Thursday, August 04, 2005
Akihito's Revenge
I've spent a decent amount of time in Mexico and never had intestinal problems, because of the food or anything else. But somehow every day since I've been in Japan I've been, ahem, blowing up the spot in the worst possible way. I'm going on a three hour bus ride tomorrow morning, I hope to god things straighten out.
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Kold Krush'n 'Em
This turned out to be a long one, so strap in.
DJ Krush did not disappoint Saturday night. He's a demon on the turntables, and both he and DJ Kensei had very solid visions of what they wanted to play for the event – specifically, the sort of fun old-school hip hop that makes you very quickly feel like you got your money's worth, even with a $30 cover charge. It's interesting how parallel this is with Yamatsuka Eye – both guys are actually fairly abstract as far as the music they make, but they were in total crowd-pleasing mode for their sets at Liquidroom. I know that on the hip hop side, American indie 'heads would love the trip back in time, even if getting it from a more abstract artist would momentarily confuse them. But if Yamatsuka went to the states and played . . . house? There would be a fucking riot. Or, actually, a mass recalcitrant grumble, which is about the closest thing I imagine most Boredoms fans being able to muster.
Anyway, the show was fun. Not nearly as revelatory as Yamatsuka, probably just because I was much more familiar with the music and as such didn't really learn anything in that dimension. And from a cultural perspective it was a lot less immediately engaging – at the EYE show there were a lot of Japanese people truly getting their freak on, really hyped up and giving it their all like it was Flashdance. The energy was still high for Kensei and Krush, but it did seem like there were a lot of wall-huggers, guys in particular copping fairly typical hip hop nerd attitudes and either not moving at all and eyeing the (again, quite excellent) video feed, or sticking with the tried-and-true combo of b-boy stance plus terse head-nod. I guess it's interesting in itself that this kind of attitude could cross so many miles, but it certainly isn't a very spectacular form of cultural transfer.
This seems like a decent enough place for me to throw in my observations so far on Japanese hip hop. I have to say that, while the prognosis is not entirely glowing, there's a lot to recommend Tokyo as a potential boom area for the future of hip hop culture. Primarily, there's a focus on breaking here that's sadly lacking in the States. In Tower in Shibuya yesterday (of which more later) they were showing an extended video for some Japanese group's fairly bland single. The premise was a classic – a club, two groups of guys, and . . . a breakdance battle. Let me tell you, this shit was truly amazing. Not content with popping and locking, both of the 'teams' involved had worked out elaborate routines that often involved all three members at once (nh) doing things like precision somersaults through each other's circled arms, or complex cantilevered acrobatic constructions, prepubescent-Chinese-style. There were props involved as well, in particular some pretty dazzling uses of a bowler hat. The finale, the thing that had me (to be honest) wondering just how much CG was involved, Kung-Fu Hustle style, was the dude doing cartwheels in a super-tight circle – like, he was leaning at more than a 45 degree-angle, sticking to the floor thanks mostly to the truly tremendous speed of his tiny little circles (it's a bit hard to describe, actually – I hope you get the idea).
In addition to spectacular video stuff, you'll also see lots of kids rehearsing breakdancing moves on the streets, in the parks, mostly as part of three- and four-person teams. So there's a real street-level enthusiasm for the stuff, and the Japanese seem to, as a whole, have a real aptitude for it. The same can be said for DJing – it's certainly where the greatest number of Japanese have made their name in the States, which I think it's not too chauvinistic to claim as a good indicator of the relative worth of their contributions. The record stores here are impressive, and actually not too expensive relative to the states. You can get American 12"s here for about three bucks more apiece than they cost in NY/Chicago/Austin. I haven't yet found any store that would qualify as a 'vintage' vinyl shop – mostly just places for new and used hip hop rather than a lot of funk or whatever. But that stuff is kind of hard to find even in the States unless you really know where to look, which, in Tokyo, I don't.
So anyway, yeah, DJing and breaking in Tokyo=Good. But here's the part that I imagine more than a few American readers have been licking their lips waiting to hear: the Japanese make some truly, egregiously, hilariously bad hip hop music. Now admittedly, this assessment is based on an afternoon browsing the listening stations in Tower Records, and I've had a few recommendations that I haven't followed up (specifically, The Blue Herb are supposed to be good), but some of the stuff I heard was just . . . ummm, yeah. When it's coming from an African-American, or even a convincing white American, or for that matter a British, Mexican, Arab-French, African, or Samoan, then thuggery, hard posing, and tales of street struggle in various forms can be entertaining, and sometimes even artistic. But (and I'll come up with a more PC way of saying this later), Japanese dudes in Raiders caps and throwbacks have a tendency to look fucking silly. And the way they sound on the mic is about the audio equivalent. I don't speak Japanese well enough to comment on their cleverness, but their flow and dexterity leave a lot to be desired, while their compulsive insertion of English catchphrases verges on bowing and scraping.
But it's the image thing that really gets me. The nadir was this guy Mars Manie, who put as an interlude on his album a conversation, in English, meant to emulate the typical kind of rapper-reporter banter you often hear on American albums (think Wu-Tang, the skits on both 36 Chambers and one of the recent Ghost albums are obvious models). The only problem here is that, clearly, neither Mars Manie NOR the Japanese woman reading the pre-scripted questions seem to actually speak English – they're just reading off a prepared script, which, to Mars Manie's credit, is basically free of grammatical deviation. It's hard to capture the generalized absurdity of the scenario, but it's pretty well summed up by one exchange in particular. The report asks (or rather, mangles) a question you might expect to hear on such a sketch on an American record: "Huwwat err yoor inflinsses?" Mars replies, again pretty much exactly following a well-established formula, "Ai gott na inflinsses, dis jaast me, Mars Manie."
Which of course is the point at which I realized "Mars Manie" was, most likely, at the stage of conception, supposed to be "Mars Money." But somewhere between the Japanese accent, the long hip hop tradition of creative misspelling, and the relative scarcity of English dictionaries in Tokyo, things took a turn for the nonsensical.
In conclusion, Suntory Boss is the Boss of all these whack-ass Japanese rappers:
DJ Krush did not disappoint Saturday night. He's a demon on the turntables, and both he and DJ Kensei had very solid visions of what they wanted to play for the event – specifically, the sort of fun old-school hip hop that makes you very quickly feel like you got your money's worth, even with a $30 cover charge. It's interesting how parallel this is with Yamatsuka Eye – both guys are actually fairly abstract as far as the music they make, but they were in total crowd-pleasing mode for their sets at Liquidroom. I know that on the hip hop side, American indie 'heads would love the trip back in time, even if getting it from a more abstract artist would momentarily confuse them. But if Yamatsuka went to the states and played . . . house? There would be a fucking riot. Or, actually, a mass recalcitrant grumble, which is about the closest thing I imagine most Boredoms fans being able to muster.
Anyway, the show was fun. Not nearly as revelatory as Yamatsuka, probably just because I was much more familiar with the music and as such didn't really learn anything in that dimension. And from a cultural perspective it was a lot less immediately engaging – at the EYE show there were a lot of Japanese people truly getting their freak on, really hyped up and giving it their all like it was Flashdance. The energy was still high for Kensei and Krush, but it did seem like there were a lot of wall-huggers, guys in particular copping fairly typical hip hop nerd attitudes and either not moving at all and eyeing the (again, quite excellent) video feed, or sticking with the tried-and-true combo of b-boy stance plus terse head-nod. I guess it's interesting in itself that this kind of attitude could cross so many miles, but it certainly isn't a very spectacular form of cultural transfer.
This seems like a decent enough place for me to throw in my observations so far on Japanese hip hop. I have to say that, while the prognosis is not entirely glowing, there's a lot to recommend Tokyo as a potential boom area for the future of hip hop culture. Primarily, there's a focus on breaking here that's sadly lacking in the States. In Tower in Shibuya yesterday (of which more later) they were showing an extended video for some Japanese group's fairly bland single. The premise was a classic – a club, two groups of guys, and . . . a breakdance battle. Let me tell you, this shit was truly amazing. Not content with popping and locking, both of the 'teams' involved had worked out elaborate routines that often involved all three members at once (nh) doing things like precision somersaults through each other's circled arms, or complex cantilevered acrobatic constructions, prepubescent-Chinese-style. There were props involved as well, in particular some pretty dazzling uses of a bowler hat. The finale, the thing that had me (to be honest) wondering just how much CG was involved, Kung-Fu Hustle style, was the dude doing cartwheels in a super-tight circle – like, he was leaning at more than a 45 degree-angle, sticking to the floor thanks mostly to the truly tremendous speed of his tiny little circles (it's a bit hard to describe, actually – I hope you get the idea).
In addition to spectacular video stuff, you'll also see lots of kids rehearsing breakdancing moves on the streets, in the parks, mostly as part of three- and four-person teams. So there's a real street-level enthusiasm for the stuff, and the Japanese seem to, as a whole, have a real aptitude for it. The same can be said for DJing – it's certainly where the greatest number of Japanese have made their name in the States, which I think it's not too chauvinistic to claim as a good indicator of the relative worth of their contributions. The record stores here are impressive, and actually not too expensive relative to the states. You can get American 12"s here for about three bucks more apiece than they cost in NY/Chicago/Austin. I haven't yet found any store that would qualify as a 'vintage' vinyl shop – mostly just places for new and used hip hop rather than a lot of funk or whatever. But that stuff is kind of hard to find even in the States unless you really know where to look, which, in Tokyo, I don't.
So anyway, yeah, DJing and breaking in Tokyo=Good. But here's the part that I imagine more than a few American readers have been licking their lips waiting to hear: the Japanese make some truly, egregiously, hilariously bad hip hop music. Now admittedly, this assessment is based on an afternoon browsing the listening stations in Tower Records, and I've had a few recommendations that I haven't followed up (specifically, The Blue Herb are supposed to be good), but some of the stuff I heard was just . . . ummm, yeah. When it's coming from an African-American, or even a convincing white American, or for that matter a British, Mexican, Arab-French, African, or Samoan, then thuggery, hard posing, and tales of street struggle in various forms can be entertaining, and sometimes even artistic. But (and I'll come up with a more PC way of saying this later), Japanese dudes in Raiders caps and throwbacks have a tendency to look fucking silly. And the way they sound on the mic is about the audio equivalent. I don't speak Japanese well enough to comment on their cleverness, but their flow and dexterity leave a lot to be desired, while their compulsive insertion of English catchphrases verges on bowing and scraping.
But it's the image thing that really gets me. The nadir was this guy Mars Manie, who put as an interlude on his album a conversation, in English, meant to emulate the typical kind of rapper-reporter banter you often hear on American albums (think Wu-Tang, the skits on both 36 Chambers and one of the recent Ghost albums are obvious models). The only problem here is that, clearly, neither Mars Manie NOR the Japanese woman reading the pre-scripted questions seem to actually speak English – they're just reading off a prepared script, which, to Mars Manie's credit, is basically free of grammatical deviation. It's hard to capture the generalized absurdity of the scenario, but it's pretty well summed up by one exchange in particular. The report asks (or rather, mangles) a question you might expect to hear on such a sketch on an American record: "Huwwat err yoor inflinsses?" Mars replies, again pretty much exactly following a well-established formula, "Ai gott na inflinsses, dis jaast me, Mars Manie."
Which of course is the point at which I realized "Mars Manie" was, most likely, at the stage of conception, supposed to be "Mars Money." But somewhere between the Japanese accent, the long hip hop tradition of creative misspelling, and the relative scarcity of English dictionaries in Tokyo, things took a turn for the nonsensical.
In conclusion, Suntory Boss is the Boss of all these whack-ass Japanese rappers:
Monday, August 01, 2005
Mysteries of Japanese Musical Political Economy
1. Domestic (Japanese) artist's discs cost from 23 to 29 dollars each new for full albums. Albums from outside of Japan are in the much more reasonable 14-18 dollar range new.
2. File sharing is relatively unknown, in line with the generally lower levels of personal computer use. Is internet access charged by the hour?
3. But that doesn't mean people buy all their music. Instead, they're able to rent albums for around 3 dollars/week each. Of course, they don't just listen to them for a week . . . they get copied to minidisk or, increasingly, to iPods, which weren't well-known here until about a year ago, and are still ramping up.
Crazy timing, but So Many Shrimp has up this post on Japanese Rap, it's really nicely done and taught me more than a thing or two. Wish his shit wasn't in WMA though, that's annoying.
2. File sharing is relatively unknown, in line with the generally lower levels of personal computer use. Is internet access charged by the hour?
3. But that doesn't mean people buy all their music. Instead, they're able to rent albums for around 3 dollars/week each. Of course, they don't just listen to them for a week . . . they get copied to minidisk or, increasingly, to iPods, which weren't well-known here until about a year ago, and are still ramping up.
Crazy timing, but So Many Shrimp has up this post on Japanese Rap, it's really nicely done and taught me more than a thing or two. Wish his shit wasn't in WMA though, that's annoying.
Sunday, July 31, 2005
I'm a Pervert
I saw this woman at a temple in Kamakura the other day and I just had to take a picture of her. I don't know if the photo really does her justice, but she's obviously a body builder of some sort, with a very triangular upper body and narrow but solid waist. While those women totally freak me out when they're in juiced-up, afro-sheen, fake-tan mode, she actually looked really great. I found myself mildly captivated, and so I decided to use the new "stealth mode" I've discovered on my digital camera – i.e., if I turn off my flash completely and hold the camera at waist level, rather than aiming with it pressed up against my face, I can get some pretty decent shots without anyone necessarily realizing that I'm taking pictures. It doesn't make that revealing "ka-chunk" sound you get with normal cameras. (Up to now I've used it in Japanese stores where I wasn't supposed to be taking photos of their merchandise, like toy robots and such. But now I've descended to taking pictures of people without them knowing it, and there may be no turning back. Hence the title of the post – I'll be doing schoolgirl upskirt shots before the end of next week).
(Yes, I took two pictures of her. Just shut up.)
Anyway, she would have been interesting if I had seen her back home, but the reason for my total compulsion to snap a surreptitious photograph was the thought of what being in Japan must be like for her. I feel like at least a bit of an object of fascination as the biggest male on the entire subway car most of the time (and I'm not particularly 'big' by American standards). This girl is bigger than 99% of Japanese males – the levels of terror/interest/revulsion she inspires in all who see her must be off the scale. And while I think this particular woman was a tourist rather than a resident, the inevitable question is – would any Japanese man be interested in her? Would any such attraction amount to fetishism? Or would she be completely off the radar as a target of Japanese male lust? I hear they don't even much go for 'normal' western women, but who's to say.
I, at least, found her pretty nice-looking, and worthy of some (ahem) documentation.
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