Some great life advice, from a band called Toe

I’ve mentioned Electric Callboy many, many times in my Connections column this year. Their high-energy mix of dance and metal music has filled my heart with joy. It never fails to cheer me up, and I’m beyond excited to see them live at least three times in 2026.

There’s another band I haven’t talked about so much that have also really helped to keep my mind from melting throughout this wild, bizarre, scary year. Toe are a rock band from Tokyo that create intricate, dreamy music with incredible jazz-inspired drumming. In truth, it’s probably a bit more palatable for most folks than Electric Callboy’s stuff.

“Goodbye” is the first song on my bedtime playlist (I’ve recommended a couple different versions in the column). I’m trying to make my brain associate it with going to sleep when I lie down and close my eyes. I think it’s helping me drift off more easily, since I rarely make it through the seven-plus minutes of the album version before I’m knocked out.

Over the weekend, Toe celebrated their 25th anniversary with a hometown concert, which they livestreamed on YouTube. It took place in the middle of the night for me, but I was able to spend a chunk of my Saturday watching the show. I enjoyed it immensely, but unfortunately the band have since made the video private, so I can’t share the show with you. I hope they make it available again soon.

Still, I was very glad that I made a note of something that happened during the performance. At about an hour and 50 minutes into the show, guitarist and singer Hirokazu Yamazaki read a letter. He apparently said he’d been talking about these thoughts regularly at Toe concerts but for once he’d written everything down so he could share them properly. What he (apparently) said really resonated with me, and I wanted to share it with you.

I’m saying “apparently” because I currently have no way of verifying what Yamazaki said. Someone (I didn’t take a screenshot of their handle, unfortunately) posted a translation of his words in the YouTube comments. Again, with the video now private, I can’t run Yamazaki’s speech through a machine translation program to check that the gist of this is correct.

Here is, apparently, part of what Yamazaki said:

That’s a beautiful sentiment.

I’ve been meaning to write something for a while about how live performances — music, theater, whathaveyou — are the best antidotes to the scourge of generative AI. Those are all about human connection. That’s one big reason why I’ve been going to more concerts. And, as I’ve argued, there’s great value in learning how to do something yourself and avoid relaying on these plagiarism engines.

My life is littered with ideas of projects I wanted to explore (PostSecret but with Post-It notes, anyone?), movies I wanted to make, half-written songs I wanted perform. So many ideas but so little execution on them.

I truly adore writing for a living but I don’t know that it’s my ultimate passion, you know? I really ought to pick up my guitar more often and see if that’s the thing for me. I did love performing in bands, by myself and in theater groups as a teenager. I haven’t done much of that since.

Anyway, I don’t mean to get all melancholy and wistful here. I agree with Yamazaki wholeheartedly.

Find something you’re passionate about and practice it consistently. It might just change your life for the better and help you spend your time more intentionally.

P.S. I’m going to try to write posts like this on Pastimes more often to help get things rolling along here. I have a bunch of ideas for longer pieces I want to write that will take more time, energy and research than I feel like I can spare at the minute. But I certainly should be able to write mid-length pieces on a more regular basis.

Blogging is cool and fun. More soon, I hope :)

Your pal,

Kris xoxo

Have a great day! Stay hydrated! Be kind to yourself and others! Call someone you love!