Iwaki Music

I managed to finish half of what I wanted to accomplish today. I did a major overhaul of my apartment to get everything cleaned up. I bought a few dishes, guitar strings, bus tickets for next week’s trip to Aizu, and acquired a library card. I spent most of my day with a buddy who speaks very good Japanese, so it made buying bus tickets and getting a library card quite easy. I was secretly hoping that I would have to go to the bus station on my own to challenge my Japanese abilities, but at least now I know that I have the right tickets and when to catch my bus.

We went to a guitar shop to buy a case for a guitar that he recently bought. I noticed quite a while ago that my buddy had long fingernails on his right hand. Several years ago, I would have figured that this guy was either into drugs or was a bit dandy. Since I started playing guitar, I’ve learned that people with long nails on their right hand are usually classical guitar players. I’ve never met someone my age who’s been into classical guitar seriously enough to grow their fingers long, file them into proper plucking form, and use glossy nail hardener to keep them from chipping. I don’t think he uses the hardener anymore because he is a bit out of practice, but he was still able to rip up a few pieces in the store. I wish I could play like that.

In the store we also met a couple of young guys who were dressed like musicians. The one guy looked like he was about eighteen, wore a blazer over an Oasis t-shirt and had his hair down over his eyes. He came over and started talking to us, which when he realized how terrible my Japanese was, he mostly talked with my friend. He told us to come to his show that he was opening tonight at a club called the Sonic. He even said that he’d put us on the guest list.

I had heard of the Sonic as a place for live music and had ridden by it on my bike a couple weeks before. It looked dark and seedy – a place for my kind of music. The walls were painted black and had event posters tacked all over. Weak fluorescent lights and a few hanging light fixtures definitely added to the seedy atmosphere. The walls and floors were scuffed up as if, over the years, a lot of musical equipment had banged in and out of the place. People are still allowed to smoke inside bars and restaurants in Japan, and there was a constant haze that hung up around the lights. I noticed we turned a few heads being the only two gaijin in the building.

We got our tickets and entered a sort of pre-show room, where bands hawk their wares. T-shirts hung on wire stands; CDs and posters strewn about tables; profanity scribed across all of the walls. The place smelled more like rock and roll the deeper we went.

The next door took us into the show room. The place was tiny, but it was lit up for a rock show and the music was loud. There were only about 40-50 people in the room, but because it was so small, it felt crowded. The guy we met at the music shop was playing, and he ripped it up pretty good. He played a real dark and heavy sort of Oasis style of music. He had told us that he was really into British rock. We arrived midway through a song in the middle of their set and they were playing a heavy grungy song. I think both our eyes went a little wide at first and we each had a shit-eaters grin on our faces throughout. The front man probably weighed about 90 lbs, but he was throwing his body around and wailing away on the microphone while he thrashed his guitar, building to a climactic finish, where afterwards, the crowd… clapped politely. My friend called it the kind of applause that you would see at a golf tournament, and it was pretty standard for each song that all the bands played – very odd and out of place compared to what we were used to at a rock show. During the songs, some of the crowd would get right into the music – I almost had to dodge a few roundhouse kicks from the front. The screamo singer would especially get the crowd going as he’d walk into the audience. But between songs, he was the nicest gentlemen while he announced their next shows – very soft spoken and polite.

We watched three bands before leaving for another engagement. All three bands were great. The second band was a screamo band and the third played sort of a Franz Ferdinand, almost Kings of Leon style. I got to see big Marshal stacks, Gibsons, an ESP, and a Telecaster with some killer guitar players behind them.

Now, sitting at home, with my ears ringing, writing this blog, picking photos to use in this post, I miss the Wail. Check out their show if you’re in Vancouver: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/event.php?eid=127594807644&ref=ts

I really wish I had my Nikon with me – and maybe a new wide angle lens of some sort, but my cybershot managed to get a few decent shots.

Festival Day at Iwaki High School

Thursdays are the day that I go to my other high school, Midori Nomordi, but they have exams today so I spent the day at my main school. Because I didn’t have any classes to teach, I left my glasses at home. I figured that I would be sitting in front of the computer screen all day doing lesson planning and hopefully studying a ton of Japanese (my studies have been pretty weak lately). It turned out to be festival day today as I learned when in the main entrance to the school, the flower arrangement club had put on a display next the photography club’s exhibition, which was next to the drawing and painting show. I soon found out that several student clubs would be putting on presentations in the gym and that we would eventually go to the city theatre to watch a play. There has been a lot to look at today and my eyes are damn sore from squinting all day.

A colleague of mine recently stated his opinion that Japan is basically a country that is devoid of any real art. His argument was that in such a repressive country as Japan, it is impossible for artists to thrive. I didn’t know what to say at the time, but after seeing the work of these young teens today, I must disagree strongly. To support his argument, my colleague mentioned the names of famous Japanese artists who had to work abroad because Japan was too much of a repressive environment for them. Maybe the art he was referring to is of a higher, more mature, more impactual art. It wouldn’t be fair me to assume his argument because it was a bit of a brief discussion, but I am inclined to believe that if Japan is in fact a repressive society (however we may want to define this), that this is in fact the ideal climate for fostering some amazing art – or at least incredible artistic ability.

I thought today was going to be fairly boring, so I considered bringing my camera to school today. I thought it might be weird for other teachers and staff to see me walking around the school taking photos while they were all hard at work, so I left it at home. Hence, I have no visual proof of these visual wonders that I am devoting this post to.

I think I’ve mentioned, or at least implied a bit about my interest in photography before. And I quite enjoyed seeing the photography club’s presentation of work. There were definitely some great photos – portraits of siblings, interesting architecture, creative use of light and shadow, some good macro. When I saw the drawing and painting exhibit, it struck how easy it is to find an interesting image, or to even consider an image interesting enough to take a photo of, only to find out later that this image was in fact amazing. Photographers really just push buttons and turn knobs. There is a significant amount of knowledge that is very useful in creating great images – and a lot of finesse in handling the camera as well, but really, when it comes down to it, we just push the button.

Compare this to the painter or the sketch artist or the sculptor, who spends hours, days, weeks, working on their masterpiece. Not only do they consider composition just as much as a photographer – maybe even more, but they go through the arduous task of creating this image one stroke at a time. I can’t imagine the amount of time that some of these artists put into their images. The textures and perspectives put into these still-life images were incredible. One of my favorites was sort of a butterfly wall-paper painting with a person that occupied about a quarter of the image. The painting was turned upside-down and the words “Where are you” were placed throughout the butterflies. The effect put the person in an odd area of the painting and was actually difficult to see from this perspective. I thought it was pretty ingenious the way the composition played with the interpretation of the image. There was also a piece that was a collage of almost Neil Gaimen-type horror sketches of frogs with human legs, and a cow with a mermaid’s tail, and two legs that prodrude from a lobster, and bunny in a jester’s uniform chewing on a thorny rose stem. To sum up, I saw a lot of talent and creativity in many of these images.

Apparently, Iwaki High School also has the best high school brass band in Japan – and they have won all of the competitions to prove it. Although, one teacher informed me more modestly that they haven’t won them all… yet – and that technically, they should be considered to be only within the top 5 so far. In any event, I got to see a full 50 minute performance by a pretty incredible brass band.

The high school band program is a little bit different in Japan than it is in Canada. In Canada, students sign up for band as part of their course selection and it counts as credit towards graduation. In Japan, students sign up for band as a club activity, so it’s not for credit and they only practice after school. In a school of about 1100 students, I think there were almost 90 members in this band.

The selection of instruments alone was impressive. There were a couple of instruments that I didn’t even recognize. The conductor described one as a “sarusophone,” I think is what he said – it was a tall slender brass instrument that only got used for a few songs. They also had a couple of English horns, two stand-up basses that added good articulation to the low end, and I also saw my first contra-bass clarinet. This instrument stands at least 5 feet tall and was played by a girl that barely weighs 90 lbs. It comes in a case that is about the size of two full-sized beer coolers and takes two people to assemble.

One of the big highlights of the night was when the lead alto saxophone player somehow snuck out of the gymnasium, and there was a big instrument change that involved a drum kit and electric bass. It was a real smooth kind of jazzy song that led up to the sax player entering with a killer solo from the back of the gym. Heads turned, I had to stand from where I was sitting, and they guy, cool as river water, strolled down the centre isle to the front of the band where the rest of the section – soprano, alto, tenor, and baritones, joined him and they featured several solos, duets, and sectional ‘solis’ throughout the song. There was also a song that featured the bassoon player, who was incredible – the band also deserves credit as the entire group managed to play under the unmic’d bassoon. The clarinet section also had a feature song – no contra bass, but they did have what looked like a soprano clarinet maybe? They ended with a couple of crazy numbers where the entire band stood up and went through some pretty intricate dance choreography and still managed to stay tight. The last one featured a group of all males who put together a dance performance in front of the band without any instruments, which was fantastically gay in all meanings of the word.

There are many great things about Japan, but I imagine that much of this is due to the novelty of everything for me. There is no doubt however, that these kids were good. It was also refreshing to be able to hear something in a language that I understand.

I was going to put some random photos up with this post, but I think that they wouldn’t do any justice.

Shine: River Rave

I spent last night at Shine: River Rave. I managed to get a ride from John, who’s also known as somewhat of a Godfather to all foreigners in Iwaki. The man has been in Iwaki for almost 9 years now and has spent much time getting people together at his many dj-ing events over the years. It was pretty cool to see him up and spinning at the event along with several other people from Fukushima.
It was a pretty good night, but I didn’t get in until 5am this morning, so I don’t have much of a mind for writing today. Luckily, I brought my camera, so this will be mostly a photo post.