The Joy of Video: The Circular Mosh from Rising Sun

Just tonight I was having a video chat - or "vat" (trust me, it's what all the kids are calling it) - with my father. The other day I was involved in a bewildering 5-way skype chat. And now, here I am posting a video, which I took with my camera, online in my blog.

My point, as always is... no jetpacks? Still? What the hell, Technology? Not even a killer robot dinosaur? Sometimes I wonder where your priorities are.

At Rising Sun I was walking past the Green Oasis stage while the trashy skate-punk band Razor's Edge were playing. Lots of "kids" in attendance, and for a minute I thought there was a frenetic-as-hell moshpit going on in the middle of the crowd. I was kinda right, see if you can see what they're doing here:

They're running very fast in a well defined circle in the middle of the crowd. What the hell? Was this organised by the band or is this standard teen-punk practice in Japan? Either way, I suppose it consitutes a kind of choreography.

Rising Sun Rock Festival 2009 in EZO

Bang! Take that Ishikari!

For the second year in a row I attended the mighty Rising Sun Rock Festival in EZO (ezo is of course the old name for Hokkaido but you knew that, right?) and for the second year in a row it was awesome. Rising Sun is only Japanese artists, as opposed to the big festivals on the main island which feature really huge international artists that force the Japanese bands to play second fiddle. There are advantages and disadvantages, but since I like a lot of Japanese music, it's great for me.

Last year's festival was fun but trying. We put up with torrential rain followed by scorching heat but it was made worth it by the interstellar line-up (if you like Japanese music that is) and generally great atmosphere. This year the weather was just peachy, not too hot and not too cold for the most part, and although the line-up wasn't all that amazing there was still plenty of awesome acts to slake my musical thirst. In fact, I kind of enjoyed not having someone to see every hour. It meant I could spend time just chilling out and even taking naps instead of running around like a crazy person trying to fit everyone in.

My hypothesis was that last year was the 10th anniversary so they just burnt the trust fund and stacked the bill as much as they could. This year therefore, spending was more frugal with the superstars mostly veterans (and often tucked away from the main stage oddly enough) and probably less choice overall. Certainly the electronic and hip-hop bills were a shade of last year's (if there was any hip-hop at all that is) so I felt sorry for Olivia who ate that up last time.

The atmosphere was great again, and the organisation (getting there and getting in) seemed to be way better. We were better prepared too, and since I booked a camping space right at the start we were pretty centrally located. And again - the toilets. I'll reiterate that when you think about it squat portaloos are a lot better than sitting portaloos, and the toilets at Rising Sun never ran out of paper. Incredible.

Another head scratcher this year was that all the food I had was really good. Y'know, for festival food. I don't know what was up with that, but I'm pretty happy about it. Smokers were well provided for with a glittering smoking oasis and cigarette girls in silver hot pants; the merch line was a trek in itself; people were getting very silly trying to collect all the 1" pin badges; and I didn't try out the karaoke stage, but I saw a couple of awesome performances there. Oh and this year I got a free towel from docomo so that I could wear a towel around my neck like 90% of the people there do: to block the sun, or to mop up sweat, or to fashion a tourniquet for any serious wounds.

I had a good festival, and here's what I saw:


Polysics were just as incredible as I hoped they would be. They weren't in the orange jumpsuits, it was even better than that. They were dressed in airline uniforms as pilots and cabin crew, and they put on a fantastic performance, especially their emotionless keyboard player and the guitarist who must have gone beyond the point of exhaustion he was running around so much.

I saw a little bit of HiGE and felt like I'd been sucked back in time to a Pop Will Eat Itself Concert or something. There was a drum machine, one guy with dreadlocks, one guy shouting through a megaphone and some catchy hard rock guitar. That was just the intro though and after that it settled a little into pretty catchy early nineties rock. I'll have to check them out a bit more, because the only thing I have of theirs is a one track experimental album that hardly sounds representative now.

Guitar Wolf were incredible. I mean, they're Guitar Wolf for crying out loud, I'd heard so much about how good they were live that I kind of expected to be let down a little. But ohhhh no, they were amazing. I think most of my ear damage for the weekend was done here, and there was an awesome extended "Kick Out The Jams" (I think, I couldn't be sure) where Guitar Wolf dragged a guy out of the crowd, onto the stage, gave him his guitar and pick in fake slo-mo and had that guy just pound the shit out of his guitar and go crazy. At the end of the set Guitar Wolf was on the barricades hanging into the crowd and drooling spit and snot all over people. Incredible.


I loved Capsule too. Yasutaka Nakata is kind of a music genius. His electronic music is so damn dense and satisfying and the singer looked so stylish and completely out of place at some dirty rock festival. Her dress was hypnotic too - it was very billowy and flouncy and seemed to move completely independently of her body. However by 1am on Friday night I was sorely flagging and Capsule were relentless - they would not stop their electro-pop onslaught! It was kind of like being force fed ice-cream for just a little too long. Only a little too long mind you.


On Saturday we kicked off with Beat Crusaders who have grown on me more and more since I devoted a couple of posts to them a while back. I like a lot of their songs now so I really enjoyed their set, and I loved the fact that their lead guitarist was dressed exactly like Eddie Van Halen. He introduced himself as Eddie Van Halen to a bemused reaction from the crowd and was immediately taunted by the lead singer.

The singer from Dragon Ash looks so manly, but the two dancers that they had were... somewhat less so. I only watched a couple of songs of theirs and to be honest, that was probably a couple too many.

Mi-Gu probably drew the smallest crowd I saw, but they (she? I'm not sure if it's the name of the band or her stage name) were (was?) awesome. Really fun, interesting electronic / space / indie / something.

I sacficed Sakanaction, who I really like, to see Midori who were just jazz/punk/noise madness. The keyboard player could not sit still, to the extent where sometimes he was just getting up and walking in a circle around his keyboard, and the singer climbed up the metal lighting frame at the side of the stage and jumped backwards into the audience. This is where the rest of my hearing damage came from.

Shibusashirazu Orchestra were my find of the festival. They're apparently a free-jazz group, but it sounded more like rock-opera to me and I was slowly drawn towards the stage as soon as they started warming up. Let's see they had live painting, three separate sets of dancers, three different vocalists and three or four guitarists along with a central orchestra of horns and strings and live painting and weird video art and fire breathing and someone using a circular saw to grind sparks into the air and the coolest goddamn conductor in the world. And it sounded good.

Eastern Youth were one of the first Japanese rock bands I heard, so I thought I should see them even though I'm never sure if I really like them or not. I had a nap that was so deep it would be better described as a one hour coma, and coming out of this stupor exactly when they started I lurched zombie like towards the tent they were playing and was really impressed. They played one of the few songs of theirs that I've listened to over and over again and a bunch of stuff I didn't know but which sounded great. I'm going to listen to more of their stuff now I reckon.

Finally I saw Mass of the Fermenting Dregs, who I looooove play the last slot on the Green Oasis stage. They're a really fantastic rock band who just seem to be enjoying the hell out of every moment and they're awesome and I want them to be really famous. I wish they'd been closing out the festival rather than The Pillows who played the final performance and who suck. Oh boy do they suck. I've always been ambivalent towards the Pillows, but after seeing them play properly now - they really suck.


But the festival didn't suck. It's the best festival I've been to IN THE WORLD (counting Glastonbury, which I attended the year a hundred thousand people jumped the fences, and which I'm sure is much better now, but at that time I described as "the worst place I'd ever been to") and god knows what'll be happening next year but I hope I can go again.

EZO or DIE!

The Cheeseman Cometh

Ah, the joyful narcisism of posting a picture of yourself two days running! Here I am, striking the pose of a traditional "Cheeseman" of Hokkaido while we were at Furano Cheese Factory during a trip that Yuki and I took to "slightly east of Sapporo".


Again, shut up. That is the pose of a traditional cheeseman, pausing to reflect on the wonder of cheese and with what it is best to eat cheese. Should the cheese be chosen to match the wine, or the wine the cheese? What's with people who don't like cheese and apple together? And cetera, and cetera.

You see, thanks to the magic of the internet although the posts have been ticking along in a way, I've been out of town for a few days soaking up the sun in the (already dead) lavender fields of central Hokkaido. Posts forthcoming on this subject include "Furano and Biei"; "Yubari - Checking for Signs of Life" (sorry Yubari); and possibly something about the resort hotel where we stayed.

But tomorrow I'm off again, and this time I haven't got anything down to keep the blog going! So there'll be radio silence, but when I come back I'll be able to add Rising Sun Rock 2009 in EZO to my blog backlog. See you the other side of the weekend, and while I'm gone be sure to have some sour cheese and sweet apple for me won't you.

Rising Sun Rock Festival Tickets and Pouches!

As if summoned by my Rising Sun music post, this lot arrived this weekend:


Tickets and campsite reservation and free bonus pouches for everyone! These little pouches may look... um... utterly useless, but they're the height of fashion for indie kids in Japan. I saw people wearing these things from last years festival at a gig last month, and this year's grey and pink is a bold step away from last year's functional black and white. Actually considering pockets are for suckers, I'm sure I'll enjoy using one of these this year, although while cute, Japanese indie chicks can sling them over their shoulders like a purse, the cord length looks like it'll do nothing but dig into my armpit.

More Rising Sun Rock on 8tracks

Wow! Less than two months until Rising Sun Rock in EZO 2009 (to give it what I believe might be it's full name). Better get on with posting some more music by the artists playing there.

I already posted 8 assorted tracks (on the appropriately titled and wonderfully useful 8tracks) for you're listening pleasure, but in case you skipped lunch that day here that business is again:



That's got Polysics, Sakanaction, Chara, Beat Crusaders, Soil and "Pimp" Sessions, Eastern Youth, HiGE and 9mm Parabellum Bullet. The theme is that they're all playing at - I'M KIDDING! I already covered that didn't I.

Here's part two:



This time featuring Guitar Wolf, Mass of the Fermenting Dregs, capsule, Yoshinori Sunahara, Ohashi Trio, Midori, The Pillows and Flower Travellin' Band.

Y'know I'm not gonna say anything about those folks, I'm just gonna let you listen for yourself. It's more... pure that way. Oh by the way, if you're a last.fm user you can sign up for 8tracks and last.fm will scrobble your 8tracks listening, which is GENIUS.

Incedentally, just heard the new Black Eyed Peas song. Is it just me, or was there a time when they weren't the worst band in the world? Because now, I'm pretty sure they are. And it was really surprising for me because I was watching the video thinking - "I like this modern 808 bullshit, I love glitches in pop, I don't get pissed off by vocal manipulation anymore, I don't mind dumb lyrics or trying-to-be-cool electronic minimalism in mainstream pop, and yet this track - this song - which seems to be composed of things I usually quite like, is a hideous travesty of pop music, such that I may have to take a bathroom break the next time anyone punches in Black Eyed Peas at karaoke."

J-Pop: Chara

Chara is playing at Rising Sun this year. She's married to Tadanobu Asano, who I like, and this song is the one that's made me happiest in the past few hours.

Ergo I post. Those chords at the start of the chorus are sublime.

Rising Sun Rock Festival 2009 in EZO... pre-game!

Last year I was all flipping out about some of the bands playing at Rising Sun Rock, the big music festival that's held half an hour from where I live, and where I'm going again in August. But since it only features Japanese artists some of the Western folks weren't so up on the line-up, so I decided to try and help a bit this year.

And since I've started using 8tracks... hmmm, that's a nice bit of serendipity. So here are 8 of the artists that'll be appearing at this year's Rising Sun Rock Festival 2009 in EZO. I don't vouch for or endorse all of these (although some of them are fuckin' awesome) but it's a taster, and I'll try and keep adding mixes as I get hold of music and they add more artists.



Man, not camping outside the goddamn festival is gonna rock so hard.

V∞redoms

So I mentioned that I saw the V∞redoms (thank god for the copy & paste function that frees me from finding out how to type that infinity sign) at Rising Sun Rock. And I mentioned they were awesome, but here's a little more. They played first on the dance stage on Saturday, for 20 minutes longer than almost everyone else that weekend. They had four drummers with full kits (including Yoshimi P-We), Yamantaka Eye and another dude helping out on guitar, electronics and tuning Eye's farcical seven necked guitar.

Yes, the seven necked guitar, according to wikipedia called the "Sevener". Sadly I couldn't find any good photos of it online, but luckily I found a video from Portland this year. When I saw them setting up I thought: "Whoah, that things huge, he's going to need a stepladder to play it." Of course he didn't, because he just hit the thing with sticks:

It's like he thought "guitars sound great, but I just like hitting drums so much... wait a second..." Obviously beating on it with sticks tends to knock it out of tune, so for a while the other guy's job was to retune it. The sun was searing too, so Eye was wearing a huge farmer's hat too, that added to the whole... insanity of it. Seeing them was very special for me since I've wanted to see the Boredoms/V∞redoms for years now, and they actually played Birmingham, my hometown, about a month after I left for Japan. That's kinda annoying to be honest, so now I feel like the world's been set to rights a little.

Rising Sun Rock Festival 2008 in EZO

So hey! I went to an honest to god camping Rock Festival!


The last full on camping rock festival I attended was Glastonbury, many years ago, the year that David Bowie played and as many people jumped the fences as paid to get in. I still hold the opinion that while the music was wonderful, that was the worst place I have ever been in my life, so I kinda doubted I'd ever attend one of these things again. However, this is Japan, so while there are a number of things that you'll never be able to get away from at festivals (too much walking, crowds, unhealthy food, bad weather, camping etc.) it was wonderful really. The campsite was fairly quiet at night, which was symptomatic of a wider civility that the Japanese bring to rock festivals - i.e. don't act like a cock to other people. Crime never seemed to be an issue. The toilets never ran out of toilet paper. Seriously, the whole weekend... that's incredible. And although you did have to cope with using the Japanese squat versions of portaloos - think about it and that's actually cleaner and more hygenic than seated western style toilets. Do you see? I can draw you a diagram if you want.


The weather was pretty hard to stick. When we arrived it was raining, and it only got heavier while we were trekking around looking for our campsite and setting up our comically tiny tent (we had to buy one the night before as it turned out we couldn't borrow the one we thought we could). The sky for the whole first day was a dark grey ceiling that made the whole thing feel like an indoor event. The second day was glorious sunshine and inevitable sunburn.

The festival is a two day event, but the second day runs until 5 in the morning so that you can see the sun come up. This meant that at 4.30 in the morning the headliners Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra hit the main stage in gleaming silver suits and while there were still plenty of people packing out the main standing area and going crazy, there were many people lurching around like slack-jawed zombies and praying for the first shuttle bus home.


There were lots of fun Japanese festival things like a small karaoke stage, a weirdly spectacular smoking area, an endless merch stand with a section for every artist, and collectable pin badges. This last thing was pretty interesting, there was a big row of gatcha-gatcha (bubble) machines, selling random 1" pins for 100 yen each. Every artist had a pin plus the festival had a bunch too, and collecting them all was quite a task so next to the machines was a whole tent for trading the badges, and people were taking it very seriously. As someone pointed out, it's pretty much rock-fest-pokemon.


The music was incredible too. I was pretty much desperate to go just to see Tokyo Jihen, Shiina Ringo and Zazen Boys and none of them let me down. I didn't bother taking snaps of them playing, they wouldn't have come out and they wouldn't have captured how great those artists were. Tokyo Jihen performed in robes while Ringo wore a kimono with the Tokyo Jihen logo and sang through a megaphone. The musicians were phenomenal and Ringo's extremely restrained, stylised performance was great. For her solo performance the next day she reworked some of her biggest songs for piano and string quartet, everyone dressed like doctors, and it was also great. Zazen Boys however... holy crap. I'm not too sure about their last single (their new album is out next month) so I wasn't sure what to expect, but they absolutely blew me away. Tighter than the tightest thing you can think of, their songs "Stop & Go" - as their singer joked - with brutal, thrilling intensity. A lot of Japanese rock music is in debt to western music to a large degree but Mukai, their leader, has carved out something unique and to me they have to be one of the best rock bands in the world. Yuki also became their new no. 1 fan too, that's how good they were.

Buffalo Daughter, in the lovely Crystal Palace building, were incredible too. Bloodthirsty Butchers despite the awesome, screaming guitar of Hisako from Number Girl, only reinforced my opinion of them as "pretty good". DJ Krush was incredible. The Vooredoms (Boredoms, whatever) were amazing. Mr. Children... kinda sucked.

And of course, it was a rock festival, so there was lots of hanging out with good people too, and sitting on the grass, and dozing in the shade. It was really a pretty great way to end my holiday.

My flickr set is here, for a lot more of the experience!