Priscilla Ahn
Some prettiness for you on this chilly autumn weekend. I can’t get enough of Priscilla Ahn. Such a gorgeous voice. Enjoy!
[update 1: link fixed]
[update 2: My friend Matt just pointed out that Priscilla is playing 2 gigs in Tokyo and a show in Osaka in a couple of weeks. Ha, fabulous! I’m going to go to the show on the 29th (November) since I’m already planning to go to my buddy Mihoko’s show on the 30th in Shimokitazawa.
Who’s comin’ with me?
21/365: July 26 2008
Awesome band, Golden, playing at Club Lizard in Motomachi Chukagai (Yokohama Chinatown) for Sandi & Jeff’s official sayonara party (organised by Mackey Ramone and the Buzz Buzz gang). A big night. I crawled into Jeff & Sandi’s bed to pass out in peace at about 3 am (the house party went all night) and woke up the next morning to find Sandi on one side and a little Japanese girl I’d never seen before curled up next to my feet – I had to do a triple take to make sure it wasn’t Jeff wearing a dress…
If you get a chance to see Golden play, do it. They are really interesting, and any band that can rock out with a mandolin deserves some attention.
Technorati Tags: a photo a day
To build a home…
This song has been on iPod repeat all day today. I’m such a sucker for achingly beautiful melancholy, and this song is superb. Clear the decks. Sit down. Close your eyes and soak it up.
There is a house built out of stone
Wooden floors, walls and window sills
Tables and chairs worn by all of the dust
This is a place where I don’t feel alone
This is a place where I feel at home
And I built a home
For you
For me
Until it disappeared
From me
From you
And now, it’s time
To live
And time
To die
I’m in the garden where we planted the seeds
There is a tree as old as me
Branches were sewn by the colour of green
Ground had arose in past its knees
By the cracks of the skin I climbed to the top
I climbed the tree to see the world
When the gusts came around to blow me down
Held on as tightly as you held on me
Held on as tightly as you held on me
And I built a home
For you
For me
Until it disappeared
From me
From you
And now, it’s time
To live
And time
To die
The Cinematic Orchestra – To Build a Home.
Psysalia Psysalis Psyche
Toru
Shion
Tamaki
Last week I met up with MissSin, Sandi, Ma-Chan, Su-san (my India travel buddy) and my new room mate, (Canadian) Greg to go to the Psysalia Psysalis Psyche gig at the Chelsea Hotel in Shibuya. PPP are a hot, new-ish, as-yet-unsigned Tokyo band. Their music is a kinda chaotic, eclectic blend of all sorts of influences (punk, screamo, jazz, rock, indie, post-rock, etc). It’s very good. It was an hilarious night – Sandi wrote about it here (with some of my happy snaps). I have put some of the show pics up on Flickr. Still editing and posting so check back there in a few days to see more. I’m really, really happy with the pics I got that night.
Been busy – Fuku-chan, my room mate, left for Berlin early this morning so we’ve been busy packing her up and sorting out all the administrivia required…. (and throwing out truckloads of crap from the house). We had a lovely sayonara dinner last night with Kat and Darin (no, baby’s not here yet [Oct 13?] and yes, they are doing well), and Sumika at Peppermint Cafe, and then late night wines at Moskow. It was kinda amusing to think that the following night Fuku would be in the real Moscow! Anyway, Greg-the-Canadian-microbiologist moves in this evening. Ch-ch-changes.
Have another 2 days off thanks to the school festival, very cool to have a kind of 5 day weekend – although I have been teaching some privates and generally “working” at home. So it hasn’t been particularly restful. Looking forward to some catch up get-togethers with people I haven’t seen much of recently over the next few days. Gonna try to finish Midnight’s Children, too – it’s so hard to just settle in and read a book sometimes. It’s such an great read, I really wanna finish it but there have been so many stupid distractions lately.
I got a delightfully mysterious email from an anonymous group of friends calling themselves FCOM. They seem to be planning to take me away for a 3 day weekend around the time of my next birthday (end of November). Thank you to whoever you are. I am most excited.
Angus and Julia Stone
My favourite Australian music act of the moment (probably of the year, actually). Listen to these beautiful voices and weep. They have a website here and myspace here. I really really hope they make it to Japan soon.
In other news, this Friday @ the Liquid Room the mighty Mono play with the even mightier Envy. I’m *so* there.
From Lee Ranaldo & Leah Singer to Pete Murray: a day of musical diversity
I was lucky enough yesterday to catch the enthralling visual/soundcsape show, DRIFT, by Sonic Youth-er Lee Ranaldo and his film making wife, Leah Singer at Super Deluxe. Lee really is a master of the art of sonic sound and feedback – he spent most of the gig doing crazy stuff with his guitar and an array of toys and CD’s, including wandering around the stage waving his guitar in the air at the various amps, amongst other stuff. The sound was surprisingly beautiful. The accompanying visuals provided live by Leah Singer on 2 16 mm film projectors added an intoxicating edge to the show. He also did some spoken word prose and poetry including a tingling piece called The Box, about his personal experiences after 9/11. [am I sounding like a complete wanker? ;p]
Anyway, here’s the official spiel:
DRIFT is an immersive sonic/visual environment consisting of music, sounds and texts by Ranaldo in response to two 16mm analytical film projectors performed in real time by Singer. Much as a DJ scratches a vinyl record, Singer manipulates her films in a live improvisation with Ranaldo’s guitar, poetry and soundscapes.
If you get a chance to catch this show some time, check it out. It’s great. (Thanks to Jane for dragging me along!)
And then I went to Shibuya for a show at the opposite end of the musical spectrum. My dear old mate Pete Murray finally played in Tokyo this week. It was great to see him play again, especially in his solo acoustic mode which is pretty much the way I remember him from the early days before super-stardom in Australia. He’s off to Osaka, Kyoto and Hiroshima this week, but will be back at the end of the week with 4 days off. We’ll get to hang out properly then. Yay. He’s good people, he is. Shame this is such a crappy pic.
Envy
Envy in Shimokitazawa.
Mike, Planes Mistaken for Stars. I told ya they was hairy.
Timbo and Phil after the show at an Okonomoyaki bar
Friday night Envy played in Shimokitazawa as part of a hardcore night that included American bands Converge [Hardcore 101: the yawnfest] and Planes Mistaken for Stars and local band Drumkan (who I missed). As boring as Converge were (being the granddaddies of the hardcore scene, playing the most generic hardcore with the only intelligible lyrics being ‚Äúfark fuk fuk FUUUUCKKKKK fark fuk fuk fuk‚Äù over and over again), they were still kinda fun to watch for about three songs…. Their American tourmates PMFS kicked some serious hardcore rock ass. The show was great and I think they get points for being the hairiest band I’ve seen in yonks.
A night out at the Tokyo Blue Note Club
On Tuesday afternoon I got an email from my friend Lisa asking me if I was interested in going to the Blue Note to see a band called the SF Jazz Collective. She is friends with Eric Harland, the drummer, and he was giving her 2 guest passes. Kinda a big deal at the Blue Note, where tickets are usually around ¥9 Р10 000 ($90 Р100). Always up for an adventure, I said yes, despite my disdain for over-priced, uptight, unfriendly, stuffy, pretentious venues and their clientele, and for the cliquey Jazz world in general [hmmm, does that make me a snob in reverse?]. I figured these guys would probably be pretty good, and I needed a dose of something western.
They were great. They played their own individually composed pieces, based on/inspired by Thelonious Monk, and it was some very cool, kick ass jazz. The drink prices weren’t as scary as I’d expected (I paid around ¬•800 for a glass of house white), and the sound was excellent. Afterwards, we went drinking with Eric, his cousin – the trombonist Andre and the bassist, Matt (A NZer) at the Blue Note and then some other jazz venue nearby called Body and Soul.
The Mama-san there fell over herself to provide the guys free booze and food and managed to not look at me or Lisa once, and the other J-women who joined us there were kinda the same – interested only in very loud and blatant self-promotion and flirting with the hot band dudes. One was a kind of jazz promoter and the other an aspiring singer. Neither of them could take their eyes off Eric. It was funny, and was oh, so eerily familiar [life before Japan]. I left that place after one beer and made my way to the last train, and then got a phone call from Andre, Eric and Matt (via Lisa) asking me to come back and hang out coz “I was so nice‚Äù. I declined. But it was nice to hear, since they were such nice fella’s themselves. I couldn’t have coped with any more of the fawning they were being subjected to.
What is it about Jazz dudes that they always have to shave their heads and grow goatee’s? The entire band, except for Matt the bassist and the female pianist, had shaved heads…
A fun, interesting night indeed.
Arab Strap’s last ever show – the video!
One of my all time favourite bands, Arab Strap (from Scotland) played their last ever show as part of a secret tour of Tokyo in December 2006. Yes folks, they have now finished. So sad. It was a great night, and you can see pics here. There were a lot of people who had travelled from all over the world for this show, and real tears in the last few songs.
The above movie is actually edited…. the below aren’t. It includes mostly clips of the spoken parts of the gig, including the bit where Aiden took off his shoes because ‚Äúit was the end of the road‚Äù. I used my Canon Powershot G3 and was a wee bit tipsy after drinkin’ with the band and MissSin and some crazy couple who had flown all the way from my hometown of Brisbane before the show, so the camerawork is well dodgy.
My first foray into Youtube caused only a slight headache. All future attempts will now be a piece of piss (erm, that’s Australian for ‚Äúvery easy‚Äù).
Listening to…
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Yes, the guests have all gone. The washing is done. The rubbish bins are empty. The house is clean. The jewellery, toiletries and undies drawers have been cleaned out. My desk has been sorted through and the random piles of crap have been assigned new, more relevant homes…. And I still have another week of holiday time (apart from the odd private class). I’ve made a start on the inbox, got a great to-do list ready to go and am in de-tox health & fitness mode. Although I’m quite sure that Kat’s B’day party tomorrow night will ruin the good work I’ve put in over the past few days ;p. Anyway, I’m really enjoying this laid back time – getting lots done and still wasting hours on the net…. The heaters getting a beating, as are my music speakers….
This is the music that’s been brightening my world lately. Thought I’d share it.
Technorati Tags: music
The latest Music Meme: The iTunes shuffle interview
Looking out a late night Chuo train window at another late night Chuo train….
I’ve been tagged for a meme which I first saw on sushizume and then on sigsy in tokyo and then – where the actual baton-passing happened, on J-Sters fabbo new look (and new link?) threads of gold.
The task?:
1. Put your music player on shuffle.
2. Press forward for each question.
3. Use the song title as the answer to the question.
No cheating! (anyone else wanna have a go?)
Some cool shows coming through…
These sexy lads in skirts are Arab Strap: one of my all-time favourite bands.
Well it’s been a crappy, rainy 10 degree Sunday here in Tokes, which actually was a very good thing because it made staying in bed with my mammoth hangover completely guiltfree. I vaguely remember being dinked on the back of a bike through Kichijoji and getting my heel caught in the spokes, forcing forward motion into a kinda slow sideways crash – not once but twice. The driver was equally as drunk and, well, it was a hilarious ride. But enough of that. I’ve been checking out the Tokyo Gig Guide which has some GREAT shows listed for the coming months!
Indian Love Song made me cry
Last night The Dirty Three played their second Tokyo show. Oh what a night!
The Dirty Three are still, in my humble opinion, one of the greatest live bands in the world. They played a cool mix of old and new, and the moment they started the sprawling epic Indian Love Song (second song in) I felt the earth warp and twist and suddenly I was standing at the Zoo in Brisbane and it was all another time and another place and I was surrounded by old friends on a steamy hot tropical summers eve and…well, it was all a bit emotional. But that’s what the Dirty Three do. Dramatic, emotional, powerful stuff. And man, they rocked. My ears are still ringing…
The Dirty Three play Tokyo (updated)
One of Australia’s finest musical exports, the elegantly ramshackle DIRTY THREE are gonna play 2 shows in Tokyo at the end of June.
UPDATE!!!! Wednesdays Shibuya O-NEST show is sold out but Thursdays show at LUSH still has tickets, you can email to reserve them at ticket2 at toos.co.jp in English. Not sure how many are left but if you get in fast you may be lucky (we were…)
More details in the ‚Äúread more‚Äù link….
Listening to….
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Create your own Music List @ HotFreeLayouts!
I wanted to add Tunng too but the database didn’t have the album cover, and being such a fan of symmetry I couldn’t cope with the white space it left. Love me some Tunng. Or is it Tuung?
Miaou, Qua and Pan American
Last night Christian (in a very last minute decision) and I went to Shibuya O-Nest for a night of most excellent music.
I have written about Miaou before and I go to most of their shows when I can. They played beautifully, as always. They are such dedicated musicians and such sweet people it’s always great to watch them play.
Qua is one guy – Cornel Wilczek, who also plays in the wonderful Melbourne band, Architecture in Helsinki. He played an amazing set of hypnotic blips and bleeps and beautiful sounds, all accompanied by some of the most original and exciting visuals I’ve see in a long time. AWESOME. Very Melbourne. Very professional. Nice guy. That’s him playing in the photo above.
Pan American is the project for Labradford member, Mark Nelson’s experiments into the world of electronic music. He is signed to Kranky so you can read more about him there. I did find this quote:
Fred Mills wrote in the June/July issue of Magnet that
“Nelson has a wraithlike quality; sometimes he lurks, but you always sense his presence, a deeply haunting one that’s resonant on the purest of emotional levels. This is the first unassailably great album of the century.”
Don’t know about the great album of the century bit but he certainly made me cry (in a good way). I told him that as we both came out of the bathrooms at the same time, and he laughed and patted my back. I think he was stoked. I would have taken a picture of his set, but it was all dark and atmospheric and photos would have been a waste of time. It was all about the sounds.
Shibuya O-Nest is an excellent venue for small events, and the best part is that there is a cool little lounge upstairs (actually the venues entrance) where the bands, crew and punters all usually end up mingling after the show.
The night was made *truly* great with the discovery of a poster in the elevator announcing that the most-played artist in my iTunes collection – Jimmy LaValle’s The Album Leaf will be playing there on January 23rd. Beam me straight to the future Scotty. Let the big one come AFTER the 23rd! I will die a satisfied woman.
A little bit of rock action
Screamfeeder and The What’s playing at Shimokitazawa Era Monday night. A most excellent night was had by all. Tim and Dean have now jetted off to the UK for some The What’s shows and Kellie is in Hiroshima for a few days but back for the weekend before heading out Sunday. I think I drank more beer and cointreau in the last week than I did in the whole month before and am feeling all the worse for it now – add in the food poisoning from the bad bloody mary on the weekend, and the little cold I have now and you can understand why I’m ready to crawl into my futon and curl up with my powerbook and a good movie in a dark room. BUT! I just got an email from my server hosts telling me that Gallery 2 is now available in the Fantastico add-ons in my C-Panel. Oh god that is such good news, I just haven’t been able to face the job of installing it myself. So I’m going to have a go at this gallery 2 business right now. Hope I don’t start pulling my hair out! Actually, on second thoughts, maybe I should just crawl into my futon. There is one more post I want to make tonight though… so without further ado…..
Screamfeeder in Tokyo
Screamfeeder arrived at my place at 5.30 am Saturday morning and collapsed into three waiting futons after a couple of shows (Kyoto and a The Whats show in Shinjuku) and all-nighters rendered them utterly exhausted. There is a typhoon floating around which made staying at home all day in jammies drinking coffee and listening to music completely justifiable. It was great to catch up on all the news and gossip and just hang out with some good ‘ol home town crew. They are such lovely people.
We did manage to haul our arses into Shibuya last night for Miaou‘s CD launch at O-East. Miaou played the best gig I’ve ever seen them play, and to the biggest crowd I’ve seen at O-East (and at a Miaou show) and I got teary with pride as the crowd actually whooped and hollered between songs (something pretty unheard of at mellow music shows in Tokyo).
In the post-show melee, I got all celebratory and ordered a Bloody Mary which ended up having tomato juice which probably should have been thrown out that day. Within an hour of drinking it my stomach was pulling some pretty
interesting moves all on its own… So yeah, it’s been a pretty quiet day for me today.
The photos show Tim, Dean and Kellie Screamfeeder heading off for their show tonight in Kumagaya – some far away province… they are sleeping at the venue (again). It’s hard to tour Japan on a shoestring. But damn they’ll have some stories for the grandkids.
Screamfeeder tour Japan and Miaou launch their new album
This is a dedicated music post. Yay for music. Read on….
