I think it may have been the booze and the lack of sleep all week, but my spirits were very depleted on day four. At least for most of the day. Anyway, today was shopping day. So, we hit the road (or subway) in the afternoon.
The previous day had been rainy, and it was no longer hot. Today...was overcast, and kinda cold, but no rain until evening. So, Joel took me to this shopping center/flea market type place in, I believe, Koenji? Is that right, Joel? Anyway, wherever it was, it was great. There was a wonderful porn store there....well, maybe "wonderful" is a strong word for it, since some of the girls on the covers looked very much under 18. Welcome to Japan. BUT, there was another store there (actually, there were many stores there), that specialized in bizarre comics and books, and experimental music. Not knowing much about the book/comic department (though it was strange, to say the least) I scooted on over to the cd's. Lots of Japanese stuff, some of which I bought just for the cover. So, 3 cd's, and another cd for Joel. I got a reissue of a 1990 album by the Japanese noise band Hijokaidan (called "Romance", it looks very serene on the cover, but, trust me, I only could get through 10 minutes of it. The thing is, I used to buy noise stuff back in my twenties, but these days my ears just can't handle all those high frequencies...low frequencies are great...lower the better. Bass rules!), and I also picked up a psych n folk compilation called "The Night Gallery 2: 21st Century West Psychedelia", which is pretty great, and I'll probably post that on here one of these days. The other one I bought purely for the cover, and then I gave it to a nice girl that I sat next to on the plane. Don't worry, pretty sure it was not noise. Anyway, the majority of the music was of an experimental/noise/psych type of vein. Well worth checking out if you are ever in Koenji....and if I can find the name.
So, we left and walked and drank sake from a self heating can, but we couldn't figure out how that worked. The can did get very hot, though. And we drank some beer, and we went to some other place in Koenji....I think. And it was time for me to eat the RAW CHICKEN. Hell yeah. And it was good. Served sashimi style at a chicken yakatori bar. So, we ate that and other chicken parts and one dish with a raw egg dumped over the bbq'ed chicken. Everything was great. Plus, Joel's sweet lady (Aya was her name) showed up with a friend. At that point, my spirits were high again, and Joel's was dipping. I won't get into that, but his lady sure is a pretty one. Her friend was kinda cute too, but not really, but I didn't care.
After the chicken place we went....to....another place and ate and drank and talked to some Japanese at a nearby table. The dude tried to kiss me even though his lady was sitting right beside him. It was weird. Anyway, we're in gear, so we head off to the karoke room, which ruled, and had way better stuff than the Korean ones. The Judas Priest songs even had real guitar on it instead of keyboards. Man, that was fun. I did The Smiths, and Joy Division and some other stuff. And then it ended. And I was sad. And the girls left. So Joel n I slept at the Karoke room a few more hours until the train opened and then we dragged ourselves in a gloomy ass way off to his place for a few hours of shut eye before my triumphant departure.
I found this interesting little biography on Hijokaidan translated by Alan Cummings here. Check it out. It's not the most listenable style of music, but their stories are interesting, and actually if you play some of it at a low volume, it kinda works like ambient music. However, if there's too much feedback, that kinda kills the ambient buzz. I also recommend Merzbow and Masonna.
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