Waver Waver

I will start this post with a short description of my current situation.

Over the weekend, the real heat of summer set in, and today is the first day of things being unbearable. To think I was able to do 3 x 5km runs last week.... However, as hot as it is outside, the temperature has been more than over-compensated by the industrial sized AC unit in the teachers room, where I have based myself for the past 7 hours, having no lessons today. This entire day has been a mixture of dipping in and out of extreme temperatures. Special mention goes to almost dying of dehydration during my 15 minute walk home for a cheeky lunch break only to find my illegal alien friend melted to the couch in my onsen of an apartment. But being stingy and cruel, I continue to permit the use of AC. Sorry Cas.

I will also mention that whatever music I seem to have stumbled across on Soundcloud, it is indistinguishable from what one is likely to hear playing out of an arcade Taiko machine.

What I'm listening to.

What an arcade Taiko machine looks like. 


Now to reflect upon the weekends activities....

Following our mission of infiltration into the Tokyo underground music scene, Rirey and Z-dog attended another gig. This time in Shimo-kitazawa, one of the more "trendy" spots in the city. This was at an underground venue called Waver. If it had not been for the happy coincidence of bumping into The Fin.'s lead man Yuuto on the street outside, we definitely never would have found the place.

Whatever impression I might have given or taken away with me, I was in a horrible state of exhaustion.

On the same day, after a late-night, we attended a Kabuki show at the infamous Kabuki-Za in Ginza. To get a cheap 1500en standing ticket to watch one interval of the show from the very very back, we had to queue in the heat for 2 hours. On the plus side, Kabuki was actually rather great. Not nearly as boring as I expected. This was followed by some shopping and a large tempura meal in Ginza.

We then took ourselves for a little stroll round Shimo-kitazawa whilst searching for a manga cafe. We booked 2 hours to "nap", however, I am physically and mentally incapable of napping in life, so I sat in a dirty manga cafe booth for 2 hours contemplating nothing of interest whilst being angry at my self-destructive mindset.

We had been invited to the sold-out show of band "She Her Her Hers" by the drummer Taiki, of whom both me and Rirey have agreed is very adorable and fits the traditional meaning of the word "cute".

By the time they played their set, we were both exhausted and couldn't stay for the whole thing as had to run for the last train to Inaka-ville, aka. Ibaraki. (I had work on Sunday).

I will not express my true opinion about their music as Taiki is our friend. But I will say, that I was very very impressed by the support band called PAELLAS. Serious, how Japanesey is that? their music was very 80's synthy and their singer had a manner reminiscent of Boy George. There was something marvelously camp about the whole thing. Listening back to their stuff on the internet, it really doesn't do justice for their impressive live performance. I will of course make efforts to infiltrate this band.

However, I still would prefer to keep my distance from the indie-rock scene. Apart from being very safe, as I have said before, it feels as though my music taste hasn't developed since being a teenager. If I wanted to start following indie bands around, then I would have continued to be a 17 year old in London.

I want to experience music that I would never be able to find anywhere else. I don't want to discover things which are too heavily influenced by British and other Western-based genres with which I am too overly-familiar with.