Japanese Cowboys?

I know what you're asking. "Is there some sort of cowboy cosplay convention in town?"



A legit question, since cosplay isn't just about anime and comics, but other fun things (nazis?). Nope, this is just a bunch of fine folks who love country western music. Fuckin' American country music!



I was showing these photos to a girl the next day, and asked her if she had ever listened to country music. "You mean like Taylor Swift?" Hell no! This was nothing but classics from the likes of Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, and Willie Nelson.



How did I end up here? I was supposed to meet Keizo, Nate, and some out of town friends for ramen, but was riding my bicycle and got there way to early. So I was just biking around the alleys of West Tokyo, trying to kill time, somewhere near Daitabashi station. A neon Budweiser sign and cowboy hats caught my eye.



"C'mon in! Have a drink!" slurred a drunk Japanese guy. Don't mind if I do. It was this group of about 30 friends, let's call them The Rad Old Dudes who Love Country Brigade. So the RODLCB was having their bonnenkai, end of the year party, singing and drinking.



A couple bourbons later, and I figured I should document this most random of hours in my life.





Slide guitars and shit. Fresh.



Everyone's English was pretty good, but the bassist of the band, David, clued me in on the deal. This bar was owned by a famous Japanese fiddle player, and has been serving the country music loving crowds of Tokyo for decades.



The fact that my granddaddy came from Texas actually worked in my favor for the first time in my life!

FUJI ROCK!!!

Total distance travelled so far = 2865km

FUJI ROCK!!!!!

Fuji Rock is a music festival held annually in Niigata prefecture, about 2 hours north of Tokyo up in the mountains. 3 days of whatever is hot right now. But if you camp, it sort of becomes 5 days and 4 nights of good times. The headliners this year were:

• The Chemical Brothers
• The Cure
• The Beastie Boys

There were a lot of other artists there, from hippie modern folk rock to funky laptop techno shit to so-cal emo punk to Japanese guys dressed like Aztecs. It was wonderful.

I don't feel like writing much though, so here's some photos...



My German friend's wrist. The other band is from some European festival from a couple weeks ago.





Special parking lot for the bikes right next to the entrance. Free refreshments for the 2 wheeled rockers!



View from my tent at night.



Camping during the day.



Dave, me, and Rie.



Weird white gangsta funk group Chromeo.



Deerhoof.






Fiddlers on a tightrope. I couldn't find his myspace page... sorry.






The drum circle people's part of the festival.






Mika was very colorful.



Me and this random Japanese guy jumped in the river. It was really cold. I thought he was going into shock. Seriously, the guy was shaking like he had just been given the biggest kancho of his life.



Peter Bjorn and John.



Recycling was in full effect at this place. It was amazing how clean everything was. It was seriously spotless at the site. Everyone would carry around garbage bags with them, and then separate at special recycling booths. These bags of plastic bottles are going to be recycled to make the official Fuji Rock jackets for 2008. Awesome! Without the help of countless environmentally minded young people, we wouldn't have the wonderful consumer products that we so desperately need.





Never too young to start damaging your eardrums.

Well that's it. My 3 week trip ended with me riding 200km home in pouring rain I grabbed my shit that I left in Kawagoe, parked the bike, and took the shinkansen to Okayama. My new job started the next day. Back to teaching the youth of this country awesome things, like "I like pizza" and "How's the weather? It's sunny!". Hooray.

Total distance on my 3 week tour of Japan = 3061km

The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra

Chris, my new cowoker here in Kawagoe, has a cousin who plays basoon and contra basoon in the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. They were in Tokyo for a couple shows. Turns out Chris's cousin is one of the nicest people I've met. She invited us down to Roppongi* to come hear them play! You know I'm down for this, it was a trip!

*Yes, I have a boycott on Roppongi, but just the club/bar/prostitution part of town.

Ok, so it was at Suntory Hall. It's a gorgeous place inside.



We got backstage passes and got to meet a lot of the musicians. A very random lot they were. Beautiful, young violinists sitting next to grisley, old oboe players sitting next to hasidic jewish cymbal crashers. I also got to meet conductor Zubin Metha, who is apparently really famous in the conductor world. I got to learn all about the world of an orchestra member. You think that they are just super talented people who play a couple hours a day while travelling the world, but it's a crazy profession!



The next day we had breakfast at the hotel and I took them to Don Quixote. Don Quixote is this wierd department store in Japan, they are all over the major areas. You go in wanting some new shoes and come out with a maid outfit, $3000 Gucci handbag, Japanese version of monopoly, and a sex toy or two. And of course you can get shoes there too. It's very random. If you ever have the chance, go to the one in Kabukicho in Shinjuku, it's open 24/7 (and full of Yakuza and hostess girls). Right next door to that one is a 24 hour pet store too. Cause girls need new puppies at 3am apparently.

Tomorrow morning, VERY early, I'm off. Can I fit it all on my bike?



Check back in a week to find out!

The Reggae Dancers

Went to club Ageha again on Saturday night. As usual, there are 3 dance floors. Hip-hop, techno, and reggae. I'll address them in that order.

The hip-hop floor was weak this time. Pretty vanilla crowd. No J-thugs or J-b boys showed up for my entertainment. Some MC started rapping at one point. It was dassai. Not cool. Hmmm, what else. Some random guy tried to pants me. He was doing some drunk weirdo dance (very common to see exteremely weird dances at Japanese clubs), and then just grabbed my jeans and gave a tug. So... yeah... the hip-hop floor was weak.

The techno area is where I spent most of my time. They have a great sound system at this club. There was some "famous" DJ from England. I bet if I mentioned these names to some of my friends back home they'd be impressed, but I don't know any of this shit. Congratulations, you are famous for spinning techno records, let me become a fan. Do you have a myspace? Holly shit! Accept me accept me! Oh wait, there was one funny moment. About 10 minutes after the "famous" DJ came out, this huge scafolding thing with lights and shit all over it started decending. Everyone was clearly excited. Then, just when you expect lasers and smoke machines and confetti, it just rose back up to the ceiling. You got me...

The reggae area. So I've heard tales of the "reggae" dance. This mysterious, erotic, mesmorizing dance performed by beautiful young Japanese women. Well... I done seen it! Yes, it's just 2 girls shaking their asses for 20 minutes. Japanese girls... with no asses. Every so often they would do a handstand and spread their legs and just kinda "pose" like that. I'm surprised an improptu otaku group didn't come out and start taking pictures. The 2 girls tried to do some para-para shit a couple times, but that didn't work. Then they did some sort of "fan my cooch cause it's hot" dance for a while. All throughout this the DJ/MC is screaming in his fake Jamaican accent while playing as many Sean Paul tracks as he has. I dunno...

Hip-hop without the j-thugs. Techno without tweaked out candy kids. Reggae without... sanity. Oh wait! I forgot. There was this 80 year old guy there. Like, dancing and shit. So it was a good... no... superb evening.

Check this out. A rice vending machine by my apartment that I found the other day. Score!

Tokyo - At a Club

Wu Tang Clan ain't nuthin to fuck with. Thats why when Latrice, the English teacher I replaced invited me to a club to see Ghostface Killah making an apperance, I had to go. Also, I wanted to see what clubs in Japan are like. I had heard some funny things. Some absurd things. Things which are all true.

First off, the club was tight. Ageha is the name. Google that shit. Anyways, it wasn't super packed, it seemed just about the perfect amount of people for me. The perfect amount of wierd, disillusioned Japanese hip hop youth.

You go to a club in the States, you see a thugged out guy, you can tell if he's serious or not. I didn't see one Japanese who I could take seriously. Someone got a hold of a Source magazine, and cut out the most off-the-wall bits from Ludacis, 50 Cent, and I think they must have got a back issue, Kriss Kross. This is your average Japanese "hip-hop" kid. Sagging pants, fubu head to toe, gold chains, bandana, hat on crooked, sunglasses... everything you could think of. The point is not that they were trying to be "hard", its that they wear so many accesories. I laughed a lot. I saw a group of 4 j-thugs outside the club, all of them wearing the same bandana that I'm sure they bought from the same Nigerian guy selling "American" clothes on the street. It was funny, but kinda sad too. They were all admiring each other's gold chains. I imagined the conversation... "Yo, we are thugs!" "I am like 50 Cent!" "I pimp the chronic and smoke hoes through my bong."

How to dance at a j-club. Face the DJ. Don't turn away from said DJ. When the DJ changes tracks, get REALLY excited. The DJ doesnt really do anything besides mix tracks together (no turntable-ism here), so don't expect anything to happen. Rinse, repeat. Its really fucking boring.

There was a j-reggae section, with a Japanese DJ with a fake Jamacian accent. Hilarious.

The Ghostface appearance was...so so. He started off tight, then brought out some j-beat box crew who kinda sucked balls. All downhill after that. Drunk uncle at the family reunion was what Temperance and Latrice called him. Spot on.