
Design Co-ordination : Catherine McRae
Photography : Kevin Westenberg
Printed by : James Upton Ltd.

Format : 23 x 28 cm
Pages : 16

Very beautiful tour program containing the list of venues and a selected discography from David Sylvian and Robert Fripp/King Crimson.

Tour dates

Tour Brochure and Merchandising Design: Russell Mills and Dave Coppenhall
Photographic Treatments: David Buckland

Published by Bravado Merchandising Services Ltd.
Format : 16 x 21 cm
Pages : about 44, though not all printed

What is rather special about this tourbook is that the cover is a three page fold-out cover. The red thread that is running throughout the book is the image of the honeycomb in reference to the album title "Secrets of the Beehive".

The book features a two page introduction written by David Toop printed on transparent paper, giving an abstract of David's work until 1988. This is followed by the short biographies of the musicians of the band: David Sylvian, Robert Aceto, Richard Barbieri, Mark Isham, Steve Jansen, Ian Maidman and David Torn. The bio of David Sylvian includes following interesting sentence: "A new long format video, directed by Nigel Grierson, and featuring Sylvian's music has recently been completed." I do not know what the author is referring to here. Perhaps someone else has a greater insight, then please tell me about that never released/finished long format video.

The overall design of the tourbook is very elegant. I very much like the typography of the names. A few more pictures could have been included. But mind those neat little details like the objects that were printed with transparent varnish only.

Tour dates

by Martin Power
Edited by Chris Charlesworth
Cover designed by Mike Bell Design
Picture research by Nikki Russell

Copyright 1998 by Omnibus Press
(A Division of Book Sales Limited)

Format : 15,5 x 23,5 cm
Pages : 210, 8 pages of b/w pictures

ISBN : 0.7119.6809.8
Order NO: OP48049

Revised Version 2000:

'Featuring an in-depth study of how Sylvian formed the group Japan and how the band broke-up at the height of their career, this biography features full album reviews and 16 pages of photographs. Revised and updated it also provides an overview of Sylvian's philosophical views.' Reportedly it now features a new chapter which includes DBOAC and the singles.
The title is now 'David Sylvian'. The subtitle 'The Last Romantic' was dropped.

At first I must confess that I didn't read the whole book, but I read enough chapters to give you some insight of its content. Upon writing that book Martin Power was relying on secondary sources alone. David Sylvian himself was not involved in its production. He wasn't even aware of the fact that there was a biography about him (and I sincerely doubt that he's read it by now). Strange because the lyrics were reproduced by kind permission of Opium (Arts).
What probably bothers me the most about it is, that the author couldn't get the obvious right; like song titles. I'll give you one example. Here is what he says about the "Jean the Birdman" single: "Made available as a two CD set, with a total of four instrumentals – "Tallow Moon", "Dark Water", "Earthbound (Starlight)" and "Endgame"..." (p171)
Neither are those four songs all instrumentals (two of them have lyrics), nor is the song called "Earthbound (Starlight)" but "Earthbound/Starblind". This is what I mean. Things that could have easily been checked by simply looking at the CD. It may not matter to Power how the Sylvians have christened their second daughter, but her name is Isobel Ananda not Isabelle (p185). What I am afraid is simply that if the author can't get those things right, how can I rely on the accuracy of the other information gathered from magazines and other secondary sources.

I don't want to bash this book. No, not at all. I think it's a nice read for everyone that is interested in work and life of David Sylvian and Power has definitely put a lot of work and research into it and you can feel his admiration for the artist but then it doesn't reveal much about the man that we didn't already know. Mainly because he wasn't interviewed himself. Besides there is a neat discographie of all the things he's done with Japan, on his own and in collobaorations. Also listing all the different formats in which the singles were released.
Personal rating: 3 out of 5. [for the first version. I did not buy the revised version yet.]

large format, hard-cover art-book showing polaroid collages David did in the years between 1982 and 1984.

Perspectives might be the most valuable Sylvian item of all. It's currently being sold for 150 UK pounds. The cover shows Holger Czukay sitting on the steps of the Berlin "Meistersaal" where they recorded songs like "Brilliant Trees" for Sylvian's first solo record and where David again performed his Slow Fire concert in 1995. The Meisersaal was standing right beside the former Berlin Wall.

The most collectable Sylvian item is the Japanese version of Perspectives. Only 500 copies were ever made (through Sakamoto's Publishing Company in Japan) and it's almost impossible to get. It reportedly folds out into one large piece.

A selection of Poraroid montages and collages, which have been exhibited in the U.K., Japan, and Europe.