John Vanderslice doesn’t like talking about himself, says it’s an ego thing — meaning only an egomaniac would enjoy it.

But get him talking movies or photography and all bets are off.
Vanderslice is best known in indie-rock circles — both as a performer and an engineer at Tiny Telephone in San Francisco where he works his signature “sloppy hi-fi” sound. But as he kicks off a six-week tour tonight at an intimate — read sure-to-be-packed show at Tokyo Garden tonight, it’ll be with his Leica MC in hand.

That’s a camera, for us non-photo geeks. He’s retired his trusty Pentax K1000.

In a digital age, Vanderslice is stuck on film.

It’s limiting, yes, but that’s its beauty, he says during a phone interview, minutes before heading down to Fresno. There’s a lot of pain involved with shooting film. It comes at a literal price. Plus, you never know what you’ve got until you’re done. Over the course of the tour he’ll take several hundred pictures, he says. The best of them, 50 to 100, will end up on his Web site.

He started chronicling his tours during a time when his music was becoming more and more of a business, with its worries and overhead.
Photography is fun. There’s no expectations, no pressure. He gets giddy pleasure from experimenting. It’s the rush he used to feel when he took the stage. “I’m just figuring out the craft,” he says.

But everything he does — the recording, performing, the photos— feeds off itself.

Making records gives him songs to play on tour.
Touring means he can take lots of photos.
The photos help people connect with what’s happening on tour.
It’s a happy little circle of life.

Outside of all that, Vanderslice is a movie buff, who can talk classic Hollywood — Preston Sturges, Fritz Lang —while expounding on the joys of "The Bourne Ultimatum." He describes a recent movie-less stint (the 10 days he was in the studio recording) as horrifying, but says people always have movies for him to watch out on the road, so, no worries.
No, he doesn’t have a huge DVD collection back home. In fact, he doesn’t think he owns even one, he says. But he has a satellite on his TV and records everything.

Here’s a quick list of films he’s recently seen:

“Stage Door,” 1937 — A classic Hollywood film, staring Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers.

Simpsons Movie,” 2007 — Vanderslice was disappointed. Monstrously disappointed. Don’t get him wrong, the Simpsons changed his life, he says, but the vibe and high-fi quality of the film just didn’t work.

“The Lives of Others,” 2006 — This film, by German director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck was called one of the most underrated films of 2006.

“Children of Men,” 2006 — Clive Owen traverses a world in which humans can no longer procreate to help transport a miraculously pregnant woman.

Blank,” 1967 — Stars Lee Marvin. Need we say more?