Tokyo Calling

This weekend I went to Tokyo.


I flew out rather than get the Shinkansen as it works out cheaper. Kobe airport is a small internal airport made on a man made island, think it only opened this year and its really cool. As I ate soba in the departure lounge I was crying tears of joy. Or tears of adding too much chilli to the soba. It's not important.

Arrived in Shinjuku late in the evening and just had time to pop into DUG Jazz and Booze (the owner is a jazz photographer, original photos of Bill Evans, Miles, Louis on the walls.) They were playing some Red Garland when I got there, then they put on a cd of stevie covers called "Songs in the Key of Jazz" which is much better than it might have been, check the version of Visions. As I left they had on a uptempo version of Misty, nice.

I was excited about staying in a capsule hotel. The one I wanted to go to was in the heart of Shinjuku's red light district, Kabukicho. Interesting to see girls all standing outside in their long jackets and touts everywhere. The Japanese touts in general ignore foreigners, but a couple of African touts chased after me (both strangely thought I was French at first.) They all have a different game, one is trying to be really smooth (with a pimp hat) giving it all 'heyyyyyyyyy... so there are a variety of places round here...` I admired his smoothness. Much better than the scraggly European man with a front tooth missing who shouted at me in some grainy as hell voice as I walked pat "OI! fuuull sex for twenty five foouuusand yen!" No thanks, guy.

Having sucessfully navigated Kabukicho, I along with 659 of my closest salaryman friends lined up to get a capsule at Green Plaza in Shinjuku. I cannot stress how much fun this was. Pay your fee, get changed in a locker room and put on a light cotton robe thing, then go to your capsule. 600 odd people wandering round the 5 story facility all in little robes is pretty funny, felt like a school trip or a sleepover or something. Chuck your stuff in your capsule then time to go and get naked with salarymen at the massive bath on the 6th floor. Fall asleep watching some random anime on your little screen.



Next day started to walk round Tokyo, just wandering and looking in shops. Went from Harajuku down to Aoyama, to Shibuya then back to Harajuku. Harajuku is nice and all, but I reeeaaallly like Aoyama. Compared to Aoyama, Harajuku is much more of a kids place, but Aoyama feels really cool. Got a new favourite shop, Tsumori Chisato, but I'm gonna have to save before I can get stuff there. Awesome shops round that area, Frapbois, Y-3, Undercover, Commes des Garcons, where I finally gave in to a little consumer lust. They were playing a female vocal version of Here There and Everywhere which may have swayed me. (Check the crazy looking building - it's the Aoyama Prada. Didn't go in cos its not really my thing but fantastic building.)



These pics are of Undercover, one of the coolest shops I've been in. Retro Star Wars figures all in the window, studio apartment meets gothic church interior, and this slightly creepy wall next to the staircase stuffed with cuddley toys where something just isn't quite right.



Wandered round Shibuya, nice area. Went to Jazzy Sport just like I did first time in Tokyo - even knowing where it is it's really hard to find. Picked up a couple of crazy good CDs, a hiphop/broken beat collection from Jazzy Sport and a abstract hiphop beat collection produced by Jnerio Jarel from Dr. Who Dat? There was a mad good broken beat tune on the stereo, asked the guy what it was, and it turned out to be on the Jazzy Sport CD! Lucky!
Popped into HMV to pick up Shuya Okino's new CD United Legends (its a series of collaborations overseen by him, dream collabos - Phil Asher with Blaze, KJM with Fertile Ground's vocalist, Dego with Yukimi Nagano, list goes one.) Taking it to the counter as I heard a craaaaaaazy good soul song, asked the assistant what it was, and it was the Mark de Clive Lowe and Vikter Duplaix track off the album I was buying! Lucky!



Headed back along Meiji Dori to Harajuku checking shops along the way, some niiiiiice trainers around but no money at all for them... very sad. (I really like the Mork high dunks, based on Mork's red and silver costume from the TV show, bottom right of the photo) Hysteric Glamour was okay, but to be honest the shop itself and the signs were more interesting than the clothes. Finally popped into Supreme, but they didn't have the bag I wanted. Was the only place that didn't Irrashai me all day (Japanese shops always greet you like this), I guess they're too cool for that, but Curtis Mayfield's "Trippin Out" was on the stereo so I forgive them. On the way back to the station popped into a Bape store with all the Bapestas laid out like sweets - I think they must have been fake, even a Busy Workshop store doesn't have, like seriously, about 30, 40 colourways all aranged like sweets on the shelf. I don't really like bapestas, but arranged like that they look good. Bape is so old though, the only people I saw wearing it all weekend were a kid kitted out from head to toe in Bape as his mum took him shopping, a fat guy in a computer game store in the a Bapesta sweater, and then finally a British guy who I always seem to see in Osaka in the way back (I know its always the same guy as he is head to toe in the outrageous bape stuff - purple camo hoodie, the Milo Shark zip up etc.)



Dumped my stuff in a locker in Shibuya, then on the way to the TOKYO CROSSOVER JAZZ FESTIVAL OMG stopped off to see what Ginza was like. Answer: upmarket shopping district which is also a bit like Kabukicho but all the girls in those kinda clubs wear stunning evening dresses rather than long coats.



Then off to Shinkiba to ageHa for this:



Woop woop. Words cannot describe how good the night of music was. From 10.30 til 7.30 the next morning, there was about 10 mins of music that wasn't fantastic (which I'll cover later). Unfortunately, during the security search I was told to leave my camera outside, so all following pics are from my keitai.

Arrived as the DJ Masoto Komatsu was playing a wicked remix of Common's "Go" and soon after Mark de Clive Lowe came on main stage. I've seen him once before, but that time I'd had an argument with my ex, we'd missed Airto Moreira and so I was in a bad mood and didn't really 'get' it, thought his beats were a bit wanky. But this time, dunno if him and Bembe Segue (vocalist) have become tighter by doing this so much, or I was just in the mood, but the music was fantastic. He uses a samper/sequencer MPC and builds beats and tracks live with loops played on various keyboards while she floats some vocals on top. Deep musical sculpture stuff.

Cro-magnon were up next, and that was the thing that wasn't amazing. It was more straight up synth funk, which is good, but in this line up it stood out as being not as good [the best I can describe it is something like a more jazzy soulwax who I saw last year with Ali in Nottingham] - however this was completely saved after about 15 mins of the set, when the music stared to get a little latin style, and then Tabu Zombie (trumpet) and Motoharu (sax) from Soil and Pimp sessions jumped up and made it funk with jaaaaazzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Next up was Frank McComb, a jazzy soul singer from the US, but I didn't know he plays the Rhodes himself, he's almost better on that than on vocals. Listened to his CD in a shop before, it was one of those ones that sounds so tight and studio like that as a CD it's not amazing, but you know as a live band it'll be good. His band were really tight, and halfways through, in addition to his current e bass player, he introduced Tetsuo Sakurai, Japanese jazz e bassist who came up and started doing some Jaco licks and crazy soloing, then the two bass players had what i would call a 'bass off'. Fun.

Shuya Okino DJ'd next, started with that tune 'endless fliiiiiiiiight' which is another deeeeeeep kjm tune (great piano solo from Hajime Yoshizawa). Diviniti (female vocalist) was there and did a live PA for her tune on his album "Shine".

Then was the highlight of the night for me, the Japanese jazz band Sleepwalker. Raw, earthy jazz, post hip hop post club culture jazz, jazz that sounds like a mix of 70s afro jazz pharoah saunders style and expansions mccoy tyner style but taking into account everything that's happened since, not playing it but somehow you can tell it influenced this note or that solo. You might be able to tell I'm a fan. They had featuring on different tracks, Yukimi Nagano from Sweden and Bembe Segue from UK. I am ten times over in love with Yukimi Nagano. Ever since I first heard her on Hird's 'Keep You Kimi', her drawling complex yet sweet vocals have made sooooo many tunes. Combined with her cutely nervous stage presence and this little strange shuffle she does while singing, she's pretty much my favourite singer of anyone. Sleepwalker and Yukimi. Same track but from the solo. So combine this with Hajime Yoshizawa's deep searching jazz outfit (who were the first band to get me to understand about this kind of music) with the amazing Masa on sax, I tell you, I was in HEAVEN. Unbelievable sound waves.



How do you follow that?? Well, stick Ryota Nozaki (Jazztronik) on the decks, get him to introduce himself like a shy schoolboy then drop some latin bangers! WOOOOOO. By this point I was practically overdosing on happiness.

Followed by Koop, Swedish jazz band, pretty big in this scene. European nu-jazz business, double bass, vibes and programmed beats with a live drummer as well. Halfway through the set the two main guys took off their jackets and waddayaknow they were in serious drag. Europeans eh! Yukimi came back on stage for a couple tracks off the new album, and of course they played their biggest tune 'Summer Sun'. I like. By this point (bout 5 in the morning) people were TIRED - seriously it had been so upfront since it began - and nodding off wherever they could.



So Shacho from Soil and Pimp gets on the decks. He's like "everyone, you must be tired." Then plays an INSANELY LOUD klaxon for about 15 full seconds. Worked though. He's a pretty good dj, club jazz/jazzy house kinda stuff.

Final live set of the evening, Kyoto Jazz Massive. Okino brothers behind the mpc and decks, Midori from Soil and Pimp on drums, Hajime Yoshizawa on keys, and a few I didnt know on synths, perc and bass (young bass guy seemed to be over the moon to be playing with KJM.) Vanessa Freeman from the UK on vocals, absolutely killllled it. Works so well live, might go and see them again next week down in Kobe. Beautiful stuff.



The only thing left to say was that the encore was SERIOUS. Pretty much everyone jumped up on stage, hajime, mark de clive lowe, bembe, vanessa freeman, diviniti, frank mccomb + band, okino bros, masa, midori, motoharu.... maaaaaaaaaaaaan. Jammed on a improvisational wave of energy off of the back of the 7 or so hours of seriously out there music we'd just heard for about an 45mins. Amazing.


Stumbled out a bit before 8ish, stopped in Shibuya to get a 3 hour rest at a different capsule place. Wasn't so good. You think adding a porn channel in the capsule makes me not notice the lockers are smaller and its more cramped and less plush than Green Plaza, huh Capsule Land? No.

So anyway after my brief sleep it was off to Yokohama to meet up with Mahoko from Nottingham. We did some sightseeing from the comfort of a bus, which was fortunate as the weather was pretty drizzly and grey. Did a teeny bit of walking before looking round some shops. In this shopping centre, they had a big Christmas tree made of Swarovski Crystals which they were lighting in a really cool way, and we happened to arrive as they were having a special thing with lighting and music and indoor snow! Cool.



Then we popped back to Mahoko's place to have a delicious meal, made even more so by the fact I'd eaten at Yoshinoya the entire weekend apart from this. Really good to catch up and Mhk's family is so friendly. Was really nice to be around a family again.


Sunday, headed down to Akihabara before heading back, to get a videogame. The tube map I have I think is a little out of date, as I kept somehow shuttling between the two stops surrounding it, until I gave up and decided to follow a bunch of nerds, figuring they were probably going there. They were. So Akihabara is an area full of game, computer, technology shops etc. Got my nerd fix by playing on a Playstation 3 for a while, and picked up a few games finishing off the last of my money in the world.



Back to Aogaki via Shinkansen after buying delicious omiyage (souveneir gifts) for my staff. Great weekend, and to top it all off, on Saturday VISSEL KOBE WON (well drew but away goals count for more) and so we're going to J1! Yeeeeaaaaaah.