The Big Frog blowout in Tokyo last weekend left me feeling utterly exhausted, but last week I somehow managed to persevere by sheer momentum and continue seeing live music.
Tuesday night I shook the sleep from my eyes and drove to Anjo City, on the eastern side of Nagoya, with a girl named Yuki, who works the front desk at my local sports gym. We met my friend Jason to see a Japanese taiko band called GoCoo.
GoCoo
GoCoo has twelve members, seven female and four male, plus one didgeridoo player named Goro. Together they drum up intense tribal rhythms that could blow the top off Mount St. Helens.
If watching seven scantily clad Japanese women bounce, grunt, and beat the living daylights out of a stage full of big drums wasn't enough, the thunderous rhythms they propagated conjured a primal furor that boiled over the stage and permeated every audience member like magma.
Yuki was pretty much speechless, but Jason and I concluded that it was a pleasurable assault on the audio and visual senses.
On Wednesday night I ventured into Nagoya by myself to meet my friend Beer Mike, who was helping the Willem Breuker Kollektief, a Dutch jazz band, with their Japanese tour.
Willem Breuker Kollektief
I can't really explain this bands music, but I can equate it to some kind of crazy cuckoo clock that's gone cockeyed.
They cross jazz genres by melding classical compositions with marching band and Latin dance steps, and not to mention improvisational solos that resemble a game of animal charades.
It was beyond entertaining and truly must be seen to be believed.
Unfortunately, my digital camera starting malfunctioning during this show, so I have very few photos to provide any visual bearing.
After the show Mike and I hung out and had dinner while bouncing a few possible business ideas around the table.
By the time the weekend rolled around, I was practically a walking zombie, but I had plans to meet my friends Toku, Masu, Hiro from Tokyo, and a group of their friends for a drive to Mikawa-kogen and enjoy two days of camping and outdoor electric music at festival called Peace Tribe 2004.
Peace Tribe Village
Bands started playing about sundown Saturday night, but I was so tired I mostly hung out around my tent by the campfire. I went to bed after watching A-Funk Syndicate kick things off and managed to listen to part of Dachambo's loud psychedelic trance set from the inside of my tent.
Sunday the weather was picture perfect for DJ Eye to crank up his eye opener set at 10am.
DJ Eye in a tepee
This time around he used his own blend of African rhythms laced American 60's era soul and topped it off with a dash European disco.
It was a great way to get the day started, but I was still so exhausted that I spent most of the day lounging around in the sun and taking a nap in the grassy field.
We finished the day off by driving to an Onsen for a hot bath and later eating Unagi, eel served with brown sauce over steamed rice.
I went home and went back to sleep.
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