So
you read the bad news, about the Fuss debacle. But of course "Love's
got you down? Love will pick you right back up!" applies to music
just as much as it does to girls, right?!
I
emailed Junzo (the bassist for Bishop -- remember them? We just fell
out of touch for a few weeks is all). "I'm gonna try and come
to your show on Monday at Narciss."
"Cool,"
he replies, "our staff will have a ticket for you, see you then."
I am infinitely, inexplicably cheered up.
Ah,
also, yesterday (Sunday) I got a haircut. It's respectable now; my
bangs can reach the tip of my nose, if I pull hard enough! I had to
look neat; I -wanted- to look neat. And now it dries faster as well,
so that'll save me a few extra minutes every day under the blow dryer
-- one of the few times I can't listen to music. But I missed the
extra bounce at the Narciss show while headbanging... but the other
160 hours in a week it's perfect. Ya gotta know when... to... hold...
'em,... know... when... to... fold... 'em...? What the hell am I talking
about?
Oh,
also on Sunday, after the haircut, Kayo showed me the way to Recofan,
a CD store I hadn't been able to find. We got there, and they had
the BIGGEST selection of used visual rock CDs and videos I'd ever
seen -- all conveniently stuck in one central place. No more filtering
through Deen... D&D... T-Bolan... Deeps...TM Revolution... Dragon
Ash... etc to find Dir en grey! Yahoo!
They
only had Ain't Afraid to Die though. Bleah. As a consolation,
though, I did snatch up Pierrot's Dictator's Circus V - Vol. 1
on DVD for the low price of Y2100. "The Nice Price!"
The first time I saw it was over at Sung's house, after Tenk had gotten
it... and she demonstrated the "gay swing" from Adolf
as the video played. Ahhh, memories!
Because
we hadn't woken up til noon, and the haircut wasn't finished til 3:30
(it's a salon, so you get a massage, coffee, cake, all that kinda
stuff -- plus a good cut), we were running kinda late. (PS - I stopped
going to barbers after my 15th birthday, when I lamentably made the
mistake of getting a crew cut. Ugh! Barbers have NO idea what they're
doing unless you order one of two cuts: "short" or "extra-short".)
We were running so late, in fact, that we only had time to RUSH through
Book Off, Disk Union, Oscar's, and DCD after hititng Recofan and the
computer store. And of course I saw nuthin' good, because how are
you supposed to find precious gems when you're running through the
store and constantly checking your watch?!
In
addition to the Pierrot DVD I got a CD/video box set, for Y500 (cheap!)
from a band called Shizuku. Not bad, but not great either. Most notable
was the fact that during a video, the drummer's floor tom clearly
had fallen down, but he was too lazy to set it right again, so throughout
the whole video, his drum is either lying on its side or standing
up straight as it should be, depending on how the editor pieced together
the footage. Jeez, bastard!
I
saw a bunch of Sleep My Dear stuff too, but too much -- I couldn't
decide which one to get! The "Best Of" was tempting, but
so was the "Ask for Eyes" album, Code. So i got neither.
Welcome to my my logical world!
I also got a briefcase (actually it's a laptop carrying case, but
it's small, light, durable, cheap, and holds 16 CDs nicely). The store
I bought it at tried to sign me up for the store's card, and during
the pitch I heard "Y500!" which I assumed to be Y500 off
your first purchase, which is the deal everywhere else in Tokyo when
you sign up for a members card. So imagine my shock when they CHARGED
me $5 extra, the dildos! Kayo straightened them out, though, after
she was done watching the last scene from Titanic that they were showing
in the A/V section of the store. And i got a cool little optical mouse
made by Justy, which works great despite it being half the price of
Microsoft's and Logitech's equivalent mice... and that's about it.
Oh, christ, no it's not, we had dinner at a place called Jackie's
Kitchen, which is part-owned by Jackie Chan. It's a chain, apparently.
The food was good, but the portions were small. It was right across
the street from Book Off, and we were sooooo hungry by then, you could
see our ribs poking out through our skin. So we took a shot. Now we
know better! (It's so dumb for a restaurant to give small portions,
too -- the food barely costs any money, in comparison with the other
stuff a restaurant has to pay for (rent, employees, taxes, etc...)
They could've doubled the portions, at no cost to them, and then actually
attracted and kept customers. But no!)
Anyway!
Egads,
before the show, I went to Shinjuku to meet up with some friends I
made during "training" -- Christine, Jessica, and Hilary.
We ended up going to an all-you-can-eat pizza place called Shakey's
-- very classy! Hil was the only one brave enough to try the seaweed
and ginger pizza... I think all of us gave the peach & pineapple
pizza a shot, though. The slices were tiny, and the sauce was thin,
but overall, 'twas a nice diversion.
We
also did some shoppin' -- and I got In Flames' The Tokyo Showdown
(which doesn't come out in the U.S. for another week or two I hear,
hehe) and The Jester Race (not my favorite album by them --
Clayman is, by far -- but it had Japan Only demo versions of
a couple songs, and it was only $17, and I had to get it someday,
so why not now?) Both were cheaper than normal because they were used.
I think I'm gonna give them to Erik, because he saw and bought a Phil
Collen model black 3-pickup Ibanez Destroyer for me (I'm paying him
for the guitar -- the discs are more like a finder's fee type of thing!)
So in two years, when (if?!) I head back home, I'll have a nice new
geetar to look forward to -- unless someone steals it from his house
first! :P
Ah
-- and I got a Pierrot single from last year (but I don't know which
one! All I can read in the two similar kanji-filled titles is the
kana: Wareru in one, Wareta in the other... and it's
"produced by Pierrot and Tatsuya Nishiwaki", if that helps!)
So I got that for $5, and a bootleg Hide DVD, used, for THREE bucks!
It's the Hide: A Story and His Invincible Deluge Evidence
videos. Sung bought it a while back and said it wasn't so hot,
just Hide walking around L.A. mostly. But for $3, I get the videos
for Rocket Dive and Pink Spider, which is enough for me. The other
2 hours I can watch some night when I can't sleep.
Okay,
so I show up at the gig, my ticket's waiting. For another $5 I get
a drink, and that's the extent of my expenditures that night, so already
I'm happy (that's another CD I can buy tomorrow!) Oops -- i forgot
to mention that I rode the train for free, hehe: I now have a train
pass good for certain stations, so I can get on or off at those stations
(one of which is Shinjuku) for free. I got on the train at Shinjuku
for free, went to Urawa (normally a $5 ride), and getting there, went
to the ticket booth to say, "Hey, I got on at Shinjuku, here's
my pass... I'm going to pay for a ticket now so I can get through
your ticket gate, look how honest I am."
But
the ticket booth guy was busy/flustered trying to fix one of the ticket
machines, so after 10 seconds of waiting, some Japanese businessman
just passed through the gate. I followed two seconds later. Screw
it, I had been traveling for over an hour, I wanted to get to the
show!
And
on the way back, all i had to do was buy the cheapest ticket (Y150)
so I could board the train -- on the other end I used my pass, so
that's how one can save a nice chunk of money traveling... all this
is quite improper though, so you didn't hear it from me! (Everyone
does it though.)
The
first band, Acet-al-Dehyde, was okay, just high school kids starting
out, but not too bad. There were a lot of people in the club, maybe
40 -- which is double the usual number (it's only 5pm). Only a few
of the people were watching the Acet-al perform though, the rest were
sitting around talking and flipping through the advertisements and
"anketto" (questionnaires) we got at the door. Then as soon
as lead Acet-al left the stage, EVERYONE leapt up and ran to the front
of the stage. It was really unusual -- I mean, the lights went UP,
indicating "10-minute intermission while we set up the next band",
and still everyone was crushed toward the front! Wow, who is this
next band coming up?!, thought I intrigued-ly!
Roza-Lia
The
singer sure was freaky!
They're
Roza-Lia. Nice and heavy and fast, and they all had a really cool
look, and moved around on stage, and just overall did really nice.
Plus it turned out to be the drummer's birthday, so one minute they're
all headbanging furiously and screaming like inmates at a prison asylum
about to be burned alive, the next minute they're bringing out a birthday
cake and blowing out candles and singing Happy Birthday... then back
to screaming like madmen and giving the middle finger to the crowd
again (giving the middle finger to your fans, and the fans giving
it back to you -- right in your face -- is apparently the highest
praise a band can receive. I see it at every show, but I'm still getting
used to it. I mean literally, they do it RIGHT in their face; the
guitarist leaned into the crowd and just "bang!" middle
finger, three inches from this girl's eyes, and "bam!" someone
in the front leans forward and gives the finger to the lead singer
as he screams and goads them on. It'll be interesting to see if these
16 year old girls giving everyone the finger will also do it at when
they go to see western metal bands in Tokyo...
Lars:
Why the hell is everyone giving us the finger?
James: We shoulda kept Jason!
Kirk: <starts crying>
Oh,
before I forget, has anyone seen those cool anime-ish Metallica t-shirts?
They're pretty damn cool.
Anyway,
Roza-Lia were quite good. Then there's a break while another band
sets up, and half the crowd leaves, and La' DeathTopia come out, and
they're okay, but not in the fast & heavy vein that I'm most fond
of. Though there were a few cute girls with big 80s hair that ended
up headbanging a lot, swinging their heads around like, i dunno, maces
(you know, those medieval weapons, the spiked ball on the chain that
knights would whip around and then conk people on the head with? Geez,
aren't you glad you weren't born in -that- time period?!). It was
cool to watch.
During
that set, I notice that Gidi has an anketto in my pack; which can
only mean that they're playing tonight! But that can't be, I'd have
known. So I check the schedule on the wall behind me. La' Deathtopia...
Bishop... Gidi! Woo hoo! (Gidi are the guys I met in Ikebukuro a few
weeks ago... then I met the guitarist again after the Pierrot show...
) Serendipity!
But
first, after La' DeathTopia, Bishop is up. For a brief second, after
the curtain is pulled back, I'm worried that they might have a drummer;
the club drumset is sitting there just waiting for someone to sit
down behind it, and it's been a few weeks since they emailed me, or
I emailed them... maybe the free ticket was there way of apologizing?!
Oh no! But my fears are allayed as Junzo(b), Yoshihiro (v) and Yoshiyuki(g)
(shit, i -think- it's Yoshiyuki! Yoshi-something! Ah! Sorry! Brain
freeze!) come out on stage. The second song they do is Masochist,
which is the one I liked best of the disc they gave me, but then they
played something I hadn't heard before. It was very techno, almost
a dance track -- with the digital drums they can do that very easily
-- and they started moving allllll over the stage. Fast, catchy, very
cool.
Bishop
Again
Pray
at the altar of Bishop!
Like
Fuss, though, I don't think they fit in quite perfectly with the other
acts on the bill; I dunno, maybe in Japan it's different -- in the
U.S., usually the bands are all photocopies of each other on any given
night, whether it's punk or metal or plain old rock; they dress the
same, they act the same, they sound the same, the play similar looking
guitars, they do similar looking poses, and all that. At Narciss this
night, most of the bands looked like Dir en grey did a couple years
ago -- lots of vinyl, plenty of purple and red and yellow hair sticking
up and out at sharp angles, big boots, that kind of thing. Bishop,
meanwhile, were more... mature? I don't know if that's the right word
-- it makes them sound old and the other bands sound young & dumb,
which is not the case. Maybe a better word is laid-back. Hmm... not
really. Well, let's just say the tempo never reached that super fast
dundundundundundun range, and that Yoshihiro never screamed or broke
his voice or acted psychotic, and there was no headbanging. They moved
around a bit, but not as frenetically as some of the crazy-heavy acts
I've seen, which is okay -- the music demanded a more non-whacked-out-on-drugs
stage presence.
I'd
still like to join them though... but half of me says, "They
don't NEED a drummer!" Their best songs were the ones that came
off as a bit techno sounding, like something you might hear at a rave,
only with guitar in it. Having me join as drummer would destroy that
vibe, totally, and I think that vibe is what sets the apart. I'll
have to talk with them, see what they think. It would be fun to play
with 'em though...
So
for Bishop's set, I moved to the front of the stage, and stood against
the far right wall (the only place I could stand without blocking
everyone else's view.) Between Bishop and Gidi, this pink-haired girl
(who is Chinese, from Hong Kong, as it turns out) asks me which band
I came to see... in English! So we have a cool conversation about
bands, and about CD prices in Japan, the U.S., and Hong Kong, (j-rock
albums are cheaper in Hong Kong, and pricier in the U.S.) and which
bands she likes, and which bands I like and all that. I'm glad she
talked to me; a lot of times you can see a girl -wants- to say something,
but is just too shy to say "hey", and sometimes I just feel
to out of my element to take the gargantuan leap of actually saying
hello to someone I don't know -- my god, what if they just laugh?!!
It sounds so silly now, but you know how it is -- it's just hard to
walk up to a stranger out of nowhere and go "Hi, I'm me"
for some reason. So now I have a new rule of speaking to at least
one stranger at each show.
Then
Gidi comes out.
Gidi
Cool fuckin' shit!
The
guitarist (who was the guy I first said hi to on that Ikebukuro street
corner, and whom I later exchanged pleasantries with after the Pierrot
concert) comes leaping out on stage, just totally hyperkinetically,
and as luck would have it, I'm positioned right in front of his place
on stage. So he comes leaping out, with the rest of the band, and
then you see him stop for a very very quick millisecond, and we make
eye contact, and you see his eyes flicker, and he's thinking (just
for a super-fast second!) "Oh, he's familiar! Where do I know
him from?!" (either that or "my god, that's the -ugliest-
16 year old girl i've ever seen")!
They
run through several songs... heavy, sometimes fast, sometimes slow,
and they really really rock. A few of their riffs were as good as
anything off of Megadeth's Rust in Peace -- which is probably
the biggest complement I have ever offered to anyone!
The
Gidi Fire Department
Looks on in helpless horror as fans burst into
flame!
Some
of the songs just really locked into a heavy, catchy groove -- not
a hip-hop groove mind you! -- and you couldn't help but headbang.
So I did. (Up til then, I hadn't -- I don't know why; I think because
I was the only foreigner, and one of maybe two or three guys, and
I didn't feel I belonged to the dominant headbanging group (basically,
the teenaged girls there). But that third song they did was just too
powerful to ignore!
Gidi
Up!
Is there ANYthing cooler than a headbangin'
schoolgirl?
After
Gidi (the katakana actually says "Giji", but the website
name is www.mmjp.or.jp/gidi, so that's what I'm using) comes the last
band, Kress Devia (pronounced Da-VAI-ah), who are a four-piece (that's
one strike against them already! Two-guitar bands are where it's at)!
This is the band Atropos had come to see (the singer is "adorable"),
but they didn't do much for me... the guitarist (who, if I may say
so without sacrificing my heterosexuality, was far cuter than the
singer) had a good guitar tone for rhythm, but his solo tone sucked
-- no sustain, and it was too "crunchy", and not smooth,
as a good solo tone should be (imho!)... and the songs weren't so
memorable; I can't recall any riffs per se. But the rest of the audience
seemed to be having a good time, so what do I know?!
Kress
Devia
The Final Act
So
that's the show... then after the show, I met up with Bishop and hung
out with them for a while, then with the guitarist from Gidi (Yuri
is his name!), then I said hello again to the bassist from Gidi (he
was the other guy I officially met in Ikebukuro), then I harassed
everyone from Roza-Lia, except the singer who had had the good sense
to flee the scene early! Gradually, the bands and straggling fans
(maybe 30 of 'em) moved from the club to the street, where we where
then pushed off by the owner of the club across the street, so we
migrated toward the main road which led to the station, and took over
the steps of the bank on the corner for a good hour.
Out
there I meet up with a friend of Missy's, who was one of the few people
I could count on to make it to my old band's j-rock shows in NYC.
Turns out this friend, Saya, is also friends with Bishop. Small world!
I
also meet end up chatting with a few more girls as well, including
Yuki and Okun. Okun's 21, and Yuki's my age! So it's nice to know
I'm not the only person at the club that's not in high school! I also
say hey to Roza-Lia again (they were by the "bar" earlier,
where I repeated "Suki deshita, suki deshita!" over and
over again, but also managed to elicit from the drummer that they
had formed 8 months ago from the ashes of other bands.)
Outside,
they were all standing around seperately, except the elusive lead
singer who had left already. I gathered them all together ("Stop
getting girls' phone numbers and come over here and take a picture
with me, dammit!") and gave my camera to the nearest girl, for
a quick photo. Besides covering the flash with her finger, she did
well enough, I suppose... grumble grumble grumble! <punch punch
punch!> So i had to amp up the contrast in Photoshop, sorry for
the poor quality!
Roza-Lia
Dayoooooo
Okay guys, you can go back to getting girls'
phone numbers now, thank you!
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