Music in Japan (part 4)

When I first got here, I found going to shows a lot more difficult than I imagined. First off, I don't like going to shows alone. I will, but it's not as much fun. I didn't know many people right off that were interested in joining me.
More than lack of company, my biggest problem was the language barrier. Finding Japanese bands is not that easy if you can't read Japanese. Even once I found a band I wanted to see, without knowledge of Kanji, I couldn't easily (if at all) find where they were playing. Sure, there are English resources like Metropolis magazine and Tokyo gig guide, but they focus primarily on mainstream artists and foreign acts in Japan. As for mainstream acts, I found ticket costs to be quite overwhelming, but this wasn't the root of the problem. The real problem was that I didn't want to see top 20 artists, I wanted to see the best of the independent bands. Since there are so many indie shows and so few English speaking audience members, there is very little information in English about them.
After I moved out of the dorms, I ended up living with a bass player. He had a band, and a few weeks after living here, he was playing a show and invited me and my other roommate along.