Tokyo Tracks 010: Far East Family Band – Nippon-Jin

To explain for the newer readers, Dr Rob is the other key contributor to Test Pressing alongside myself. He lives in Japan and here writes about living in the country post-earthquake. If you didn’t know the good doctor has a radio show and you can stream it here.

When the Tohoku earthquake hit I was in Sakudiara, a small town in Nagano that has sprung up around a handful of warehouse-sized shops and a cinema multiplex. That has to be at least 500 kilometres from Aomori, Iwate and Miyagi. The areas closest to the centre of the quake. My kids had the day off school and as a soft option I had tried to lose them in Toys R Us. I had been feeling unwell all day and as I stepped out of the blare and demands of the shop I felt myself become unsteady. My first thought was maybe I actually have the flu and I checked around me to see if everyone else was OK. They seemed unaffected and I felt then like I might pass out but I noticed that the pylons around us were twanging like steel nipples. Earthquake. In Tokyo you get used to them but part of the deal with moving to Nagano is/was that they never happen here. We`ve got the volcanos to worry about instead. I asked a taxi driver “does this happen often?” He said “never”. When we got to the shinkansen station everybody was being ushered off the platforms and into a waiting room. The TV warned of possible tsunamis up to 1 metre in height. Within 5 minutes this was up to 10 metres. Trains were suspended. All mobile networks went down. We were lucky enough to live so close as to be able to stretch to a taxi home, though totally unprepared for what would greet us there when we switched on the TV.

When an earthquake of any scale hits in Japan, television broadcasts are interrupted by a colour-coded map highlighting areas worse effected and if tsunami are expected then evacuation voice overs in Japanese, English, Spanish and Chinese. These normally last for a few minutes. In the case of the Tohoku earthquake they started around 3pm on Friday March 11 and continued for a little over two weeks. Early on we didn’t get to see the tsunami footage. I guess it wasn’t available. No one able to retrive it. But news announcers were wearing hardhats in shaking studios as ceilings collapsed around them. I couldn’t understand a lot of what was going on but one of the sights that will stay with me was that of Chiba burning. It looked like they would never be able to put it out. It really did look like the beginning of the end of the world. And the quakes just kept coming. They are still coming. We had another one last night (16.05.11). I can`t quite remember the figure but there have been over a 1000 earthquakes in Japan since March 11. Over 100 of them grade 4 or over.

Where I am, in the mountains, is pretty much bang in the middle of the widest part of the main island. The safest place in terms of tsunami. This didn’t happen by accident. I once visited a beautiful coastal resort called Shimoda. Blue sea surrounded by lush green mountains. I had always dreamed of living on a beach somewhere, but the warning signs in Shimoda changed my mind. In the event of a major earthquake, leave the area immediately. So you survive a major earthquake. Your home falls down at midnight. You`ve then got around ten minutes to try to outrun a giant wave. Forget it. I am no longer dreaming of California. I have made my home in the mountains.

While the earthquakes kept coming, every ten minutes in some places, attention quickly focused on the damaged nuclear power plant on the Fukushima coast, around 250km south east. I called the British Embassy for advice. “My children and I are in Nagano (a long way away) what should we do?” “Stay inside, close all windows and doors.” “My wife is in Tokyo (a lot closer – maybe 180km to the South of Fukushima) what should she do?” “I`ll have to call you back. In the meantime check our website.” I did and some attractive young lady showed me how to pack a handbag with a bottle of water and my passport.

Friends from Ibaraki came to stay in my living room, because their roof had collapsed and they were just to close for comfort. Three adults, three children. Each adult monitoring news from a different source. The BBC, Japanese TV and direct news feeds to mobiles. It was impossible to work out what was going on and the seriousness of the situation. Japanese authorities trying to avoid panic. Overseas advising evacuation. Those British nationals living in Tokyo and the north of japan should consider leaving the area.

I kept a diary. It goes without saying since it is clear that I am that vain. And I thought about asking Paul to post pieces everyday, just to highlight the situation. But I am so far away from the real trouble. My anxieties are trivial. Largely unreal. There was a report detailing the adverse psychological effects the continual news coverage was having on young children. Constant re-runs of lives being washed away. Confused like the children I did not know if the footage was archived or was this still happening.

Every morning at 5 AM I would check the only English speaking channel for news. I would check the IAEA three times a day for updates. I remember my panic at learning there is a Unit 5. Every night I would go to bed fully clothed, In case I had to get the children up and out. Sea-sick on dry land. Can`t trust my senses Earthquakes would be detected by laundry, unable to be dried outside, dancing in the lounge. My youngest son and I watched dead Koi float in an ornamental pond. Like fallen crescent moons. Mum called to check if I have picked up any Uranium tablets. Tiny bombs. I learned to fear the rain.

We tried to send food and clothes North, but there were no routes open. The British Embassy advised that I should consider leaving the area. So I did. I packed a suitcase and got some money together but I didn’t really think about going. There are an awful lot of people an awful lot worse off, who have lost everything and have nowhere to run. And it quickly became apparent that the power plant situation was chronic. If you did run, would you ever come back? I did realize that I was beginning to lose my mind. Where I live, out of season, is deserted. I could walk for 20 minutes and not see anyone. I would wonder if there had been some public announcement in Japanese that I had missed, and everyone else had gone. I knew I had to get a grip.

In all honesty, Nagano has been largely unaffected. I don`t think the earthquakes we experienced were over grade 3. Anything higher must be terrifying. Food deliveries, the equivalent of something like Ocado, stopped and as yet haven`t fully resumed. The swimming pool closed to save on electricity. In the supermarket (we only really have the one) we suffered runs on tinned fish, milk, bread, bottled water. Toilet roll. All shortages seemingly caused by panic buying and hoarding rather than supply. Fuel was rationed to 10 litres per car and the kerosene we use to heat our home (we were still in the -20s at night) limited to 18 litres per household per week. Fuel rationing has consequences for a community that needs tourism to survive. The government lifted tolls on roads over Golden Week and the place was busy. But not as busy as last year.

In the third week, once emergency broadcasting had stopped, I made the conscious decision to ignore all media. None of it was really telling me anything I could use. Information on the IAEA is along the lines of “Today we tested radiation levels in 15 prefectures”. Which ones? “And levels ranged from 1,000, 000 to 0.1 mbq/m2.” Where is it 1,000,000 and where is it 0.1? Everyone seemed to know something you didn’t. “Oh you are safe in the mountains they will shield you”. “Oh you need to get out of the mountains, the winds will carry the radiation to you first”. But it seemed to me that nobody knew anything. I decided to ignore everyone. I decided just get on with things. But I have stopped boozing in the evening. I never know when I all my faculties may be called upon.

I called friends in Tokyo. Anyone thinking of heading further south? No. They were all staying put. So I figured maybe things weren’t as bad as they looked on TV. But when I did go back into Tokyo I was shocked. I travelled in to play at Lone Star, like most parties here now, for the indefinite future, for charity. I`d watched fellow shinkansen travelers don facemasks as we went through Omiya and arrived in Tokyo at around 8:30 pm on a Saturday night. Expecting to have to squeeze my record box, standing, onto a busy Metro train, I practically had the carriage to myself. To get to the party in Harajuku I travel through Omontesando, a busy shopping area, normally packed with hot women trying to look cool under weight of too many purchases. No one was on the platform. Changing lines, wheeling my box through deserted walkways, eerie is the word. Tokyo is never quiet. Convenience stores were dimly lit and empty. Shops and restaurants closing. Saving power.

At the party, it was understandably quiet. It became clear that many of the young foreigners we know had left the country. Gone home. It turned into one of those nights where the aging DJs are left drinking with a handful of close friends. Going for it with the bravado of Shakespeare kissing plague victims. Bravado which of course eventually slipped. By 3 am everybody, to me, looked worried out of their minds. I heard rumours of radioactive caesium in the breast milk of Tokyo mothers. Stories of protestors at the TEPCO headquarters being beaten up by plain clothes police. I realized once again, how lucky I am.

I do get the feeling that as figures for accumulated radiation begin to be made available that the situation may be worse than the Japanese government was willing to admit (I guess their standpoint – to avoid panic – has been we can neither confirm nor unconfirm until tests have been done and numbers are available) and as bad as overseas authorities have predicted all along. But now, I kind of ignore the earthquakes because we have made the decision to stay. I cook my kids` food in bottled or filtered water. I don’t let them get wet. This has become the new normal. Not so bad. Maybe easy to forget, save the pink Spiderwort in the window box. And maybe I should keep my mouth shut since I am still here sitting amongst most of my possessions. With my family. Japan doesn`t need any more scary stories. She needs support from the rest of the world in terms of visits from friends. Artists. Tourism and trade. But the other night at 2 AM I took these pictures off the TV, as cameras followed a man back to his former home in Miyagi. A solitary white radiation-suited figure on a science-fiction landscape. Completely flattened. Absolutely nothing as far as the eye can see. Stopping. Taking a moment to burn incense. To mourn. Beyond hope. The sound of bird song deafening.

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[Dr Rob]

Just Beacause 024: Harvey Japan Tour 2011 Flyer

You have to say this was a good one…

[Dr Rob]

Gil Scott Heron – A Test Pressing Tribute

It was a sad day when we heard about the passing of the genius that was Gil Scott Heron. The good Dr Rob brings a fitting Test Pressing tribute.

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Gil Scott-Heron: April 1, 1949 – May 27, 2011

Gil Scott-Heron: Lady Day & John Coltrane (Flying Dutchman)
Gil Scott-Heron, Brian Jackson & The Midnight Band: The Liberation Song (Arista)
Gil Scott Heron & Brian Jackson: The Bottle (Live) (Arista)
Gil Scott-Heron & His Amnesia Express: Angel Dust (Live) (Essential)
Gil Scott-Heron: The Klan (Chicken Wings Edit) (Soul In The Hole)
Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson: Peace Go With You Brother (Strata-East)
Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson: Angola, Louisiana (Arista)
Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson: It’s Your World (Soul Brother)
Gil Scott-Heron & Jamie XX: I’ll Take Care Of You (Young Turks)

If I had to choose only one Gil Scott-Heron track then it would have to be the version of “The Bottle” from the live double LP “It`s Your World”. I picked up my copy, which is only half the album, for 50 pence in The Record And Tape Exchange in Notting Hill in the mid-90s. I now know this to be a David Mancuso “Loft classic”, but I can remember being pretty nervous the first time I played it. Worried about audience reactions to the extended percussion break. Needless worries. For at the point when the song kicks back in the whole place literally jumped. Including those folks at the bar. The whole place lifted several feet. Everyone was higher. One of my fondest DJing memories.

Music so life-affirming, so positive, so inspiring and so heart-felt from an intelligent man clearly troubled by personal demons. A man who struggled his whole life with the very things he was warning against. Like Burroughs, a man who totally understood the tools of control, but still couldn’t help himself. The simple true-ism that “Everybody needs something”, a criticism and a confession, is something I’ll be quoting for as long as I`m still breathing.

When I dug the record out again to put this compilation together, and heard the line “Brother says he’s got to have some money, sister told me all she needs is love”, I was reduced to tears. I guess if you don’t understand, then you might count yourself lucky.

Compiled by Dr Rob, with considerable assistance from Tim H.

[Dr Rob]

Mix/Piece: 雨ニモマケズ〕宮澤賢治 / Be Not Defeated By The Rain By Kenji Miyazawa

Dr Rob lives in Japan. This is his response to recent happenings. Help where you can people. Ed.

::

雨ニモマケズ
風ニモマケズ
雪ニモ夏ノ暑サニモマケヌ
丈夫ナカラダヲモチ
慾ハナク
決シテ瞋ラズ
イツモシヅカニワラッテヰル
一日ニ玄米四合ト
味噌ト少シノ野菜ヲタベ
アラユルコトヲ
ジブンヲカンジョウニ入レズニ
ヨクミキキシワカリ
ソシテワスレズ
野原ノ松ノ林ノ ノ
小サナ萓ブキノ小屋ニヰテ
東ニ病気ノコドモアレバ
行ッテ看病シテヤリ
西ニツカレタ母アレバ
行ッテソノ稲ノ朿ヲ負ヒ
南ニ死ニサウナ人アレバ
行ッテコハガラナクテモイヽトイヒ
北ニケンクヮヤソショウガアレバ
ツマラナイカラヤメロトイヒ
ヒドリノトキハナミダヲナガシ
サムサノナツハオロオロアルキ
ミンナニデクノボートヨバレ
ホメラレモセズ
クニモサレズ
サウイフモノニ
ワタシハナリタイ

Be Not Defeated By The Rain by Kenji Miyazawa
Translation by David Sulz

Be not defeated by the rain, Nor let the wind prove your better.
Succumb not to the snows of winter. Nor be bested by the heat of summer.

Be strong in body. Unfettered by desire. Not enticed to anger. Cultivate a quiet joy.
Count yourself last in everything. Put others before you.
Watch well and listen closely. Hold the learned lessons dear.

A thatch-roof house, in a meadow, nestled in a pine grove’s shade.

A handful of rice, some miso, and a few vegetables to suffice for the day.

If, to the East, a child lies sick: Go forth and nurse him to health.
If, to the West, an old lady stands exhausted: Go forth, and relieve her of burden.
If, to the South, a man lies dying: Go forth with words of courage to dispel his fear.
If, to the North, an argument or fight ensues:
Go forth and beg them stop such a waste of effort and of spirit.

In times of drought, shed tears of sympathy.
In summers cold, walk in concern and empathy.

Stand aloof of the unknowing masses:
Better dismissed as useless than flattered as a “Great Man”.

This is my goal, the person I strive to become.

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[Dr Rob]

Mix/Piece: Tokyo-To Kissa #9

Artwork by Kaii Higashiyama

I wake in cold blue before the sun. Unraveling the dreams I have come to treasure. One or five AM. I have no idea. My head so cold it aches. I check the kids are covered and brave downstairs. Three degrees in the kitchen. But the fish are still swimming. I light the stove with stones thrown from Asamayama soaked in kerosene. Set the coffee on it. A shower, the quickest way to warm up. But it`s hard to get in. Ice on the inside of the window. Frosted glass. Move the frozen laundry. On tip-toes against cold tiles. Harder to get out.

Minus eight during the day. Minus twenty at night. All effort spent on keeping the family alive. No time for anything other than the business of surviving the weather. Chopping wood while the sun shines. Sleeping once it sets. A complicated city boy with a simple country life. It can be good to have your priorities straightened once in a while.

Snow makes roads impassable, so I carry my youngest son to school. My own personal trainer. These weeks we are working mainly on calves and shoulders. Dressed in cheap Wellingtons, three layers of thermals and a goose-down jacket that was too warm to ever wear comfortably in England. Now I never leave the house without it.

We take a short-cut. Across jidoukan. The snow has cleaned everything. Made everywhere new. It shines with countless jewels. Our footprints the first. It seems a shame to leave them. Ever more elaborate chandeliers of ice, dragon`s teeth, hang from drainpipes and branches.

Down empty streets early morning in Nakakaruizawa. Not the Old Town, with the summer houses, the bessou, the money, the famous and the expensive French restaurants, but the community of people who work to serve the holiday makers. Jimoto no hito. Those that suffer the seasonal cold. Lack of activity and lack of work. Together. Don`t worry. Shinpaishinai de kudasai. There`ll be skiing come February. The roads will soon be busy again.

We stand at a crossroads. Waiting for lights. Watching the sun reflect off everything in long broken sunglasses. A bright red hat bought from Slam City before the kids with “Destructo” stitched on it. I draw air through my nose and it hurts. I think about a balaclava. Then memories of meeting Millwall. I guess I might be a bit scary in a ski-mask. Most likely get arrested as I enter Lawson. Get shot as I go for my point card.

As we pass, a village wakes and shutters rise on a parade of shops where, customer-less, life goes on. Slowly. The bakery are playing my CD. With optimism, we talk of sledging and snowmen. My youngest son and I. We wonder at our freezing breath. We play at who can make the bigger cloud.

Weekends we go ice-skating. The open-air arena at Kazakoshi Kouen. My kids struggle with their laces, and I selfishly lose a Karuizawa minute in thoughts of Streatham on a Saturday afternoon. Sometimes a Wednesday night. Nicola Sagar, Tony Chattaway, Dave Miller. Steven Wilbury, Robert Storer, Mark Perry. Karen Szulkai. Tony and Steven Robinson. DaSilva. Jackie and Janice. The Human League versus Frankie Smith. George Benson. Give me the night. Bauer hockey boots. The barrel roll. Galaxian and Centipede. Leaving my diary around so others might reveal my loves. To shy or lame to do so myself. Innocent days. Moments before drink. And discos. Twenty-nine years off the ice and fifteen minutes back on and I think of buying my own boots again. Smiling with the past for once. I watch a pretty girl skate backwards. Nostalgia. Love. Promise. To the south, mountains are all I see.

The skating has had another plus besides reminding me of being next to teenage girls in tight jeans and tie-blouses. It has put me back in touch with my second son. Six years old now, but only three when we arrived in Japan. In England I would carry him everywhere, and he would not sleep unless I was next to him. Then came his younger brother, putting some distance between us. And then came the language. More fluent now in Japanese, he often needs his older brother to translate my questions and requests. But by taking his hand on the ice a trust was renewed. I tell him to go faster. As fast as he can. I tell him I will not let him fall. To catch my sons. The only reason I remain strong. Now he reads me books in Japanese. Explaining words I might not understand. Carefully re-pronouncing them until I have managed to get them right. And every night he lets me read him The Mr Men.

Evenings, I keep the sake outside. No need for a fridge. My intake limited to that which has refused to freeze. Sake in moonlight. Tastes better this way. One long night late December our carpenters taught me that.

Come summer our new home will be complete. Underfloor-heating, four-wheel drive, a dishwasher. I won`t know what to do with myself. But I am happy now. I want for nothing. And now is what`s important.

Japan: The Experience Of Swimming
8 Up: Before Dawn
Sybarite: Without Nothing I`m You
Cocteau Twins: My Truth
Santana: Song Of The Wind
Gutter Snypes: Trails Of Life (Inst.)
Sergio Mendes: Iemanja
Seawind: Morning Star
Talk talk: It`s Getting Late In The Evening
Fluke: Cool Hand Flute
Dead Can Dance: The Arrival & Reunion
Kaine: Welcoming Idaho
Brian Eno: Mist/Rhythm
Santana: Tales Of Kilimanjaro
Cantoma: Pandajero
John Williams: Woodstock

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[Dr Rob]

Mix/Piece: Tokyo-To Kissa #7

Artwork by Azuchi Gulliver – La  Dolce Vita/ATCG/Love affairs #3

Sitting in a cold school playground. Neath a clear Autumn sky. Koyo in reds and browns. Pale yellows. Jealously watching my kids hot-foot it after girls. A game of “Taka Oni”. Up the slide. Round the Jungle Jim. Old tires rolled for hula hoops. I fold my arms and pull my shoulders up around my ears. I try to remember the first time I fell in love.

Was it kiss-chase at primary school? Being dragged into the red-brick Girls’ Toilets on Birchanger Road. The girl in the house opposite. Net curtains for wedding gowns. Or was it when Laura Johnson smiled?

Was it the girl I was too shy to kiss? Long weekends sat on my Chopper outside her house, waiting for her to appear. One long Saturday matinee spent frozen with fear.

Or was it the force of nature with the tattooed ankle in Corfu?

Was it a copy of Clara Bow’s bob and Kohled eyes? All dressed in black with drawn on pout. The hardest body. Dark taffeta.

Was it the tom-boy who wouldn’t take no for an answer til it was too late? A glimpse of hung-over white lingerie in a four poster bed. A glimpse of jade at the foot of her stairs.

Was it a bright red mouth. Or an overnight bag hidden under a restaurant table. My mock acquittals accompanied by a dramatic removal of glasses and flick of the fringe. So much passion there.

Was it the electricity when our lips touched on a Sunday morning after the Saturday night before. Heaven’s promise. Then Sunday nights lonely crying. Red Stripe and The Wonder Years for company. What ever happened to Winnie? Whatever happened to Croydon’s Kylie?

Was it a scrapbook? A faded beauty in 50s gear. Someone longing to be held but too used to rejection. Pressed so close to me in sleep that handprints accompany me to the shower.

Was it the green contacts and the flattery I felt? Or the impossibility of it?

Was it a shot at redemption? Or a means of escape? Something unbroken I felt compelled to break.

Or was I just too high?

Was it when my wife blushed? A goofy grin. Caught off guard as Badlands lit the ICA.

Or was it when I held my first son?

Was it with the act? Or just the idea?

Every night I dream of friends and lovers my life has left behind. These are happy dreams. Conversations, jokes and warmth. Not spectres and farewells. Love doesn’t fade. It grows. I wish I could reach out and tell these people who shaped my life that their memory makes me smile the biggest smile. I wish I could hold them. Last night I kissed my grandmother. “Good night my love” she said and I opened my eyes lonely. Lonely for a moment, then my sons awake and the day once more is given purpose.

No-man: Days In The Trees (Reich)
Scott Cossu: Purple Mountain
Haroumi Hosono: Honeymoon
Yusef Lateef: Plum Blossom
Elmore Judd: Otherly Love
Azimuth: Lina Da Horizonte
Last Night: Cool Water
Steven Halpern: Play Of Light
Chapterhouse: Epsilon Phase
Shinozaki Matasugu: From A Distance
Michael Lorrimer: Remembranza
Shakti: Bridge Of Sighs
Les Negrettes Vertes – Face A La Mer (Massive Attack)
Transglobal Underground: International Times (Haunted Dancehall)
Arvo Part: Spiegel Im Spiegel

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[Dr Rob]

Tokyo Tracks 009: Seigen Ono – World Collision

I’m back in Tokyo for the weekend. DJing on the Friday at Right Right Right. About to enter its 5th year. Goodness knows how we’ve made it this far. Sleep is scarce but done in a small hotel in Hibiya, called R.E.M. The more I stay here the more I love it. The rooms are tiny but it’s far from a capsule. There are no real amenities but it’s cheap, clean and modern. I got tired of staying in flea pits on the wrong side of Shibuya quite quickly. Don’t let fancy foyers fool you.

A big plus is the Muji restaurant on the second floor of the hotel. This means I can eat alone cheaply and healthily and not have to resort to the typical gaijin (foreigner) thing of living off McDonalds and 7-11 sandwiches all weekend. I’d never dream of going to McDonalds back home. As The Dead Kennedy’s once prophesised “Give me convenience or give me death.”

Another big plus are the hotel’s other customers. R.E.M. is opposite a theatre called Takarazuka. A theatre where all roles are played by women. It does look strange. Posters with middle-aged women in tuxedos and pencil moustaches. But it’s far more serious than panto and prinicipal boys. The street outside the theatre is always jammed with women of all ages.

Likewise the hotel is packed with well dressed women. Those in town to catch the show. and actresses so stunning that I have often had to laugh out loud at the impossibility of it. Koyuki Katou is a graduate of the theatre’s school. I eat my breakfast like a pig in shit. Surrounded by beauty. A Hugh Hefner Playboy Mansion moment to start the day. I never see another man, which is probably why they always give me a room on the top floor. Up and out of harms way.

When I’m in Tokyo for the weekend I try to set myself a mission. Set my sights on somewhere I haven’t been before. To be honest, the DJing and associated bad habits can get in the way of the stuff I`m finding more enjoyable these days. Will power where art thou. I’m cool about fluffing asking for directions in Japanese, but not so cool abut doing it when I still stink of booze.

This month I checked out an exhibition at the Mori Tower. I never had the time to go to the Mori when I lived in Tokyo. Distance and school pick-ups were against me. The entrance to the gallery is on the 3rd floor, but the exhibitions are up on the 53rd floor. If I had realised I had to go all the way to the top I might have thought twice about entering. It didn’t click until I was carefully ushered into a lift. My ears popping three times between the 30th and top floors. I ain’t never been very good with rollercoasters and the like. Except in times when all seemed lost. While now maybe I’m found.

The current exhibition is called Sensing Nature. Snow storms made of feathers. Tables cast from light. Pure white oblivion oozing blood on an operating table. PET bottles mapping the Milky Way. One of the exhibits consists of a series of short films taken in the artist’s neighbourhood shown on huge screens in cavernous darkened halls. A tapir in a local zoo. A lake. An underground car park. Each film 10 minutes in length. People standing transfixed for the entire duration. I was wondering how many people would take as much time to watch a real landscape.

My favourite piece is Kuribayashi Takashi’s “Wald aus Wald”. A forest made from white paper mache, which you are invited to explore both above and below. Below, everyone scurries about, bent double, on all fours, looking for a way to find the light. The light, provided by head-sized holes through to the forest above. Poking your head above into the forest you are greeted by four or five other human “bunnies” doing the same. I couldn’t stop laughing. Trying to snap people as they popped up. A bit like that arcade game where you have to club the moles with a mallet.

When I was taking photos, I noticed that the pictures only really looked interesting when they caught both the model of nature and part of the modern world of the gallery housing it. And I think this is what the exhibition sets out to illustrate, something the Japanese call Shizen or Jinen. The co-existence of man and Earth. That everything is nature be it a snow-capped mountain or 53-storey skyscraper.

That night, before another evening of DJing, R.E.M. and dreams of beauty, I take dinner in a tree-house in the heart of Harajuku.

With Shizen, Tokyo makes a lot more sense.

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[Dr Rob]

Mix / Tokyo Tracks 008: Haruomi Hosono – Hotel Malabar Upper Floor, Moving Triangle

A hirsute Jonny Nash wrote a short essay on his favourite Tokyo record shops. Handed it to me as he left Japan. Both a blessing and a curse. This was back when I only had two kids and I made it my mission, once a week to head into central Tokyo and find these places. A good excuse to get out, try to get to know my way around and practice the language. I think EAD was second on the list. One Tuesday morning I somewhat stressfully traversed Tokyo’s Metro system, from my language lesson in Harajuku to the shop in Koenji. The journey mildly ambitious for a beginner. The shop was closed. Shutters down. A message daubed something about being closed for the summer. In December. I later learned that this message had been written at least five years before. It took a phone call from my wife to the shop to discover that generally there was no point trying til after 1 PM. I was left to wander the second hand clothes shops and struggle with café menus for the next couple of hours. No such thing as “just a coffee” in Koenji. You have to state your beans.

When I first visited at the end of 2006, EAD excelled in original pressings of New York disco classics. Loft and Paradise Garage playlists. To back this up there was a photo on the wall of Mancuso going through the racks. Does Mancuso still go digging? Would have thought there’d be an army of people doing it for him these days. Humbled when he plays a tune they’ve found. Anyhow, EAD, not cheap, but considerably cheaper than the basement of Disc Union in Shibuya, which was the other place you could find this stuff. I ended up mainly buying favourites I already had, like Melba Moore`s Standing Right Here. Replacing bootlegs.

Back then behind the counter was the owner Yozo and the lovely Nagi, from Dazzle Drums. Nagi DJing alongside Nori at Smoker, at ten years plus Club Loop’s longest running weekly night by far. G had a D-Train 12 in his hand and Nagi told us a story about being at Francois Kevorkian’s birthday party and James Williams singing ‘Happy Birthday’. She seemed to like G. Think it’s because he looks a little bit like Danny Krivit.

After about a year, we’d do a regular tour of shops. Always making sure to hit EAD last. First, and we’d have no money left to spend anywhere else. But it was here that we would plot. Yozo providing hot tea in the winter, umbrellas in monsoon. Restaurant recommendations when we were hungry. Politely correcting my Japanese.

With time, Nagi left (too busy with DJing and production) and the shop’s stock began to change. First, a load of Cosmic-related stuff appeared. I heard a rumour that this was Chee Shimizu getting rid of things he’d learnt and assimilated. Legend has it that he sold all his Italo once he’d been exposed to Baldelli. Then selling the Cosmic to settle on his own sound. Chee now running his own supremely obscurist on-line shop – Organic Music. I think I hovered up most of his cast-offs.

Now, in its 13th year, EAD is still the first place to try if you need a reasonably priced classic 12, but driven either by 1) a mellowing brought on by the birth of Yozo`s son, 2) regular visits to Shelter in Hachijoji (Chee again – DJing his unique mix of fusion and yoga instruction records), 3) the need to supply his customers with new discoveries or 4) the lack of decent dance spots left to dig in New York, the shop is floating towards a more spiritual plane. ECM-like jazz, rare prog, experimental electronics, free folk. It was Yozo that turned me on to the Batteaux LP and got me a copy of Conrad Schnitzler’s ‘Electric Garden’.

In 2008, Jez from Innersounds was over looking specifically for Japanese music. Yozo shrugged. EAD stocked none. Both Me and Yozo told him to go to Recofan. But things have changed again. My Osama Kitajima collection all comes from EAD. And my buying there these days is divided pretty much equally between spiky post-punk dubs and Japanese artists. I don’t know if Japanese music will ever be in vogue, but interest seems to be on the increase and it is something we are both trying to research and promote.

I don’t get into Tokyo so often these days, and when I do I can usually only hit one spot per visit. So once a month, each shop in rotation. Each shop maybe once every four months. But every weekend I get some “Daddy`s time”. Around 4 PM on a Saturday afternoon. The kids watching TV after a trip to the pool. I sit down with a pot of coffee, switch on the PC and go over the records Yozo has just put up. A quick caffeine-fuelled call while making dinner and I’m sorted. I wouldn’t/shouldn’t say it’s a weekend high-light but you could set your watch by it.

At the beginning of the year, I promised Yozo I would write about EAD. It has taken so long even I was wondering if it was just a hollow promise aimed at obtaining discount. I asked him for a list of his top ten Japanese records, again for not entirely unselfish reasons. This was one of them.

Haruomi Hosono – Hotel Malabar Upper Floor, Moving Triangle
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[Dr Rob]

Mix/Piece: Tokyo-To Kissa #6

Image by Francesco Yayoi

Tanabatta. The seventh day of the seventh month. Once a year star-crossed lovers meet. Orihime and Hikoboshi. Vega and Altair. Opposite banks of the Milky Way. That heavenly river. Kawa in the sky. Seperated by Tentei for the sake of the Emporer’s new clothes, once a year the Princess and the Cowherd cross a bridge of magpie’s wings, and grant wishes upon their joy of union.

“Be careful what you wish for” my Mum used to say. Some reference back to macabre pulp horror stories like The Monkey’s Paw. When you wish for wealth, your family is killed in a plane crash and you cop the insurance. When you wish to be happy for the rest of your days, you die tomorrow in a lover’s embrace. To live forever means being plugged into a life support machine, or kept in a cryogenic state just a fraction not cold enough. Be careful what you wish for. Can kinda take the fun out of it.

Kids make coloured streamers. The tails of comets. And attach them with wishes in verse to shafts of new bamboo. The lovers look down in a break from their passion and fore fill all that they can see. Weather permitting. We are one week from monsooon.

It’s 1997 and I’m alone in Antigua in the aftermath of Islington. When hurricane Erika struck. Covering everything in ash from Monseratt’s Soufriere Hills. Hammered by winds on a sole sun-lounger on a deserted beach. Ice-bucket full of gin and tonic. Stealing pizzas from the hotel buffet for the local children who’d come to quiz me. So free I feel as if I am flying.

Doug Scharin’s genius. Like Fela in dub. In a pile of 12s. A gift from Fat Cat. Stuff to review for Sidewalk. Know your demographic, the magazine said. They want Britney. We give `em Shellac. Dry humping Ian Svenonius on stage. Fighting with Modest Mouse. Fucking Calvert. Stealing from Silas. Saffron kisses. What becomes of a teenage pro-skater? I wonder if he’s still alive. I hope so. What was the line that he liked? I took a short holiday from myself. Unfortunately, now I’m back, doing the laundry.

Dreaming in red. Sherwood & Wyatt. Must have been a Steve Beresford thing. 6:30 AM Tokyo and an old Weatherall favourite soundtracks a Japanese English lesson on TV. Before kids telly starts at 7. An obscure spot. Caught by the strangeness of it all, I’m sat being taught scientific English to pads like a mylar chamber. Moving through honeyed glass. Beats propagate like aural fractals. Mixmaster Morris at SpaceTime in the Liquid Loft. The first time I met Kensuke. Morris, he still wears that mirrored waistcoat.

Chilled by Nature. Not the sound of stars, but Christmas lights imitating them. I used to hate Christmas. But now all my memories of arguments and drink and loneliness have been replaced by a BBC production of a Christmas Carol. Mulled wine. The smell of cloves. Roaring log fires. Girls in fur-trimmed pink skaters outfits. Stolen kisses on thin ice. Warm glows and seeing the error of your ways. Everything viewed through gently falling snowflakes. A world where people can change.

From Fat Cat to Small Fish and big Nick. I pretty sure it was Nick but now all that’s left is Mike. Trading in Trance for Glitch back in 2000. Dub Tractor takes The Third Man for a skank. Harry lime caught in cobbled shadows. The sunshine’s better. The late great big John. A blues for The Blue Note. The endless line for the door. And the lines off the back of my wallet in the middle of the dancefloor. One of those solitary wired mornings. The No.19 outside my window. Union chapel across the street. My girl’s been to India. Found a god. Changed her name. Does that mean no more punches thrown in the Social? The mistake I made was thinking I could look after her when I couldn’t even look after myself. Falling in love with old photos. Rock and Roll weekenders, bum-biters and sherbet lemons. “You’re just a young pup” she`d say. Would have been better for everyone if I’d walked away at the start. Fucking mess I made. Getz blows love lost through a smokey noir. I get my Marlowe coat. Out into the rain. No looking back.

Fujiyama. A mountain always in mist. They say you see its majesty and your luck changes. I’ve seen it twice. First time, I left a heated argument to find a bar and there it was behind a cloud. Second time, winds blew so hard you could barely stand and you could see Fuji all the way from Hatsushima. I sat in an onsen, watched eagles circle overhead. Silent with my shrunken father. Too late now to talk.

Whispers in green grass. Looking up through branches. Listening to rain falling outside an open bedroom window. The ghost of a summer twenty years too late. Mistakes I make. Will I never stop learning?

Altair is sixteen light years away. Vega twenty-five. The fifth brightest star. More luminous than our sun. A young star still waiting for planets to be formed from the debris in its orbit. Be careful what you wish for. Don’t waste ’em.

My two older boys wish for computer software. The little ‘un for karage for tea. The wife, she wishes for Peace on Earth. Me, for peace of mind.

Finis Africae: El Secreto De Las 12
HIM: Part 6
Robert Wyatt: Biko
Aural Expansion: Freeform Attractor
Chilled By Nature: Music Box
Dub Tractor: Overheated Living Room
John Martyn: Sunshine’s Better
Stan Getz: Street Tattoo
Dave Brubeck: Fujiyama
Cibelle: Green Grass
Ryuichi Sakamoto: After All
Eric Serra: Learning Time

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[Dr Rob]

Tokyo Tracks 007: Joe Hisaishi – Play On The Sands

Joe Hisaishi – Play On The Sands
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I got up to work on a radio show, but “Sonatine” (ソナチネ) is on Channel Neco. It`s one of my favourite Kitano films. There’s no need for language or sub-titles since its practically a silent movie. Simple in its violent beauty. A small group of hoods in hiding in Okinawa attempt to entertain themselves while they wait to die. An allegory for life. Or at least that’s how it seemed to me when I first saw it. “Beat” looks so young. His eyes these days are cold and animal.

Joe Hisaishi’s Reich-ian score plays while gentle humour endeavours to mask the inevitable. It takes some courage to play and laugh at practical jokes, relive childhood games while you pass what’s left of your time. Too easy to sit and worry your nails to the quick.

As it was with all the books and films, the sentimentality, I took my code from, revenge is swift and with no quarter. But like the final scenes of “The Wild Bunch”, ultimately in vain. Pointless bar honour.

The last shinkansen rattles the house.

Sunflowers dance on a beach.

Kitano’s new film “Outrage” opened in Japan on June 12. Not seen it yet but it doesn`t look like an easy ride.

[Dr Rob]

Tokyo Weekender: A Song For Guy – DJ Harvey at Eleven

All the smart people said they were going late.

I’d been having conversations with people all week about the best time to go to see Harvey at Eleven. The last gig of his current Japanese tour. The queues would be horrendous at 10. It would be rammed until all the “non-music” club kids went home at 4. Harvey would save the most interesting music until the end (which was rumoured to be somewhere between 9 and 12 AM). All the smart people were going to bed Saturday night and then getting the first train in on Sunday morning. I even got a call from The Lowrider while I was taking tea with the original Disco Child in Shimokitazawa, questioning me on my plans. Informing me of DJ schedules (Garth was on til 2). “So what time you going then?” The Lowrider, he wasn’t going at all.

I was going early. I figured if the evening was gonna move from the edgy and uncomfortable to the ecstatic then I was along for the whole ride. Ease and convenience have never brought me anything of lasting value.

Waiting in Bar Jam at 10PM sharp with Sir Bruce. Wondering where the fuck everyone else is. Watches were supposed to have been synchronized. Continually having to go back upstairs to pick up reception and apologetic missed calls regarding re-visited ETAs. Joking, that with everyone being smart, the queues would be at 4AM and not 10PM. Obviously, getting a bit anxious to leave.

11:35 outside Eleven and there’s 10 of us standing there. Basking smugly in the wisdom of our decision I walk through the doors of the club to greet a queue of about 100 on the stairs. Not so bad.

1AM and the club is packed to what must be beyond capacity. Garth’s set is being pumped upstairs and it’s classic content causing some discussion in some quarters (Tamiko Jones?). Once we’ve actually moved downstairs though Garth plays an edit of an 80s track and you can feel the energy in the room step up a level. Me and Spacey compete to try to work out what it is. It’s Japan.

5 to 2 Harvey appears. No one can move. Even enthusiastic head-nodding is likely to butt your neighbour. 2AM and the club fills with the sound of monkeys chanting, then the voice of a very stoned god attempts to tutor the crowd on the path to enlightenment and unity. In English. Then it’s a re-edit of the Black Cock edit of The Dells. At the “No Way Back” chorus the volume is dropped but there is only a muffled response and I wonder if it might be a bit ambitious even for Harvey to attempt a sing-a-long on his first tune proper. I wonder if it’s all gonna go pear-shaped. Three records in 30 minutes, unable to do more than a vague bounce, I know I need more drink.

On my way across the dancefloor to the bar a young Japanese guy bumps into me, takes the slice of lemon out of his mouth, puts it in what’s left of my existing drink, and then stares at me. I don’t feel particularly threatened but I am surprised. Last time I was here, around a year ago, when the Idjuts played the closing week of Yellow, I could never have imagined this happening.

The crowd is younger tonight. My experiences have made me think that if I’m having a splendid time it is only natural for me to turn round and either hug or vigorously shake the hand of the complete stranger next to me. The people here tonight aren’t old or stupid enough to have such behaviour within their frame of reference. From their point of view, I guess I might not be too happy about an old bloke I’d never seen before currently suffering from a rather unpleasant eye-infection and who can barely string a (Japanese) sentence together, beam at me and attempt to perform some alien introduction. The crowd are younger and I ain’t getting any. Maybe I shouldn’t have cut my hair.

Casualties line the entire run of the narrow stairs as I make a move back to the lounge. Heads hung in their laps. In the lounge you still can’t move. And still with only nostalgia as my guide I’m reminded of that space that used to be at the back of the Soho Theatre. A real buzz about the place. Endless excited conversations. A who’s who of Tokyo`s surprisingly small House scene.

The red-head that makes geishas look tanned says “if he played the Birdy Song, then everyone’d still go nuts”, but that’s not true. The only people in those Stussy tour t-shirts are staff. What is true is that there is an awful lot of love for the man. And I think that’s purely because people genuinely feel that they get that love back. I don’t think anybody has come to hear the most amazing DJ set of their lives. They are here to show support for someone they consider a friend. It’s a welcome back lets have a party, not an arms folded waiting blow me away.

5AM and I’ve got to give downstairs another shot. Macho’s cover of The Spencer Davis Group gets chopped and teased for at least 20 minutes. This time the sing-a-long trick works and when the volume is dropped the whole of the dancefloor screams “I’m a man, yes I am, and I can’t help but love you so”. All I can see is Harvey’s smile. All teeth. Tuesday morning and I’m still stuck singing this. And humming the Dells.

From the camp euphoria of Macho the room is dropped immediately into dubbed out ambience. Sounds like Basic Channel to me. A more up-to-date guess might be Intrusion. It sounds huge. Immense. There’s apparently been a lot of on-line discussion, none of which I’ve read, on how Eleven’s sound system compares to the original Yellow one, which was unfortunately fragmented across lucky clubs and bars when Yellow was forced to close. The Yellow system having been based on that of the Paradise Garage. I can’t make any comparisons, but if you do go to Eleven, make sure you get over to the right-hand side of the dancefloor. The sound is about 100x better over there.

Thirteen odd minutes of Jimi Hendrix’s ‘1983 A Merman I Should Turn To Be’ through deep delay and I seem to have drunk myself sober. The beautiful woman my imagination had my good eye on is in the arms of one of my best friends. I have to find and check out of my hotel in three hours. I figure it’s time to go.

On my way out I bump into Nick The Record on his way in.

The queue still coming down the stairs.

The smart people, they never made it.

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Harvey’s re-edit of Macho ‘I’m A Man’ (hacked from a mix)

[Dr Rob]

Tokyo Tracks 006: Kotani kozuya – ティンサグの花 (Blueline/Arights)

We arrived in Karuizawa to six feet of snow, and a tiny old house with no central heating or air con. Saved by a kerosene heater that mockingly sings ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight’ before it shuts down if you have it on longer than three hours. Kerosene’s quick easy flame. Still, it’s so cold I can taste the blood in my nose when I wake.

So cold, the water in the fish tank froze in the kitchen. 6 AM the fish was a silvered petal floating. At midday I watched in amazement as its tail flickered into life, as the water thawed.

The washing machine is a manual cold water only twin tub. One side washes, the other spins. The likes of which many people may never have seen but I can remember keenly from my childhood. It was my mother’s burden. Mum would break it. Dad would fix it. Mum would break it. Dad would fix it. One step from a rock, a bar of soap and the stream that runs out back, with three kids, I was standing by the fucking thing all day until I discovered the launderette.

I hadn’t been to a launderette since I was at university. Stoned in Leeds Hyde Park. Comforted by the warmth of the tumble-dryers. Hypnotised, dreaming of some Nick Kamen-esque lingerie meets boxer shorts liason. Never happened.

That place was broken old machines and inhabited mainly by the local drunks. This place is more like ‘My Beautiful Launderette’. Spotlessly clean rows of washers and driers. Music, TV, magazines, coffee from Starbucks. Posters advertising classical concerts. But no champagne. No passionate embraces from Daniel Day-Lewis in a Benny-hat. Strangely enough, coincidences and all that, I’m sat there re-reading my copy of The Unbearable Lightness Of Being, wondering if I am Tereza, when I want to be Sabina.

Cutting firewood and burying last night`s ashes at 5:30 AM. I forget to complain. I am transfixed by the mountains. I guess once you’ve been here a while you might take them for granted. They are everywhere I look. I am surrounded by their wonder. At night the wind howls round the basin, while a murder of crows fill the daylight with their laughter. The sound of Hopeton Brown attempting to rid the world of the evil curse of the vampires. Mists unfold and the mountains disappear. Nothing on the horizon. It is as if everything apart from Nagakura has ceased to exist. The world ending at Lawson’s.

I’m just popping out to get some milk. I may be some time.

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[Dr Rob]

Tokyo Tracks 005: Yuichiro Aratake – Beautiful Love (Live At Bunca)

Shiki. I’m out here talking to an architect about building a house in the mountains. Or rather I’m talking to my wife, and my wife is then talking to the architect. I’m trusting that record storage is not being sacrificed for Jimmy Choos.

To reassure me that they understand, the head architect has brought me to the local jazz kissa, Bunca. Up a tiny un-signposted staircase to the second floor of a residential block. Above a small florists. You’d never know it was here. Into a space like a darkened corridor. A library. Around the walls are 40,000 Long Players. I get my camera out, and the architect smiles.

I don’t know much about hi-fi, but when I showed these photos to my Japanese mates, who are the kind of guys who read text books on acoustics and sound engineering on the commute into work, they all nodded sagely and muttered noises of agreement. Two speakers stand from floor to ceiling. Then there’s the Macintosh stack. Wanting to demonstrate the quality of the equipment, the owner’s wife, asked me to try to lift one of the components that was set aside for repair. I could lift it, but only just. Which, since I can easily lift my 9 year old son, and he’s a big lad, means it must be over 40 kilos. There are 4 components in the stack. Greater than 160 kilos. The owners have the same set up at home.

I’m given the best seat in the house, with the kind of courtesy I have always received in Japan, and have never received in the UK. They switch the system on. A record by the Dudley Moore Quartet goes on the turntable (I was not allowed close enough to photograph the deck properly) and it’s the most fantastic music I have ever heard. For a few moments I even think about trying to find a copy to play at home. Everything takes some time to warm up, but while I’m eating my pork curry, it sounds as if the band are playing next to me in the room.

The only problem with this place is that it’s a good 20 minute train ride outside of central Tokyo. Too far for some people. The owner of Ebisu’s Bar Jam just laughed when I tried to convince him to meet me here for lunch. It is frustrating. I’d really like to plot here, sink a good few and test the system and test that 40,000 strong collection. But the school hours that currently define my day have so far prevented me from doing so.

Visiting Bunca has further complications. The owner is bipolar and suffers from bouts of severe depression. Often leading to him barricading himself in his house, leaving his wife to open up the café. During these periods he will spotted making trips to buy more records. Spied stepping out of taxis weighed down with bags. Being something of a vinyl compulsive/obsessive myself, I wonder quietly if his record collection is a symptom or possible cause of his condition. 40,000 records filed and cross-referenced by alphabet, label and lead instrument. He knows where everything is.

Since the owner requires so much care, the café opens sporadically. You need to call first to make sure they’re gonna open. And if so, for how long. Still I try to spread the word. And the place is a centre for young Japanese jazz musicians. Sometimes they are given the opportunity to play, but they have to be prepared for the voluble consequences of the owner’s displeasure. If he deems it not to be “Jazz” then there will be trouble. Shouting and ejection are not unheard of.

No arguments here. This guy can play.

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[Dr Rob]

Mix/Piece: Tokyo-To Kissa #4

I watch Tokyo go by from the window of a Metro train. Mejiro, Takadanababa, Shinjuku. I wonder if I will miss any of these places. I am leaving.

I have grown tired of Tokyo. Or rather, she has worn me out. This beautiful lady has a bounty to offer but only if you have an abundance of money and free time. Currently I have neither. Great place to visit. Hard place to live.

I am guilty of only really appreciating things when looking back. In the moment, I am always questioning. Often my mind is on what’s next. I should learn to live in ‘The Now’. Neal Cassady without the crank. Instead I try to keep moving, afraid that if I stop, nostalgia will hit me like a wave.

Las Vegas tango. Last tango in Paris. One last joyless fuck in an apartment in Bayswater. Angry and hurt, she grabs the headboard and forces her hair in my face. Some things are best forgotten, but I guess the old mental scrapbook doesn’t work that way. Sketches Of Spain bring the myth of my conception. Supposedly in Stiges. On the honeymoon. But since I was a couple of months premature, I reckon that’s the kind of truth people felt forced to tell in the early 60s. Sting sings a song about man’s crimes against man. I try to remember being in another place, but I am lost in Tokyo. No one bothers to translate. I hear a lover on the phone. Just out of the bath. Wrapped in a towel. Propped up on pillows. Flirting. I’m trying to be clever. Funny even. Before long, she’ll end up disappointed. There’s a soft focus TV promise of what love should be. Slow. Gentle. Understanding. “Hey, we have all the time in the world. Relax.” Instead, stolen moments and lies.

I watch days go by on lost roads. Clouds scream across a blue sky shot in time-lapse. I’ll get my deck-chair out. Eagles rise on a warm swell in Nepal. Gangs of small children crowd a mountain path. Following me for the sweets I brought as gifts. Dahl for breakfast, Dahl for lunch. Dahl for tea. I ain’t never been to New Orleans. The only voodoo I know is in the thunder of the London Underground and the sodium orange on deserted streets going east. The only healing chant, silence.

“Come with me”, she sings. I`m in Ronnie Scott’s. Two couples before the children, drinking champagne. (Another) one of those transient bubbles I questioned. I’ll never question anything again. I promise. Pat dreams of Mexico but I’m in Reckless in Islington. Tara’s letting me trade my boxes of Trance for a grounding in Funk and Rare Groove. I cut my hair, take the medication, and stop going out. For eight years.

Sing me to sleep. Weatherall soundtracks a film in a chapel off Oxford Street. Days of Shoreditch, Small Fish, and Silas. Nights watching Sav collect glasses. Walking between Borough and Brick Lane when the snow stopped everything.

Hendrix plays and I’m acting. Living out a role in ‘Withnail & I’. Pulling on a tattered overcoat as I pull myself off a mattress on the floor. Pulling on a joint, for effect, and to keep out the cold. A room on (H) Ash Grove where the rent was a tenner a month. Working out Pence:Brain Damage ratios. Drinking Thunderbird all day. Pints of cider with ice. Playing at it. I thought I’d never miss that place either.

I am leaving Tokyo, but I am not leaving Japan. I am heading for the hills. Half-way up an active volcano to build a mountain retreat. Friends worry that I might become isolated, but I am isolated now and I fear that to feel isolated in one of the busiest cities in the world may be harder than feeling isolated in the middle of nowhere with only the bears for company. I’m taking the easy way out.

I worry that if I stay in Tokyo I will become a bigot. My patience and enthusiasm exhausted. Cursing the endless armies of school children as I pass on my bike. I have already retreated from Tokyo. Minimizing my trips out of the house. Metro journeys filling me with despair. One more carriage full of blank faces. Any conversation limited to pleasantries or apologies. Any hope of depth, any bond, seems impossible. It would be easy to give up, yet the small successes I have with language light my days. I will never give up. But I am not winning. Retreat. Regroup.

There was a time when I could flick my toes and greet it all like one big adventure. I’d get my kids to sing “row row row your boat” in a round. Life is but a dream that so quickly passes. I think of my first friend here. The chain-smoking delivery guy who brings my records. Shin-Otsuka, and the woman with the thick scar that marks her hair-line who jokes with me in 7-11. Otawa-Dori, and the old man we used to greet everyday to and from school. Dragging his tiny dog along on stiff legs in the heat and the cold. The dog died and the man disappeared. Kohinata, and the woman with the magenta bob, ever-present shades and tight leather skirts, who lives round the corner with a Ryuichi Sakamoto lookalike. Probably in her late 60s, but you still might.

My children play under Mejiro-Dori’s highway, where we feed the stray cats, and the cats piss on the parked cars.

It’s not places that are important, but people. And I’ll take them with me.

David Sylvian: Nostalgia
Michael Shrieve: Las Vegas Tango
Miles Davis: Sketches Of Spain
Sting: Fragildad
Vangelis: Good To See You
Ryuichi Sakamoto: Before Long
Cerrone: Corruption
Jean-Luc Ponty: Ethereal Mood
Bill Laswell: Lost Roads
Neville Brothers: Healing Chant
Finis Africae: Armadilha
Tania Maria: Come With Me
Pat Metheny: Sueno Con Mexico
Bowery Electric: Sleep
Jimi Hendrix: Little Wing (Live)

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[Dr Rob]

Mix/Piece: Tokyo-To Kissa #3

The pink balloons atop the four foot tall Altec 7 cinema speakers are deflated, spent and shriveled like ball bags in an outside privy on a winter’s morning. The lists of cocktails that decorate the walls have long since been mixed. The night lit by fluorescent shots long since sunk. No more limes to slice. No more lemons to be squeezed. No more gaigen swearing at the overworked bar staff. The Lowrider posse. The samurai. The photographers. The dancing girls. Girls in tracksuits, see-through sheer dresses, and corn-rows. The Rosies. Have all gone.

The couch beside the decks left vacant now the Metro is up and running. The gorgeous jazz-singer out of sight and out of mind. My eyes, long accustomed to the dark and the smoke, watch the dB-display attached to the vintage UREI. A flickering pulse amid the empty glasses and overflowing ashtrays. 6 AM in a basement bar in Ebsiu, that’s fun but uncomfortable with more than thirty people. There’s only five of us left.

An irresistible force feeds Coldcut through infinite loops. Reflecting sadness off a thousand mirrors. I hammered this when it came out. I was living above an off-license at the wrong end of Upper Street. Naked to the top deck of the No. 19. If it’s tonic water youze want, it’s tonic water you’ll get. Bandulu do Acid Jazz. One for the Land Of Oz regulars who swapped writing graffiti amid the violence and whores of Streatham Hill for Thailand and a dragon’s warm embrace. Electric counterpoint and a key change bring new horizons. A rare feeling of great optimism. (Little Fluffy) Clouds in a blue sky. Ships at a distance have all men’s dreams on board.

Voodoo echoes through an empty city at dawn. Rattling down the black line. Post-coital techno. Sexed with strangers on a lonely come-down grey journey home from North to South. My love she lives on the Tulse Hill Estate. Dresser strewn with make-up. Cold wooden floor strewn with fashion magazines and clothes. Silverfish in the loo. Woozy with cider. Sick for another drink.

Nineteen years later sunshine betrays the cold on a lonely afternoon in Kohinata. I haven’t spoken to a soul all day. Waiting for the kids to come home. Thoughts move to the frozen snows of Karuizawa. A retreat from the world half-way up an active volcano. Home seems too long ago. Tokyo is too hard. I need a place to hide awhile. I am not Tereza, like Sabrina I’ll disappear.

Some strange cargo, back in another basement. This one on Seven Dials. Running with Fat Cat and GPR. Out-drinking Bjork and freaking out Scanner. Wandering the Mermaid Theatre in a haunted cowboy-shirt with mother-of-pearl buttons. Big apples and star dancers. The ghost of A Gravitational Arc Of Ten sings the blues. Rez over everything. White silence on Almeida Street, bar the ringing in my ears.

Heavy skies give (fallen) angles sway. Airto swings into the theme to Roald Dahl’s Tales Of The Unexpected. Bar-owner Batch gives his last thumbs-up. Marbo, who was feigning sleep, gives me a round of applause, but I can’t tell if it’s in jest. A standing ovation before stumbling up the stairs and out towards the cold morning and the station. Skipping breakfast from the restaurant opposite that specializes in horse meat sashimi. The streets of Ebisu empty save clean-up squads washing the roads and picking up drunks. Guys in tight black Beatles suits. Girls in floral mini-dresses and cowboy boots.

So much is different. But so much remains the same.

Coldcut: Autumn Leaves (Irresistible Force)
Koh Tao: Sun Down
Steve Reich: Electric Counterpoint
Primitive Painter: Levitation
James Yorkston: Woozy With Cider
Mark Isham: Mrs Soffel
In The Nursery: Incidental Guilt
Stange Cargo: Million Town (Kruder & Dorfmeister)
Detroit Grand Pubahs: Skydive From Venus
Craig Leon: Nommos
Ellis Island Sound: Angels Way
Airto: Bebe

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[Dr Rob]

Tokyo Tracks 004: Jazzadelic – Better World

It’s 1993.
Weatherall’s on the radio.
Kiss 100.
1 – 3 AM.

Sir Alan (Russell) of Green Tights on the knobs.

I’m lying in bed, drinking cheap wine. Listening on my headphones. I’m in a rented room in a shared house on Carmichael Road. Round the back of South Norwood station. I’m surrounded by all I own. A cheap clothes rail. Two metal shelving units, the ones that look like Meccano (do they still make Meccano?), that I’ve pinched from work and that are leaning Pisa-like from the weight of the records I’ve put on them. Books are stacked up on the floor between the window and the bed, and there’s a small leather suitcase of photos pushed under the bed. It’s a Wednesday night and I’m just straight enough to think about the weekend again. Drum Club tomorrow, then Friday’ll be Sabresonic at Happy Jax. A cold cave beneath London Bridge with upturned oil drums for tables. No more dressing up. Blims in an old Benneton sweat-shirt. Weatherall playing a mixture of Detroit Techno, European Trance, and pitched-down Drum ‘n’ Bass. As far as I can remember, there are no women there. Only stick-thin geezers with ponytails and boils. It has gone a bit dark. Surrender to the void. My membership is No. 303, which I am quite pleased about.

I am unable to relax because I’m taping the show and obsessively attempting to remove all the ad breaks. I can stretch out and reach the pause button from my bed, but I can’t just lie there and listen.

Jazzadelic are on a play-list that takes in Asia-Born, Central Fire, Model 500, Mad Professor, Tenastillin, Aphex Twin and Effective Force.

Weatherall shouts out to those bugling ’til dawn.

This dream of a better world.

Jazzadelic: Better World
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[Dr Rob]

Tokyo Tracks 003: Osamu Kitajima – Thru Cosmic Doors

Fusion’s excesses give way to a new age. Instruments dance a ballet. In my head. A second-hand ticking. Time hurries by. A shakuhachi mourns its passing. Pleading. Calling it back. As if it were trying to prevent a lover from leaving. A koto marks the attempts at persuasion and the inevitable. A lyricon. The struggle.

The struggle with time.

There’s a photograph of my Nan attached to my Tokyo fridge door. It greets me every morning when I go to make the children breakfast. She’s all dressed up with somewhere to go. Black jacket, blue skirt, white thinning hair. She’s holding on to the handrail of the steps to her garden in Croydon for all she’s worth. When I look at this photograph I think of the eighteen years I spent living next door. I remember toy soldiers scaling the mountains of her stairs. Action man’s journey’s to the centre of the coal bunker. And a gold carriage clock high on the mantelpiece with a delicate mechanism too fascinating not to touch. I hear the constant banging of the gate between our house and Nan’s. At night, the wind conjuring up robbers and ghosts when I’d forget to lock it. I smell the roses in her garden and touch the rubber flowers on her rubber swimming hat. I share evenings baby-sat between Nan’s legs. Fan heater warming us. Stealing sips of Babycham and watching TV in the dark. Nan singing in Welsh and snoring through the opera on BBC2. There are no memories of scoldings. Only love and pride. I see another photograph of Nan. She has black hair and she’s holding me in her arms.

When Nan died, my childhood finally ended.

The shakuhachi defiant now. The figure more elaborate. Each dancer moving to a separate song.

Osamu Kitajima – Thru Cosmic Doors
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[Dr Rob]

Mix/Piece: Dr Rob – Toyko-to kissa #2

Catching my reflection in the mirror, I look like an old prospector. I’m in red long-johns to keep out the cold. Lee Marvin in “Paint Your Wagon”. My star has wandered. I’m either getting softer or Tokyo is getting colder. I bought the long johns, or Akapan, from Sugamo a week ago. The red colour is supposed to be lucky. Tradition dictates that you buy them in your 60th year and the place was overrun with gangs of old people focused on this sole purpose. I was bitterly cold. I couldn’t wait another seventeen years.

A nine hour time difference meant I got up at 3 AM this morning, to Skype a mate in the UK, who predictably wasn’t there. Since I was up, I opened an email from sister. “Nan’s taken a turn for the worse. They’ve given her two days left to live”. I called my Mum, who has been caring for my Nan for the last fifteen years. She wasn’t home. I called my sister. Nan had died an hour before. It’s not going to be the best of days. So much for lucky red long johns.

“When my memory wanders, as it does when bad things happen, I put a seashell to my ear and it all comes back……”. No seashells round here. Only shellac.

Ryo Kawasaki is locked in a bolero tarantella in the desert playing jazz-funk as heavy as metal, and I remember a sombrero-wearing dude tripping on a three hour bus journey out of Tokyo. I hear Software noisily getting their sausages sucked and I’m back having sex in Brixton. The acid taking me out beyond the universe. Everything falling away to blackness. It’s Immaterial push the boat out and dance, and drunkard logic has me entering another night in expectation. Shutting out the extremely high probability that it will bring nothing. Liz Frasier sings in glossolalia. Speaks in tongues. The language of heaven is that we all hear want we want to hear.

I am so much younger. We’re driving in a purple Ford escort. Someone’s first car. The girls have yet to sit their O Levels. Hard little bodies, tiny bras and kohl-ed eyes. A bob like Clara Bow. Sex Maniacs or romantics? Out for one more boast, or doomed to act out every film, every fiction, over the next twenty painful years? Youth is a truly beautiful thing. May you find a cunt that fits. Harry Crews` gypsy curse. Forever walking Spanish when she left. A flamenco player wrestles his guitar. Johnny Weissmuller with a rubber crocodile. The African kora carries the melancholy. I don’t remember where I am but I am leaving. A harp swings. A buzzing sax circles in and out of range. A mosquito honing in on its target. An annoyance rising to a scream. A doubt. Regret maybe. Loss. The sound of another empty bottle. Another night on the floor.

Keith Jarrett urges the music on with wordless cries and grunts. No mere dance. All at sea again. Not waving but drowning. Frenzied below the surface. Weather prophets play a penguin café pastoral. I almost pray. I hear the music of a goodbye, and I’m back in Croydon. Putting together my last compilation for a friend before I pack my records to be shipped to Japan. Looking for a brand new start. A lion found me, a week or so later, completely lost, six thousand miles away, in Yodabashi Kamera. I wept my fucking eyes out as I dragged my two boys through the blare, glare and bustle of Akihabara, attempting to sort out a PC, phone and internet connection. Morrison gets sent. The roar somehow stuck in his throat.

5 AM in Tokyo and I’m checking flight availability. Wondering how to cover the child care if I make the trip back for the funeral. Caught between responsibilities to the past and responsibilities to the now. Responsibilities to the dead and to the living. A defiant hymn from the Beach Boys` Holland LP plays. It holds a mad story about moving a studio across continents and the last vestiges of Brian’s genius.

At one end of the market street in Sugamo there was a beggar on all fours like a dog. Eyes fixed on the ground. Hands and feet blue. Vividly reminding me of the “creature” that the woman in the film “The Audition” keeps prisoner in her apartment, he looked like he was in a lot of pain. There are a few homeless doted around the parks and under the highways, but beggars are so rare as to be non-existent in central Tokyo. My wife was crying. The old people didn’t seem to see him. We gave the kids some change to put in the empty paper cup.

Once more for the living.

Tokyo-to kissa Mix #2

Ryo Kawasaki: You Are Like Sunlight
Software: Present Voice
It’s Immaterial: The Better Idea
Cocteau Twins: Pandora
San Sebastian Strings: Gypsy Camp
Ketama: Jarabi
Dorothy Ashby: Little Sunflower
Pat Metheny: So It May Secretly Begin
Jan Garbreck: I Took Up The Runes
Keith Jarret: Dancin`
Ellis Island Sound: Building A Table
Van Morrison: Listen To The Lion
Beach Boys: Sail On Sailor

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[Dr Rob]

Tokyo Tracks 002 (From The Jazz Kissa): Casiopea – La Costa

Dr Rob’s back with more comment, reportage and music from Japan…

I’m a regular here now. A fixture if not an attraction. I only have to pay for the first cup of coffee. The other fixture here is woman in her forties who wears her hair in a beehive and seems to use the coffee shop as an office. She always seems to be here, holding court to a group of well-dressed younger women, while sipping beer and eating finger sandwiches. She’s sitting behind me. I always try to orchestrate such a position otherwise I find I end up staring and spiraling off into fantasies fueled by my failing hormones. The guy opposite me has that classic Japanese look. Smart black suit. Crisp white shirt buttoned to the top. No tie. It’s all publishing houses around here. My weekly trips with the kids to the McDonalds on this street have often been brightened by glamour models grabbing a quick shake between shoots, or a quick break to go over contact sheets.

Today the café owner is playing swinging jazzy versions of Christmas tunes. Today being the first day of December. “Great Tidings of Comfort & Joy”. Santa Claus is coming to town and Frosty the Yukidaruma. Ever in tune with my surroundings, I’ve picked out sunny Japanese fusion to listen to. The kind of stuff that was popular on pirate radio back when I was in Gabbicci knit wear and Farah slacks. Then, the records were imported and too expensive to buy. Now, I’ve been imported and I can pick them up for pennies. Can’t move for this stuff in Recofan in Shibuya.

Listening to Casiopea, which is something akin to Herb Alpert without the horn, I’m on a beach. Light catching the tops of afternoon waves. Maybe back in Malaga. Ecstatically watching the surf turn purple and break into fractals. Just prior to being pushed hysterical onto a bus packed full of bright green people, riding into a maze of busy narrow streets and noisy tapas counters. Everyone shouting in Spanish. Me mute. Eventually, off with Paco, to crazy parties in the hills.

Casiopea – La Costa
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[Dr Rob]

Tokyo Tracks 001: Copa Salvo – Wave & Imperador Do Samba (Plant/RD Records)

I’m sitting in a jazz café, or jazz kissa, at the junction of a four-lane highway about five minutes away from my kids’ sports (taiso) club. Sneaking in a coffee while they vault boxes and dodge ball. Seems a pity to drown the jazz out. Sometimes I pop in here in the morning and it’s melancholic covers of standards and suicide-inducing lounge versions of pop classics. Catering to the mums taking solace in stimulants after the school run and before the next round of chores. Now, in the afternoons, it’s office workers on the skive and students asleep in their books to a soundtrack of Thelonious Monk and Charlie Parker. I guess if the owner could see me put my ear-pieces in he’d be offended. But the writing’s got to be done somewhere. And I can’t write without listening. Someone who meant a lot to me once said music is fuel.

I hear a Latin piano line full of the urgency of life. Understood by Mayday and Morrisey alike. Flamenco. Not the Gipsy Kings, but Pigbag doing over Paco De Lucia. A melodica carrying on like Lee Oskar’s trancendentary blues harp or Astor Piazzolla’s accordion. With a story to tell. A busy town square. 3 AM. The air thick with the promise of fighting and fucking. Sips of gut-rotting espresso while a Dexy-driven bordello band cynically play for a clientele for whom they are merely an accompaniment to the transactions being made. Their slept-in suits and blackened eyes privy to a thousand stories every night. Whores dance, drink and hitch up their skirts amid shouts of encouragement and cash changing hands. I’m back walking through the Old Town practically too drunk to stand, trying to hold onto something that has already gone.

Time, she goes by like a wave.

Copa Salvo: Wave
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Copa Salvo: Imperador Do Samba
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[Dr Rob]