You Should Have A Band Like Yuyake Lamp In Your Life

I went to see a show in Kyoto, in a part of town away from the temples and tourists, at a cafe on a big street that could have been on any city in Japan. From the cafe's window you could see the auto parts shop Autobacs; just down the street was a Jusco supermaket; this was an ordinary man's Kyoto. I was in a strange town again to see Yuyake Lamp on the road.

When this band was called Orange Plankton, I followed them way down south to Nagasaki and Okinawa. When they quit and then were reborn as Yuyake Lamp, I crossed a sea to see them play in Taiwan. And it's a rare thing for me to miss them in Tokyo.

In other words, I'm a devoted fan. Maybe you haven't heard of them—they've released a number of albums and done a lot of shows, but have never really hit the big time. Their membership has dwindled over the years, so that now it's basically just vocalist Yunn and whichever musician accompanies her. But in my mind they are one of Japan's great bands. Their piano pop melodies are always catchy and memorable. The lyrics are pure poetry, and about everything from love and friendship to our planet's precambrian era and the wonders of the human body. Above all, though, there's the vocals of Yunn—with her high, almost child-like voice, she has this way of bringing to life the words she sings.

Here's a video of a show she and flutist Kopan did at a Shinto shrine somewhere (it's pretty good but it shows so little of what a great Yuyake Lamp show is like...):



For a select few, Yuyake Lamp's music seems to have the ability to stimulate a nerve that controls the tear ducts. Someone at their Sendai show, part of their current national tour, commented that the joy of seeing them again and the emotion of the music caused her to cry. A friend I saw after their Tokyo gig said she was in tears from the first song to the last. I also felt the water well up at the first song of that show, when they played a tune called “Nami Wo Nuu Kaze Yo Te Yo” from the album Yuyake Ballad, a rarely-performed classic that I like to think of as extraterrestrially inspired, because it's hard to imagine such a strange, slow, beautiful music being germinated in the human mind...

Having said all this, if you do give Yuyake Lamp a listen and the music doesn't do it for you, that's okay. Tastes differ. But what I want to say is, you should have a band like Yuyake Lamp in your life. If you are alone in thinking a band or musician is genius, you are right, ignore the others. If a band's music makes you happy, it's the right thing. And that's the sort of band Yuyake Lamp is for me.

The Collectors & Hoover's Ooover At The Que

I looked forward to, but also somewhat dreaded, Club Que's sold-out Hoover's Ooover and the Collectors two-band event, because a sold-out show at the Que can be an ordeal for an older guy like me. There won't be any free space in the club—the entire place is packed with fans. Good luck going to the bathroom or getting a drink at the bar: it will be a challenge to come back and reclaim your spot, unless you have a friend guarding it. Most people stay put.

At this show I had an additional problem: during Hoover's Ooover's gig, I stood behind two tall guys who blocked my view of the petite vocalist Masami. In front of me was one guy, with samurai-like, long, straight hair; to his front was a man with a poofy, curly do; those two heads created various visual obstacles, with Samurai Hair sometimes coming down like a black curtain in front of my eyes, and Poofy Head forming an uneven mountain range of hair, through the recesses of which I could sometimes glimpse the stage. To get a better view, I could stand on my toes or crane my neck backward. But then I'd become worried about the diminutive girls I knew were behind me, who were also having problems seeing the band. Maybe I've been in Japan too long worrying about these things...

The stage-view issue aside, though, the show wasn't bad at all. Hoover's Ooover was in prime form; it still surprises me how deep and strong a voice singer Masami has, contrary to her fragile looks. She said that the Collectors were her favorite band and that the song “Collection” was named after them. They played it, and maybe because the band that inspired the tune was right there, it was a passionate rendition, the rapid-fire vocal phrasing even sharper than usual. (There's an old BBC clip where they are playing “Collection” below.)

By the way, though the band didn't say anything about this during the show, their latest flyer says a new Hoover's Ooover album will be released on Sept. 2, called A-gata Sentimental (Type A Sentimental). Yay!



***

At the end of the Hoover's set I went to get a beer and staked out a spot near the door, so I could leave early if I wanted during the Collectors' show. I'd listened to their music before, but had never seen them live.

But...

No.

There was no way I could leave once the Collectors got started.

The club became theirs.

And it became a different club.

I liked the Collectors' music, but I had no idea how great they were as a live band.

They've been playing their British Beat-inspired rock for 22 years, and they've done big concerts, so maybe it's the experience, plus talent and energy.

Whatever it was, the Collectors had that thing that made you forget you were in a small, cramped hall, and instead feel happy you could share this time with the crowd around you.

They were a regular four piece with a vocalist, guitar, bass and drums, but there was nothing regular about their sound—incredibly tight, and the musicians were superbly skilled. And the vocalist was a true showman, singing facing sideways looking like a fencer, then marching all over like it was the biggest concert hall stage, and high-fiving and hand-shaking the crowd (and also griping that all the fans in the front were guys rather than girls...). These guys weren't kids anymore; the singer had a bit of a chin; but when they played that didn't matter, they were sexy and you could see why they had oodles of female fans.

***

During the Collectors' gig, at the back of the club, above the partition that separated the audience space from the dressing room, I saw a couple of faces in the darkness: they were Hoover's Ooover, probably standing on chairs behind the partition, watching their favorite band.

Japan Live Radio An International Genre Pick

As some of you may know, Japan Live has its own internet radio station called, creatively, Japan Live Radio. I've just been informed by the people behind the internet radio system, Live 365, that Japan Live Radio has been featured as part of its International Genre showcase. It's an honor.

It's actually quite a neat list: if you go to the map and click on the headphones in the Pacific Ocean right below the sailboat, for example, it lists two Hawaiian music stations—The Hawaii Network and Haku's Hale Network. Accompanying Japan Live Radio in East Asia are Radio 1HK Hong Kong and Shakuhachi Radio, though the latter is for paying customers only. In India, there's Anuraag; there are also Jewish World Radio and NUSACH Jewish Music; from the Middle East, Arabic Night Life, Soukos Radio and Mazaj; Bossa Nova Breakfast is one of the picks from South America; and so on. I want to check all these out.

Japan Live Radio itself has been updated with music by my recent obsessions, Fukui-based surf rock band Browny Circus and its successor, The Capris, and the various rock, punk and rockabilly bands that are friendly with them, as well as a lot of other stuff in a 4-hour-plus program. I'll soon be adding new Sucrette and Frenesi too. Enjoy!

Odds and Ends

This video by Sucrette is crazy cute...



Who are these guys? It looks like they're based in Kyoto. I hope to see them one of these days, and I'm in any case overdue for a Kansai trip. There are some really good bands over there, including Jenny on the Planet.

***

Here's one by Frenesi of Tokyo. No one sings like Frenesi.



***

May was a quiet month for me on the live music front (I ended up missing Haikou Fes, the abandoned school festival, but Ian of Clear & Refreshing went, wrote a preview and interviewed the organizer), but this month is more lively. There are a couple of Saturdays when I have to make tough choices on which equally fun-sounding lives to catch.

One of those is June 20, when I'm going to see Hoover's Ooover with the Collectors at the Que (the show's sold out), but on the same day, a couple of train stops away in Shinjuku at the Loft/Plus One, is this insane sounding event featuring one of my recent favorites The Lady Spade, a drag queen show, a silent movie narration ('katsuben eiga') show, a Julie show--the Julie being an imitator of former heartthrob singer Sawada Kenji, a 'Perfume Show', featuring a Perfume copy unit named Peachume, and a 'color therapy' session.

The Lady Spade seem to always be involved in fun, eclectic projects like these--they're a group to watch. You know, just occurred to me, the Loft/Plus One event is from midnight, so I can make it to both the Que and Shinjuku gig if I'm really feeling energetic. We shall see...

***

Peachume sounds fascinating. They're described as a Perfume copy dance unit with "an adult feel". Hmmm....

***

I also want to see Milk Guy Murakawa.

SAITAMA--To mark World Milk Day on Monday, Norihiro Murakawa began a nationwide performing tour in a car painted to resemble a Holstein cow, all to promote his love of milk and raise awareness of the plight of the dairy industry.

...

Murakawa's lyrics express the dairy industry's woes, such as, "If milk does not sell well, we feel a little worried because we are Holstein cows." He sings and dances to his songs while wearing a cow-print outfit, and his lighthearted performances have proven popular.

GREAT SONGS: Hoover's Ooover's "Rival Wa Rickenbacker"

A domestic quarrel involving a kitchen knife might not seem very promising material for a great love song.

But that's what “Rival Wa Rickenbacker” is, and it's one of those Hoover's Ooover tunes that astonishes with its newness and lack of cliche.

The song opens with a girl's spat with her boyfriend.

I broke a plate
Cut guitar strings
Threw a frying pan
And brought out a kitchen knife

So far, everything's fine. But then,

I still wasn't satisfied, so
I threw the Ricken
And finally you became mad
Saying “that's it”
You left the room

And so you find out that boyfriend is a guitarist, whose proudest possession is a Rickenbacker (abbreviated 'Ricken'). And the girl knows that, which is why she leaves it until the finale of the fight. But when she tosses the guitar, the boyfriend, who earlier appeared to tolerate dodging kitchen utensils and risking a stabbing incident, finally loses it. The opening lines have no subject ('I' and 'you'), which can be left out in Japanese, making them even more terse and masculine-sounding.

Even though the words are about violence, you get the sense that while the girl is angry (the song nevers says about what) she isn't seriously trying to harm the guy, and is instead making a point, at some bodily risk to him to be sure. Indeed, the phrase saying the girl “brought out” the knife—'mochidashitemita'—sounds quite tentative.

So the guy storms out after his Rickenbacker is made into a flying projectile, and then the chord changes, as well as the scene:

In the sky, shooting up and popping are fireworks
The summer night, seen from the veranda
Would I have been watching it now with you?

The girl is left alone in her room, with fireworks, the symbol of summer, visible from her window.

A couple of lines down, time has passed. She's gotten a haircut, trimmed her nails, changed her look in general, and along the way she's totaled a new car. And then, suddenly, she remembers her room used to be his too.

Chord change again, and she wonders whether he ever got that letter she dropped into the mail box, tripping twice on the way there. The night is ending, the morning is freezing, and she can feel herself becoming used to the loneliness.

So, the Rickenbacker is the 'rival' that took her boyfriend away from her, though she doesn't really mean that.

This isn't a perfect song—the first 20 seconds or so of the intro with drums could probably be lopped off, for example, because it doesn't do much—but it IS a vivid and living tune. Only 2 minute and 57 seconds long, the song contains a life that seems real, including the change of seasons—from the hot summer when the fight takes place to the lonely cold of the winter, when she's remembering him. As with most Hoover's Ooover songs, the music is catchy, and the singing heart-felt, but it's those lyrics...one out of a dozen of so Hoover songs I listen to has words that electrify, and this is one of them.

***

I just happened to realize the excellence of this song as I was listening to my iPod on the way to a Hoover's Ooover show at the Shimokitazawa Basement Bar. I repeated it. And again. And again. Pretty soon I was wandering the residential streets around the Basement Bar just so I could listen to the tune a few extra times before I entered the club. (And, happily, this song was on their set list that night.)

***

“Rival Wa Rickenbacker” is on Hoover Ooover's Tansansui mini-album. I've never seen a video of this song on YouTube, but there used to be one for “Tansansui” (which means 'carbonated water'), though it looks like it's been taken down. Here's a more recent video of the song “Timer”.

Goodbye, Kiyoshiro Imawano 2

By coincidence...or maybe not, maybe something drew me there...I was taking a walk along Aoyama Cemetery on Saturday, when I noticed a line of people. When I got closer, I saw that the line extended for blocks, and then I knew what it was. The queuing multitudes mostly looked to be people in their twenties to forties, though there were some teen punks with dyed hair. Some wore proper black suits and ties, while others were in T-shirts, some saying 'Kiyoshiro' on them. Many carried flowers, and I saw one girl clutching an old RC Succession LP in her arms. By chance I'd come to Kiyoshiro Imawano's public farewell service.

The lines moved slowly forward. I looked at people's faces, and most were smiling, as if this was some place like Bali where a funeral is a celebration. The queues twisted around for blocks around the cemetery—it crossed the Aoyama Bridge in one direction on one side, and the other direction on the other. News reports said that over 42,000 people showed up, and the service went on until late at night. Looking at the masses, it hit me—so, this is RC Succession, and this is Kiyoshiro... Although the crowd wasn't gloomy, seeing so many people there to say goodbye overwhelmed me, and at times I had to look away.

Goodbye, Kiyoshiro Imawano

So Kiyoshiro Imawano has left us, only 58, to jam on a stage somewhere with Elvis, Lennon, Kyu Sakamoto...

Kiyoshiro's band, RC Succession, introduced me to Japanese rock 'n' roll 20 years ago. My teen heart was thrilled by the most thinly-veiled sexual innuendo imaginable in their hit “Ameagari No Yozorani (To The Night Sky After The Rain)—along the lines of, the car batteries are charged, so why don't you want to go for a ride? I also listened to their live cover of “Ue Wo Muite Arukou” (or, Sukiyaki), before I discovered Kyu Sakamoto's original. Having been exposed to lame Japanese top-10 songs all my life, RC Succession's Japanese rock sounded so fresh and ground-breaking, during those young days of first beers and mischievous cigarettes...

When I moved to Japan, quite by coincidence my first apartment was near Tamaranzaka, the slope in western Tokyo that is the name of one of their famous songs. Around me were young guys who grew up listening to RC Succession—they were proud Kiyoshiro was a native son, and his music was real to them, including that bittersweet love ballad “Tamaranzaka”—it was everyone's secret song.

We always laughed at the lines in “Transistor Radio”: “I yawned so much in class, my mouth became big/ I napped so much, my eyes turned small”. When he's not bored in class, he listens to music from the Bay Area and Liverpool on the roof of his school.

And now he's gone. Truly, as a line in “Transistor Radio” says, I've never been able to explain this feeling well...So I think I'll leave you with a few of his videos instead. Goodbye, and thank you, Kiyoshiro.



Transistor Radio


Ameagari No Yozorani


Ue Wo Muite Arukou

A Jazzy Advantage Lucy At The Que

Advantage Lucy played a couple of news songs at their Que show on Friday night, including a tune called “Teacup Ride”, and they had a jazzy feel, with swinging bass and drums. Aiko swept her fingers through a chime tree at climactic moments to color the music with glissandos.

It was an interesting new genre choice—the sort of jazz you might hear in a lounge—for a band known mainly for its sunny indie pop tunes. But I've always thought it's a misconception to think of advantage Lucy as just an upbeat guitar pop group—one listen to the longer, more complex tunes of theirs such as “Shiosai” from Echo Park, or the single “Photograph”, or “so” from Fanfare, etc. etc., would likely alter that view of their sound. They're a musically adventurous bunch.

Advantage Lucy are also masters of the pop ballad form. How many times have I listened to, and how much has my life been made richer by, pure gems such as “Koko De Oyasumi”, “Today” and “Nico”*? Ballads like those are miraculous unions of the most beautiful melodies and unforgettable lyrics. After so many listens, I'm still always moved by these lines in “Nico”: “Moshi kotoba ga hoshi yorimo/ kazoe kirenai hodo arunara/ tsutaerareru kamoshirenai kedo/ sonna taisetsu na mono dewa nai to omou (If words were more countless than the stars in the sky, maybe then I'd be able to let you know how I feel, but then I think it's not that important after all)”. At the Que show, they played the emotional, nostalgic ballad from Echo Park called “A Distant Day” (there's a Youtube video of the song here), and it was a gorgeous rendition as ballads usually are when they perform them live.

***

By the way, totally unrelated, and a bit in the past now, but this 'toy music event' described in Patrick's chipple.net sounded like a lot of fun. Great report and colorful photos!



*“Koko De Oyasumi” and “Today” were B sides on their singles Memai and Hello Mate!, respectively, and they are also available on the best hits collection Have a Good Journey. "Nico" is in Lucy Van Pelt's Advantage Lucy EP.

Wrench, Poodles At 'Abura Derabu' Event

My main mission of the evening attending a Shibuya event called Aburade-rabu (word play on 'abracadabra', I guess, but ending with Japanese pronunciation of 'love') was to see the band Wrench, who I've been listening to a lot recently. Their CDs are in the punk rock section of Tower Records Shibuya, but a more accurate genre designation may be something like Hard Electro Dance Psychedelic Stoner Rock. I especially like their ambitious latest effort, Nitro.



The event was a two-club deal, where shows are divided between two live houses and you can go freely between them. There are more of these multi-live house events these days, and they are great: they let you exit and re-enter the clubs (something not allowed in most venues), grab a bite outside if you desire, or procure cheaper beverages at nearby conbinis. This one was a joint O-Nest/O-West event, and Wrench was the second band up at the O-West. I wasn't sure how popular they were, so I decided to go to the O-West from the beginning to stake out a good spot if there was a big crowd (you tend to make these calculations when you've been to many Tokyo shows...).

On before Wrench was an instrumental band called poodles that played trippy, jam music heavy on African percussion and 'ethnic' musical instruments like the didgeridoo, the Australian aboriginal horn, and that long tube thing you spin around to make a whirring noise. The poodles' website describes their sound as an “earthy, tribal groove”. It was pleasant music, but I found myself wondering why, if they are into creating something new by mixing together instruments of various cultures, they apparently steer clear of Japanese ones. That's, of course, their choice. They're free to build music out of whatever sounds they fancy. But to me, it would be more interesting if the band added a taiko or some such to their sound, in the process making new music that also acknowledges their own heritage. Not really related, but I found out googling that there's also a Swedish glam metal group called the Poodles...

The crowd increased when Wrench came on next. The true believers stood at center front, next to the stage—they were mostly young guys in T-shirts, some of them on the chubby side. When the music began, they broke out into a mosh-pit dance that looked like a combination of hands-up-in-the-air Okinawan dancing and Harajuku rockabilly twist. You could tell they were intensely into the music—they danced like it was their last chance before the giant asteroid hits the planet. Or, it was like some cult's frenzied bacchanal.

Their prophet was Shige, Wrench's vocalist/keyboardist, who was bearded and reminded me vaguely of a smaller, Japanese James Hetfield. To his sides were the skinny, serious-looking guitarist and bassist; whenever Shige stuck his head out of his Korg/synthesizer/gadget headquarters, he'd pump his arms into the air or otherwise get the crowd going while shouting out the lyrics, and the fans would go even wilder. Their musical signature was rapid, repeated riffs, sometimes relayed between guitar and bass, and played over a flood of feedback—an interview I read said the band was into Goa trance music, though to me the harsh but orderly passages seemed almost martial, like the marching music of some super-disciplined, psychedelic robot army. (The YouTube video above should give an idea of what their shows are like.) The whole thing was an exhilarating spectacle, one I wanted to see again soon.

The Faceless Soutaiseiriron

Soutaiseiriron, which means 'Theory of Relativity', is, in theory, a relatively promising band. But there's also something very weird about these guys.

They seem to be refusing to reveal anything at all about themselves. There are almost no pictures of this quartet anywhere (well... more on that in a second). In fact, they make it clear they want their image hidden—on every page of their website is a note saying that photographing at their concerts is prohibited. That's normal at major-label band gigs, but I've never seen a band being quite so adamant about it on a website. The bio on their site is sketchy, giving only a brief run-down of their 2 ½ year career. And the CD Hi-Fi Anatomia doesn't supply any more info either. Also, they don't do interviews.

In other words, you can't get any information about this band other than from their music. It's like they want to be the Thomas Pynchon or Salinger of J-pop. But is that even possible? Can a rock band succeed without publicizing their image or personalities at all?

I have no idea what's behind this secrecy. Do they just not like to be in the public gaze? Or are there personal reasons why they can't be seen? I hope it's not some sort of marketing gimmick worked out with their managers, because that would be eminently lame.

The thing is, they do perform live once in a while, so they aren't keeping themselves completely invisible. I read, though, that the female singer stands motionless on stage during the whole show, and only moves to bend down to get her bottle of water. Phew...glad I found that out in advance, otherwise I might've ended up suffering through a 'performance'...

All of this is strange because Soutaiseiriron's music IS good, a lot of people I know are getting into them, and being more forthcoming about their persona would seem to be a beneficial thing at this point in their career. Indeed, Hi-Fi Anatomia, their first album, is filled with catchy, if ordinary-sounding pop tunes, but two things help them stand out: the female singer's vocal style and their whacky lyrics.

A Japanese commentator I read put it well when he described the singing style as 'low blood pressure J-pop'—for the most part the vocalist sounds laid-back, like she's not trying too hard, but at the same time it's a strangely coquettish voice, quietly emotional and pleasantly musical.

And then there are the lyrics—it's like various types of otaku splashed their fantasies and daydreams against the music sheets. “Jigoku Sensei” is a Japanese schoolgirl (Nabokov's) Lolita story in pop song format; “Fushigi Descartes” has to do with supernatural phenomena, with the main line saying, “Even if you're a ghost that's OK with me/ If you're a ghost that would be even better/ If I were a ghost wouldn't that be OK with you?”; the song “Shikaku Kakumei (Square Revolution)” describes a guy from the 25th century running away from the Time-Space Police and meeting a girl from the 22nd century; “Renaissance” is about, um, mathematics.

It all makes me want to know more about these guys. Now, they're faceless.

What's strange is that the only one photo I found of this band is in the English part of the internet, and while a google image search does turn up links to a few Japanese sites, when you try to open those images they're all removed. Does that mean the web-masters were asked to take them down? I'm curious what will happen if I publish that one known picture of them on this site, and so I've borrowed that photo from another web page, and will let you know if there's any response...

Quinka, With A Yawn At Rain On The Roof

I almost got lost for a second time in a row going to a cafe called Rain On The Roof in Sangenjyaya because, well, the place IS a challenge to find. It's in a narrow alley and there's a tiny sign in front of the entrance that you wouldn't see if you weren't looking for it. But this is at least an interesting neighborhood to get lost in. It's filled with little dining bars that have only a few seats each, places looking like time's stopped in the 1960's, where the 'mama' mixes scotch and water for long-time regulars and that you'd feel strange about dropping by unless you yourself are a regular or are introduced by someone who is. In a side-street off of Route 246 is an old movie theater, Sangenjyaya Central Theater, with big signs in Showa-era font and, its most distinctive feature, on the facade a kappa couple, the male kappa blue and the female kappa pink (kappa are human-like creatures that live in ponds, and drag children into the water and drown them. Watch out for them if traveling with little kids near ponds...).



Rain On The Roof, named after a Lovin' Spoonful song, is a cafe on the 2nd floor of an old building with great wooden ceiling with beams. It has comfy sofas and smells of curry rice, which is supposed to be good. The cafe appears to have been created by a company called Renovation Planning, which transforms old stores and homes into cafes. Here's an up-close picture of the ceiling:


I was there to see an event called 'Waikiki-philia and Cafe Rock', the fifth installment of an event organized every couple of months or by the band Elekibass. It ran from 2:30 in the afternoon to 8:40 in the evening, though I only stayed during the daytime part of the event. The standout act for me was Quinka, With a Yawn, the unit of the female vocalist/keyboardist Michiko Aoki and whoever else she invites to perform together. At this show her side-kick was guitarist Taisuke Takata of Plectrum. I'm a big fan of Quinka—the Quinka album Field Recordings was my favorite CD of 2008—but I'd forgotten until this Sangenjyaya show what a good performer Aoki is. Her singing is unhurried, natural, and she has a way of creating musical space by staying silent and then coming in with her voice, a quirky, normal-person voice that nevertheless has a lot of presence. Quinka played all covers: The Stone Roses' “Ten Storey Love Song”, Unicorn's “Jitensha Dorobou (Bicycle Thief)”, Spitz's “J'taime” and the La's “There She Goes” (a very popular tune in the Tokyo indie pop scene), as well as, a cover of sorts, a song called “Thank You” that she wrote together with her husband Harco for their two-person unit Harqua. Plectrum's Takata teased her, saying she's cheating on Harco by performing the song with him, and she replied that he's also being untrue to his just-married wife by doing this duet, but, joking aside, it was a truly beautiful tune performed by two talented musicians that made me a bit tearful. Harqua...I better check them out.

Round Table Featuring Nino's 'Secret' Live

I hadn't realized this until last night, but the pop band Round Table is a somewhat different entity from the group known as Round Table Featuring Nino. The latter merely adds the female singer Nino to the former, but the two release albums on different labels (Featuring Nino is on Victor Entertainment, while indie Happiness Records is Round Table's label), and Featuring Nino is also a big producer of anime soundtrack songs, something that Round Table itself is, as far as I know, not that big on. In addition, whereas Round Table plays live fairly frequently, mostly in Shimokitazawa, Nino almost never does—in fact, I found out later that the Round Table Featuring Nino show last night was only the second gig ever since Nino joined the group in 2002 (Round Table proper has been around since 1997).

The show was at the Daikanyama Unit, and it was supposed to be a 'secret', free gig—it wasn't listed on the club's schedule or the band's website, and you got tickets by sending in an e-mail to the Round Table website or something. I'm not sure how the process worked exactly because, Japan Live being a Major Player in the Tokyo music scene these days, I was invited to the show...well, no, joking, I just knew someone who could get me into the gig as a guest. The guests had their own section on one side of the floor, divided by a fence, that you got into by flashing your guest pass at the staff and walking a narrow space between the main floor and PA booth.

It was a queer experience watching the show from the segregated 'guest' section. On the other side of the fence, the floor was jam-packed, mostly with people that appeared to be male anime fans; the guest section wasn't crowded, and was mostly musician friends of Round Table, both male and female. And we had a nice view of the stage, something that the main floor guys could only get if they lined up before the show to secure a good spot. But it was they that were really having a great time, despite being herded into a tight, hot, sweat-stinking space—many of them must have been Nino fans for years, seeing her live the first time, finally, so they were excited. I read later on 2 Channel that some of those fans came from places far from Tokyo, a major domestic trip just to see an hour-and-a-half gig, but it was probably worth it for them, because they characterized it with the otaku adjective kami—a 'divine' performance. And they were a super-enthusiastic crowd too, clapping en masse, singing along to the sweet pop ballads, and during the applause before the encore, one of the guys shouted 'so-----re [a call before starting something]', and then, spontaneously, everyone started shouting 'En-core! En-core! En-core!' together. It blew my mind.

For us in the guest section, on the other hand, this was just another free gig thrown by friends, and while the guests must have had fun and enjoyed the music, you felt this sort of social pressure to not go too crazy, to limit yourselves to polite applause, while being free to offer whispered commentary about the show from the point of view of a fellow musician insider.

Nino was good looking, with long, brown, 'shaggy' hair and angular facial features. She didn't exactly take full control of the stage—this was only her second gig, after all—but she did have presence, helped by the audience's overwhelming support and approval of everything she did. The voice was soft and high, and the performance solid, benefitting from the skilled musicians of Round Table. They played about a dozen songs, including for the encore Nino's first hit, “Let Me Be With You”. The gig didn't knock me out like previous Round Table shows, but it was a pleasant affair, especially viewed from the comfortable confines of the VIP section, where we could rattle our jewelry rather than clap along.

***

Bringing me rapidly down to earth after the gig was the Unit's authoritarian policy of not allowing audience members to stand outside of the club for even a single second to wait for friends to emerge. Supercilious staffers shouted at people to move along, like sheepdogs yapping at their herd. I know the Unit isn't alone in doing this, and I know there are reasons for it—they're afraid that if they let people loiter, they might make noise and annoy the neighbors—but while understanding that, couldn't they be, perhaps, nice about asking people to disperse, rather than acting dictatorially like they have some god-given right to chase people away from a public space? I mean, maybe it's just a job for them, but couldn't they handle things in a way that doesn't immediately dispel the magic of the show?

The Name Is The Lady Spade Party

It's hard to beat the Lady Spade.

They dance. They're babes. Their act is like something out of TV re-runs of 60's and 70's spy shows, the jet-set female star laughing theatrically after she completes another impossible mission.



The music is mid-20th century retro—jazzy soundtracks, kayoukyoku, French pop. The big, long-haired, goatee-ed, sunglassed DJ, SLF, also plays the role of an old Japanese cabaret MC, with just the right tongue-in-cheek formal mannerism and winking deference to the performers. Ruby, the Lady Spade's singer, is scripted as the free-spirited prima donna, so never speaks formal Japanese—'arigato' after songs rather than the standard 'arigatogozaimashita'—and she has her four adoring dancers fetch her water when she's thirsty.

I didn't realize until I listened to their debut album, Dial “S” For The Lady Spade (whose release party they held at the Chelsea Hotel in Shibuya), that Ruby wasn't just a singer and dancer, but the super-heroine you call when the problem was serious—the last planetary force field breached, for example—and she would laugh and help out if the project sounded interesting, for a fee. She's a Winston Wolf for global crises. Ruby's also a great driver—she compliments a gaijin-accented guy as being the “world's second best driver”, but on her days off, like any normal girl, she likes to have her admirers buy her things in Ginza and take her out to dinner in Aoyama.

How could I resist any of this???

The Chelsea Hotel event was more like a revue than a regular live house gig, with day-glo-wigged girls in faux-school uniforms and burlesque dancers wandering the floors one second and then performing on stage the next moment. We came out of the two-hour party exhilarated, revived, with a fresh view of the possibilities of entertainment and how it brightens up a dinky basement bar.

***

Several piko piko pop guys, as well as Patrick of chipple.net, were in the audience.

***

The fliers they handed out at the show were great—colorful and well-designed, including several advertising burlesque dance lessons (!). Here are some of them.

Kanariya's First Live, At Red Cloth

Three members of the splendid Tokyo band Vasallo Crab 75 have gotten together for a side-project called Kanariya, and they did their first gig at the Red Cloth on Wednesday. They are one of those groups that successful musicians form when they want to try something different from the main act, experiment, go back to the roots, etc. In Kanariya's case, the new thing is old rock: they only did a few songs, but it was a varied set, one tune sounding like primordial 70's punk, another being jazz rock, the finale something that reminded me of Tommy-era Who. I can picture them digging through each others' record collections, jamming those LP-inspired tunes together, and then, deciding, one day—hey, why don't we just make this into a new band?

VC75 are great. Their shows are spectacles that are attracting devoted fans who dance, melodic explosions of funk, pop and occasional electric Bach violin solos. They're playing the O-Crest on March 27 with Pop Chocolat and Chub Du. But I can see how musically-hungry guys would want to try something like Kanariya, to go down a few strange alleys, and share what they've found with a new crowd. At the Red Cloth the audience was sparse. But maybe that's part of the bargain—they're really starting anew, debuting as nobodies, with a sound they hope people will like and find to be fresh. I did.

***

'Kanariya' sounds like the Japanese word for canary, but the spelling is slightly different from the standard word, which wouldn't have the Y in it. I didn't think to ask them what the name meant, but when I googled it the first entry I found what maybe pointed to an answer. It contained an old Japanese children's tune called 'Kanariya' (an archaic spelling?), and the lyrics sounded like something that could inspire a band name. It goes something like:

The canary that's forgotten its song
Should we abandon it in the hills behind?
No, no, that wouldn't do

The canary that's forgotten its song
Should we bury it in the shrub in the back?
No, no, that wouldn't do

The canary that's forgotten its song
Should we hit it with a whip of willow?
No, no, that would be cruel

The canary that's forgotten its song
Put on an ivory boat, with a silver paddle
And floated in a moonlit sea
Will remember its song.

Maybe? Maybe I'll ask them next time.

Abandoned School Rock, Cramped Cafe Pop

Nostalgia for school days, a quest for more musical performance space, novelty, and Japan's shrinking population seem to be behind an interesting upcoming music festival: Haikou Fes 2009, to be held in an abandoned elementary school in Shinjuku.

I read about it in Mixi's Neo-Underground community, whose members have been long searching for new places to organize rock shows, anywhere other than the tired 'live houses' where bands usually do gigs (and where most have to pay to play). The idea of using retired schoolhouses—called 'haikou' in Japanese—as music festival venues had come up during the initial, fevered discussions in the Mixi group. It looks like that idea at least came to fruition—a first Haikou festival was held last year, and a follow-up event is happening on May 6.

The venue is the former site of Shinjuku Ward Yodobashi #3 Elementary School, which has been converted into an entertainment facility by a performers' organization called Geidankyo. Scheduled to perform are notable musicians including Keiichi Sokabe, Kicell, Harco, and Nisennenmondai (as well as a group called Motallica).

The background to why this event is taking place is that there are lots of deserted, unused school buildings in Japan. As the population here gets older and shrinks in size, there aren't enough kids to fill all the schools. Why not use these haikous for some other purpose, rather than simply let them rot and crumble? That thought has led to events like Haikou Fes at ex-Yodobashi #3 School.

So, if you're into the idea of boogie-ing in the science lab, rocking out in the principal's office or making some noise on top of a teacher lectern, this may be your thing. Personally, I'm not too sure about it—for one thing, the tickets, at 3,200 yen advanced and 4,000 yen at the door, aren't cheap. That's more than for a usual live house gig. Does it cost that much money to rent the school and pay the bands? Also, I get this vague, uneasy feeling that though the festival will aim to project a free, anything-goes vibe, in reality it will be tightly controlled—but I don't have much basis for this speculation. In any case, it will probably be a good photo op.

UPDATE (Mar. 7): The organizer of this event sent me a nice note to say thanks for your interest in the event, that the ticket price is the lowest possible and not profitable, and that the atmosphere of the event will be yurui—loose, relaxed, fun.

I respect the fact that the person cares enough about the event to want to clarify those points.

Thank you. I'm going.

***

Meanwhile, speaking about festivals, there's a mini one at the Rain on the roof cafe in Sangenjyaya on March 22, featuring several bands including the Waffles, Elekibass and Quinka, with a Yawn, whose album Field Recordings was my favorite Japanese album of 2008. This looks worth going to, though considering that the Rain on the roof is a fairly small venue (I saw Frenesi there) and the bands are relatively popular, it could make for an event where lots of people are cramped into a 'comfortable' cafe space... The good thing is you can go in and out of the cafe if you want to get fresh air. The 'cafe festival' runs from 2 in the afternoon to 9 at night.