Excalibur, Lost Without a Home

I named my guitar Excalibur, or in Japanese Katakana, エクスカリバー. The axe is a searing stratocaster copy that grabbed me after first taking it off the rack at a shop in Ochanomizu back in October. I tried countless guitars of virtually the same make that day, but playing mine was like pulling the sword from the stone.

Earlier today, I was back in Ochanomizu with some musician friends doing a little gear shopping. I was eager to return to the same shop and poke around.

Low and behold, when I arrived, the entire building had been torn down! I could feel a pang of tragedy in my heart! Alas, Exalibur! Lost with no home! Now I shall protect you.

Excalibur Rocks

I was just hanging out with my new housemate, Masae, and her two little brothers, Yasuhiro and Wataru. 

The brothers are visiting from Shikoku. I heard the commotion and peaked my head in. She said she could hear me playing guitar and liked the music. I went back to my room and returned with Excalibur. We spent 2 hours talking, playing songs, and hanging out. They had fun learning how to play a few chords.

Funny that I was very adverse to moving to guesthouse at first. I was worried I would be living with drug dealers or something. Turned out to be an excellent move. I feel like I'm in college again.

Werewolf Guitarists cont.

I wrote about Chris Silva last week but had no pictures for the blog. We made plans to jam at Ruby last Tuesday so he came with his strat, loop station, and a few effects. I made sure to drag along a few friends, so photo credits on this page go to Kiyoto Koseki, Yu Araki, and Kaori Shiba.

When Chris arrived to Ruby, I whispered to my friends. "Psssst. Psssst. This cat is really good! Check him out! Shhhhh!"

We played mostly straight ahead this time around. Ruby has no monitor speakers, so I was struggling to hear the guitar, made more complicated by the loop station in which Chris would record a phrase on a digital stomp box, and then accompany his own playing with soloing. In short, while Chris was wowing the audience used to an amateur lineup (Tuesday night's show was especially weak for some reason), I was playing quite conservatively.

Actually, the sound situation was so desperate that I had to keep my eyes focused on Chris' hands and body to keep the time straight. I would watch his palm fall down the neck to find the beginning of each phrase. He would also do an awkward old man style ass shake from which oddly enough I could decipher the beat.

Read my last article about Chris' style. He is one of the most technical players I've met in town. Find the post here.

Of course, I had to take the stage and play a few  tunes. I stuck to blues this time but threw in some Weezer. Excalibur has been sounding nice lately. I tweaked her bridge last week.
Open mic ended quite early so Chris and I decided to get up there and do a few more blues tunes. We had figured out how to fix the sound issues by then so our sound and interaction was tenfold better. In the middle of a Hendrix jam, Chris and I motioned to one of the bass players in the room to come up to the stage and join us. She played bass with a locomotion like style, non-stop action with a round sense of phrasing. I'm thinking of Billy Cox from Hendrix's Band of Gypsies playing Chicago Soul.

We talked for a bit after the set. Her name is Tokie and she has quite a backlog of experience on bass. A few years ago, she was in New York playing full time in a rock band. I'll have to ask her more about it sometime. Chris was also impressed with her style. After he left, I got a text message asking me to invite her to play with us again.

And as a final note to this story, I keep thinking about female rock musicians that I am constantly meeting here. Back home, women in rock are generally singers or acoustic songwriters. Instrumentalists are literally considered to be, dare I say it, butch. I think that reflects rather poorly on our society.

Kayo (or: "Chicks Can Rock - Part III")

When I first met Kayo, being the small Japanese girl that she is, I assumed she didn't know English. I was quick to learn that not only is she a fluent speaker, but she makes a living as a translator. We have since become friends and she has done a lot to open up the world of Tokyo for me. Just read the last few posts to see how.

So it turns out Kayo had another surprise up her sleeve waiting for me to find out. She plays bass. She doesn't just play bass, she is good at bass. And she's not just good at bass, she is awesome. The worst part is I think she told me a few weeks ago that she plays a little. Being the sexist asshole that I am, the thought that she might be really good didn't cross my mind, just like when I met her, the thought that she might know English didn't even cross my mind. This is what I get for growing up in a country full of American male chauvinists.

Kayo came to the Ruby Room with her boyfriend Toshi, her friends Miyuki and Saki (see the picture I posted earlier this week), and Toshi's drummer Shin from Sunset Drive. They signed up for a slot later in the night and asked me if I would play a little guitar with the group. My guitar, エクスカリバー (Excalibur), was practically begging me to plug her in.

Kayo then pulled out a Danelectro bass. The body is shaped with two devil's horns and has a sparkly finish straight out of the fifties. Toshi of course brought his 1973 Gibson Flying V. He told me before his set that he liked the way I described his guitar in my last post. "The sound is like painting the Mona Lisa with mud. Still beautiful, but simply a dirty mess."

We all plugged in and opened with Hendrix's Foxy Lady. I took the mic, feeling the sweat drip from my forehead as I belted the lyrics, "Seen you, running down on the scene. You make me wanna get up and screeeam...Foxy Lady!!" We then slid into Weezer's Say It Ain't So. They were two songs I knew well. We closed with a messy rendition of Cream's Sunshine of Your Love. I was only familiar with the song and was learning the changes on the spot. Fortunately, every time I got lost, all I had to do was to look over at Kayo, who was hammering down the bassline like it was her business.

Toshi returned to the stage a half hour later and shredded his way through innumerable rock songs. I think he absorbed the generational vibes from his guitar since he plays like a 1970's hard rock guitarist. I'm thinking AC/DC and Thin Lizzy. I joined him a few times playing the openings of a few Led Zeppelin tunes who's entirety I wasn't familiar with. Sure enough, Kayo was there nailing the tunes one by one, with fingers like a champ. Toshi even let me jam out on his priceless guitar. What could be more appropriate than Johnny B. Goode? I have to say, the Japanese in the audience went ape-shit when I slid into those first notes, a sound my guitar teacher used to describe as a train whistle.

Even with no prior rehearsal, it felt like we were a real rock band. Or maybe it was just because at that hour the crowd was mostly our friends... or they were just really drunk. Either way, it felt pretty awesome and I certainly had a talented ensemble with me, Kayo, Toshi, and Shin.

Unfortunately, just as things were starting to get hot, I took a peek at my watch and realized that the last train from Shibuya was less than 10 minutes away. I grabbed my things and ran to the station.

Somewhat unfortunate I say. Two hours ago I was hanging with Japanese rock stars. Now, I'm alone in my apartment typing in my blog and watching awful Japanese TV.

Virginity

I knew that would get your attention.

I took my guitar's virginity last night. And let me tell you, she was squealing when I played her.

The night began lost in Shibuya, wandering the streets almost aimlessly trying to find a bar called the Ruby Room. I ended up uniting with a Yale friend and together we were able to find the place, tucked away in an inconspicuous alleyway who's entrance was guarded by ever indistinguishable neon lights and Japanese signs.

Inside, the place was a cozy and smokey dive bar, complete with dim pinkish red lights, a few leather couches, a bar table, and not much more. The tiny stage was walled in by an impressive sound system powerful enough for a joint at least double the size. The bar was heliocentric, with everything revolving around a central disco ball that cast its fragments of light on us as we passed through on our orbits.

Tuesday nights are open mic at the Ruby Room. I signed up for an 11:30 slot, sat down at the bar with my friend, and ordered us a few drinks. Looking around, I saw that the room was half Gaijin and half Japanese, with the same ratio of musicians to non-musicians.

The first few acts were of typical open mic mediocrity, a few unimpressive bands and a guitar strummer, drama queens without much talent who still took their time setting up and complaining about the sound system.

As the night went on however, Gaijin began to leave one by one, and the place filled up with more Japanese. That's when the action began.


The first act that really impressed me with this guy, Hiroge, Hiroshi, Hiro? I can't remember his name but his guitar shredding is still vivid in my mind. He played his own version bluesy rock. To make up for a lack of American soul, his wild fingers injected a noisy and untamed freedom that from my perspective was distinctly Japanese. The grunge of his distorted electric guitar was mesmerizing. He ended his set with guitar fireworks and flashy runs.

Next up was Jerry (obviously not his real name, but that's how he introduced himself to me). His group was more informal, they had just met a few days earlier and wanted to jam together. I spent some time talking to his drummer, Keio, who used to DJ in Long Island. He also spins in Tokyo under the name DJ Smokiyo.



Last up on the bill was myself. I took the stage around midnight, plugged in, and played my own breed of rock and blues, my standard tunes for an event such as this. I threw in some Police, some John Mayer, and iced the cake with a little Weezer. The Japanese groups were toughs act to follow, but I held my own with my own American rock sensibilities. Excalibur seared the night away. Her pickups were hot, grungy, and dirty, much livelier on a fully amped stage than in the music shop that I bought her.

The Ruby Room was an awesome joint and definitely an 'in' for me into the Tokyo underground. All night long, groups were plugging their shows at other bars and clubs. Even the bartender was a DJ, DJ MeiMei. She even put my on the guest list for a Halloween party that she'll be spinning at in Shibuya on Friday.

I'll be returning next week. I think I've found my scene.

Excalibur

I returned to Ochanomizu to pull the sword from the stone. Behold, Excalibur!

I was daydreaming about this guitar all day after playing it. I had to go back to buy it. A part of me feels more complete. Now I just need a job, an apartment, and a girlfriend.