Not much news that wouldn’t sound like a boring travelogue, and we know there’s nothing more tiresome than some c**t banging on about his holiday, right?
Will anyone else admit to playing a lot of AD&D?
Because at #first up in my current list of Things I Love About Tokyo is that Tokyo is a City of Holding.
Though there is always the sense of being surrounded by thousands of people, many buildings seem surprisingly spacious inside. Or maybe it’s just that the peeps are my size, so you can cram more of us into the same space normal-sized dudes would max out quicker.
Another thing I’m digging is The Sheer Number of Eating and Drinking Options.
Srsly, I can’t walk ten feet without being able to purchase comestibles. Even the places where you order from a vending machine are pretty good quality, and though saving pennies isn’t primary right now, a basic bowl of yaki soba on the run for 400 yen is pretty epic.
Next is: I Like Shochu. A lot. Much more than sake, and more than I expected to.
It’s supposedly ‘Japanese whisky’ but it’s got no peaty/earthy heaviness to the taste at all, very clean and clear and on the rocks is refreshing and awesome. Also: no hangover. Except when mixed with beer. Ouch.
J Pop – as in commercial, mainstream Japanese music, not music it’s cool for indie hipsters to like in Australia just because it’s ‘exotic’ and Japanese like the Boredoms or the 5,6,7,8s or something – is not as bad as I thought – some of it is downright bearable even if the guys all look like metrosexual emos and you can buy entire ‘punk’ ensembles off the rack in Harajuku.
At least the girls play guitars here. Shit, at least being *able* to play isn’t frowned upon here. Skill doesn’t cancel out style. It seems rock is appreciated here for the candy-ish hedonism it mostly is, there is less concern with trying to make some great and lasting artistic statement. Maybe because a lot of Japanese culture is a great and lasting artistic statement as it is. Do Australian musicians go against our general reputation and take themselves far, far too seriously? Maybe so.
And though the J-idoru are not very convincing (it’s mostly Avril Lavigne style pseudo-rock, slickly produced bedroom-grade angst), it beats the shit out of most melodica and glock-fuelled whimsy for me. At least there’s some melodic integrity, instead of an ADHD-ish skittishness, a need to include every little idea. Yes, I’m talking to you, Architecture in FUCKING Helsinki. And you, Fiery FUCKING Furnaces.
At the moment, I am not completely pissed off by Radwimps, Kazuya Yoshii, Far France or countless other guitar-driven pop with un-necessary shredding. Amusing stuff.
(EDIT: while writing this post, two of these artists came on, one after the other! Then again, MTV is the same everywhere I gues – the same 8 songs the majors have lobbied/paid/blown someone for being played all day.)
Japanese Guitar Shops Are Amazing! Like, AMAZING.
And that’s just HALF the Gibson wall. In one shop. That isn’t even in the ‘guitar shop’ district’ (Ochanimizu, for anyone in the hunt). It’s just one of the FOUR my hotel happens to be within a minute’s walk of. And some of those are USED but look like they’ve only ever been handled with cotton gloves on. By particularly gentle nuns.
They cost the same or slightly less than they would in Oz – but you will never find used guitars in the condition of these babies in Oz. There is way too much respect for craftmanship here for anyone to ever ding up a beautiful guitar really badly. Then again, if you have to pinch pennies, you could just by a Jap-made copy that’s identical in quality for half the price. How about an Edwards? Built by guys with the same skills that make Custom Shop ESPs and Ibanezes that go for 4K – US – in the US. Sailors apparently buy them three a piece here for US$1000 and flog them to their mates for 2K each when they get back home.
It’s Pretty.
For a city of 35 million, there is still enough attention to the need for tiny little pockets of beauty.
There is a sort of contemplative sentimentality that is different to mere ’sooking’ – I’ve often gone on about J photogs who try to capture mono no aware (‘beauty tinged with sadness’). I see this in the story of Hachiko, who adorns the exit now bearing his name at Shibuya station.
The short version is, Hachiko used to turn up every day to wait for his master to come home from work at the station. One day, however, the dog’s master died while he was at work.
Hachiko turned up every day for the next 11 years, until his own inevitable death.
The story (and now sculpture adorning one side of the Shibuya station walls) are now a sort of monument to loyalty and friendship, famously re-interpreted/stolen in the credits of an episode of Futurama, Jurassic Bark.
Lovely.
I also went to a fantastic photo-exhibition of work by Miwa Yanagi. Imagined future grandmothers shot large. Surreal and beautiful, and a little eerie.
