Music in Japan (part 1)

Several years ago, I was wandering around San Francisco with my girlfriend at the time, and we stumbled upon a music video demo machine from Japan. There was a little menu and you could choose which video you wanted to watch. My girlfriend at the time saw a cute music video and liked it. While it was quite cheezy and bad, I was amazed at the production quality of it all.
Later on, I was visiting Japantown and on a fluke, I saw the CD with that song on it so I picked it up. The whole album was pretty lame pop, but the over-the-top production quality really drew me in.
Later on, a friend and I started to research Japanese music. It was kind of a game to see who could find out most information. This lead me to some terrible Japanese bands. What kept us going is both our love of really stupid music videos and the occasional good band that would slip out. Also, I felt the American music scene was becoming somewhat of a bland wasteland of generic songs by boring singers. Even though a lot of the Japanese music was bad, it was at least interesting and different.
After a while, my friend hit the jackpot. He stumbled upon an English speaking community based upon sharing Japanese music and videos. We went almost overnight from trying to get anything we could to having our choice of DVD-quality music videos right at our fingertips. Besides the quality difference between the previous stuff we could get recorded off of TV, the selection was amazing. This added much fuel to the all-raging fire of interest I had towards modern Japanese music.

Artist Statement

Of the many reasons I came to Japan, one was because of Japanese music. A few years back, I recall listening to a modern Japanese rock CD and being quite blown away. Everything seemed much more creative, interesting, and original than anything found in the mainstream American world. Even Japanese pop, while often times generic fluff or outright bad, is generally produced far better than American pop.
Shortly after I came to Tokyo, I became friends with a small-scale local band. Over the last six months, I have been to the majority of their shows and have hung out with them for hours afterwards. Despite the obvious communications problems, as their poor English is much better than my very poor Japanese, we have become friends and always look forward to seeing eachother.
Being in a band before in America and helping friends in other bands extensively, I understand what it's like to play shows, practice, record, and live the life of an independent musician in a country where everyone has their own equipment, a place to practice, and a vehicle to haul gear around with. In Japan, but especially Tokyo, I'm learning that the situation is quite different. It is my intent to follow this band around and create a mini documentary about their lives and how they preform in the city. Hopefully their experiences and music can create a snapshot of a band in the largest metropolis in the world.

Three day project 3

On the third day of my project, it was a weekday afternoon and slightly raining. Unlike the other two times, the park was almost completely deserted. I was hoping to talk to someone, however most people didn't seem interested in talking or didn't know English. There was an old man who was practicing sword-fighting with an umbrella.

I did get a chance to walk around the track a few times It was quiet and relaxing. I took some pictures from inside the loop.


I took a close up of the "Dogs must be kept on leashes" sign. I liked how the leash was looped around the circle and slash, yet everything else was in front of it.


It was almost a different place from the original site I had visited over the weekend, as it was empty and practically deserted. It was interesting how thick the grass was in the center, something I didn't notice from afar.

Three day project 2

On the second day of my three day project, I revisited Inokashira park's running track on a weekday after 5.  Unlike the first day, there were a lot fewer runners, but there were a ton of people with dogs.  The atmosphere was very relaxed and people were just enjoying themselves.

 

Three day project 1.

For my three day project, I decided to go to Inokashira park.  This park is near my house and normally, when I get free time, I go to the lake by Kichijoji station.  There is another part of the park where there is a big track for running that I rarely ever visit.  For this project, I thought I would explore this area.

On my first day, it was a sunny weekend and I saw all sorts of people running around the track and just relaxing in the middle.  There was a large group of high school aged kids playing games and after a while, a baseball team appeared and started just doing stretches and hanging out.

What really struck me was the rage of ages of people running around.  There were old and young people, men and women, some dressed in full running gear and some dressed in just shorts and t-shirts.

3 ideas/dead internet.

For some reason, my internet has been completely dead for the last 3 days. I sent my company an email, but there hasn't been a response yet. I can leech from a local unsecured wireless, but the connection is quite unreliable and incredibly slow. Uploading pictures for my 3 day assignment is not possible and taking the video I shot and putting it online is unthinkable.

I have three ideas for my final project. First, and most likely the one I'm going to work on, is mainly about independent bands in Tokyo, and specifically about a band that I have become friends with. I know a lot about shows and bands in America, but in Japan and especially Tokyo, it seems to be a whole different story. I would like to follow the members of a band around and find out how and where they practice, record, set up shows, etc. I spoke with the members of this band on Tuesday and the drummer/singer and guitar player were very happy with the idea, but the bass player was skeptical. She finally agreed, but didn't seen excited. Of the three, she is the one who speaks English the best, as the other two really don't speak any English at all. Communicating with them is always a fun challenge for me, but for this project, I might need some outside help.

The second idea for a project is based on an English cafe I started working at. It's a conversational cafe where people come in and pay to hang out and speak in English. Apparently some people have been going there for over twenty years. The owner/manager seems friendly enough, but I'm just curious on the cafe's history and outlook for the future.

My third idea is the yakitori stand across the street from me. My neighborhood is for the most part, quite modern. There are very few old buildings and one of them contains an aging yakitori stand. From what I have seen, they get enough foot traffic to keep them in business but I'm not sure for how long. With a supermarket selling yakitori next door and a convenience store down the street that also sells yakitori 24 hours a day along with a really nice place inside my train station that opened at the beginning of the year, the dedicated yakitori stand seems very dated. Also, the building itself is quite run down and I just wonder how they can survive in today's world.

Of the three, I'm pretty sure I'm doing #1, but I am interested in the other two.

Hopefully if I'm lucky, I'll be able to post this. When my internet comes back to life, or Tuesday at the latest, I'll post my 3 day project.

First post.

Welcome.  This is the site where I will be posting for my Tokyo Stories class.  I also have a personal blog, which can be viewed by looking at my profile.

Our first assignment is to spend an hour or so at a location for 3 days.  I'm planning on going to Inokashira park, as it's close to my house and a nice place.  I'm quite familiar with the park near the station area with the lake, but I would like to go to the area of the park with the running track as I've only been there a few times and never spent more than a couple minutes at this location.

It will be interesting to see what happens.