Halloween freaks – lets not get killed

I am  in Tokyo again now after doing a couple of slots in Osaka and Kyoto, enjoying some pleasant sunny days, and experiencing Halloween fancy dress  …Japan style. A more appropriate name would be …Halloween cross dressing and homo-eroticism..

After taking a long journey from Kyoto to the outskirts of Osaka, I played at See Ya! a small but friendly live house where I after finishing my set, was told that my second stint would be due after a 20 min interval…..SECOND set?? So I nervously  slipped outside behind the club and started dragging out  part finished songs and a couple of covers from the depths of my mind frame to fulfill my unexpected commitment. As it happened I fudged my way through some brand new songs and finished with an ad hock looping extravaganza for which I was glad all patrons were Japanese, because the words were quite literally piffle that I was making up on the spot. .. It went down a storm tho!

After the show I stayed with club owner Hirano san and marveled at some of his vintage guitars and had a bath with a built in waterproof  TV. He took me into Downtown Osaka the following day and we met his friend who runs a little analogue studio.

Its to be noted here that I have edited this entry and removed text on recommendation of a Japanese friend as it was feared that I might be at risk from being killed…that is not a lie.

There is a lot of homeless and drug use in this part of Osaka which makes it so different, as the rest of urban Japan seems hyper sterilised. After eating local fried food on sticks, we stopped to have a look at his friends studio near a disused roller-coaster and then proceded to Club Tehanno where I met up with my friend Usagi Yamada, and legal alien Trevor, who documents Japans strangeness  hilariously in his blog “Englishman in Osaka”

After the gig at Tehanno (during which I was subjected to a screaming female vocalist that forced me to grab lumps of wet tissue from the toilet and stuff them into my ears) we took a train back to Kyoto, but during the journey, it stopped for a few minutes. Unfortunately that resulted in us missing the final train connection to Usagi`s house. After a brief conversation with a train official, we were being given 4500 yen (25 quid) in CASH to get a taxi and receiving humble apologies…!! If that happened in the London underground or anywhere else in the world…..not a chance!

After that we went to a tiny bar that sat no more than 4 people and tried my hand at an instrument from Hokkaido called Mukuri. A bit like a jaws harp except you look like a complete fruit trying to play it.

Playing the Mukuri from Man-made Noise on Vimeo.

In Kyoto I  also stayed at Sandalwood hostel which was pretty cool. It is run by musicians and it was great chatting for hours about all things musical and having a bit of a jam with Gin and Jumi. Gin lent me his bike to go bombing round the city…well.. pootling after I broke the chain.. and I went to a bamboo forest and a lookout point for “Momigi” (the turning of the autumn leaves to red). Its gonna be a few more weeks before the leaves are properly turning but it was still breathtaking. I met Bea Martinez from Madrid and then sat in a cafe talking existentialism..yah,yah,yah  (my only knowledge is what Dan Moran  told me, and a Jean Paul Satre documentary we watched 3 days previous)

I just finished reading a book called “The Shock Doctrine” by Naomi Klein. To keep it simple, its about how the US, the UK and the World banks have backed the destruction of  countries in need, resulting in world poverty and genocide. It sounds like heavy going but its an awesome read and if you want to have a better view of whats really going on in the world please check it out. It will change your life.

I got some extra shows..

11th Nov     Wall st sports bar – Roppongi (Japanese Music Week)

15th Nov     Velvet Sun – Ogikubo

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