There are many reasons to be happy about the forthcoming months in music terms with crammed full schedules from July to September and (apart from a fast approaching trip to Tokyo Dome) nothing is possibly more exciting than this lineup:

Arc／愛狂います。／アヲイ／12012／vistlip/ ヴィドール／Versailles／Envus／えんそく/ 関西変態系お笑いヴィジュアルバンド HEAR / キス＆ネイト／キャンゼル／KLACK／ClearVeil / Sadie／SIVA／ジゴロ／Sugar
ジュリィー／シンディケイト／the studs / ゾロ／Dali／タロット-tarrot-／Chariots / Dio／Daizy Stripper／DEATHGAZE / Duel Jewel／DELUHI／デンジャー☆ギャング / 東京ミカエル。／Dolly／ドレミ團／ネガ／heidi / Hi:BRiD／バギーボギー／HERO / 176BIZ／姫苺／Fuzylog／boogieman / Black List／BRANCH／VelBet／born / 摩天楼オペラ／ムック／Megaromania／MELLO / Moran／ラッド／RENTRER EN SOI／LiZ / Rosario／他　　　

I spy with my little eye…. MUCC, heidi, 12012, DEATHGAZE, Rentrer en Soi, the studs, Vidoll, Versailles, Awoi…. all superb bands who command such awesome stage presence.

Scuber Dive is essentially a visual kei festival. I can see it now; hundreds of VK gals and guys invade Dogenzaka for a day moving between the various livehouses of the Shibuya-O complex. It should be a fun day and I hope that some stores may make an appearance as it would be a perfect chance to sell clothing although I rather doubt this would happen. AMPM on the other hand must be salivating over the potential sales that day will bring as the only conbini within a 30 seconds walk of the area.

For Tokyo, tickets go on sale on the 5th July priced at 6000.

It was going to come someday. For long the Japanese music filesharing community has felt somewhat immune from the raft of legal suits occurring in the Western music industry. Although Johnny’s Entertainment and Avex Trax among others have been cracking down on promotional videos being uploaded to Youtube, the filesharing of Livejournal and its ilk has been largely left be. Until now as, rightly or wrongly, Japanfiles have started to take a keen interest in protection of their rights to the music they sell legally.

This interests me for a couple of reasons – because although I understand and support the theory behind their actions – protecting artists that need protection – I also rather wonder if it should be the labels as the assignment to, essentially a retailer to protect rights is a little uneasy.

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I caught this band at Tokyo Dark Castle on 7th June and, I have to say, was distinctly impressed by them. Although slightly visual in appearance and sound I would definitely hesitate to call them such; rather they have heavier Western influences. Metal guitars clashing with crunchier industrial noize and a smattering of goth electro to make the music that little bit dark

er. Thus far they are unsigned and without any website bar their MySpace. If however you like your rock, heavy, aggressive and sexy (and to be honest both the frontman and the bassist were not too bad in the old looks department) then Tungsten Fatman are a great little unsigned band.

Sample mp3 (from sample CD)

There have been many Lives this past month and a bit that I attended and haven’t written about. A couple I plan to post and a couple I need to write a long dedicated piece about. Yet still more I wrote for JaME and those live reports I can post now.

April 27 2008

Plastic Tree @ Akasaka Blitz

I revisited Akasaka Blitz for an incredible oneman from old timers Plastic Tree. This classic Jrock band really showed again how ‘it’ was done and transformed the famous Livehouse into a magical circus world for one night.
Pura GO

I found myself in the position of attending the after party once it was over. I spoke to Ryutaro and Tadashi, shook their hands and congratulated them on a good live. Tatsurou was also there hanging about and I scared him again… I think anyway!

29th April 2008

Our Love to Stay

After Pura came a small jazz band, Our Love to Stay who were soon to break up but had asked for a live report. Noriko, my Japanese based manager and I went along to the tiny 7th Floor above O-West. There was a gig happening in O-West at the time as the elevator vibrated going past the livehouse. 7th Floor couldn’t have been more different though with a classier smoky bar attitude and thick red velvet drapes on the stage. It was an odd balance though between industrial (i.e. undecorated ceiling) and moorish. I wished they had gone all out to be honest. Decor aside, the music was fantastic. A little long perhaps though – after a full day of work I was starving come the end. It was great to thank the band and chat with them a little but despite how much I enjoyed it, it pushed me a little.
Our Love to Stay

May 2008

Many Merry Days Final @ Yokohama Bunka Taiikukan

My darlings, Merry (even though my sensible brain tells me Tozasareta Rakuen is weak, I am blind to Merry) played their finale of Many Merry Days at Yokohama. It was their biggest indoor (at least) concert to date with 4000 people! I was unbelievably happy to have witnessed it and although I had been asked to do a report I already had a ticket and asked if I could attend as a fan. My love for Merry makes writing a detailed report even a week afterwards quite easy. It was incredible as far as lives go and the best I have seen Merry at. I understand it is not thebest though and so I knowing they can be even better just blows my little musical mind. I adored Nero’s maru/batsu game, the pyrotechnics during a killer performance of Japanese Modernist and the simple high energy in the room that had us all singing along excitedly and then moving some girls to tears as Gara spoke. My friend Rei is back for the Hibiya Yaon live; I can barely contain my excitement!
No Merry No Life Pt …

That is now almost up to date. NoGoD’s Omotesando Live was fun although I neglected to write a report and I will scribble up notes for D’espairsRay too soon. I also saw DaizyStripper pull off a rather accomplished first oneman last week too – another report for JaME – which should hopefully go online soon.

It’s all go.

One of the more delightful aspects of living in Japan is the inherent traditional love for a good festival at numerous points in the year and in a great variety of places. For the casual traveller and indeed for the foreign resident, it perks up a routine weekend with a sudden bustle of colour and noise. This is especially so in the area I work – Nihombashi. While Nihombashi may have an illustrious history amidst the swirling memories of old Edo, today it is a dull business district with only the Takashimaya Department store to boast of. The grand old bridge itself is a telling reminder of how Nihombashi has fallen, it’s beauty overshadowed by a whopping great freeway that spoils an otherwise potentially lovely area. Even as the matsuri moved along the streets the vehicles did not stop, weaving around the dancing hordes in happi coats and tabi socks. For me, however, it was a fantastic spectacle right on my work doorstep.

Nihombashi’s Sannou Matsuri

Before I found out about the Akihabara attack yesterday, I had seen something on television that somewhat impressed me. Eco matters – the topic du jour in the US and UK – have reached out to Japan in the form of Touch Eco 2008. Japan has an interesting attitude to Ecological matters, demanding we sort our trash rigourously into burnable/non burnable/ bottles etc for recyling and advertising energy saving air con units all the while Shibuya and Shinjuku emit more light pollution than your average African state. While there is increasing promotion in using ‘Eco Bags’ for our daily uses, there is also a love for the plastic bag, such as the banana I bought from my local conbini this morning; like a present it was packaged in a clear plastic wrap all tied with a small gold bow. Touch Eco 2008 has manifested itself in Tokyo suddenly as a series of Expos and Festivals – I encountered one such in the approach to NHK Hall – although these have been criticised for lack of actual ecological content. The Expo in particular was accused for displaying products that actively against the issue, for example.

That said, the approach to raising eco-awareness that I saw on TV last night was much more admirable than Live Earth, despite being on a smaller scale. Live Earth I had problems with. It was a good cause, of that there can be no doubt but surely a concert in Wembley stadium with all the energy use that implies cannot be the best way to go about earth saving. On NTV last night they continued with the idea of a concert as awareness raising but taking a much different tack employing many of Japan’s numerous ‘talento’ in the process for a worthy cause.

The premise I watched was a challenge to put on a proper rock concert (albeit only one song) entirely from human power. I admired this approach, it neatly highlighted how much energy it takes to put on one dimly lit song and using humans to generate that electricity was a clever sense of ‘just desserts’ for our wasteful species. The first challenge was to charge the microphones: each mic required two batteries and for eight people that became 16 batteries. The batteries were charged by harnessing the energy output by someone running. This thus required 16 talento to run a certain distance to get the power needed. Then the task was to generate enough wattage to make small bulbs light up and give power to the electric guitars for the during of one song, specially written for the event and performed by Johnny’s band, Kanjani8. Around 50 furiously cycling talento would be needed for this job: the exercise bikes hooked up to cables were on a platform and the various volunteers ready at their bikes. At the count they began to cycle fast as the band began to play. This continued for four minutes until the song was over and talento power had been exhausted. It was a rousing success and followed by a long documentary section explaining the creation and exploitation of oil in the world.

Although slightly all for show, it at least demonstrated how difficult it is to perform normal functions without natural resources and how much we would find ourselves adrift if they were gone. It was gone in a moment though as normal service resumed with full stage lighting again – much like the moment darkness at Live Earth. For all I could criticise this reversion back to the norm it was at least an effective way to raise the idea of eco awareness. It stuck in my mind at least as I instinctively then turned off all the unnecessary lights in my apartment and certainly a better way of showing the need to be both eco aware and careful with our resources than Live Earth. Even with all this though I couldn’t help think about Shibuya and Shinjuku, and like all these awareness raising efforts there still remained the niggling thought that if they really cared, they would turn those two cities off.

A slightly darker entry today. Although my blog is chiefly music aimed, I feel that can just cover up the darker side of Japan and the shocking issues that occasionally bubble to the surface.

Japan can seem like such a safe country, deceptively so in fact, and you wander around happily thinking little ever happens until something brings your mind back to the darker side. That side that labels the frequent ‘People Accidents’ on Chuo line, Chuocides, or the continuing sad tale of Lindsey Hawker and now today, a man goes psycho in Akihabara with a knife. Why? According to Police he was simply ’sick and tired of life’.

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