Jumped on the earliest train I could and ran to catch the right Shinkansen at Shin Osaka. Headed to Shibuya, where we were staying in a cool little hotel right down the street from 'The Room' called Granbell. The rooms were very small, but really well designed, lots of things from the design shop ±0 that I was looking for last time I was in Tokyo but never found. I include a picture of the toilet's remote, not as this is unusual in iteself (even my home toilet has the same remote albeit without the nice silver finish) but that in addition to adjusting the seat's temperature and bidet stuff you FLUSH IT via remote. Amazing.
We ate ramen and gyoza in a tiny little cramped second floor noodle bar before heading out for
GROOVEMAN SPOT @ FAMILY, SHIBUYA
Club Bar Family is a tiny spot tucked away in Shibuya. The event was Cross, a monthly deep hiphop night. The crowd was pretty muted, more head nodders than dancers, (army style caps and fat glasses in full effect, myself included) but the music was wicked. Grooveman Spot spun his deep dark take on hiphop, some familiar songs, I mean within the set he dropped Pharrel (can't get enough of 'Big White Spaceship') Common, Kweli, Gagle, Mos Def, but these are just the classics, also a whole bunch of minimalist stuff I didn't know and occasionally a deep jazz number. Really good vibe. After his set there was a live set from a Japanese hip hop group called Full Member, they seemed quite good. Not Gagle good or anything, but way better than the poppy j-hip hop.
Saturday we got up and wandered through Shibuya up to Aoyama. Finally found the design shop ±0 (I think I must have walked past it before, it's really hard to notice) and though it was a bit smaller than I thought, the stuff was stylish in a minimalistic way. (8 inch CRT screens, retro style torches - and MD players!) Went for lunch at a Brazilian buffet which was good and did some shopping. After visiting a few Bape shops -no longer called Busy Work Shops, which I thought was a fantastic name- recently (Aoyama, Fukuoka, Kanazawa, Hong Kong, Shizuoka) I finally gave in and bought a pair of Bape roadstas, in the Osaka colourway (yay Kansai.)
We walked up to Harajuku station to take the train over to Mitaka to go to
三鷹の森ジブリ美術館
or the Ghibli Museum. This is in a western suburb of Tokyo, a short train ride from Shinjuku on the Chuo line. It's a wonderful place, although the museum itself is not massive (which is kind of nice, a huge Ghibli museum wouldn't feel right somehow) it's the feeling which is the thing, all the street signs, paths, buildings, staircases, staff (in their work uniforms) could have come straight from a Ghibli movie. There's a room which is like a love letter to the history of animation, with exhibits about projectors and film rolls, an amazing set of spinning models with a strobe light to give the illusion of motion and other bits and pieces from the past, all using the Ghibli characters.
There's a room with sketches from all the movies around, set in a very European style which is designed to be Miyazaki's ideal work environment (it looked surprisingly similar to my Grandad's house in Suffolk, which I loved!). It's interesting to see when European stuff comes back through the filter of what Japan likes about it, they pick up on some different points.
They have a nice little cafe, all in the Ghibli style, with pictures from Porco Rosso around. There's also a little gift shop, which is nice, but a bit small and VERY crowded. They didn't have any goods related to my favourite Ghibli movie, 海がきこえる.
There's a small cinema there, called Cinema Saturno, which was showing a short film featuring Mei from Totoro, and a small journey she goes on meeting many different catbuses (including a funny CatShinkansen). Cute.
We headed back to Harajuku to look at some shops, and wandered down the small streets running parallel to Omotesand. We stopped at the KDDI Design Studio (they are one of the big three mobile phone companies) , where you can see the latest mobile phones available, and on the third floor do some little fun things with cameras and such, like filming you for a sec and saying what type of person you are. I was 'the store employee who warms people with his smile.' Get in.
After wandering down Omotesando, wandered more up Aoyama Dori to the start of the road in Gaienmae, where two roads meet. The building on the corner here has some nice little places in it. We ate at a little gyoza place run by a little ojiisan by himself on the third floor overlooking the street.
Then headed for a coffee to a bar I wanted to check up two more floors called Office (really cool bar). Wonderful view, watching the night time traffic flow west down towards Aoyama and then away to Shibuya.
After this, time to get nerdy in the Sega game centre with an old school shooter (which we died in like 5 seconds) and a bizarre but fun Lupin the 3rd typing game, before heading off to
TOKYO JAZZ MEETING @ THE ROOM, SHIBUYA
This was AMAZING. I loooove The Room. Tiny tiny club, we arrived as the music was old school funk. (For the jazz fans, they do a great cocktail called a 'Love Supreme', hehe). Soon DJ Matz jumped up and took it straight up jazz with occasional latin flavours. (Billed as 'Quasimode Special Selection') Seriously, it was awesome to see a stylish little club jam packed with a cool crowd (jazz style hats on almost every head) dancing to straight up jazz, not housey jazz, not broken beat though I have love for those too, but Horace Silver, Chick Corea, and loads of horn led serious jazz burners that I would love to know about. Serious, serious set, and Matz was loving the vibe too. This alone would have been enough for an amazing night but it was just getting started.There were covered instruments around the edge of the dancefloor, and around 2.30am they uncovered them, and the band Quasimode set up, right in the dancefloor, literally in the middle of people. (Very trusting!) Quasimode are a 4 piece, piano trio + percussion, but had guests from different bands so there were always a few horns (often three saxes and a trumpet - a serious blowing session!). Anyway, they started playing literally a foot from the edge of the crowd, and we were basically almost standing in the band.
The tunes were modern jazz in a hard bop-ish style, but free-er on the improvisation, and after every track the band's line up rotated, it was like a Tokyo jazz all star session, players from Quasimode, Slowly, Soil and Pimp, all that was missing were Sleepwalker, who were in Kyoto playing a party for their new collection LP. Beautiful sounds. Highlights included a version of Love Is Everywhere and the final tune, a massive version of Herbie's Maiden Voyage that became a funk jam towards the end.
This drummer turned up late and seemed a little drunk. Absolutely smashed it though.
The horns.
See how the crowd was basically standing IN the band.
Midori from Soil and Pimp sitting in on the session.
I want those glasses.Still giddy from the music, we spilled onto the Shibuya streets which were now fully light. Jazz til sunup. BIG.
Sunday we rested a bit before heading over to Ginza. Looked at the Sony Building, which is their flagship store showing all their latest developments and history (including this TINY laptop which apparently dates from 2002), and is pretty good.
Tried to go to the GGG (ginza graphic gallery) but it was closed, sad. Looked at the Nicolas G Hayek Center, which is a unique watch shop where the large lifts are in the foyer level, like little showrooms, one for each brand, and if you like the stuff it whisks you away to the right floor. The Swatch one (all the others are ridiculously priced luxury brands) has a fascinating lift just entirely covered in watches.
Wandered over to Yurakucho, passing by Mikimoto's very interesting looking Ginza2.
In Yurakucho, there is Muji's worldwide flagship store. It's kind of the wrong way round, but Muji always reminds me of home as I always thought muji was cool in high school. Anyway this store has everything that muji makes and is nice to wander round (including Muji Meal, which is exactly as you'd expect a restaurant from muji to be.)
On the other side of the train tracks there's Tokyo International Forum, a really nice structure. Just had a wander through it and the little market that was going on outside before heading back to Ginza station.
Went over to Meguro for the final event, where just beforehand I picked up these CDs in HMV:
The aforementioned Sleepwalker collection CD (with a bonus disc), including a vocal version of Kaze with my favourite vocalist Yukimi Nagano, and Gilles Peterson's Brownswood Bubblers For Japan. The Peterson is already out in the UK but the Japanese edition has a whole extra CD with more songs (one that was on both is a great one from Benny Sings, the Amsterdam singer who EVERYBODY likes, seriously, everybody I've introduced him to loves him). Then over to
BOP CITY @ MEGURO SHOKUDO
Night called Bop City! We entered the small club as they were dropping Roy Ayers' 'Running Away' (always a good start) . Quickly the DJ took it broken beat, and the dancers on the floor started whirling and twisting - these guys are SERIOUS, doing a kind of mix of jazz dance, breakdancing, and free improvisation. There was a 'dance battle' which was the main event, in a jazz dance, Stax Groove style and people started warming up, doing all kinds of weird stretches and things over the floor.The MC started the event. He was a pretty chatty guy (who liked making a few jokes) and he was like 'we're all regular guys. We've all got normal jobs. Even I've got a normal job. Even the DJs got a normal job. So this is our way to relax unwind.' And WHAT a way.
Video camera, let alone my little point and shoot digicam, cannot really capture how cool this dancing looks. I noticed when I was looking at the little screen then away to the real thing, how much better it is. Every little note in a run or ride in a bar can be interpreted with a little movement, and the crude overall lines the camera shows doesn't capture the subtlety in the midst of the fiery movement at all (and then youtube halves the frame rate making it even worse - although watching it on the actual youtube site [just click on the main area] seems to improve that, no idea why). But it does give you 4 minutes of baaaaaaad jazz. With all that said, here's a few clips edited together:
Then after, there was a live band I Three, to whom the scene's most well known dance crew, Stax Groove, did a performance. See clip:
Unfortunately we had to leave before the final of the battle, but this was Big Big Fun.
Back to Shinjuku to jump on the overnight bus back to Osaka and then train up to Aogaki and straight to work where I'm writing this. I'd normally feel bad coming straight back to work, like I was shortchanging the kids, but they're not coming in to school today as it's the school's foundation day so it's okay. Tokyo musical weekend was BIG.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Today is a totally different feeling. The kids aren't here, so the school feels empty, it's grey and drizzling (but still humid and hot), the information about my successor has just come through and I'm talking with the office about dates to go back to London. Just beginning to hit home I'm actually leaving... Sad.
No comments:
Post a Comment