Well folks, utterly EPIC weekend. And I don’t throw that word around lightly. One for the ages, one reminiscent of the Bangkok days. Let’s get right into it.
Started off Thursday, actually. Me and Cowboy Rob Pinckney took our guitars up to local ex-pat watering hole TK6 for a short-notice set. The place was packed, people weren’t listening too much, but we steamrolled through some of my originals, some of his Johnny, Willie, and CCR covers, we did Brown Eyed Girl, and ended up with a half-assed version of Hotel California. I actually suggested we play Tequila Sunrise, but he was well into the intro before I got around to telling him it was the wrong song, and by then it was too late.
So I told myself that after the set, I’d have two beers, and then head home, as Saturday was the monthly Dead Rock Stars event (http://www.myspace.com/deadrockstarssapporo), an evening of five local bands organized by the gentleman spies. Jon and Andy of the spies asked me to do a couple solo acoustic sets between bands. It’s kind of a big thing in town, so I didn’t want to get too messed up Thursday night and lose my voice.
Movie cut: me banging along on the bartop at 3:30 AM as American Andrew blasts his iPod through the TK6 sound system rocking everything from Ray Charles to Zep to GN’f-in’R. Awesome night. Salsa dancing with this American girl who claimed to be a lesbian but I have my doubts. I ran screaming before I did anything remotely unfaithful to my special lady friend. Just throwing that out there. I am many things, but adulterous is not one of them.
At any rate. Slept in Friday, regrouped, hydrated, had an early one, home before 2:00.
A couple of the boys from my former place of employment, Hokkaido Outdoor Adventures (aka HOA) (http://www.rafting-hoa.co.jp/) were coming into town for the Dead Rock Stars and for the international party at a club called Mole later on. We started off with a few afternoon lukewarm ones at the beer garden in the park in the middle of town (more on that later, as well) before heading over to club 810 for the music.
First band was ok, my first set was ok. Video footage pending, perhaps.
The next act was an all girl band. Right away you could tell they were something special. HOA boy Jesse fell instantly in love with the drummer, HOA boy Jarad chose the guitar player. The singer was a chubby little thing in quasi Gothic Lolita attire, couldn’t have been more than four foot ten, but man did she hold the stage. Then on the last song, the guitar player, a hot little thing with perfectly straight, soft, smooth black hair flying everywhere, was rolling around on the floor Hendrix style, wailing, soloing, and doing a damn good job of it musically. I turned to Montana Jon, who was smoking a cigarette watching with a smile on his face waiting patiently to take the stage next, and said to him, “You have many things in your band, but what you do not have is hot Japanese girls rolling around on the floor playing lead guitar.”
The spies were good. Jon and Andy are both up around 6’5”, and their music is as towering as their stature. They went through a slick set of what Jarad referred to as “dirty rock”, closing with the ever-rousing “Conoleeza’s Rice”. Jon’s vocals are a little muffled on their myspace page, but check out the lyrics on all four songs (http://www.myspace.com/thegentlemanspies). There’s some good writin’ in there.
For my second set, spies drummer Makoto pulled up a tom-tom and played along with me. As the next band set up and I was tuning up behind the screen, I ran through the chords and changes and rhythms of the three songs I would play. Makoto and I had only met once before, and had never jammed. But man did he rock it. He was right there with me, picking up steam as we went. I was a little drunker, the crowd was a little drunker, when I got to the second half of my politically-charged “Miss America”, the sweat was pouring off of me and I was in the zone. People responded. Closed with “She’s So Lovely”, a song that is becoming so popular that it is asked for by name almost every time I pick up a guitar. My special lady friend, who put the “lovely” in “She’s So Lovely”, was almost as much in the spotlight as me. Great fun, great set.
The next band up was fronted by a heavyset Japanese dude with sweaty, straggly hair and big fuck-off pork chop sideburns. They were good, but, in retrospect, they were just a prelude to the final act.
I don’t know if I could quite describe these guys without accompanying video footage. When they opened, their lead singer, a five foot two, 110 pound Japanese guy in skintight red pants and a skintight red top with a butterfly collar, came out on stage and stood there smoking a cigarette, just staring at everybody. It was exciting. Cool, funny. Girl drummer, guys on bass and guitar.
Maybe we should skip to the last song. Red dude in the corner behind the amps screaming unintelligibly into the mic. Drummer holding steady. Bass player CROWD SURFING on the shoulders of two of the probably less than 50 people in the place. Guitar player has his axe laid across the metal bars in front of the stage, strings down, feedback screaming, and, in a very realistic fashion, making humping motions using the instrument as an extended phallus.
The place was electrified. All the way through, musically, they were absolutely tight, but loose and creative and jamming all at the same time. They did all originals, I think, but their sound ranged from power punk to modern rock to 60’s pop and everything in between. People in the crowd were screaming, jumping up and down, hugging each other. Cowboy Rob was just as into it as the little goth chick in the corner. The bass player was in a white suit with a floral button-down shirt. He would occasionally come to the front of the stage, stare directly into the lights with a murderously serious expression on his face, hold the beat with one hand, and open the jacket to reveal a mismatched floral pattern on the inside lining. He did it three or four times, and every time he did it, the place, inexplicably, erupted. The singer at one point went flat as a board and fell straight back, knocking over the guitar player and banging both of their heads into the PA. I swear people were comparing them to The Doors.
So they finally all threw down their instruments, and the three guys did this little quasi a capella thing at the end while the drummer kept a beat, and then they threw the microphones down and let feedback ring for a full minute or two before the sound guys cut the power.
Host Jon, ever gracious and humble, hopped up on stage, picked the mic off the floor, and delivered the only line that could have come after such a performance.
“People wonder why we don’t headline our own shows.”
You know, I was going to continue on with a recount of the events of the rave party we went to afterwards, and then of drinking at Rad Brother’s, Sapporo’s resident dirty foreigner bar, until 7:00 AM, and then getting up at 11:00 and going directly to the beer gardens for another 10 hour drinking session, but most of you have probably if not participated in such debauchery, heard stories about it. You didn’t even have to live in Bangkok.
I was also going to make some point about music being one of the two international languages that everyone can understand, but it’s Tuesday morning 9:30 AM, and I’m still sort of too hungover to think properly. But there is a point in there. I could understand very little of what little red dude in that closing band was saying, but it was just as powerful and moving as any set I’ve ever seen. Conversely, quite a few Japanese people were dancing along to my upbeat acoustic numbers and to the gentleman spies’ set, and both my music and theirs is very lyric-oriented and therefore would be almost unintelligible to even the sharpest of Japanese English speakers.
But, like I said, I’m just too hungover. I guess that’s what being 32 is all about. Two-day hangovers.
The other most effective international language, in my personal experience, and since you asked, is sports. Maybe more on that next time.
Started off Thursday, actually. Me and Cowboy Rob Pinckney took our guitars up to local ex-pat watering hole TK6 for a short-notice set. The place was packed, people weren’t listening too much, but we steamrolled through some of my originals, some of his Johnny, Willie, and CCR covers, we did Brown Eyed Girl, and ended up with a half-assed version of Hotel California. I actually suggested we play Tequila Sunrise, but he was well into the intro before I got around to telling him it was the wrong song, and by then it was too late.
So I told myself that after the set, I’d have two beers, and then head home, as Saturday was the monthly Dead Rock Stars event (http://www.myspace.com/deadrockstarssapporo), an evening of five local bands organized by the gentleman spies. Jon and Andy of the spies asked me to do a couple solo acoustic sets between bands. It’s kind of a big thing in town, so I didn’t want to get too messed up Thursday night and lose my voice.
Movie cut: me banging along on the bartop at 3:30 AM as American Andrew blasts his iPod through the TK6 sound system rocking everything from Ray Charles to Zep to GN’f-in’R. Awesome night. Salsa dancing with this American girl who claimed to be a lesbian but I have my doubts. I ran screaming before I did anything remotely unfaithful to my special lady friend. Just throwing that out there. I am many things, but adulterous is not one of them.
At any rate. Slept in Friday, regrouped, hydrated, had an early one, home before 2:00.
A couple of the boys from my former place of employment, Hokkaido Outdoor Adventures (aka HOA) (http://www.rafting-hoa.co.jp/) were coming into town for the Dead Rock Stars and for the international party at a club called Mole later on. We started off with a few afternoon lukewarm ones at the beer garden in the park in the middle of town (more on that later, as well) before heading over to club 810 for the music.
First band was ok, my first set was ok. Video footage pending, perhaps.
The next act was an all girl band. Right away you could tell they were something special. HOA boy Jesse fell instantly in love with the drummer, HOA boy Jarad chose the guitar player. The singer was a chubby little thing in quasi Gothic Lolita attire, couldn’t have been more than four foot ten, but man did she hold the stage. Then on the last song, the guitar player, a hot little thing with perfectly straight, soft, smooth black hair flying everywhere, was rolling around on the floor Hendrix style, wailing, soloing, and doing a damn good job of it musically. I turned to Montana Jon, who was smoking a cigarette watching with a smile on his face waiting patiently to take the stage next, and said to him, “You have many things in your band, but what you do not have is hot Japanese girls rolling around on the floor playing lead guitar.”
The spies were good. Jon and Andy are both up around 6’5”, and their music is as towering as their stature. They went through a slick set of what Jarad referred to as “dirty rock”, closing with the ever-rousing “Conoleeza’s Rice”. Jon’s vocals are a little muffled on their myspace page, but check out the lyrics on all four songs (http://www.myspace.com/thegentlemanspies). There’s some good writin’ in there.
For my second set, spies drummer Makoto pulled up a tom-tom and played along with me. As the next band set up and I was tuning up behind the screen, I ran through the chords and changes and rhythms of the three songs I would play. Makoto and I had only met once before, and had never jammed. But man did he rock it. He was right there with me, picking up steam as we went. I was a little drunker, the crowd was a little drunker, when I got to the second half of my politically-charged “Miss America”, the sweat was pouring off of me and I was in the zone. People responded. Closed with “She’s So Lovely”, a song that is becoming so popular that it is asked for by name almost every time I pick up a guitar. My special lady friend, who put the “lovely” in “She’s So Lovely”, was almost as much in the spotlight as me. Great fun, great set.
The next band up was fronted by a heavyset Japanese dude with sweaty, straggly hair and big fuck-off pork chop sideburns. They were good, but, in retrospect, they were just a prelude to the final act.
I don’t know if I could quite describe these guys without accompanying video footage. When they opened, their lead singer, a five foot two, 110 pound Japanese guy in skintight red pants and a skintight red top with a butterfly collar, came out on stage and stood there smoking a cigarette, just staring at everybody. It was exciting. Cool, funny. Girl drummer, guys on bass and guitar.
Maybe we should skip to the last song. Red dude in the corner behind the amps screaming unintelligibly into the mic. Drummer holding steady. Bass player CROWD SURFING on the shoulders of two of the probably less than 50 people in the place. Guitar player has his axe laid across the metal bars in front of the stage, strings down, feedback screaming, and, in a very realistic fashion, making humping motions using the instrument as an extended phallus.
The place was electrified. All the way through, musically, they were absolutely tight, but loose and creative and jamming all at the same time. They did all originals, I think, but their sound ranged from power punk to modern rock to 60’s pop and everything in between. People in the crowd were screaming, jumping up and down, hugging each other. Cowboy Rob was just as into it as the little goth chick in the corner. The bass player was in a white suit with a floral button-down shirt. He would occasionally come to the front of the stage, stare directly into the lights with a murderously serious expression on his face, hold the beat with one hand, and open the jacket to reveal a mismatched floral pattern on the inside lining. He did it three or four times, and every time he did it, the place, inexplicably, erupted. The singer at one point went flat as a board and fell straight back, knocking over the guitar player and banging both of their heads into the PA. I swear people were comparing them to The Doors.
So they finally all threw down their instruments, and the three guys did this little quasi a capella thing at the end while the drummer kept a beat, and then they threw the microphones down and let feedback ring for a full minute or two before the sound guys cut the power.
Host Jon, ever gracious and humble, hopped up on stage, picked the mic off the floor, and delivered the only line that could have come after such a performance.
“People wonder why we don’t headline our own shows.”
You know, I was going to continue on with a recount of the events of the rave party we went to afterwards, and then of drinking at Rad Brother’s, Sapporo’s resident dirty foreigner bar, until 7:00 AM, and then getting up at 11:00 and going directly to the beer gardens for another 10 hour drinking session, but most of you have probably if not participated in such debauchery, heard stories about it. You didn’t even have to live in Bangkok.
I was also going to make some point about music being one of the two international languages that everyone can understand, but it’s Tuesday morning 9:30 AM, and I’m still sort of too hungover to think properly. But there is a point in there. I could understand very little of what little red dude in that closing band was saying, but it was just as powerful and moving as any set I’ve ever seen. Conversely, quite a few Japanese people were dancing along to my upbeat acoustic numbers and to the gentleman spies’ set, and both my music and theirs is very lyric-oriented and therefore would be almost unintelligible to even the sharpest of Japanese English speakers.
But, like I said, I’m just too hungover. I guess that’s what being 32 is all about. Two-day hangovers.
The other most effective international language, in my personal experience, and since you asked, is sports. Maybe more on that next time.
Speaking of next time, while I appreciate Michele's thoughts on the re-hijack, like I said, I'm in no condition to address them at the moment. But the dialogue is open, let's keep it up.
Rock out with the cock out, people! You might get hit by a bus today.
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