CD = music/accesible community Shibuya Tower Records

In Shibuya, Tokyo there remains a Tower Records. Some may remember Tower Records from the 1990s. The Tower Records in Shibuya is massive, there must be some 6-8 floors of new CDs and vinyls. When I entered the building yesterday, I was mind-boggled and impressed! In the US, I haven't seen any major stores selling new CDs since the early 2000s. I had given up on CDs in 2012 when I left New Zealand and didn't want to travel with the weight. Since then, over the years, I had complained to family members and friends about how complicated it is nowadays to simply play an album. You can turn on Youtube or Spotify, but they're full of commercials, interruptions, and glitches. You can pay for those services, but who are you paying? Where? And even if you pay for those services, you still can't simply play the album chronologically, you have to make sure everything is charged, logged in to, or connected to Bluetooth (which for me, a hearing aids wearer, nearly always takes several attempts). Meanwhile an anonymous source take your cookies and personal data. And then you forget your password, or the internet is down, or your credit card expires, or they won't let you cancel!! Uggh!

I spent 9 years without music until two years ago when my other half gifted me a straight-forward single CD player. It's so easy, you just make sure it's plugged in, you push Eject, insert a CD, and that's it! It works 100% and it has made my life better. But it was tricky to find new CDs, most artists in the US don't sell their music in CD format anymore. 

Returning to Shibuya on a hot sunny summer day. Tower Records. It was full of people of all ages browsing CDs, talking to their friends and the salespeople about albums, people listening to CDs together with store-owned headphones. Tokyo (so it seems to me) is good at maintaining things, especially older technology. What I saw at Tower Records didn't seem like a nostalgia fad or trend, but a continued and sincere interest in old and new music. Tower Records is obviously a business, but a pretty accesible (and now small) one where the positive social life seems to outweigh any harm. The CDs cost around what they costed in the 90s, $15-17 USD (plus 10% tax free discount for foreigners).

A couple observations occurred to me: 

1) the face-to-face community that used to exist around music isn't there as much as it used to be. It might exist in Tokyo (with all their 165 live jazz cafes), and maybe in some college dorms, but I don't see it elsewhere. Sometimes people share Spotify playlists, and occasionally I will "save" something on Youtube, but I don't end up listening for the reasons above. The excitement and socialization are not there anymore, not like it was with a mixed tape/CD. Time has sped up, capitalism has become more exploitative, politics are in the way, and life has become more solitary and virtual. At Tower Records I ended up buying two new CDs (Japanese artists: Shibusashirazu and Humbert Humbert) and I got excited walking home with these in my backpack, I was going to enjoy this--albeit alone!

2) most albums are already uploaded to Youtube. So why buy the material form? For me, it was for convenience and to support the artist.

3) there's a shrine to Michael Jackson on the 7th floor of Tower Records alongside a table overflowing with fresh flowers.

CDs

When I left New Zealand in 2012, I gave my CD player to one of my students. It was a bright red portable one. Since then, I really haven’t listened to music other than the random songs that come out of Spotify/Pandora when I go to the gym, almost never. During the pandemic I realized how inconvenient and complicated it has become to watch TV or to listen to the radio or a music album. Yesterday I received an Air Mail package (yippee!) from Escorial street in Barcelona. It was 8 colorful CDs from 3 different contemporary Catalan musicians #manel, #antoniafont, #amicsdelarts, and I realized the extent that streaming digital music misses out on the full album experience. Streaming music is like only looking at a tiny fragment of a painting or reading just one page of a book. … No more plastic that gets broken. No more wifi glitches or commercial interruptions! The CDs came in a little matte colorful hand-size books with playful art work, and inside of that there’s a smaller book with more artwork and the song lyrics. The songs are related to designs and textures. Tactile poems (a tactile experience) and visual work. Is it nostalgia or just a more expansive experience? Probably both!

Shibusashirazu Orchestra at the Pit Inn, Shinjuku

Last night I saw what was maybe the most exciting performance I've ever seen. I don't have the music vocabulary to describe it, and from what I've read online, their whole concept is to be undescribable (their name, Shibusashirazu Orchestra, translates to "Don't Be Cool Orchestra"). those who know me know I'm all about "heterogeneity" and flexibility and that's what this group performed. for 2 hours they fused and improvised jazz, 1950s exotica, psychedelic, rock, ska, klezmer, other sounds I had never heard before, and whatever visually inspired all that. i kept thinking of the D+G's idea of exploiting the medium to see what experiences it can create. that's what they did. it was loud. instruments made sounds that I didn't know they could make. and to add to that, my hearing aids, which always distort sound and differently in each ear, fit the situation well (but were triggered in ways they weren't programmed to deal with, the right one was capturing high frequencies as loud squeals, I had to remove it, so what I describes only comes from my left ear). when the big instruments rested, i could hear the xylophone, like turquoise water, it was really nice. the bananas reminded me of Dalí's baguettes. And as was typical of Tokyo jazz clubs, the space was tiny, air was thick, everything was sensorially dense and shaking, no screen mediation (except my phone). I wish I had had a better camera with me. this video clip is from my old phone.  

thanks to Toko Shiiki, without her I would have never come across this, all their public info is in Japanese. thank you, Toko!

whimsical sounds, John Zorn

Thanks to NPR I discovered the music of John Zorn last week.  

Here is a Conqueror Worm from his new album Dreamachines.

discreet charm of the Tokyo Jazz café

Arthur Fowler, Noriko Shigehara, and others (whose name I don´t know) play at the tiny Checkerboard Jazz Bar (Asagaya, Tokyo).

I had read about the mythical, sophisticated music place several times in H. Murakami´s work: the jazz bar/café in Tokyo.  I had imagined hundreds of CDs and records of old jazz bands carefully stacked by aficionados in tight wooden squares and rectangles along walls in a dark, timeless bar.  Last Friday I experienced it in non-fiction: sitting knees-to-back, shoulder-to-wall on little stools.  Maybe in total 12 stools, 12 respectful listeners.  The place must have been about 6 by 14 feet. One couldn´t move (it was tricky to take this photo). But a lack of space did not create a repressive feeling, quite the opposite, it seemed not to matter who you were or who you sitting next to, I lost track of time and felt a cozy, melting exception, for which I was very grateful.

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Jazz café recommendations from Arthur san (hard to find in English!)

Some of Tokyo’s top jazz players play at the Big River, as well as a range of other folks, including us.  The “Master” there is fairly good at English and is a good person.  It’s about as small as the Checkerboard, but a more “serious jazz” atmosphere.  Some of the jazz fans and musicians here like it exactly because when the music is on (30-minute sets), there’s no talking or ordering, so it’s all about watching very good players from the front row. Big River:
http://www.bigjazzriver.com/st/nd.html

This little place is around the corner and down the block on the street that runs along-side the Higashi-Nakano station.  I haven’t gone in yet.  Thelonious:
http://www.tokyojazzsite.com/content/thelonious

Here’s a link to another place that is highly regarded in the jazz world of Tokyo.   I’ve only been there once.  Meg:
http://tokyojazzsite.com/content/meg

And this place, right up the street from Takadanobaba station is really small!  Intro:
http://tokyojazzsite.com/content/intro

Oh, and here’s one other place, just past Meiji-doori on Waseda-doori.  It’s on the second floor.  I’ve walked by it many times, but haven’t paid the fees to see a show there yet.  Sunny Side:
http://www.sunny-side.jp/index.html

Last Friday at Sunny Side Jazz Café it was open mic night:

commecial short review Linda Linda Linda

"Feminism is anti-sexism. [. . . ] We have created no schools founded on feminist [anti-sexist] principles for girls and boys, for women and men. By failing to create a mass-based educational movement to teach everyone about feminism [anti-sexism] we allow mainstream patriarchal mass media to remain the primary place where folks learn about feminism, and most of what they learn is negative." -- bell hooks, Feminism is for Everybody

Director Nobuhiro Yamashita, Japan 2005.

Linda Linda Linda relates the endearing and humorous story of a group of four high school girls who put their hearts into performing as a rock band at their high school’s festival.

With talented actresses and a simple storyline, director Nobuhiro Yamashita creates an innocent, tender, and feminist [anti-sexist] reality in which social prejudices, high school cliques, and vanity are nonexistent. It could be considered a “girl power” film or subtly a “gender-bender” one, in the sense that, it is what life, or at least high school, would look like if "girls could be girls."

Driven by friendship and dedication, and undeterred by their imperfect music skills, the four unpretentious girls are determined to perform together as a band. Practicing incessantly and under time pressure, each band member has charm in her own humble way. Bae Doona in particular, the school’s foreign exchange student from Korea and lanky-legged wide-eyed vocalist, overcomes her initial foreign language and singing insecurities to add color to the otherwise quiet and mundane suburban high school. Messy hair, scuffed knees and no make-up--the band surpasses the passive kawaii Japanese school-girl stereotype. Unlike most high school stories in which the girls try to secure a boyfriend, or deal with teenage awkwardness, or win first place or top grades in something, these protagonists put their energy and emotions into simply making a rock band work as a team. A commendable goal, in my opinion.

The film manages to be a "feel good" one without the cheesy Hollywood ending. After you view the it you might have a smile on your face and the songs in your head. And if you're like me, you'll be wishing your high school had been like this one!

fun fact 5: antología poética popular

amigos:

una página bonita, poesía con sus canciones correspondientes:

http://antologiapoeticamultimedia.blogspot.com

("aceituneros" y "era un niño que soñaba" son algunas de mis preferidas.)

the three musicians

"Sock-hoppin' Head-bobbin' Indie Desperation" Lyrics For Sale

I would quit smoking for you.

I would clean the bathroom for you.

I´d wait in a corner,

until you tell me,

whatever you want to tell me.

Please contact me If you are interested purchasing the rights to reproduce "Sock-hoppin' Head-bobbin' Indie Desperation."