by ·Comments Off on Shibuya concert: the Vottones + 雨先案内人

Tonight, Anri had invited me to go check out the band of a friend from high school, giving a concert for the release of their second album, so we traipsed to Shibuya at the usual Japanese concert time of 6:30pm.

Opening for them was The Vottones, hailing from (I think) Fukuoka and playing some awesomely old-school punk rock. Having only been told about the main act, whose style is a lot more on the whimsical, not to say downright bubblegum, side of rock, hearing four angry punk rockers insult everything in sight in the dirtiest kansai-ben I had ever heard, was a bit of a surprise… But a good one nonetheless.

Just to give you an idea, their last song had the bassist taking over the vocals after stripping to his pants, at which point the original lead singer apparently decided to play a very special version of hide-the-sausage, with the pointy end of his guitar handle as the sausage… and the butt crack of the unfortunate bassist as the hiding place. After failing to properly impale the guy, he settled for what could possibly be described as a hybrid position: part atomic wedgie, part simulated sex act. All that while both still singing and playing their respective instruments. Punk rock concerts are brilliant.

Don’t think 雨先案内人 (the headliners, whose recent big break was getting one of their track featured as the end credits song of a TV cartoon series) had any misgivings about the somewhat different artistic direction of the Vottones: they were right in the middle of the crowd, moshing with the best of them. In fact, their own between-song banter was entirely spent praising and thanking the opening act. No joke1I ♥ you, Japan.

The tone and energy undeniably went down a few notches with the main act, whose sound signature could be described as the crossing between experimental rock, modern jazz and real-life cartoon soundtrack. In terms of continuity, think Peter, Paul & Mary following a particularly vicious set by the Ramones… Not to say they weren’t energetic and fun in their own way.

Interestingly, A’s friend was both lead singer and the drummer in the band, standing at his drum kit while leading most songs. The girl playing the keyboard had the most indefectible smile throughout the whole set and the third guy played what looked like a very streamlined (and cool looking) version of an electric upright bass, giving the trio a faint air of jazz band, if not for the upbeat lyrics and crazy sound effects.

Kick ass music, good fun and awesome night out in Shibuya…

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Yesterday, a necessary bike ride from the confines of Odaiba back to our neighbourhood (10km as the crow flies, 20km in practice, thanks to the freaking Rainbow Bridge being closed to bikes) yielded my first police bike check of the year. To be fair, they stopped me because of the headphones (with a very unconvinced “危ないよ”), but hey, why miss an occasion to check on the vehicle’s papers.

As always in my interactions with the Japanese police, this one was extremely courteous and friendly. In fact, it took a slightly unusual turn when the conversation went from the perfunctory “Where are you from/How long have you been in Japan/日本語はうまいですね” to the slightly more personal “やっぱりヨロッパ、ヨロッパ人はかっこういいですね”…

And then it got weird.

The one young cop not busy checking my bike’s registration number inquired if I was riding back from the local gym. I told him that not, and that the lycra tank top I was rocking was merely in some vain hope of not entirely melting during the one-hour bike ride in the Tokyo Summer. “But you do work out, right? Yea, I could totally tell”…

A new string of gushing (and comically undeserved) comments on my cool European demeanour and style were interrupted by the other cop confirming that everything was in order and I was free to go.

Beside both policemen being roughly my height and weight (and just as unlikely to ever succeed as male strippers), the only thing missing to the softcore gay porn scenario was the boom-tchiki-boom music.

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Yesterday, I exposed a few of my more minor (ha) quibbles with the book Hi, my name is Loco and I am a racist. Today, we crank it up one notch to the things that really irked me:

That stuff about racism (in Japan).

I am a little hesitant to dive into that murky swamp of a topic, especially considering it has already been covered to exhaustion on practically every Japan-related English-speaking blog, resulting in previously mentioned wave of publicity for the book (exhibit A, on your screen).

For all its merits, I just don’t think Loco’s book is very good at addressing the ever-fascinating problem of Japanese racism. I doubt I would do any better, and I am too lazy to even make an articulate summary of my problems with his approach, so I’ll just randomly throw a few items here:

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Dear lady walking in front of me on the way to work this morning:

In light of today’s meteorological circumstances, I am not sure your choice of a thin white cotton dress and black lacy underwear was well-advised.

But thanks for the show anyway.

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Home, Japanese StyleEarlier this month, after three weeks of exhausting non-stop search (times two people, plus countless awesome friends lending us their help), we finally signed the rental contract for our new Tokyo house.

Although it eventually worked out and we are very happy with the place we found, the process was far from smooth and painless (despite having a fair bit of experience with the whole thing).

Anyway I (/we) did learn a few things in the process, so I figured I’d share with Google.

Behold:

Dave’s 8 Tips on Renting an Apartment in Tokyo (/Japan)

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by ·Comments Off on TaicoClub 2012

The Scooby Gang on the way to TaicoClub

This draft has been clogging Dave Corps’ backlog for ages. Now that it is no longer even remotely relevant, I figured it was about time to finish and post it.

Actually, one of the reason I did not rush to write anything of our brilliant TaicoClub weekend, was that James’ professionally-edited report of the event, more competent than I could ever hope to be, made this drivel even more redundant than usual.

Anyhow, James’ generous sharing of guestlist love was the reason I managed to join the gang at the last minute, long after hopes of snagging a late ticket on Yahoo Auction had all but vanished. The press passes also meant we could go monkey around backstage. But the front of the stage was usually a lot more fun.

The whole festival weekend was the usual tightly packed ball of musical awesomeness (check James’ review for the meaty details), with very few disappointments save for some lulls in the programming. I must be one of the rare few people who wasn’t particularly taken by Animal Collective’s performance, but then again, I have never been an unconditional fan. To be fair, I felt it was more of a casting error than a bad performance: largely non-danceable, experimental low-energy rock with all lights off, did not seem the best way to headline the night… But that’s probably just me.

On the other hand, morning headliner Ricardo Villalobos was just plain bad: once the fun of watching him peacocking his way around the stage subsided, all that was left was a rather uninspired set opening, with flat mixing and horrendous sense of timing (pro tip: that ‘kill bass’ knob is not magical… twiddling it at random against tempo does not improve the mix). There’s no doubt that he can be a very talented DJ, but on that day, he seemed a lot more interested in hanging out with his entourage and basking in fans’ adoration than actually playing music.

According to those who stuck around, his set ostensibly improved in the second hour (probably when whatever he was on eventually wore off), but we were long gone to the other stage for Pepe Braddock, who deserved a much bigger crowd, but did a very good job nonetheless (and whose greek amphitheater-like stage had the added benefit of nice expanses of grass under the rising sunshine).

All in all, tough to top Boredoms’ quasi-opening slot: 6 drummers, twice as many guitarists and a demented MC hitting with a broomstick what seemed a contraption made of a dozen electric guitar handles.

I must also apologise for having ever expressed doubt toward the ability of Josh Wink to do a proper daytime set (based on my memories of one seriously hardcore-beat set at Metamo 2008). The man turned up one hell of an awesome closing set: nicely blending harder techno and more melody-driven beats, and an overall awesome soundtrack for a sunny afternoon.

by ·Comments Off on Finding bike parking in Tokyo

Finding a website listing bike parking in Tokyo/Japan turned out not to be as straightforward as I thought (at least, none of my Google queries for the obvious words such as 駐輪場 or 自転車+駐車場 led to anything useful). Local wards (区役所) websites usually have a section for bike parking (bicycle and scooters), but they are not the most user-friendly.

After finally accidentally stumbling on two pretty good sites this morning, I figured I would share my finds with the English-speaking Google world:

Chu-rin.jp has exhaustive listings of bike parking for Tokyo and a few other major cities (Osaka, Kyoto…). Searchable by map or by station.

Cariru-cycle.com (apparently a bike rental website) also has listings of bicycle parking around Tokyo. Not clear if their data is any better/different from chu-rin.jp.

Of course, both of these websites are entirely in Japanese, but not that difficult to navigate even for a beginner.