Cafe Flying Teapot, Tokyo, 10/21/06

Well, it only took me 2 months to update this thing, but here we are in Japan. We flew in on the 19th and had a free day on the 20th in Tokyo so of course we ran around (this is Blake's first visit to Japan), hit some stores, ate, etc. My main goal was to get back to PSF/Modern Music and spend even more money and I easily accomplished this meager goal. And I did pick up some good records. Shopping aside, on to the first performance:

Like most places that I've seen, Tea Pot was a master bedroom sized venue doubling as a coffeehouse and performance space. Interestingly, it had no PA so one was procured for us. The place itself had a quaint charm to it, the typical long bar counter, various teapots, cups and coffee paraphernalia behind the counter. But much of the place was rather empty; not much on the walls or even on the shelves. One corner had piles and piles of manga, assorted books and magazines along with a PC.

The PA was waiting for us so we crammed into a corner on several tables and dumped our mess of cables and electronics there. We had the bulk of the gear as the rest of the gentlemen performing that night had rather stripped down kits that only required a chair or a small table.

If any of you don't know, Japanese sound checks usually happen early to mid-afternoon. We arrived about 15:30 and set up right away. The actual performances were not starting until 19:30. We had a chance to walk around this part of town, get some yakitori and watched a few innings of the Japan series (eventually won by the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters) in front of an electronics store until the proprietor came out and silently glared at us from behind.

People started trickling in around 19:30 and by the end I'd estimate there were about 20 paying customers. Given the nature of the music, the size of the venue, the vast expanse of Tokyo and what we're used to overall as far as audience, this was pretty good.

First up was Tetsuya Miyazaki. He had a guitar using MIDI as a bridge into his PC. He started with short blasts of icy noise that progressively grew longer until shards of glass were flying into my bleeding ears. This was rather similar to what I saw from Tetsuya last year, fractured, distorted notes tending toward the higher end of the register. His set was about 10 minutes long and seemed to end abruptly. We speculated that something on his PC crashed, putting an end to his performance.

Following Tetsuya were the noise veterans Government Alpha (Yosutoshi Yoshida) and Kazumoto Endo. They had rather stripped down kits, both using Kaos pads, with Yoshida using some sort of mic-type device to generate noise and Endo using a megaphone, with a mic'ed amplifier for feedback. Inexplicably, there were two "dancers" performing with them. Now, I'm not that smart a guy to pretend to understand dance, so I'll leave that to someone who knows what the fuck they're talking about. For me, it did nothing except provide a few moments of amusement.

Yoshida was terrific, sending scalding feedback and heavily processed vocals bouncing off Endo's feedback. Honestly, I was a bit disappointed with Endo, having seen him perform before. The feedback/megaphone combination seemed a bit lazy and was rather monochromatic and unspectacular. Fortunately with Yoshida there, the combination proved effective, much like the new "Blast Furnace" cd Yoshida gave me. They went on for about 15 minutes or so before calling it quits.

Up third was Tadashi Usami. I wracked my brain trying to remember where I knew that name from, but when he arrived there I realized it was someone we had performed with last year in Tokyo. As much as I hate this term, his set is what I would call "electronica." It started with a very clipped sine acting as a rhythmic underpinning to some tones and sizzling but quiet electronic gurglings, before giving way to an almost marimba sounding set of chimes, finally segueing into chest thumping programmed beats. Not my cup of tea necessarily. One of those cases where I really like the guy but not his aesthetic choices. He studied at Mills and speaks English really well so it was good to talk to him and have a reasonably sophisticated conversation.

We were up next (LSD: Brian and I). Someone had suggested we play for about 30 minutes since everyone's set up to now was so damn short (no more than 15 minutes). Nothing unusual for us as that is a typical set for us. Given the people we were playing with, we decided to use some heavier bursts of noise but not in a sustained manner, much more chopped up, dropped out, etc.

We started with a quiet passage of some crackles and scrapings before sputtering in with some heavy, loud distorted sounds. Much of the performance vacillated between loud and quiet, using tonal methods as well as gestural interventions and more discernible sounds. Brian and I use acoustically/environmentally sourced sounds for much of our material, distorted or not to make for an interesting combination of texture and dynamics.

It worked some of the time this particular instance. Some of the changes in dynamics were too heavy handed for our liking and I would have preferred longer passages of quiet and restrained gestures. What I learned later was Brian's controller crapped out several minutes into the set so he was grappling with a partially non-functioning kit (and an admirable job doing that) that limited his range somewhat. My own complaint was the three pedals I had in my set up were really noisy and responsible for some of the "heavy handedness" that we disliked. I may have to strip it down to one pedal to cut down on the noise it produces (especially one of the "boutique" pedals I have and see if that helps). But I don't think we're going to be pushing the blistering noise much the whole tour since we tend more toward quieter, gestural sounds rather than blasts of noise. Overall, not a bad set, a pretty good warm up for the rest of the tour. And Yoshida paid us a nice compliment, saying that he thought our sounds were "intelligent."

Finally our co-conspirator Blake Edwards aka Vertonen, was up, last one on the bill. It was one of the better sets I've heard Blake do recently, a solid progression of tones, drones, and buzzes. What I liked about this set in particular was the incorporation of more textural sounds, rather than just solely tones and the variety of dynamics. Things progressed nicely until reaching a blistering peak of noise towards the end before closing with some menacing but soothing bells. The only complaint from me was his use of a looped vocal sample in the middle of the set that seemed to almost separate the performance into 2 pieces. I think if the sample was buried under the noise somewhere it would have been much more interesting, but the fact that it stood out so starkly, was so obviously looped and had a faux-menacing vibe about kind of killed that particular part of the set. But that was a minor hiccup in an overall strong performance.

And that was that. The whole show progressed in a very businesslike fashion, no introductions, 3 minutes between each performance, and fairly quick dispersal after everything was done.

I do have to say we were disappointed (and not a little pissed about not being paid anything) for the night. With about 20 paying customers at 1500 yen a head (as well as learning that the house only charged 3000 yen for the setup), I found it difficult to believe that "they made no money." One of the Japanese boys was in charge of the door and he was the one breaking the news to us. I'm not gonna be more of a bitch and start naming names, but you know who you are. It was fucking lame, followed by an equally disappointing izakaya afterwards at which we only had about 30 minutes to inhale our food (in addition to me pounding 3 Kirin drafts) because the same dick I was bitching about took an hour after the show to get his shit together and leave the space.

Despite the somewhat sour note the evening ended on, we had a pretty good time and I'm looking forward to the next evening's show at Loop-Line.