Post Japan Jet Lag

I actually got 4 or 5 hours of sleep the night previous so the day seemed a lot more productive than I had expected it to be.
We walked to the record pressing plant to pick up test presses for the next Schizophrenic release. From there we headed to Yonge street to bring in 15 rolls of film from our trip for processing. We ate at a nearby Ethiopian restaurant while waiting for our prints, which was a yummy way to kill time. Afterwards I picked up a new pair of Chucks to relplace a pair worn out in Japan. Back at the parental's I actually did laundry and we reorganized our luggage. Craig napped, but I resisted the urge, not that I had much of a routine to get back to as I was quite out of work.

After dinner we lugged our bags to Clintons for a punk show that we may have been more excited about if we had not just had our expectations for live music raised through the ceiling with the visit to Japan. We sold some singles and CDs we brought back but all we could talk to people about was our trip. Born/Dead, CCSS and locals Bastardizer failed to impress. It was the first time I saw Brutal Knights play and they were pretty good. Overall the sets seemed way too long by our new standards, which would impair our enjoyment of local punk shows for months to come. Staying awake until 2am and downing a couple of pitchers of beer in the process seemed like quite an accomplishment.

Tokyo Bye Bye

Packing all of our new records, old dirty clothes, souvenirs, gig flyers and camera equipment up was kind of arduous in Daragh and Yuki's teeny apartment. Holy cow did our stuff take up a whole bunch of it. I only had to buy one more bag during the trip so I guess it could have been worse.

We decided to have a Thai lunch with our hosts in Okubo, quite a multicultural neighbourhood for Japan. We stopped in a
guitar shop to check out a bass Daragh had been eyeing. I also spotted this Hello Kitty guitar.



Lunch was amazing. After this we grabbed our bags and Daragh saw us off to Shinjuku to catch the Narita Express to the airport. We actually got off at the wrong terminal and were worried about being late, but as we ended up encountering a 2 hour flight delay we had nothing to sweat. However, in the meantime I was pulled over in the carry on scan. One of the souvenirs I was sure I had put in my checked bags, an ornamental shirokan or ninja star for my bro, got detected. So I had to head to the post office counter and mail it to myself, which only took a week. This is one of the downsides to the super duper fancy dancy wrap job any purchased gift is subject to in Japan, when you pack up you can't remember what anything is.

The airline gave us meal tix for shitty non veg food, but redeemable for beer too so that was a positive. We spent the extra time getting some more souvenirs as they didn't seem too overpriced. I don't know what possessed me to buy green tea chocolate, other than the fact I like eating chocolate with green tea but it tasted like soap and was way horrid.

When we eventually got on the flight I was again plagued with insomnia, managing to get only about an hour sleep. Grabbing a cab at the airport seemed too easy as a guy approached us in the terminal, we got gouged good for a ride back to my ma's in Toronto. I actually managed to sleep a few hours, yahoo.

Kanazawa-Tokyo

We started the day by tagging a post outside some hippy music store near our ryokan.

Then we decided to stock up on souveniers or omiyage for folks back home. We headed back towards Ninja Dera to grab some things on that street. One shop keep was very insistent we try some tea while we checked out her store, in the hopes we might buy it. From the package we gathered it might be a type of plum tea, which can be alright, though there appeared to be hot peppers or something red on it. She brought us cups and encouraged us to take a sip right away. We gulped it and just about barfed all over her, but struggled to remain smiling and appreciative so as not to be rude. I have never tasted piss but I imagine this is what it is like, salty, heady, just disgusting. No sign of plum or hot peppers. She was attentive enough that we couldnt't dump the remainder in her planter or chuck it out into the street so we had to drink the whole thing down. Barf. We bought some stuff in a rush and then headed right to a convenience store to buy beer to wash the taste from our palates.



This awesome sign was outside the beer store.



We made our way back to the ryokan to get our stuff and then to the train station to get our tickets for Tokyo. The station was designed to look like a torii, or tradish Japanese gate, though I also kind thought it looked like a samurai helmet from further away. It is an altogether cool station though.

We took a shorter trip back, so didn't get to see the sea or all of the rundown fishing villages but managed to get a regional beer on the train from the Echigo brewery, definitely the best beer I had in Japan.

We returned to Shinjuku punk market for one last look and then went for a decent tempura dinner. Then it was on to Daragh's to pack and hang out - sigh, our last night here.

Kanazawa

I decided to start the day with the traditional Japanese breakfast. I am one of those food freaks with a myopic idea of what breakfast food should be, toast oatmeal, tofu scramble etc., so I thought this would be a challenge. The hardest part was the fact that this was a huge amount of food. For breakfast I was served: a large bowl of miso soup, a huge bowl of rice, steamed greens, fish, fried egg, some sort of pickled vegetables and a whole pot of green tea. I can't believe I ate the whole thing. It was actually very yummy, and gave me an understanding of why we saw old folks drinking first thing in the morning, this meal prepares you for anything.



Even though it was a grey and damp day we walked to Kenrokuen Garden from the inn. It is a huge traditional garden and is approximately 400 years old. Kenrokuen means "garden combining six," referring to its six focal points of beauty: extensiveness, quiet seclusion, artificial construction, antique elgance, abundant water and wide prospect. Yeah I guess it had this stuff. They stilt alot of the trees over winter to preserve them, but at this time of year the cherry blossoms were beginning their peak. Which is good, at the time of booking our rooms the innkeep was very stressed out by the fact that we could miss them.



The garden's twisty paths and lake made it seem bigger and more serene that it actually was. There were a fair amount of people there but it wasn't as busy as we thought it might be. The design of the garden did make it seem very quiet despite the other visitors.



I decided to have a drink after wandering around a bit.



Just across the bridge from the one end of the garden was Kanazawa Castle. As with many of these castles alot of it was rebuilt but it was pretty, especially framed with all of the blossoms.



After these sights we headed to old Kanazawa, Teramachi, across the Saigawa River with our target being Myouryuji, also called the Ninja Dera. From the outside this temple appears to have 2 floors, but in fact it is made up of four. It seems unlikely ninjas lived there but this temple was built in the 1600s to act as a hiding place for the castle's lord should anyone attack. All of this I learned from brochures as the tours of the place are in Japanese. Us and the other western tourist tried our best to figure out what we should be looking at but found ourselves more entertained at the Japanese tourists astonished reactions to every surprise revealed. No photos were allowed.

After this we got on the bus to look for some Hell Scrolls in a temple that didn't answer their phone or doorbell. We wandered in and stood around impatiently, contemplated stealing a brolly but just left. Then we carried on in search of the Kanazawa Phonograph Museum, yes a combo of two great aspects of Japan, record selection and quirky museums. The brochure describes the allure of records:

"Many people have never seen phonographs or heard their sounds. However, since their warm sounds are said to be conducive to relaxation and healing they are gaining renewed attention."

This place rocked. We missed the tours but were shown around by a very enthusiastic staff member. I got to set up a 1934 Edison player, they also had 1914 Edison and a 1927 Victor. No freakin photos allowed.

Over at a turntable listening station I checked out 2 records pulled on the basis of their covers, one with trains on it and the other with baseball logos. The sporty one featured the incredibly unenthused Japanese commentary of a game - slower than slow it reminded me of why I hate baseball, but at least the sound quality was good. The train one was hilarious, it featured the sounds of various locomotives pulling out of stations, some complimented by school children yelling 'bye-bye' in broken English.



For dinner we went to a crappy over cooked thai resto and wandered around a bit. We saw this dog in a window and it made us miss Nanook. This was followed by another amazing bath and sleep.

Tokyo-Kanazawa

We had to get up super early for our trip to Kanazawa, it takes about 4 hours and as it was on the other side of the island there were fewer train options. The purpose of this trip was to see the Sea of Japan and just chill out in a small town with lots of gardens and cultural things to do. Daragh got up to make sure we were on our way and we said a bleary eyed see ya later. On the way to the train station I thought I had a bit of a head rush, but no wonder as it was early and we skipped coffee and it was just after 7am. As we would read a day later in the paper this was actually a 6.1 on the Richter scale earthquake centered in Chiba, about 100km east of Tokyo in the direction we were headed. We were too sleepy to pick up on this and relate it to the fact one of our train connections was delayed, which seems to be as rare an occurence in Japan as a quake is in Hamilton.


Deciding to pack light as we weren't planning on shopping was a good idea, deciding to not bring jackets because it wasn't too cold out was not a great idea. We saw lots of snow on the train ride there and the highs were about 8 degrees Celsius with a wet, cold wind off the Sea. Sweaters and shirts were not enough, so this kept us walking quickly from the train station to our tradish Japanese inn.

We checked in to the Murataya Ryokan, which was as close to downtown as anything could be, I think. I assumed downtown was the several blocks on the main drag that had covered sidewalks, but I could have been wrong. Covered sidewalks were really appreciated in the cold and wet weather, thankfully we were able to borrow umbrellas from the inn.


Kanazawa has an area preserved as a samurai district, with wooden board houses, peaked tile roofs and narrow cobblestone streets, all just a block away from the main drag.

One thing we noticed about Kanzawa was that english signage and knowledge of the language seems to have disappeared, except for the ryokan. This made finding vegetarian food some difficult, but the inn lady gave us a map with an Indian curry resto marked on it, and that proved alright so we would be back there for a late lunch tomorrow. We wandered along the streets, comparing the cherry blossom lanterns here to those in Tokyo.



After a while we headed back to the inn for an awesome bath and even better sleep on the super comfortable futons that magically appeared in our rooms since we had headed out for dinner. It was fun dressing up in the provided pyjamas and robes, all needed as it was a bit chilly in the room.

Osaka - Tokyo

Randy sort of woke us up eary in the morning when he returned from a long Saturday night out on one of the first Sunday morning trains. We eventually got up and ready to head to the train. After a while of trying to shake our host awake to say goodbye, we left a note and headed on our way. We boarded the 10am train to Tokyo and arrived early afternoon.

Tokyo Station was amost as busy as a weekday rush hour, though instead of OLs and salarymen with briefcases it was full f folks dressed up with picnic paraphenalia on their way to a park for hanami. Sitting on a tarp in a park eating and drinking under the cherry blossoms sounded great, but instead of heading to the freak park (Harajuku) to partake we went to Nakano to eat and drop our stuff off at Daraghs.

I decided I was sure I could find Miso Ichi for lunch and hoped I could remember what Yuki had ordered for us. After I purchased the beer and soup tickets from the machine and handed them over to the cook he didn't seem sure we wanted the amount of spice in it, we nodded our heads yes and tried to indicate that spicy was what we wanted. The soup was great again, tho I think they skimped on the spice a bit. Sitting next to us were two 8 year olds really enjoying their noodles, slurping every bite. They also were sweating profusely, it looked like they had just run a marathon. I think they were suffering from the effects of the spiciest noodles.



We dropped our bags at Daragh's and headed to Nishi Ogikubo station, hoping we could remember where Watts was from 2 years previous. We did okay, eventually catching half a glimpse of someone with a mohawk from a block away. As it turned out the club hadn't even let the bands in yet, and so we hung out all afternoon drinking outside. The show actually started pretty late for Tokyo standards, 7pm or so, but as we were early in line there were no hassles getting inside, and it wasn't actually too crowded inside.

APRIL 10 NishiOgikubo Watts, Tokyo

HAZARD
Aloha from HAZARDous microphone stand. Would be a great fit with Kensington Market bands and were altogether good. The Mr. T clone singer managed to wipe me out when he barrelled into the crowd near the end of the set and then hit Craig in the head with his microphone at the sets conclusion. I pity the fool….indeed! The drummer from Vivisick helped extricate me from the microphone stand and asked 'Are you safe?', I thought I was but maybe not.
GOUKA
Great kinetic energy as they looked ready to explode at any moment. The faces made by the drummer and singer as they rocked their amazing japcore set were equally entertaining.



GAUZE
This band went off like an explosion. I had been up front for the start of it but ran out of film, hence the photos I took being crap. With the amount of energy the band could maintain through a solid and long set it was great to see the crowd keep up, even if some of us had asthmatic interruptions. At one point they blew a fuse and the drums continued in the dark, with the crowd singing along. Their US tour shows can’t compare as this crowd was screaming every word of every song and some people had very tasteful and visible band tattoos. GAUZE attracted the most even male to female ratio and the women dominated the upfront chaotic stage area. It was wild to see them in a venue about triple the size of Planet Kensington.



COLORED RICE MEN
Great set but why the fuck would you play after GAUZE? We probably would have left for some much needed fresh air but part of our camera was missing. It smelled terrible when we peeled it off the floor.

We headed back to Nakano to get ready for our early morning trek to the Shinkansen.

Osaka-Kobe

After a long sleep we grabbed coffee and took the train to Sannomiya Station in Kobe where we met up with a bleary eyed Randy. We then headed to a veggie Indian restaurant for an awesome lunch, we certainly have been eating well on this trip, with much thanks to our hosts.

From lunch we headed to the much revered Hardcore Kitchen record store, and hangout, to meet Comet, who just returned from the ill-fated Nightmare tour of the US West Coast, which actully involved them getting denied by US customs and stranded in Vancouver. He had many stories to tell, even those recounted in Japanese were entertaining. We also met Mike from the UK (but if you ask me he seemed like a local to me), who Randy had sent as his band was waiting for the US band's train to arrive. We hung out at the shop all afternoon and drank, watched Japanese punk videos, and of course bought records.

We eventually headed to the station to meet up with Randy and then to the watch the sound check at the club.

APRIL 9 Live House 108, Kobe



FROM BEYOND
These guys dealt a mixed bag of punk genres but an excellent one. They set out to defy labels handily incorporated several sounds really well with a bit of HC, grind, thrash and crust. Their vocalist Kevin had a mean growl, very unexpected from a skinny Kiwi. FROM BEYOND also features our Osaka host, Randy of Buffalo and ex-PROJECT GRIZZLY.



NIGHTMARE
Fresh from their aborted US tour ordeal they showed up to the club with their luggage, not intending to play as their bassist was still in Tokyo. What a drag! Comet of the great Hardcore Kitchen Records insisted he play bass, so they practiced 2 songs at soundcheck. NIGHTMARE actually played 3 songs during their set – the last one with Comet playing frantic air bass while people were trying to plug him back in. This brief blast from this awesome band was just what we had come to Kobe for.



KRUW
This band had amazing matching jackets that read All Jap Crazy Punky Team. They are like Action’s Japanese cousins featuring perm-a-charge hair dos. They even sang with the matching silk screened SARS masks on. This band is great and will be big – KRUW are playing with LAUGHING NOSE in the summer.



KATIE KATTY
This Kobe all-female band kicked ass. We had really enjoyed their demo and they managed to top that and then some. PANTYCHRIST’s Japanese cousins. They have a 7” out on Otto’s label soon and a split LP with Hamilton’s PANTYCHRIST to be released on Schizophrenic in the near future.

CUT THROAT
This band from Portland was very well received by the crowd, people went bonkers for them in comparison to the rest of the sets. They might have also been surprised at the high gaijin representation at the show. Them, us Canucks, the upstate New Yorkers and the sheep shaggers made this the most white show we had been to. Of course we didn’t come to Japan to see US bands to this review is over.

Randy wanted to stay out all night, so we wimped out and headed back to his place as we had an earlyish train to catch back to Tokyo. As we were headed to Kanazawa Monday it actually would have been quicker to take the train direct from Osaka (2 1/2 hour trip), except for the fact Gauze were playing a tiny club in Tokyo (4 hour trip to Kanazawa). With the JR pass it made sense to travel 3 hours out of our way for this, since we missed a Gauze show in Kyushu last time.

Osaka-Nara

Randy's new apartment (well, to us) was larger than the last (can't imagine smaller), so it wasn't as hard for him to get past us crashed out on the floor and get to work. We got up, spent an obscene amount of money at Mister Donut for 2 teeny cups of alright coffee. Actually it was very good, the fact that we paid almost $10 Canuck for coffee and donuts detracted from it's yumminess.



From Umeda we took the Hankyu line to Nara, an old capital about 45 minutes from Osaka. We decided to skip any local transit and figured we could check everything out that we wanted to on foot. As Craig's feet were starting to freak out a bit, they were swollen and hurty, we took it a bit easy. We headed to the Nigatsu-do, passing the 5 story Pagoda at Kofukuji Temple on the way. This took us through part of Nara's famous deer park, where the animals run free during the day. At this point we just saw the signs. Nigatsu do is on a hill, and took a long rock staircase to get up there, and it offered some great views of Nara, including the Pagoda.



Then we wandered back through some parks along the river, making our way to the Todaiji Temple complex, one of the main reasons we headed here. This complex includes the Daibutsu, the world's largest gilded bronze Buddha, measuring 15 meters (49 feet) in height . It is housed in an all-wood building, the Daibutsu-den, which at 48 meters (157 feet) in height, the largest wooden building in the world. Though only a couple of meters larger than the Kamakura statue, the fact that it was in this building made it that much more impressive.



This building features large wooden beams stretching up to the ceiling, one of which has a square knothole cut into it. It is said (by someone, apparently) that if you can fit through this knothole that you are guaranteed enlightenment. We found this area of the building fairly easily, it was surrounded by a throng of people, mainly Japanese tourists, making quite a racket. They were on the one side, pushing friends through the knothole, and on the other side pulling as hard as they could. We saw old ladies laughing so hard that they were crying. I was able to squeeze through, and scored a good bruise to prove it, which did impede some record shopping. I guess there is a price to pay for enlightenment, but the entertainment value alone seems worth it.

After marking our notebooks with the temple stamp we realized how hungry we were. There were a couple of veggie restaurants in some of the travel books we had consulted so we set off to look for those. They were all gone, with one around the corner just closing a couple of months ago. We found this out at an amazing place we stumbled on, called Raku. The owner was super nice and spoke great English. She served up yummy curry and we said we would recommend this to anyone heading to Nara. On the way back to the train we had some super fresh green tea and brown rice flour manju. So awesome.



We took the train back to Osaka and met up with Randy at Time Bomb, in Amer-mura, also running into Ben from Hamilton. From Time Bomb we walked over to Shin's shop, Punk And Destroy. It was great to meet him again and trade some records. However, we found the day brought less records than we expected and found no cool shoes to buy. Drat. Shin was apologetic, saying that another North American tourist was recently through town and picked up alot of what Craig was looking for.

Randy had to head to Kobe for band practice, and we made plans to meet up with him there ahead of the show. There were a couple bands playing in Juso, but we decided against it to give Craig's tender tootsies a rest. We took the opportunity to check out this Mexican restaurant steps from Randy's called Tacos Nopal. It sounds bonkers to say that I have had the best authentic Mexican eats I have ever tasted in Osaka, but that is the case. The teeny shop was run by a Mexican grandma who really only speaks Spanish and Japanese. The fresh corn tortillas and pupusas were melt in your mouth, and the selection of Mexican beer, Modello Negra even, great too. I wish I could eat here every night for the rest of my life.

Tokyo-Nagoya-Osaka

Today got up with Yuki and Daragh as they got ready for work as we had to head to Tokyo Station to catch the Shinkansen to Osaka. With the flexibility of our 2 week Japan Rail pass it also made sense to stop in Nagoya, approximately half way, to bring Schiz releases to Record Shop Answer.

After figuring out we needed to get off at Osu Cannon subway stop we wandered the wrong way from Answer but found a Laughin Nose affiliated store in a covered streets. Tshirts, zines, etc. Pawed the former, bought the latter. Then as we were walking in what we hoped was the direction of Answer but looking for a place to eat, Craig exclaimed 'Tacos and Beer!' as he pointed. I thought it was a cruel joke but it was actually Unos taco shop pretty decent bean tacos served by rockabilly guys with wicked dos.

Making our way a couple of streets over with our record shop guide in hand, cross referencing it with an English map we found Answer and met Kenji who is an awsome guy. Although we expected to find more Japanese Hardcore we stayed a while to dig for things to trade Schiz stuff for. The only thing was that the longer we lingered in the store looking the Kenji gave us. Kinda made us move quickly as this show of super niceness, which we encountered throughout our visits in Japan, was a little hard to take, and we only had so much room in our bags.



We found this park nearby that had a mini Mount Fuji in it. I had to run up it just to say I made it to the top of Mount Fuji. The park was also home to one of the most disgusting bathrooms I have ever been in, yes may be filthier than those in the Apocalypse, ABC No Rio, and Speak in Tongues. Maybe it was the fact that you had to squat close to the puke and piss covered floor as opposed to balance over a toilet seat that mad it so gross. Sorry for writing about it in such detail but it really made an impression on me.

We walked back to the station and stopped in a beetle shop on the way just for fun. I couldn't get any photos but it was a musty place with terrariums full of big bugs that would take a few shoe bashes before getting squished good. But I guess they are sensible pets for people in cramped quarters. We also passed a funny signboard for a tattoo shop.


We met Randy outside the Hep 5 building a few subway stops from the Shin-Osaka and headed to Ignition and King Kong Record stores. Then we headed to the Umeda Sky Building, this 173 meter tall building made up of two main towers connected by the "Floating Garden Observatory" on the 39th floor. It was a great place to check out the skyline, but the spectacular view was not represented in any of the photos I took. Drat.

After Umeda we decided to head to Randy's place across the river in Juso for homemade tacos as opposed to heading out for some booze under the cherry blossoms at night. This sounded like it could be a lot of fun but we were tired and it was getting late. Juso was only one stop from Umeda but we managed to grab the wrong train (Randy was biking), so we took a rather scenic route. The tacos made it well worth it tho.

Kamakura Hawk Attack

It was going to be a warm, sunny day so we decided to head an hour and a bit out of Tokyo to the an old capital, Kamakura, on the coast. We got off the train in Kita Kamakura and walked to visit two beautiful temples and one main shrine, eating green tea ice cream on the way.



We took a sakura lined walk down an arcade past a wedding party while heading to see the Daibutsu, a 50 ft iron Amida Buddha that has survived earthquakes and tsunamis in it’s 500 years.



Afterwards we took a 15 min stroll down to the ocean as I was hankering for a swim, I feel like I have never visited a place until I get to swim there. I read that at this time of year windsurfers would be the inhabitants of Yugihama Beach, there they were – some picknickers, dog walkers and families with their wading populated the rest of the beach. Running into the waves I knew I would look like a kichi-gaijin but at least it would give the locals something to talk about over dinner. The water wasn’t cold by my standards but refreshing, salty and tingly. I paused later to enjoy a can of beer and a kelp onigiri, lost in reflection staring out and into the Pacific.

My zen moment was suddenly broken up/interrupted by a flurry of activity at my shoulder and between myself and boyfriend sitting next to me. There was a burst of flutters and a brief cold scrape against my finger. Before I could grasp what was happening my ongiri flew 10 feet in front of us and in an instant it was scooped up off the sand by a huge bird who flew away with it.



I guess this was one of the majestic birds I had seen circling the sites all day, a big hawk, and this one must have been watching for a while for such a well executed hit on my lunch. After a few minutes of stomach cramping laughter we decided to pack up and leave – it was interesting to note that our animal encounter didn’t phase anyone else snacking on the beach. On our walk back to the train station we stopped to scoop more snacks for the hour-long ride back to Tokyo. I spent the next couple of months scared to eat outside. It's nice that there is a sign about tsunamis on the beach but I think a kamikaze hawk sign might be something they should warn about.



After we returned to Tokyo we headed back to Record shop Base in Koenji, as we had made plans to meet up with Kohei, the singer of Mutant, as we had 100 of their singles to hand over. These plans were not the easiest to make over the phone what with the language barrier. As Craig was trying to set a time and place the night before with Kohei, suddenly he heard a woman's voice, "This is Kohei's mummy, he no understand". We made the plans with her and hoped that they didn't take him too far out of his way. It was much easier to converse in person, especially with his pocket translator, we talked alot of punk rock music. We then met up with Shingo of Too Circle Records for another trade. We walked back to Nakano as we had to be up somewhat early to head to Osaka to visit with Randy-san of Buffalo, NY.

Me Sansuichi

This was my 31st birthday. I awoke after a weird dream in which my birthday was actually going to be April 6 this year because of the 12 hr time difference from home. Odd.

Having not been out late the night before we were able to get up early today and hang out with Daragh. We also took stock of some of our purchases as we planned to visit at least another record store today. Deciding that yummy curry was a great option for birthday food we headed to Nataraj buffet in Kichijoji. As much as I love the organic Japanese resto around the corner this was an awesome choice. Also listening to Daragh's concept for a metal band based around the theme of teaching ESL was way entertaining.



We then went on the hunt for Irregular Rhythm Asylum. It is an anarchist store somewhere in the midst of the maze of Shinjuku streets. There is no way we would have found this without Daragh. They were super nice and bought some 7" from us. We bought some CDs, patches and buttons. I wavered and eventually passed on the purchase of a cool shirt, however Craig was nice enough to get it thru Daragh and surprise me at Christmas. Whatta guy. Anyway check em out at: Irregular Rhythm Asylum Site They rock!



After this we split up with Daragh and hung around Nakano Broadway Mall which is a great place to check out socks and toys. I bought some of both for me and friends. They also have a 3 story 100 yen store. Craig tried to show off his Lip Cream record to some idiot in the Mall who was too dumb to be impressed.

After we grabbed a snack and headed back to Daragh's as we had dinner plans with he and Yuki. We went to the best noodle place ever called Misoichi. We managed to get seats after a bit of a wait - it is a small place just outide Nakano Broadway Mall. It is an auto soup joint, in that you order the soup and beer from a ticket vending machine and pass that to the cook. We had a disasterous encounter with one of these places our first trip when we ventured out alone, but Yuki ordered us a great big spicy bowl of soup full of fresh noodles and veggies. Though we ordered a step down from the hottest it was still very spicy. Copious amounts of fresh garlic made it absolutely yummy.



As per usual we got beer and a green tea and red bean manju on the way home.

This was the best birthday ever.

Sendai Shinkansen

Kinda chose this as a destination as it was pretty far but the express trains go there. It was a only a 2 hour ride each way (it is 330km north of Tokyo) and we got to see some pretty mountains on the way there. Did we see any record stores? No, Imants said there were some but we didn't really bother as there weren't any punk specific. Did we see lots of temples or castles? Not so much, alot of them were levelled in the war. We took some loop bus that did get us to a museum and a bit of a temple, as well as what is left of the castle. Namely this dog.



The most hilarious thing that happened here was when I bought souvenirs from the temple (right next door to the war museum) and pretending to understand something the temple lady said I nodded and replied "Si!". Craig was laughing so hard that he was crying and we almost missed our bus

We did find a store with some cool souveniers in a covered street mall (arcade?), cloth bags with nonsensical writing (ie. Danger Dead Grape Flover) and patches. Also found a cool 100 yen store (Japanese equivalent of a dollar store) for some good souveniers like masks. We also had some crap pizza type food in a confusing restaurant full of high school kids. At least the draft was cheap, so this trip wasn't a total waste even though the city kinda reminded us of the Hammer.

More Record Shop Tokyo & Show #2

We decided to start the day by heading to Disk Union Punk Market Shibuya with Daragh. We didn't spend as much time here as last visit (2 hours) but managed to cross a bunch of things off the list. And I found a used SA shirt (Spirit of Monkey Rock) that Craig got me for my bday later in the week. After some good and cheap Japanese style veg curry we headed to Recofan, which was kind of a disappointment.

The cool thing was that on the way there we ran into a dude from Napalm Death. Can I remember his name? No, (he was a big dude with big hair) it was actually Daragh who recognized him. I think his wife is Japanese and they had a show coming up and were shopping in Shibuya. We also ran into (again, I cannot remember her name, I just had my photo taken with her) the owner of Mickey Room's girlfriend. Mickey Room is more like the size of a closet, but it's actually a record store in Yokohama which really helped us out with directions last trip.

We went to Allman to see if Hiroshi, who we went out with last visit, was working but he wasn't. Not that this stopped us from buying records. And then we crossed the street to Nat to bring by some more records from our label.



Who’s Driving Your Plane? Show at Shinjuku DOM

FAMILY MAN
It is no surprise to many to say that they were heavily influenced by later period FLAG. Competent and powerful! If wish they were more inspired by the early singles. Had they closed with Clocked In people would have lost it.

MAD MACHINE
Played a good set; however we were really looking forward to DELTA PUREE and so this set did not leave an impression. Suffice to say it was good because if it sucked we sure as hell would of recalled something.



DELTA PUREE
They delivered a great set of really high energy, precision music. With a band containing ex-members of the GAIA and the MEOSS, Pill of LIP CREAM still stole centre stage and provided the band with not only a solid back beat but excellent showmanshsip. As a master of Japanese hardcore he performed mesmerizing Pete Townsend-like windmill accents. It was amazing to see a crowd looking beyond the expert musicianship up front and be fixated on a drummer at the back of the stage. It is rare that a band, any band can be created around the drummer and Pill is certainly the exception.



NIHON NOUEN
We were prepared not to get into this band as we didn’t enjoy the BREAKFAST split. However, we heard they were good live and wondered how they would follow DELTA PUREE. The fact that they played an entirely different style worked in their favour. NIHON NOUEN were high energy and garagey (in a good way) a la NEW BOMB TURKS and BRUTAL KNIGHTS – they kicked ass live.

KGS
It was good closure to the night, a return to the Japanese hardcore we had traveled to see. We made our way back to Daragh’s apartment content.

Record Shop Tokyo & Show #1

Well we weren't too jet lagged but awoke way too early. We got up and explored Daragh's neighbourhood, namely Nakano and Koenji.



This of course led us to the awesome stores Record Boy and Record Shop Base. We spent a couple hours at these stores and worked up quite an appetite. So Daragh took us to Govinda's, an amazing veg curry place in Nakano. Yum! Later in the day we made our way towards the club Shinjuku DOM for more shopping ahead of the show. We stopped at Shinjuku Disk Union Punk Market (where we spotted a Lip Cream Kill the IBM cassette tape for 6800 yen - it was gone in a week) and then Nat Records, right around the corner from the club.



We accidentally left some of the Mutant 7" on the counter. We were approaching the club entrance when the shop guy chased us down with the wayward records. After the show a similar thing would happen after I leave my wallet on a distro table. Call me a stereotyper but people in Japan are super honest - is it something in the water?


So we saw a bunch of good bands at DOM here is a bit about each set:

SLOWMOTIONS
Unfortunately shopping at Disk Union cut into their set - they were on first as they had to play two more shows that night. We had seen their posters and releases in every record store we visited. SLOMOTIONS were a fun band with an early punk, jangly, KBD sound and they dressed like the BUGGLES.
RAW GAUGE
A decent Dbeat band and the lead singer rocked a large anarchy symbol neck tattoo! Entertaining and a band we will be looking for in the record shop next trip.
SAIGAN TERROR
This band featured a very animated dude who kept saying thank you. Their crossover set was much better than their Yossie-art CD recorded 5 years ago.
CONTRAST ATTITUDE
As per our last visit they delivered good thrashy Dbeat but the set seemed to go on a bit too long. 20 minute sets rule.


ASSAULT
They were less one band member since we last saw them - the singer left to join GATES full time. The three-piece was still very energetic despite being tied to their instruments, and the guitarists switched off a couple of times.

IGNITIONS
The sampler dude setting up a keyboard contraption on stage before their set almost sent us packing, but we were very glad to have stuck around. The set was great and the last song ripped with an amazing GISM-esque intro. They feature ex-VIVISICK member on guitar with awesome hair.





After this we headed to an 80's bar in Nakano for some drinks with Yuki. The request binder had a great selection of tracks from Japanese legends like Stalin, Loudness, and GISM, along with Discharge tunes and the like. Fun.