Greeno in Japan: Time to catch up

A lot has happened over the last weekend, so now it is time to catch up on everything. For some reason, my conclusion of my week of travel appeared below my last post.

Every once in a while, you spontaneously find yourself in a situation you were not expecting. Like for instance, ending up at Tokyo Disney. It was the birthday of a friend of a friend who is studying in Tokyo, and I was invited along pretty last minute. I met a bunch of new people, and had a blast. The magic of Disney and the absurd detail in a Disney park's decoration get me every time. The park was right by the waterfront, and everything was water themed. The rides were decent, but I think the highlight was the crazy show they performed in the Aladdin area at night. They were doing this crazy dance and all the Japanese people in the audience knew it by heart (How do they do that?). I thought it was odd that there was a Disney in Tokyo, because Tokyo is also right there. It just seems weird to go on a Disney vacation if you are in Tokyo. There isn't really anything but theme parks in Orlando, and that makes sense to me.

Jump to Friday evening. I am at the Shibuya O-nest (for the third time). I am there to see Kirihito, a band whose album I liked in the record store, but I get a very interesting group of openers as well.

First was LOVES. I liked this band a lot. I couldn't really find a genre to describe them. Sometimes they sounded like Sonic Youth, other times Gang of Four, and sometimes it was dance-punk. The band had a sax player who would just free jazz wail in the background. Their beats were pretty intricate too, and most of the songs were in English.
http://www.myspace.com/lovesaihahigurashi

What the heck? U.G. Man was next and they were hardcore hardcore hardcore. The singer didn't mess around and jumped right in to the audience. There were people moshing. I didn't even know that could happen in Japan (I had seen no evidence of it). They were really fun and skilled too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW2N6CzqMyU

Then there was this clown. イルリメ, or Illreme is a comedic hip hop DJ/MC(?). Mostly he reminded me of a bar mitzvah dj. Super happy, pretty quick, and he even had some flow, but overall it was just tacky. I did get a kick out of when he grabbed a salary man out of the audience and had him freestyle on his sampler.

Kirihito was pretty interesting. It had been a while since I heard their record in the store, so I had forgotten exactly what they sound like.

For just two guys they get a huge sound going. The guitarist has some kind of crazy filtering going on for his guitar. The low end has sub notes to it, and the high end sounds like a trippy sitar. The drummer had minimal kit (crash, hats, snare, tom, floor tom) and a drum machine. Together they make some seriously spaced out funk.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZM9whUJ_m7U
http://www.myspace.com/kirihito0o0o

Saturday was an odd experience for me. I went to an all night event at a club called Wire. There was a shoe-gaze band called Luminous Orange playing and a lot of DJs. The crowd was pretty young and I found out that I had actually missed the band. I was a little disappointed, but the night was saved by the fact that the DJs started pulling out some crazy stuff. They were spinning My Bloody Valentine, Wavve, Pheonix, The Beatles, and even "Video Killed the Radio Star." The most amazing part was the audience was flipping out and singing along to all of it. It was a very enjoyable evening.

Now for Sunday. I had been psyched about this for a while. I was going to the Urban Tribes 09 show...at a ballroom Roppongi Hills? I had assumed from the title, the abstract graffiti art on the website, and the name DJ Krush (the most innovative and famous Japanese Hip Hop artist) being on the list of DJs that I was going to a Hip Hop show. When I entered the place, I quickly realized that one of two things had happened. Either the Japanese people were misinformed about what Hip Hop was, or I was misinformed about what type of show I was going to. It was very, very much the latter.

This is the swankiest thing I have ever been to. There was glamour everywhere. Intense Fashion, Discoballs, Candles in the VIP section, a huge drink line, drag queens, and pole dancers. This show had it all. Mostly, the DJs played trance. Kenny Larkin was spinning at the end of the night and he was great. Also, I got asked twice if I was selling drugs (a win in my book because I am that legit).

None of that was important though. For me, that night was all about DJ Krush. I was absolutely annihilated by him. I think he affected me more profoundly than any one else I have seen in Japan. The quality was just so high. He sounded like he should be on Warp Records (like a super dark Prefuse 73). I have never heard anyone come close to the things he did with his turntables. It was just the eeriest, ambient scratching I have ever heard, on top of being the most musical scratching I have ever heard. The performance was flawless. Perfect transitions, range of beats, and just entrancing at every moment. I've read that Japanese Hip Hop was most directly influenced by the old school Hip Hop when Hiroshi Fujiwara returned from the US and started playing hip hop in Japan in the early 80s. When I hear such a focus on turntablism and pushing the musical side of Hip Hop in DJ Krush, I believe it.
The audio sucks, it was so heavy live: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaMDYzLLyfU
Here's a good live video of him cutting loose: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BYR0Es6U_A

But wait, there is more. Today I went to the Studio Ghibli Museum. It was marvelous. Everything was harmonious and adorable. They had a huge Neko Bus (cat bus from Totoro) that kids were climbing all over, and I saw a short film about a whale.