Japan: The Support Sake Tour '24

We toured Japan, blending music and culture to spotlight the declining Japanese sake industry. I had the privilege of documenting the tour, capturing moments that highlight their ongoing mission to preserve Japanese heritage. Look out for the companion book from this tour, coming out this fall!

These images, plus SO many more not posted here, will be in the book. But here are a handful of diary shots that I haven’t shared yet.

ZUSHI BEACH, Surfers:

The Support Sake Tour! American rock band, The Falling Doves, traveled around Japan to perform their music and help bring some awareness to the diminishing Japanese sake industry by bridging music and culture. - SURFERS, Zushi Beach

This was among some of the first shots I took upon arriving in Japan. Some passport drama happened at Narita when I landed, causing me to arrive to the venue just before the band went on, but with just enough time to do a quickie impromptu shoot with Chris and Vintage Guitars in the ocean, perfectly during twilight! I dropped my bags down, he stuffed a drink in my hand, and said “Follow me!” and led us down a sketchy flight of stairs to this rocky area where we did a quick yet epic pre-show photo shoot.

…this photo is the perfect visual of how humid it was in Japan in the middle of summer!

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YOKOSUKA, Moai & Capi:

The 7-11’s in Japan are off the charts. Also, these are delicious but the sodium levels are equally off the charts!

SHIBUYA, TOKYO – Club Heavy Sick:

On our 6-hour drive from Tokyo to Kanazawa.

The ancient city of Kanazawa, very eerie after dark with nearly no one else in sight except for us.

Noto Town:

Recent history: On January 1, 2024, the Noto Peninsula endured a magnitude 7.6 earthquake, causing destruction all over the region leaving many homes and sake breweries completely leveled and destroyed. The quake was so massive, it shifted the coastline by 800 feet. Roads that lead vehicles in and out of the remote Noto Town were damaged, leaving its residents unable to evacuate. This tour and our #SupportSake efforts are centered around one of the breweries that were affected largely by this disaster, Matsunami Shuzo, a brewery with over 150 years of history.

Noto, Matsunami, Oeyama – once the home of the seventh-generation proprietor of the brewery,
Seiko Kinshichi. We walked around the rubble and recovered some belongings that we brought back to Seiko when we met her later that same evening.

The Matsunami River, directly behind the brewery. You can see here that the structure collapsed into the water.

A Noto-Matsunami temple shoot with Vintage Guitars:

During the drive back to Kanazawa, we saw this along the road and had to stop to check it out:

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Seiko Kinshichi, our sake rockstar!

Paying Naru a visit at his brewery, Masuizumi, located in Iwase, Toyama. He shared some sake with us all and we got to see how the sake is crafted.

I don’t know if I have ever been more obsessed with a building than I am with the IWA building…

I love how almost anything is availble in a vending machine, basically anywhere.

Toyama doesn’t fuck around with ramen. Their broth is 24 years old, which means they never drain the pots. The fire is burnin’ 24/7, even through the pandemic.