JAPAN!! Part I.
Free Blood’s highly-anticipated (mostly by us) return to the Land Of The Rising Yen!
Japan (and Tokyo specifically) has always held a special place in our hearts ever since our first jaunt there in 2005. There is something about the city’s clusterfuck of pachinko arcades, massage parlors, sake bars, automated noodle shops (more on that later), ridiculously expensive regurgitations of every american/british youth movement of the last fifty years, and screeching video billboards that agrees with the Free Blood aesthetic. Much like our music, Tokyo contains many avenues and back alleys to secret sweetness hidden behind flash and loudness that seems almost violent at times. Despite our affinity, Free Blood has yet to become a household name in Japan, so we the cooperative push of Rong Music (in NYC) and Musicmine (in Tokyo) we set out to rectify the situation.
We were met at Narita Airport by our old friend and associate Katoman, who has been a one-man force of nature for over a decade when it comes to bringing underground independent (and fucking awesome) music to the kids of Japan. He also is capable of karaoke-ing you under the table (more later, patience). Madeline and John emerged from customs unscathed (nothing like Canada), but there was some worry if Eric (Emm, guitarist, producer and official band googler) and Katie (Eric’s personal trainer and author of our favorite blog sorryimissedyourparty.com [go check it out right now, we'll wait]) would make it through with the enormous amount of trans-pacific flight aids they had ingested. Turns out they were not so drugged-up, just nauseous. We all piled on the shuttle bus (which piped in quiet classical music, a sure sign we weren’t in Kansas) and lumbered into Tokyo. As we rolled through the city, the buildings shot up around us, as if they were dormant rocketships silently waiting to blast off. Getting deeper into the heart of Shibuya, we started to see more bits and pieces of old, pre-war achitecture wedged between/behind/on top of hyper-modern, post-war glass and tile. And then every 30 yards is a 7-11 (or knock-off version) and/or a Starbucks (or knock-off version), creating a sense that for a brief moment we are passing through an alternate timeline version (or knock-off version) of America. One in which they sell rice balls wrapped in seaweed at convenience stores instead of nachos.
Katoman dropped us at our hotel, with tiny utilitarian rooms and hard sand-bag-like pillows. It was mid-day and we made tentative plans to eat a real dinner together that night, but jet lag snuck in and took us all down for the count. This would become the unofficial theme of our trip: as soon as we got adjusted to a normal sleep schedule, it was time to go. The next morning we all met up at the Denny’s-like restaurant in the basement of the hotel called Jonathan’s (why does that sound weird? It sounds too pretentious to be a family-style restaurant. Like it’s wearing a cardigan instead of overalls). Some of us braved the miniature “authentic” fish-based breakfast, while the more delicate-stomached stuck with the miniature “american” egg-based breakfast. Coffee was self-serve so soon we were all un-jet-lagged enough to dive into the smear of noise and light known as Shibuya…..
To Be Continued….