Easter with the Flying Dugong Band

...fresh from the temples of Nishiyama, I shifted gears and headed back to Kyoto, to meet up with Michael and catch Donal Lunny's gig at TakuTaku (now non-smoking!). I only knew Donal as the husband of Soul Flower's Itami Hideko (and ex- of Sinead O'Conner), he having appeared with that group on a smoking live CD. (Soul Flower's Nakagawa Takashi was also in the house tonight.) Now living in Okinawa, he had some wonderful musicians in tow. The incredible Umezu Kazutoki shifted from clarinet to tin whistle to a bass clarinet that growled underneath everything like a didge. Umezu is a brilliant entertainer, his wit and talent far greater than the diminutive packaging. In probably the highlight of the night, he wandered through the crowd blasting away on alto sax, eventually returning to the stage where he stuck his clarinet in his mouth, playing both in perfect harmony. Throughout the trad Irish pieces, he'd pull out these perfect, light flourishes. Kaneko Aska's violin playing was top notch, and had a voice suitable to both singing and scat. Donal himself seemed happy to just sit back on rhythm, letting Aska's fiddle and Umezu's reeds do all the work. These two kept up a wonderful musical conversation, riffing back and forth, two top players birthing some marvelous sounds. It's rare to see such communication outside of after-hours jam sessions. The dead weight to me was the percussion player, sitting there with her perpetual hangdog expression under floppy Huck Finn hat. She alternated between a djembe that didn't quite fit, and a bohdrain that did fit, though she didn't seem comfortable on it, playing quietly and nearly indistinct. From my seated perspective, she was on the opposite side of a wide beam than the others, and at times I felt like I was watching two different gigs. Through it all Donal was Donal, playing his bouzouki as if teaching it a lesson, staring down at the fretboard while thwacking out the chords. The encore was the shortest I've ever seen, a quick two minute Irish reel, to which some codger in the front row danced katcharsee-style, with all the usual free-form arm waving. That summed it up for me, a nice blend of Okinawan and Irish, not difficult since both styles share a certain energy and structure, as well as a somewhat parallel history as colonies to larger island nations which in turn look insecurely toward the mainland. Some may have found the set a little slow (with a few numbers going on far too long), but it suited my mood perfectly, wanting simply to sip a beer and chill, with the obligatory moments of foot-tapping. Cheers to Michael for turning me on to this gig (he double dips here and here).

At the end of the day though, it ain't quite an Irish gig without Guinness.

On the turntable: Lambchop, "Aw C'Mon"

On the nighttable: Badiner/Grey, "Zig Zag Zen"

On the reel table: "Okaasan" (Naruse, 1951)

North and South

Soul Flower Mononoke Summit was in town again, with Ainu musician Oki as the opening act.  I've long been wanting catch him live, after hearing his timeless beauty on "The Rough Guide to Japan" CD.  On stage he was a lone man with his thick bodied Tonkori,  cradling this bulky, 5-stringed log like a baby while finger-picking high notes with his right hand, picking the low end with his left.   The sound it made went beyond deep, to thick, to dense.  From the opening notes I was enchanted, swept away somewhat to the music native to my New Mexico home.  Other times I found myself amongst the high grass on the Siberian Steppe, the effect enhanced by the cicada-like chirping of someone's cell phone vibrating on a table nearby.  I had spent the weekend watching Scorsese's documentary series on The Blues, so there were also moments where I was on the Mississippi Delta, or in the deserts of Mali.   (Interesting how such an obscure style of music can draw comparisons from around the world.) 

To buffer his sound, he played through a series of effects. (Almost too much.  As stated by Felicity, it would've been nice to hear the same sounds that the Ainu heard 500 years ago.) Oki's singing through a delay was at times otherworldly, and more than once I found myself swaying as if in trance.  Little wonder the shamanistic influence on that region's art and culture.  Even his mukkuri, a distant relative of the polycultural mouth harp, when heard with effects, had all of the character of wind blowing through grass, vibrating in the same way that Tuvan throat-singing does.  And his heavier numbers reminded me some of the great jazz bassist Jaco Pastorius, and his live solo work.  I imagine that Oki too could play a mean stand-up bass.  He'll appear again at Kyoto's Metro in early April, so catch him if you can.

 

Soul Flower came on next and as usual, didn't disappoint.  I've written of them many times in these pages, and won't say much again.  When Oki joined them for a couple of their numbers, he seemed somewhat lost, and was buried too deep in the mix.  But when the band backed him up on his most famous song, it was seamless, and every eye of every band member was completely on him, and in their concentration, didn't miss a single change.  Very talented bunch.  The last piece was an Okinawan classic, but here too, Oki's sound was just too thick for the light touch of island music. It was like a fallen coconut tree, caught in the surf break, crashing heavily again and again on soft, gentle sand.

(Michael over at Deep Kyoto wrote about the club and the gig, both here and here.  The latter link, to Deep Kyoto, will help ensure that you never eat at home again.)

On the turntable:  Kazumi Watanabe, "Mo Bop II"

On the nighttable:  B.K.S. Iyengar, "Light on Life"

Song of the Water God

Tuesday night, Barna Ghita was in town, playing a gig up at Ei-U-In. The room looked different with the shoji shut, fortified against the cold. I'd been a fan of the band for nearly a decade but was absolutely stunned that one of the members was Jimi Miyashita, who I've gotten to know lately, without ever realizing that I'd long been swept away by the sounds of his strings. It was funny to watch him play something other than the traditional Indian ragas that he's famous for. With the Western time signature, his entire body language changed. As he bobbed and weaved to drummer Mabos' inticate rhythms, busily plucking at the ridiculously complicated santoor, he'd frequently look up and grin from behind his big butterfly sunglasses. Next to him, Uchida Bob stood on his small patch of carpet, kicking his leg up now and again as he made folk magic on his well-traveled guitar, the faded wooden body covered in stickers like the beams of a temple. He was the man I really came to see. Along with Soul Flower's Nakagawa Takashi, Bob's singing voice is the one I most covet. The highlight of the night for me was when Jimi was meticulously tuning his santoor between songs, with Bob and Mabo playing a low and soft blues, then the three of them immediately segued into the next song when Jimi was ready. Unbelievable talent, these three.

For years their music was in major rotation in my truck, as I tooled the back roads of Tottori, listening to Bob's rich, deep voice as it told me tales of trees and water. Back in 2001, a few weeks after the U.S. began its systematic revenge on Afghanistan, Bob came to the 'Nog and gave a concert in which he talked as much as sang, raging against war, that most natural of unnatural things. That night he stayed at my house. We awoke to a sunny day, filling up on pancakes and coffee as he reminisced about Nanao Sakaki and Gary Snyder. It was an tremendous moment for me, since Gary was my primary motivation in coming to Japan, and here was one of his best friends sitting in my living room, playing with my son, Ken. Later 3-year old Ken amazed me when, hearing Barna Ghita's latest CD a day or so later, said, "It's Bob, Daddy!" Incredible what kids notice.

So this week, I finally had the chance to meet Bob again, though I didn't want to bring him down by telling him that his playmate Ken is over 6 years gone. He mentioned his own dead, Nanao, saying that he was sad at his passing, but that hey, every day's a birthday, every day's a funeral. Both Nanao and Ken were close as he sang out the waning lines of "雨の小りす," repeating "Yurei, Yurei." Spirits, spirits.

On the turntable: Bharna Ghita, "Water Island"

On the nighttable: Steven Heighton, "Flight Paths of the Emperor"

On the reel table: "Wild Strawberries" (Bergman, 1957)

Fragmento Mori (上)

The past four weeks have been a distillation of experience. Coming home to roost.

I

I've written before about Soul Flower Union. Besides their usual J-rock magic collective, they also perform in smaller, stripped down permutations. Perhaps the most interesting of these is their chindon unit, Soul Flower Mononoke Summit. The group formed in 95, playing free gigs to people living in temporary shelters after the Hanshin Earthquake. They rarely perform, but I was lucky to catch them at Taku Taku in August. The opening act was an aging acoustic blues singer, with a penchant for cups and spliffs. He seemed to have a hard time getting through his set, stopping three times midsong to begin another. Apparently this guy is pretty famous, but he seemed to have left any artistic integrity up with his guitar case. The crowd seemed amused, but I wasn't. A long half-hour.

Mononoke came on and ran through a lot of their usual tunes, though I was a little disappointed not to hear their sanshin version of "The Internationale." Playing with them was band member Itami Hideko, who now lives in Okinawa with Irish musician husband, Donal Lunny. But I most enjoyed watching Utsumi Yoko on accordian, who forewent the cliched rock star facial expressions, looking more like a typical Obasan, in kimono and hornrims. As usual, the crowd sang along. More than a few folks brought their kids, who danced on the tables to the Irish-Okinawan klezmer groove.

II

A month later, my friend Roger Walch played a gig at Kyoto's other historic livehouse, Jittoku, along with Shakuhachi player Taro Matsumoto. They ran through tunes from their newest CD, as a hard rain fell outside. Their soundcheck was shot by local filmmaker Alessandro and can be found here.

III

I too did a couple gigs, after a 2 year absence from the stage. Back in June I hooked up with Morphic Jukebox, a local unit who has been getting a fair amount of positive press over the past year. They had hoped to bulk up their sound with percussion, which is where I came in. I created a 'drumkit' of congas, bongos, cajon, and cymbals, backing both originals and covers of Dylan, Beatles, Paul Weller, and various old blues standards. My first gig with them was played at Pig and Whistle, and an unfortunate opening act of a Kiwi-Aussie rugby match. Our audience consisted of a group of very large, very bald men, half of whom were due to be unhappy with the match's outcome. But the gig came off well. Two Saturdays later, we played at McLoughlins, as a release party for a CD the group recorded before I joined. The crowd was homegrown, brought in mainly by word-of-mouth. (A review can be found here.) The other band members were happy with the gig, but I felt that we never really gelled as a group. Our previous show came together better musically. (Somewhat inevitably, the band and I parted ways amicably last week, due to my other time commitments.)

IV

The same weekend as the McLoughlin gig, I went up to the 'Nog to do a memorial service for Ken. It was my third visit since I moved to the Kyo in '06, and the first one that was actually enjoyable. (The other two were very emotionally exhausting and more about 'family business.') Tim dragged me off to Matsue to take part in an Irish music session. There was Irish guitarist, a Welsh fiddle player , plus a dozen Japanese on their forest of tin flutes. One young Japanese guy kept a beat on the bodhran, though he couldn't seem to get away from a single rudimentary rhythm. I created flourishes on another bodhran. Since I'm not very proficient on the thing, I decided to play with my thumb and pinkie in lieu of using a beater. Getting past this technical hurdle gave me the freedom to really swing. Midway through the night, a middle-aged Japanese man joined in on the piano. He was amazing, familiar with every tune that came up. Most incredible was his banging out the honky-tonk piano parts of The Beatles, "Lady Madonna." I talked with him a long while, intrigued at his job as Professor of Japanese Folklore. When I asked him why he was so interested in Irish music, he told me it was because he was part Irish. I laughed, thinking he was being ironic. "No", he said, "really." In fact he and his wife had spent the summer in Ireland and Greece, looking up his roots. The full effect of his words needed a second to take hold and when he saw it on my face, he said, "Yeah, my great grandfather was Lafcadio Hearn." He then presented a card, written with the name, "Bon Koizumi."

V

One rainy Sunday, we went to Shiga for a performance by the Sankaijuku. This was my first Butoh experience and this troupe came very highly recommended. As expected, I was profoundly affected by the incredible body control of the performers. My yoga and martial arts training log nowhere near the amount of time put in by these men to achieve this sort of discipline. The silent screams one performer held was right out of silent German Expressionistic cinema. The contorted facial expressions and movements of the others reflected the horror of hibakusha nightmares. This kind of thing could never have been born in the US. Only a society of repressed expression could produce something like Butoh or Yoko Ono or even tentacle porn. Most powerful to me were the series of unbelievably dignified bows by the group's creator, Ushio Amagatsu. Then the lights dimmed slowly, and the white-caked dancers began to almost dissolve, as if beamed away. Miki and I had a great walk back to the train station, each expressing our take on what this performance, "Toki" or "Time, " was all about.

On the turntable: Miles Davis, "The Complete In a Silent Way Sessions"

On the nighttable: Bruce Chatwin, "What am I Doing Here?"

On the reel table: "Small Change" (Truffaut, 1976)

Suddenly Last Night

Soul Flower Union (or at least a mini-version of them) played an acoustic gig in the Kyo, consisting solely of guitar, accordian, and piano. They played at Taku Taku, a venue with some history apparently, having hosted such major acts as Dr. John and Los Lobos. Yet it's small setting was perfect for a mellow set played to a somewhat older crowd. As the show began, I wondered if they could recreate the energy of their electric show, but the power of the songs and the lyrics, brought us higher and higher. The piano of Rikuo, the sole non SFU member, was so brilliant it was ridiculous. (Even Shinya, SFU's usual pianist, humbly said that until tonight, he'd always assumed that there were no living piano players better than himself.) Plus all the usual cover songs (Van Morrison, Curtis Mayfield, The Beatles), sing-alongs and stage banter, which this time touched on the price of veggies in Okinawa. Brilliant!


(I realize that I've been writing a fair amount on music these days, but it goes to show how starved I was for good live acts up in the 'Nog. I promise this blog will have more variety again soon.)



On the turntable: Kodo, "Mono-Prism"
On the nighttable: Alan Drysdel, "Doing Aikido"

Suddenly Last Summer 2

Late September. Moving to a bigger city has given rise to many opportunities that I've long been waiting for. It was in this spirit that I finally saw my favorite Japanese band, Soul Flower Union in their hometown of Osaka.

Seeing them in the intimacy of Shinsaibashi's Club Quattro was the perfect choice. This place is well known as the Kansai stop for more alternative acts. But the faces in tonight's crowd looked like a good cross section of this working class city's working class. You know, the flared Aladdin-trouser and split-toed rubber boot set, raised on a strict diet of canned coffee, cigarettes, and combini box lunches. Some of these dudes were downright scary, all tats and towering baldness. But when the band came on, these guys boogied harder than the rest. There was no shortage of real characters in the room, like the girl whose frenzied pogo-ing never stopped, not even between songs, or two incredibly obese guys whose dance style consisted of a manic jiggling in perfect unison. During the faster numbers, the whole crowd began to jump up and down, causing all the lighting to sway. If there had been a strong quake that night, I never knew it.

What most struck me was that all these dancing thugs seemed to know all the words to every song. I don't blame them for mimicking frontman Nakagawa Takashi. I think if I were given the chance to have anybody's singing voice, it would be his, a strong blend of rough blues and sweet sentiment. The man himself seemed amused by all this. He'd strut and grimace in the ultimate rock star way, then suddenly burst into a huge ironic grin to show he wasn't caught up in all this posturing, that it's only the music and the message that matter. He constantly poked fun at himself and the band, telling self-degrading stories and acting the fool. My favorite part was when he asked the crowd if the local Tigers baseball team was winning, and somebody checked the score on their cell phone.

The band itself was a revolving door of musicians, coming on and off the stage, blazing away in their unique mix of trad-Japanese, Irish, Okinawan, Jewish, Chindon, rock, blues champloo. A weird, scary looking butoh dancer came on stage from time to time contorting his body and face to a rhythm that only he heard. This agony seems a personally expression of the cancer within his body, yet the spirit and energy he enthused will always exist.

The band and audience shared that spirit, the energy sustained for well over three hours. This had been great fun, my long overdue return to the rock and roll audience. It's been over 12 years since I saw a big rock show, the last being a series of Dead shows in Eugene, mid-94. But it made me feel a bit old when I noticed that most of tonite's crowd were now the same age as I was back then.

Sigh. Better to burn out than to fade away.

My my hey hey.



On the turntable: 登川誠仁 With ソウル・フラワー・ユニオン, "緑の沖縄"
On the nighttable: Eric Nisenson, "Ascension: John Coltrane and his Quest"