Advantage Lucy: Hello Again; Blue Room

Advantage Lucy's Aiko, in yukata.

I’ve bought advantage Lucy’s new E.P. and the first lines of the first song keep on running through my head. They go,

Omoidasunda [I remember]
Ano kaze, ano hizashi [that wind, that sunlight]
Wasureyoutoshitatte [even if I try to forget]
Sobani iru [They are near me]

A slightly different mix of this song, “Glider”, has already been released in a soundtrack, and I wrote about it before, but listening to it again I’m reminded what a powerful song it is. Aiko, Lucy’s singer, is one of the great poets of Japan’s indies music scene, something that becomes clear, I think, when you listen to the lyrics in Japanese.

The second song on the E.P., “Hello Again”, is one of those simple Lucy pop songs with a nice melody that gets in your blood before you know it. I’ll be watching to see when the infection gets serious.

The third tune, “Smile”, is a dreamy little gem of a song for voice, guitar and keyboard. The reason I’m thanked in the CD booklet is that I checked the English lyrics for this song (they were actually perfect when I got them).

The final song is a live recording of “Chikyu” at the Club Que, and it sounds great.

Advantage Lucy’s first single in three years… It’s a major musical event, and I know I’ll be immersed in these songs for a while. I have a few extra copies of the CD—please e-mail me if you want to check it out. [UPDATE: Sorry, I've now run out of the extra CDs, though I might get some more in a few weeks.]


Hello again e.p.

I bought “Hello Again E.P.” at an event organized by Miniskirt’s Edgar at a Shibuya club called Aoi Heya (meaning Blue Room), which is owned by a veteran Japanese chanson songstress. It had purple walls, plastic vines, Grecian busts.

In the audience were two sorts of people: those who had come to listen to advantage Lucy, and those who were there to dance to the D.J. music and the music of all the other bands, including Aprils. Although both like live music, they have different dispositions and don’t always mix well. I think of them as the Live House Faction and the Club Faction. The former, of which I consider myself a member, goes to shows chiefly to listen to music, though dancing is an option. The latter attends shows to have fun and dance, though they also no doubt enjoy the music.

Maybe that’s an oversimplification, but the crowd did seem divided neatly in two, between the dancers and the squares.

There was no raised stage at the club, making it difficult to see the performers in the back, but I was able to get to the very front, facing one of the speakers, to take a photo of Lucy’s Aiko wearing a yukata, a summer kimono.


Advantage Lucy at the Aoi Heya.

Kitchen Gorilla Attacks Yoyogi

Kitchen Gorilla at the Zher The Zoo.

TOKYO--Three rock musicians calling themselves THE KITCHEN GORILLA Thursday night took over the Zher the Zoo club in Yoyogi, Tokyo. The group consisted of a female vocalist/bassist, a female drummer and a quiet male guitarist. Witnesses said the three used punk rock to take the audience hostage.

No, but seriously... "Kitchen Gorilla"! What an awesome name for a rock band!

I knew about The Kitchen Gorilla because in a compilation album I'd listened to a song of theirs called "O.K.", in which the singer chants "O.K." about a hundred times. It's a nice pop punk tune, and I wanted to see what the band behind the song was like.

They were wild. They personified post-modernism, without maybe intending it. The music was heavy pop punk, but the singer sang in a squeaky high voice. She was dressed like a rock rebel, bundling her hair in a black bandana, but between songs took sips from a Miffy water bottle (I think... Miffy being the rabbit version of Hello Kitty).

The Kitchen Gorilla were a friendly bunch, and after the show I bought their new mini-album and chatted briefly with them, but forgot to ask how they got their name. Next time!

INTERVIEW: Plectrum

Plectrum's Taisuke Takata.

The rock quartet Plectrum is without question one of my favorite Japanese live bands. Every time I go to their shows and watch them give it all they have, I feel infused with new energy. These four guys play everything from sweet ballads to scorching hard rock numbers—as singer Taisuke Takata says, “it’s as if we’re putting into a 30 minute show all of the Beatles’ music from their early days to their later period.”

A taste of what their shows are like can now be found in an excellent new live album of theirs called Live 4 Live, released by Mona Records. Listening to it made me want to talk to the band about the album and their live shows in general. So I arranged an interview with Takata, the band’s leader.


Live 4 Live

He turned out to be an interviewer’s dream. Whereas with some people, getting answers is like digging in dry ground for water, with Takata, each question would unleash a river of words, and all I needed to do was to direct their flow once in a while.

Plectrum has been around for about a decade. The group was originally based in Osaka and was called Star Sign, and consisted of four college kids in love with Teenage Fanclub. Listening to Takata talking about the band’s past, I came to understand how a great live band like Plectrum isn’t created in a day.

“At first when we did shows we’d always imitate Teenage Fanclub, for example we’d get together in front of a mirror (during rehearsals) and we’d go, ‘no, that’s not the way (Teenage Fanclub) raise their legs’, or ‘you should drum more aggressively (like Teenage Fanclub). Teenage Fanclub was really a model for us on how to do shows.”

“My favorite concert,” Takata says, “is one I didn’t see in person but it was one I saw on TV, the Redding Festival in 1992 headed by Nirvana. Teenage Fanclub played around noon, and even though they weren’t playing intense songs like Nirvana, (the audience) were having a blast, fooling around in the mud as the rain fell and stopped, and I saw that show and I thought, wow, I want to start a band, and I want to do a show like that one day.”

When his heroes toured Japan, Takata decided to meet the members of Teenage Fanclub and ask them to give his band a new name.

“We had named our band Star Sign after a Teenage Fanclub song, and because of that there was a bit of preconception (about our music), like, ‘oh, you guys are like Teenage Fanclub, right?’ and to get rid of that preconception we thought we should come up with a band name ourselves, but nothing would come to us, and so we thought maybe if we have the real guys name us no one would complain, so (Teenage Fanclub) gave us our name (Plectrum), and then the very next week we received an offer from Polystar Records. It was very lucky, it was miraculous timing.”

With a record contract and a new name, Plectrum felt on top of the world. But the tough realities of working as an up-and-coming major label band soon brought them back down from the heights.

“Teenage Fanclub’s performance at the 1992 Redding Festival was really so natural, and they seemed to be having fun, and it was ideal and I thought, we should do it like this, but it was difficult. There was a long period when live shows were a struggle… When we debuted (on the major label) we really had to think a lot, about every move we made on stage, and the director would tell us, ‘that move there wasn’t great’, and I’d think ‘yeah, he’s right’, but the more I thought about it the less I became able to sing. There was a period when we decided to take a break from live shows for a while, and we hardly did any shows for two or three years.”

“Plectrum and Rockin’ On Japan (magazine) planned a thing where we’d do a solo show four months in a row, and at each show we’d do five new songs, and then out of the twenty songs we made we’d pick ten songs for a new album. But that made our drummer mentally exhausted. We’d been doing music for fun but now it felt like we were being forced to do it… Writing songs used to be like writing a diary for me, but now it felt like filling a quota. I had to write five songs a month, and not only that but also get them in good enough shape that we could perform them live, and the more I thought about it the more things seemed to fall apart. But then Akky [lead guitarist Akira Fujita] helped out by writing a lot of good songs too. Up until then I’d been writing almost all of the songs.”

The ten songs that Plectrum wrote were included in the album Adventure of Pony Rider, released in 1998. Once that album came out, however, Plectrum faced a new problem: Polystar wouldn’t let them go on a tour to promote the album.

“That was the company’s policy. I guess they felt that our shows weren’t that good, since I was having trouble singing. And touring costs money, and I think they wanted that CD to make it on its own. But, all those songs were written for shows, and now (that the album was completed) we couldn’t play them at shows. While we understood the company’s policy, it left us dissatisfied.”

That and other problems eventually led to Plectrum quitting Polystar and working under Yoshimoto Kogyo, an Osaka entertainment company famous for its line-up of comedians. In 2000, they released Colombia, an album that begins with the hard-rocking ‘Night Patrol’ and ends with the gorgeous ballad ‘Bookend’. Takata said it’s from this period that the band mixed rocking tunes and mellow ballads when doing shows.


Plectrum, live!

“I sometimes think that what we do at live shows controls Plectrum’s music. When Colombia came out, there was all the frustration we felt from not being able to do shows (under Polystar), there was all the music that had spread inside my head, from intense to mellow songs, that was Colombia, but then when we did shows we felt good playing mellow songs like ‘Uptown Girl’ (from Colombia), and when we decided to play in a relaxed way like that at shows we ended up with (the album) Sorry (released in 2001), but then around the time of Sorry we thought we want to express ourselves more, and bring ourselves out more, and that was Prom Night.”

But Prom Night, released in 2004, was, in spite of being an outstanding album with standout songs like ’30 Boy’, ‘Sundae Champion’ and ‘Star Light’, a source of frustration business-wise.

“Prom Night was a very unfortunate album… The sound was good, the songs were good, and our intensity was good, but because of troubles with the label we couldn’t really advertise it that much.”

Their problem, Takata said, was the new record label that released the album. It was run by a design company with no experience producing music, and the label didn’t market the album enough. The company soon shut down the label.

But despite the troubles with the label, Plectrum went on playing the songs from Prom Night in one exhilarating show after another. They also crossed the sea twice in 2004 to play in Seoul, first in March with advantage Lucy, Miniskirt and Lost in Found, and a second time in September with Swinging Popsicle. They were awed by the positive reception from the Korean audience, almost none of who had heard of Plectrum before the band’s first Seoul tour. Plectrum’s first visit left such an impression with the Korean fans, in fact, that a fan club of a couple of dozen people sprang up in Seoul soon after the band’s return to Japan.

“Going to Korea made us understand what it must be like to be the western musicians (visiting Japan) that we go to see. The way, when a band like Teenage Fanclub tours Japan, the fans would scream when they said ‘konnichiwa’, it was the same when we would say ‘anyonghaseyo’ (on stage in Seoul). It made me want to study Korean, it’s a very beautiful language.”

“A big factor (in Plectrum’s decision to release a live album) was what we experienced in Korea. People there didn’t know our music, but when we played good shows we found out that they’d really get into our music.”

One of the people who watched Plectrum play at this time, the owner of indies label Mona Records, suggested that they put together a live album, and they agreed to do it. They started and ended the album with performances in Seoul, and, in between, put in songs played at a number of shows in Japan.

They considered various titles for the album, but none of them sounded right.

“We thought something like ‘Live, Live, Live’ might be good, and we wanted a number in the title, something that reflects that we’re four people, and putting all that together, Akky came up with Live 4 Live, which we thought was stylish.”


Plectrum's Takata.

Plectrum’s live album Live 4 Live starts with a song called ‘Myongdong Calling’, recorded at a show in Seoul. The title is a playful reference to the Clash’s London Calling.

“When I thought up the title ‘Myongdong Calling’, I thought to myself, ‘I win!’ It was a fun title. I thought it should be the first song (on Live 4 Live).”

The finale of Live 4 Live is an extraordinary recording. It’s the song ‘Till I Die Again’ from Prom Night, but at first all you hear is a crowd singing it together as one big chorus, and only toward the middle of the song are the amps turned on and it becomes a rock tune.

This is the moving musical moment I’ve written about a couple of times before: the sound went out during Plectrum’s show in Seoul, but instead of stopping, Takata continued performing without the amp and mike, and the Korean crowd sang along to a tune in Japanese that most probably hadn’t even heard before.

“That really made me glad I’d been doing music, and I also felt this is why I can’t stop being a musician. How can I say this, I guess if you’re just working on your own, making home recordings, well, not to say you’re self-satisfied, but you can quit something like that anytime, but when you do a show the feeling is that you do the show with everyone in the hall, and what’s good about a live album is that everyone is making noise, and the important thing is everyone’s voice or everyone’s applause, and I think shows matter because of those things.”

The big ‘Till I Die Again’ chorus in Seoul “I think was a present from god, and it was a moment when I felt good about continuing this band for so long.”

Orange Plankton & The Rebel Music Schoolers

Orange Plankton at the Star Pine's Cafe.

Music academy grads who had gone bad took over Star Pine’s Café in Kichijoji Tuesday night. They carted a grand piano onto the club’s stage, but instead of playing the classical music of their training, they used it to create loud pop.

The first music academician-gone-bad to appear on stage was pianist Yuki of Orange Plankton, gorgeous in a red dress. As she played, a little girl in a white dress walked on stage and started to recite lines to introduce the first song. Then, from somewhere unseen, singer Yumi’s voice joined the girl’s, the two taking turns making the introduction.

Yumi soon came on and sang, while the girl remained on stage, looking a little confused. It was good stage direction—the hundreds of bands I’ve seen have tried in myriad ways to catch the audience’s attention but never before had I seen a child used to help out with that task. (I found out later that the girl is a member of a junior drama troupe. In some countries like the U.S., the kids might not even be allowed in a club like Star Pine’s that serves alcohol.)

Tonight there was more depth to Yuki’s sound because of the grand piano she played rather than the usual keyboard. Another delinquent music academician, a female violinist, joined the band toward the end of the set. A connection was made between the violinist and Yuki the pianist: when the two looked up at each other during a fiery exchange, the intensity of their expressions caused a pleasant chill to run through my spine.

The whole band was intense. As they moved excitedly on stage, it felt like it wasn’t only them, but also the air around them that was spinning.

***

At the end of the set, the little girl returned to the stage holding a little blue bird (the subject of one of Orange Plankton’s songs). She tossed the bird into the air so it could fly, but because of the darkness and the bird’s blindness at night, it fluttered pitifully to the ground.

Orange Plankton, however, had really soared.


Orange Plankton's Yuki, with girl.

The next band, Edreport, was connected through the network of classically-trained-musicians-gone-bad: its bassist went to the same music school as Yuki. It also happened he was a friend of the drummer of the late-great pop band Judy & Mary, Kohta Igarashi, who played drums for them tonight.

I was excited to see a former Judy & Mary. There was a period when I was deep into the band (like many in Japan!) and I still like them. And now here was their ex-drummer, who played for them at huge arena shows. When Igarashi talked between songs, he had the same relaxed irreverence as Takuya, Judy & Mary’s guitarist, who plays now in a band called Robots that I saw perform recently at the Que.

Backed by Igarashi’s skilled drumming, Edreport, consisting of a pianist, bassist and the same female violinist that played with Orange Plankton, played a good set. They sounded modern jazz at times, Japanese pop at others, and they also had classical music moments. They weren’t performing Mozart and Mahler, but the sound that they molded out of different musical genres was such a pleasing product that it seemed any real music lover would enjoy it.

Advantage Lucy On Cartoon Network

A short animation film on Cartoon Network Japan uses a charming new song by Tokyo guitar pop band advantage Lucy. The film seems to be broadcast irregularly on TV between regular programming, but you can see it here, by clicking on the white box that says 'Quicktime'. It's a strange story about a guy who needs to spin around all the time to live, and how he leads a trouble life until he finds his true calling as a pro wrestler and later becomes so popular he is elected president.

I like Aiko's wah, wah, wah's. It's sublimely pop--check it out!

Elsewhere In Tokyo, Saturday Night

Chipple.net writes about a Tokyo show I might have gone to see if I wasn't already booked to catch Plectrum at the Que: the Shibuya O-Nest show featuring the Aprils, Hazel Nuts Chocolate and others.

Future pop band the Aprils are always fun to watch (three words: dancing stuffed panda), and I've been wanting to see Hazel Nuts Chocolate again ever since I saw Yuppa, the girl behind the music unit, do a cute song while drawing a picture on a plastic sheet at an O-Nest show a few months back. One can't be everywhere at once though.

Advantage Lucy's New E.P. - Details

advantage Lucy's new Hello again e.p.

Tokyo pop band advantage Lucy has published on its website more details about its new e.p., coming out on July 22.

It will be called Hello again--a fitting title for the brilliant band's first real release in about four years.

The e.p. will have four songs, starting with 'Glider', a rocking tune that's already been released on a soundtrack, and of which I've written (though maybe this will be a different version?); 'Hello again' and 'Smile', two brand new songs; and a live version of 'Chikyu' ['earth'], recorded at the last Lucy show.

I was at the show where 'Chikyu' was recorded, so maybe if you have CSI-type high tech equipment you could isolate my applause from that of the rest of the crowd?

This e.p. will only be sold on the Internet, and at the band's shows. It will go on sale for the first time at advantage Lucy's show on July 22 at the Aoi Heya [Blue Room] in Shibuya. Edgar Franz, who organized this midnight event, told me, as he always does, that this will be the best show of the year in Tokyo. It will also feature Edgar's band Miniskirt, the Aprils, Metro, Bad Daughter from Taiwan, a guy named Dr. Usui, and DJ's visiting from Spain.

If you are reading this and think you will be in Tokyo and have time on the 22nd, you should join the party that night, and please believe me when I say you should buy the e.p. because you will not be disappointed.

(P.S. - A full album is also due to come out in a few months, though the date isn't yet set.)

Missing Plectrum

Plectrum at the Que.

Plectrum’s show Saturday night at the Que was their first without Naoki Kishihara, aka Kicchon, on bass. The band had announced earlier that Kicchon would go on an extended leave of absence. It’s not clear when, or even, if, Kicchon will return to Plectrum. I roughly know the circumstances of his departure, but maybe it’s best just to say that he had a life to live, and playing in an active band like Plectrum didn’t fit that life well.

Taking Kicchon’s place for now is Manabu Chigasaki, known as Chiga-chan (they all have nicknames), a skilled bassist who also helps out advantage Lucy. A friendly guy, Chiga-chan lives with two stray kittens he brought into his house that he named Aloha and Mahalo.

It had been three months since Plectrum last performed, and it was good to see again how the group can get a whole club going with its energy. But there was something missing. Kicchon’s absence was noticed.

In the past, Kicchon served as a sort of counterweight to the rest of the band at shows, standing quiet at his usual spot to the right while the other three went wild, a slight grin on his face that was somewhere between mischievous and amused. He looked relaxed, compared with the fire of the rest of the band. But when their shows hit climaxes, Kicchon was as intense, in his way, as the others, and that transformation, and the joyful unity of the four, was always invigorating to watch. Those things will be missed.

I was lucky to be able to see Plectrum at their very best, during their two visits to Seoul and at numerous shows in Tokyo. Those performances reminded me of the power of rock music. After shows I’d chat with Kicchon, and through him I became interested in a number of bands of my own country that I knew little about or hadn’t paid much attention to, like Yo La Tengo, Tortoise and the Beach Boys.

***

I decided to walk to Shimokitazawa from Sangenjaya to get to the Plectrum show, a 20-minute walk in the drizzle that is a constant presence in Japan’s June and July rainy season.

On the way to the club I saw a small shop that makes and sells traditional paper lanterns. On the floor to the side an artisan sat, painting a red character onto a white lantern. Further on I saw on the side of the road a Jizou Buddhist statue standing inside a wooden box, wearing colorful sashes. I also saw a drinking bistro with the name ‘Sui-Tarou’, or ‘Drunk Tarou’ (Tarou being a boy’s name), as well as a dining bar with the worrisome name ‘Knock On Wood’.

If someone visiting Tokyo has a bit of free time, I'd suggest spending an hour or two just wandering around any residential neighborhood, because there are lots of fascinating and unexpected things of beauty and humor.


Ally Kerr from Glasgow. Plectrum and Apila performed with them at the Que.

Murmur & Gomes The Hitman, Live

Murmur at Mona Records.

Playing tonight at the Mona Records café in Shimokitazawa was Murmur, a one-girl pop music unit whose debut mini-album Good grief! I enjoy a lot. Murmur was opening for Gomes The Hitman, a popular Tokyo guitar pop band.

Mai Tsuyutani, who is Murmur, started the set about half past seven. A 20-year old girl from western Japan who wears her silky hair long, Tsuyutani still seemed to be getting used to performing and was a little stiff on stage, but she had charm and the songs she played were good.

As Japanese bands often do, between songs she thanked the main act, Gomes The Hitman, for inviting her, and said she was glad to open for them.

“I’ve liked Gomes The Hitman since I was in intermediate school,” she told the audience. “I’ve liked them ever since a friend of mine gave me a tape of neo-acoustic musicians. It contained Flipper’s (Guitar), (advantage) Lucy and Gomes The Hitman. So I’m happy tonight.”

Tsuyutani is just getting started and probably needs to do many more shows before she could really draw the audience in with her playing. But I felt a certain sense of thrill watching her unit, Murmur—it made me think maybe it was like this when bands like Gomes and Lucy were rookies many years ago, at the start when everything was completely fresh, and there was a lot of uncertainty and bumpiness, but plenty of excitement too.


Gomes The Hitman at Mona Records.

Gomes The Hitman, a group that’s been around for more than a decade, is led by the singer and guitarist Toshiaki Yamada. He has a mellow tenor voice, a voice like smooth calvados. Yamada’s singing and the elegant love songs he writes seem to have made the band popular with women—most of the audience were females in their late 20’s and up. Throughout the show a video was playing at the back of the stage that showed Yamada wandering around in what looked like the Nevada desert, wearing on his head a pillow with horns and two big circles for eyes. It was strange. He called that character the Cat.

This was yet another show in which the band Plectrum’s excellent lead guitarist, Akira Fujita, a.k.a. Akky, was helping out by playing guitar. He’s in high demand as a support guitarist (he’s worked with Chara and Syrup 16g, among others), and I see him all over the place.

All in all a nice show. But because the show was sold out, the café was crowded and I was stuck against the back wall. I was afraid I might get Economy Class Syndrome. Café shows are supposed to be more relaxed and comfortable than those at ‘live houses’, but I’ve found that when it’s a popular musician’s café show the space becomes even more cramped than at live houses because of all the tables and chairs.

Recommended: Sunday at the Lush

If you are free this Sunday night (July 10) and are in Tokyo, I highly recommend the show at the new club Shibuya Lush, featuring: pop pianist/songstress Ricarope, an engaging performer of whom I've written before; Travelling Panda, a great band that makes intelligent, funky pop music (I just found out they released a new album too...a must-buy for me), who I loved when I saw them last; alternative pop band polyABC and a couple of other artists I hadn't heard of before.

No question I'd go to this show if it weren't for the fact that I'm already scheduled to go to a friend's private musical event. C'est la vie.

Blog Comrades Describe 5.6.7.8's & VC75

An unfortunate truth is that although there are plenty of Tokyo rock shows I want to see, for one reason or another I often have to miss many of them (sometimes there are even two or more promising shows on the same evening and I have to skip them all!).

My fellow Japan bloggers are luckier at times, however, going to and writing about good Tokyo gigs while I'm kept away from the good times.

Big in Japan, for example, writes about going to see the 5.6.7.8's, the female rock trio made famous by Quentin Tarantino's use of their song in the movie Kill Bill. It sounds like the Shimokitazawa Shelter gig was nearly perfect except for a low-energy encore performance.

Chipple.net, meanwhile, describes seeing Vasallo Crab 75, PINE*am and a few other groups at the Star Pine's Cafe in Kichijoji. In our conversations, Miniskirt singer Edgar Franz has several times raved about the girl future pop band PINE*am, and I've been interested in seeing them but haven't been able to. And I've written many times about the indies guitar pop/funk band Vasallo, something that Chipple.net's Patrick kindly notes, adding that he liked them too.

Indies Rock DVD - Dramatic Girl

Dramatic Girl DVD

I think I would get along with whoever it is that chose the bands featured in the live rock show compilation DVD Indies Rock Vol. 4 Dramatic Girl.

First off, among the ten Japanese rock bands the DVD records is advantage Lucy. Anyone who has the vision and good taste to bring into the world a new video recording of the Tokyo guitar pop band must be a fine character.

But that’s not all—the person who chose the bands also appears to have an excellently eclectic love of Japanese bands. In addition to pop-rock bands like advantage Lucy, Condor 44 and School Girl 69, the DVD also casts the spotlight on purely punk groups like Lolita #18 and Bleach of Okinawa.

It’s a bit hard to explain how cool this is to someone who hasn’t spent some time in Tokyo’s huge but faction-oriented live music scene: you don’t usually run into people here who go to both advantage Lucy and Lolita #18 shows, even though both are great (if very different stylistically and in almost all other ways), so it’s a happy surprise to find a DVD like this with a full spectrum of Japanese pop and rock sounds. As the title Dramatic Girl suggests, the DVD seems to have compiled girl bands (like Lolita #18), bands with female singers (like Lucy), and bands with girl players (like Condor, which has a female bassist). But I don’t think it was the need to find group that include girls that resulted in this band line-up—there are plenty such bands—rather, I’d like to think it was a question of taste.

The DVD is a great primer on the music coming out of Japan. I’d never seen a Lolita #18 show until I saw the one on this DVD, for instance, and I developed a strong urge to go check out their next performance. The singer, with blindingly day-glo pink hair and a bright yellow shirt, is brilliant. She has a rough, whiney voice that travels during shows somewhere in the farthest frontiers where voiced words still count as singing. She has that manic look in her eyes that’s almost a cliché for punk rockers, as well as other punk conventions such as wearing red tartan trousers, but she’s so good at connecting with the audience you forget all that.

Advantage Lucy plays one of their oldest songs, Sunny, as well as one of their newest, Shiosai (which means ‘the sound of the sea’). It’s impossible to recreate on DVD the feeling of seeing these wonderful musicians up close, surrounded by their sound and their fans, but the disk still gives a sense of what their shows are like. At the center is Aiko, the singer, her eyes closed most of the time, absorbed in melodies of astonishing beauty.

I highly recommend this DVD, which is available on Amazon Japan (your DVD player needs to be able to play Japan region DVDs though).

Orange Plankton, Solo

Singer Yumi of Orange Plankton.

A couple minutes’ walk from Koenji train station in Tokyo, in an alley filled with pastel-colored girlie bars, is Club Roots, a brand-new music live house. Here, pop band Orange Plankton did a solo show, one of their first in a while.

The building that houses Club Roots is quite extraordinary. It’s an Okinawa-themed building. On the first floor is an “Okinawa steakhouse”, while above it is a regular Okinawan food restaurant, and the third floor is home to an Okinawan culture center, where events such as karate demonstrations will be held. Club Roots itself will feature Okinawan musicians, and will serve Orion beer and awamori, the island’s alcoholic drinks of choice. The creation of a building like this is a reflection of the current Okinawa fad sweeping Japan, but the facilities look interesting and I’ll likely visit it again.

Orange Plankton’s show started dramatically, with first only the drummer, Tamarou, appearing on stage and doing a solo, then the bassist Tsuji joining him and doing a duet, the pianist Yuki next making it a trio, and finally the singer Yumi appearing on stage to begin the songs. An acoustic guitarist played with the band at one point, and a violinist also later joined them. It was surprising how good the quartet sounded with the addition of guitar and violin sounds. I felt that Orange Plankton songs would probably sound good in a variety of arrangements because the original musical compositions are so strong and appealing.

All in all, it was a very satisfying hour and a half of music. I was surprised to turn around during the show to find that the tiny club was packed. The only not-quite gripe I had about the show is that the stage was too small for Yumi to move around much. This band deserves a much bigger stage.


Orange Plankton at Club Roots.

After the show, talking over drinks with a friend, I tried to explain what might be called the Orange Plankton dilemma. The problem for them is, the music they play is unlike any of the number of fad Japanese musical genres, meaning that they won’t automatically get fans of those genres to boost their popularity in the short run. But because they are making their own sound (which is very pop, but with a feeling also of jazz, rock and even classical) and it’s good and original, little by little they will likely attract a following. I feel those people will stick around longer with the band than fans of passing musical fads.

Once Orange Plankton gets in your blood, they seem to be there for good. I read a message on their Internet bulletin board from a guy who saw the band for the first time during their Okinawa show. It has a breathless tone, but I can understand how he feels. He is himself a singer who’s been discouraged by lack of success, but when he heard the band, “it felt like something warm, like a small bright gentle light was entering me,” and that “although I’ve heard many different types of music, this sort of sensation was really a first for me and I didn’t know how to describe it in words.” He goes on to talk about “the warmth that enveloped the audience in an instant, and a singing voice that seems to reach like a light to the end of the universe.”

I wouldn’t quite describe Orange Plankton’s music in those terms, but I do think his words provide good evidence you should try to see this band live if possible.

Condor 44, Vasallo Crab 75, advantage Lucy

Condor 44

A three-course Japanese indie pop music feast at the Que Wednesday night. Performing were Condor 44, Vasallo Crab 75, and advantage Lucy--all three of whom I'm a big fan.

Big news was announced at the event: advantage Lucy singer Aiko said the band is going to start selling a four-song maxi-single on July 22, ahead of the release of its eagerly-awaited full album Echo Park (which it now looks like come out at the end of September). The single will be sold only at Lucy shows and through the band's Internet page (the album will be sold everywhere).

The maxi-single isn't finished yet, and the Lucy guys are considering putting into the CD one live recording song, which they taped at the Que show.

Therefore, during a break they asked the audience to cheer loudly and applaud "fast and heavy" (as Japanese TV producers apparently ask live audiences to do) after songs so it sounds good on the CD being recorded.

The audience took the Lucy instructions to heart and clapped more enthusiastically than usual after each song.


advantage Lucy

A strange thing happened though, because of the Lucy request. The audience, normally fairly subdued and shy, turned up the volume of their cheers. But when Lucy later announced that they will be going on a three-city Japan tour (Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya) in August, and the crowd oohed and cheered and applauded to that, it wasn't clear whether the audience members were responding this way because they were genuinely happy, or they were still half play-acting enthusiasm. Or so Aiko wondered on stage.

Though, really, we were all happy that new Lucy works were coming out and the band was about to hit the road.

The members of Lucy themselves said after the show that they may have tried to play too perfectly for the recording, making the act less spontaneous than usual, but they seemed brilliant as usual to me.

Particularly stirring was Aiko's singing. Not a flashy vocalist, she nevertheless commands the audience's attention because on stage she's utterly immersed in her songs. Like someone in the ocean, she sways lightly with the waves of the music. Her voice is delicate as silk in the quiet songs, but in the more intense tunes, she gives it everything. A real star, in my book.


Vasallo Crab 75

Opening the event was Condor 44, a good trio that does shoe-gazer-type music. The petite girl on bass is skilled and totally rocks.

And Vasallo Crab, the final act, was hot as always. Anyone in Tokyo who likes funk and indies pop owes it to him/herself to see this excellent band.

Talking to Vasallo singer Daisuke Kudo after the show, I found out, to my surprise, that he doesn't know the names of the chords used in Vasallo songs, and he creates the music by exploring combinations of musical notes. Which may explain Vasallo's unique sound. He said if someone had to transcribe Vasallo songs it would be a difficult task.

Advantage Lucy Drummer Banba Quits

Kaname Banba, who was advantage Lucy's drummer from the beginning, announced he is quitting the band, and also ending his music career. "Music ceased to be the most important thing for me," he wrote in Lucy's home page to explain his decision.

Banba's announcement made official what was already, de facto, reality. For the last couple of years he hadn't played at Lucy's shows, and as far as I know he didn't record with the band. I had heard that he was now focused on a new career.

I've said this before but to say it once again, though I love advantage Lucy as they are now, I wish I could have seen them in the late 90's when all four original members were there, with Banba on drums and Fukumura-kun playing guitar, recording masterpieces like the album Fanfare. But I didn't know about the band back then, and there's nothing you can do about past ignorance. At least I was able to see Banba when he played drums for his other band, Orang, smiling always on stage.

Take care, Banba-san.

Pop Chocolat - J-Pop Superstars-To-Be

Pop Chocolat at the Que.

I’ve seen the makings of J-Pop superstars, and their name is Pop Chocolat.

Listening to the opening notes of the show by this gorgeous and brilliant three-girl band from Kyoto, I found my eyes well up with tears. It was as if my ears and brain instinctively knew they were in for an extraordinary rock music treat. And they were.

Looking like ordinary, giggly Japanese girls, Pop Chocolat nevertheless RIPPED when they started playing their music, which they call alternative girly-pop. They went effortlessly from crisp pop tunes to crashing rock passages, and all three sang beautifully too.

They also looked fabulous on stage. All three had short hair that didn’t quite touch the shoulder, and the guitarist and bassist played matching aqua-colored instruments.

The 30 minute-show ended much too fast. But at least I know there are two shows in Tokyo coming up in the next few weeks. I dashed to buy their first mini-album, which they were selling outside.

I better go see them again soon because if my premonition is correct, I soon won’t be able to see these superstars-to-be in a small club like the Que, as I did tonight. Of course, I may not be a very good judge of how well a band will do—Japan Live specializes in indies bands, after all. There’s something wrong with the world though if Pop Chocolat doesn’t enjoy at least some success.



Pop Chocolat.

Music Meme Mike

Frangiapani’s Martine has passed me the music meme mike, so here goes:

Total volume of music files on my computer: 381.8MB. (I had more than 10GB of iPod songs, but my computer crashed recently and I lost all the files. I still have them on my iPod but don’t know how to transfer the songs back to my iTune library. Anyone know?)

Song playing right now: Waffles’ “Life”, the first song on their album Orangery.

The last CD I bought: Shostakovich’s 8th Symphony, conducted by Mstislav Rostropovich. London Symphony Orchestra. (I don’t ONLY listen to J-Pop. Plus this CD only cost about 1,100 yen ((about $11)).)

Five songs or tunes I listen to a lot, or that mean a lot to me:

Sonic Youth’s “The Sprawl” from Daydream Nation—I discovered this album my freshman year in college, and it seemed to open up new musical possibilities, especially the first three songs, and particularly this song.

my bloody valentine’s “swallow” from tremolo e.p.—Contained in a cassette tape my roommate brought from the U.S., this song became part of my personal soundtrack during a year of studies in Beijing.

Pizzicato Five’s “On the Sunny Side of the Street"—Listened to repeatedly in the late-90’s, this song embodied for me the elegance and excitement of Tokyo in that period (even though, to be sure, the economy was in a prolonged slump…).

The Bill Evans Trio’s “In Love in Vain” from Moonbeams—Obsessively listened to during a period when I was feeling empty, the colors of the song seemed almost unbearably vivid.

Advantage Lucy’s “Chikyu- (far away version)” from Killermont Street 2001—This song caught my attention in a compilation album. It was my first listen of advantage Lucy, and it started many things.

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I’m supposed to pass the mike to five other people, but can’t think of anyone. If anyone is interested in continuing with this meme, be my guest!

CDs of Note: The Clicks; Waffles

The Clicks' Magic of White.

The Clicks, who are three girls from Yokohama, play ultra-catchy punk-pop tunes in their wonderful and addictive second album, Magic of White. For a sample of their magic, check out their music video for the song “block castle” in the homepage of K.O.G.A. Records (which released the album—click on the Chinese characters second from right on the top next to ‘mail’, and then click on the ‘PV’ next to the Clicks at the top)—it's a surreal video that reminds me of something out of the psychedelic 60’s (at one point, an amp floats up and starts wobbling in the air, for example). ‘Love Bomb’, ‘The Line of Self-Satisfaction’ and the song ‘Magic of Love’ are also standouts. Actually, I like all the tunes on this album—it’s constantly on my iPod.

Magic of White is more pop than the rock-heavy debut album, Come to Vivid Girl’s Room, and the three girls have discovered vocal harmony in a big way, decorating the songs’ sonic landscape with their three bright voices. Like their debut effort, this isn’t an album that will make musical history with its innovation—all their songs sound familiar. But, if you’re like me, history will be far from your mind as you listen to the Click girls having a blast with their music.


The Waffles' Orangery.

I don’t know if it’s that great an idea for me to be introducing the Waffles’ Orangery because unless you live in Tokyo, it’s nearly impossible to find this new mini-album. For reasons that aren’t clear to me, the pop quartet decided to only sell this CD at their shows and at the tiny Mona Records in Shimokitazawa (I myself got my copy from my friend Dr. I because I missed their last solo show). But it’s an outstanding collection of pop songs so I’ll talk about it anyway. You can hear MP3 samples of the tunes on their homepage.

The Waffles’ music is clearly pop, but often with a jazzy feel that makes many of their songs swing (try the second MP3 sample in their homepage to see what I mean—click on the image of the record cover to go to the MP3 page). Singer and keyboardist Kyoko Ono, who writes all of the Waffles songs, sings with gentle passion. Japanese female vocalists often sing in a higher voice than their western counterparts, but there’s a lot of variation between the high voices. Ono, for one, has an appealing voice and style of singing that always makes me think she is smiling as she delivers her lines (and that’s how she looks on stage too).

If you’re interested in Orangery and have a chance to visit Tokyo, why not make the trip to neighborhood of Shimokitazawa, and have a coffee or beer at the comfy café/music shop Mona Records after buying a copy?

Advantage Lucy, Others Live On DVD

Japanese pop band advantage Lucy's homepage says a DVD will be released on June 22 that not only includes Lucy playing two songs live ('Sunny', one of their oldest songs, from their Lucy van Pelt days, and 'Shiosai', a new song that hasn't been released yet), but also has footage of live performances by other great Japanese groups including: punk band Lolita 18-gou; shoegazer band Condor 44; pop rockers School Girl 69; and Okinawan girl band Bleach, among others. It's called DVD INDIES ROCK MAGAZINE DVD vol.4 "DRAMATIC GIRL". I'll write about it when I get a copy of it.

Kaji Hideki & Spangle Call Lilli Line

Watching Kaji Hideki and Spangle call Lilli line play at the Kichijoji Star Pine's Café Monday night made me wonder how a good live band comes to be.

Spangle call was the opening act, and though I’m a huge fan of the trio’s ethereal pop music, I found myself a bit disappointed by their performance. Though the playing was skilled, they didn’t seem to connect much with the audience.

Singer Otsubo Kana is a striking figure on stage, rain thin, with weary-looking eyes and full lips. With those looks, if she were able to reach out to the audience more or show herself completely absorbed in the music, she could probably blow away the audience. As it is though, she and the two guitarists seem to be holding back, making their performance less than compelling.

Spangle call is a band comprised of three people who have full-time creative jobs and for whom the band is a side project. But they pay a price for being only part-time musicians: they’re not as good live as bands that live and breathe music 24 hours a day. The first time I saw their show I enjoyed it partly because I was awed seeing the people behind Spangle call, creators of such dazzling music. The awe had disappeared this time, however, and the show didn’t have the same impact.

***

I don’t own any CDs of Kaji Hideki (I’m going by the Japanese system today, family name first) and this was the first time for me to see him live. I didn’t know much about Kaji except he’s been a big name for a while in the Japanese pop scene, and led a band in the early 90’s called Bridge, of which Three Berry Icecream’s Ikemizu Mayumi was also a member.

He came on stage wearing what looked like a mutant giant Panama hat, and started the show doing two songs with a ukulele. Then it was an hour and a half of spirited pop, during the course of which three strings on two guitars broke.

Kaji’s song lyrics seemed to revolve around doing romantic things with girlfriends. A group of girls standing behind me kept on saying among themselves that he should take off his gigantic hat so they could see his face. He chatted in a giggly way between songs. But once the songs started, a look of deep concentration appeared on his face and his tenor voice soared.

Kaji plays pop, happy music that isn’t heavy, but his renditions were gripping. Sheer talent and long experience no doubt help in making musicians do well on stage, but they also need a certain attitude, that they’re going to make the crowd go crazy. Kaji had that attitude.

AuroraNote; Live House Vs. Club

AuroraNote at the Shimokitazawa Garage.

For the sake of simplicity I’ve often written that I went to see this or that band at a CLUB, when in reality I saw the band at what is called in Japan a LIVE HOUSE. There’s a difference between the two for the Japanese. A live house is a (usually) small hall with a stage and sound system, where the audience stands and listens to live music. A club, on the hand, is a space for people to dance to DJ-ed music.

Friday night I got to go to both a live house and a club in a single evening, and found out I’m a live house guy rather than a clubber.

The live house was the Garage in Shimokitazawa, and I went there to see the bands AuroraNote and Winnie. My friend Hironobu Hirata, the bassist for Swinging Popsicle, also plays for AuroraNote. In his thirties, Hirata is about ten years older than the other three members of the band, and it seems he plays the role of a sage in the band, a veteran of the music scene who was behind the success of Swinging Popsicle, one of Japan’s great guitar pop bands.

As with most live house shows, the Garage show started around 7PM with an opening band, and then Winnie was up next and played a good show. AuroraNote was the third and final act, and when I looked around at the remaining audience I saw that, without exaggeration, I was about the only guy in the crowd of about fifty people.

They are a good-looking band, probably partly explaining their appeal to the womenfolk. But they also play energetic and soulful music, a sort of blues-y American rock that reminds me a bit of another Japanese band, the Triceratops. AuroraNote has just released their first album, Sekai no Shikumi [‘The Way the World Works’, my translation], and they are about to go on a national tour. It was a satisfying, rocking show—I don’t see any reason why they shouldn’t become popular with the guys too.


Another shot of AuroraNote.

After the Garage show, I headed from the hippie-ish Shimokitazawa neighborhood to the trendy Nishi-Azabu area to catch an all-night show at the Yellow club.

I’m NOT a clubber so I didn’t know this until that evening, but the Yellow has apparently been around for more than a decade. In the stairs leading down to the club was a line of people waiting to get in, a scene you see outside of discos everywhere in the world. I had an invitation so cut in front of the line to get into the club.

Once inside, I was tempted to leave immediately. The club, divided into a bar and dance floor, was packed, with people rushing to and fro busily. Wearing a dress shirt I felt overdressed, and the bag I carried with me was out of place in a venue meant for dancing (and I’m not a dancer).

The dance floor was as crowded as Tokyo trains in the morning rush hour, except here people moved around and bumped into you more. As I watched the dancing crowd, I got the feeling I often get listening to big DJ-ed events: aren’t these people reacting excessively positively to pretty minor DJ techniques? The DJ changes the music to a song everyone knows, and the crowd goes wild. I almost hoped these young dancers were on drugs.

The band I had come to see was a sort of fusion-jazz unit called I-Dep. They seemed good, but I have to confess I had a strong urge get out of the place after a couple of songs, and that’s what I did. Again, the crowd seemed to cheer the band way in excess of what the band played called for, and all through the performance, wild-eyed groups of men pushed through the crowd to head for wherever they were headed, a big distraction.

Later, I thought about the possibility that maybe by skipping most of the show, I was missing music that was NEW. When jazz in the 20’s and rock in the 50’s were fresh and about to bloom, people danced to the music. It was only after the music became more established that people listened to the music sitting down. Maybe the music being played to the seemingly mindless crowd was something that would similarly be performed in concert halls down the line. If that is the case, I guess I will have to miss the next big thing—I want to listen to my music in peace in a live house.

One Year

One year since I started Japan Live! (Wonder how many more.)

Pizzicato Five Nomiya Maki Blog

Pizzicato Five fans! Singer Nomiya Maki has started her own blog. (Thanks to chipple.net for info.) It looks good so far, but unfortunately for non-Japanese speakers, it's in Japanese.

I like her second post, where she talks about how she has good constitution and only called in sick once her whole time in Pizzicato. That was when a music video was supposed to be filmed on a boat in Tokyo Bay, but she had an upset stomach and thought she wouldn't return if she went to sea.

The filming was postponed until a later date, and on that day when was doing make-up on the bus over, Yasuharu Konishi came by and gave her a small bouquet of yellow and orange gerbera flowers. This was a sweet gesture because Nomiya was feeling guilty about having missed the previous filming, she writes.

But now that she asks Konishi about this incident, he doesn't seem to remember and only recalls that 30 boxed lunches for staffers went to waste because the first filming was canceled, or maybe Konishi is just being shy, Ms. Nomiya says.