A visit to Bob Flag and Takae Horton's Marufuku Gallery
Channel: Rik Lander
Date: 2022-10-16

In a small village high up in the mountains of Okayama Province, Japan, Bob Flag and Takae Horton have built a gallery. It houses Takae's paintings and prints, including a series of 100 paintings inspired by poems. It also displays memorabilia from Bob's long career as a musician, actor and cabaret performer. Bob is best known as the "face of big brother" from the Michael Radford film 1984, but he also played with musicians like David Bowie and Mitch Mitchell. Rik Lander visited Bob and Takae in February 2020. In the video, Bob Flag (aka Bob Evans) performs his own compositions and Takae recites a translation of no. 84 of the ‘100 poems from 1000 years ago’. The whole idea for the gallery was seeded in Takae's first U.K. exhibition in 1981, which was an alternative to that year's major Japan Edo Exhibition.
 
Bob worked in France, performing in the early 60's "yé yé" style, adapting the English-rock ‘fad’ for the youth of Paris. He worked for Gary l’Ange Noir et Les Démons’ in a recording session and live shows, notably with Nicole Blanchery. Then with Les Kelton. Not many people knew that the songs were sung by an Englishman, Bob Evans. Back in UK, the Crawdaddies and The Riot Squad were Bob Evans' onward mission in spite of the many line-up changes in the R.S. - like those of Graham Bonney, Mitch Mitchel and David Bowie. 

Bob's other groups and collaborators in the UK included FortesMentum, Andy Thunderclap Newman (ThunderFlag), Dave Burman, the Vintage London Jazz Orchestra, Ken Campbell and the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.