Gaijin company, and music
I had half a plan to take the train to Hakone today, but when at 11:30 I found myself still in my hotel room playing Nintendo DS Othello, I realised I’d left it too late.
However, I did manage to get in touch with family friend Geraint, and after a bit of phone tag, managed to arrange to meet him, his Japanese wife Kanako, and his young children Rei and Kai for a gentle stroll around Shibuya-ku park.
We met at Harajuku station, which is a bit like arranging to meet outside Oxford St. tube on Christmas Eve. It turns out that when Debbie and I visited Harajuku, we missed an important sight. Just metres away from where we’d walked there’s a wide bridge over the train lines “where the weirdos hang out”.
Most of the weirdos just dress up in lacy pinafores, as we’d already seen. However, there was one weirdo who’d brought his ghetto blaster to the bridge, and was dancing in heartfelt fashion to We are the World, a song who’s chorus repeats almost interminably. When that finished, he danced to Do They Know It’s Christmas, and then to a live version of the same song.
A group of teenagers had their band equipment set up outside the station, and before Geraint turned up, I got to see them perform three poppy songs; they were very nice and polished. As they had prepared, I noticed that the drummer had some complicated rhythms in him that put him a rank above his band’s ouvre.
Geraint and family arrived, having had traffic problems, we had a pleasant stroll, a chat, a cake stop, until three year old Kai tired. We’ll meet again before I go home.
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I had an ambition to see some intense Japanese rock music, but finding so called “live houses” was proving problematic. I had some leads from Rieko the secretary at work, but I hadn’t done enough to follow these up. Geraint suggested a lightweight alternative — “Bauhaus” apparently has an excellent house band which plays 80s rock covers, and is within easy walking distance of my hotel.
I found a map on the Web, and I walked to where it should be. There, I found a building site. Remembering our Shabu Shabu experience, I checked several times, but it remained a building site. With no leads, I walked around Roppongi aimlessly. I had just about decided to give up and go home when I saw an open door with some steps leading down. On the wall opposite the open door was a poster which said “2007年４月１４日 Screaming Neon Jungle / Before My Life Fails / Over Throw / Liefe / Abort Mastication / Bleed the Vein / Stylerz of Games”. What could I do, but go in, pay my 2000 yen and my compulsory 600 yen for a drink voucher, and see what happened.
To my delight, it was almost exactly what I wanted. These kids make an almighty racket such that you’re convinced they genuinely are Satan’s envoys on earth, then at the end of the performance meekly thank the audience for watching. The only gap between my anticipation and real life was that the audience was a little thin — only about 30 people, where I was hoping to be shoulder to shoulder with a heaving mass of excited music lovers. Some fans compensated with very enthusiastic dancing.
I don’t know enough about rock to know whether I was listening to death metal, speed metal, grindcore, or what. I just knew it left me with a big grin on my face. Late to the party, I only saw the last three acts:
Abort Mastication sounded like Bolt Thrower. The played the first 2 minutes of their first song with their backs to the audience, backlit for silhouette. Then they strutted around pretending to be very angry. But that “arigato goziamasu”, and the bow to the audience gave that ruse away.
Bleed the Vein had a slightly funkier feel. I mean, it wasn’t R&B by any stretch of the imagination. It was still very heavy rock, but the up-beat was sometimes more accentuated, which sometimes caused the singer to dance disturbingly like Fred Durst. I was able to put that out of my mind and enjoy it.
Finally, Stylerz of Games. I didn’t know the name until after they’d finished — it might have put me off. A five-piece, with two roaring vocalists, drums, guitar, and bass, they were obviously having so much fun, as were the audience, and I soon came to believe they were the greatest band in existence. You know, my favourite band is always the one I enjoyed most recently.
Enjoy Stylerz of Games’ MySpace page!
The whole thing was over at 11pm. On the way home I was propositioned by a prostitute. at least, I hope I was, because if she wasn’t a prostitute I should probably have declined more politely.