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11/01/2005: "OCTOBER 7 OSAKA - OCTOBER 13 TOKYO AND HOMEWARD"

OCT 7 2005 OSAKA


Hey. Never been here before. Big town. Kind of like hamburg I guess. The hotel is very nice, but set in the midst of some kind of “gal mart” shopping area for horn dogs. One of the ‘cabaret joints is actually called that; “gal mart”. You can go in and pick out who you want from the catalogs. Oddly, its not as sleazy as it should be. It has that same cartoony disney feel that most shopping situations here have. What ev.

On the top floor of this hotel is a Japanese bathing room. The boys are psyched. Been looking forward to this they have. So I try it out too. a huge rectangle deep tile tub, enough room for 20 men maybe, and is filled with steamy hot water. And that’s it. you just rinse off and get in all naked. Stick around a while and then you shower off at these little personal shower stalls. You sit on a plastic seat and have at it. makes sense somehow, showering sitting down.
Almost.

We get to the club, and it is a punkish little dive downstairs. They seem to adore the grateful dead however. The folks working there are lovely and down and dirty in a good way. A real piano too. but opening the night tonight will be the real treat. nika.

Nika is a woman you can’t help falling in love with. She soon will become a monk because her family lives in a temple in Hiroshima. But she an amazing singer. Stunning. And those sonics of hers serves to rapture you and kicks your ass from the dizzy surrender of her song.

This gets more rare in my day and age. So it is best to just allow it to wash over me like a weather condition. A nika monsoon.

She is reserve and funny and tall and sizzled and clear and dancey and severely tonal in delivering the goods. She turns me on to her recording device which is a eridol digital portable system, and probably the answer to my recording device dreams. She comes out to sing tonight in a black dress and red guitar.
There is no escape. We are prisoners of her lip flip.

She calls me up and we do 2 of her songs, the last one being just me on piano and her singing and kind of waltzing by herself around the stage. i became so satisfied with her set that I am certain my own set sucked. It suffered from already being fulfilled from her set. I could not entertain myself after she was done. This happens sometimes.

Anyhow, the crowd was still delightful and they seemed to think my set was good. I didn’t feel like calling them all liars, so I let it go. After the show we met with a few folks there like jim and rien and Antonio sam (?). I slammed a sake and almost called it a night. But then we went and ate again. Good luck is what that is.

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OCT 8 NAYGOYA

My sonic heart took a blind-sided ka-chunk upside its head today just by saying good bye to nika. Every cell in my form wanted to prolong the proximity and make some more music with her. Last night I sat in on 2 of her songs, and she sat in on a couple of mine. And we were good together in that mode.

And that is where the hearts pound in mutual rhythm. That is where they compound. My heart took a compounding pounding from such sound resounding.

It’s good to allow myself to feel that kind of residue, but it does not come without its slink of depression in the aftermath of said sonic rush.

What the fuck ever. It will always be the curse of the muse.

- Soon - -- -- - -- train feels better with every mile.

But maybe I have taken in too much. Too much information from this land and its over abundant data voo doo. But is there such a thing as ‘voo don’t’ ?

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when we got to to nagoya, it felt familiar. I remember the station anyway from last year. But I can’t recall the club, which is different this year anyway. I must have been thick with the lag last year.

I am not in a great mood. The weather has turned ugly. Humid and squishy. The club is underneath a subway. Constant train rumble above. No tube amp. But there is a piano. Tiny club. I am just in a bad mood. I get through sound check without taking it out on anyone. Gotta watch for that shit. Being out and about all day long, every day out and working with different people, its easy to wear your moods on your sleeve and give off a lousy impression. So, you gotta maintain. Then get the hell out and hide in your hotel room for a bit. Hotel today is less then average because the whole town is overbooked. My room is a tomb.
But it does the job. Shower. Silence. Sleep.

2 hours later I wake and get to the show to see the opening set. Combined with my nap, it all puts me in a great mood. They are great. I can see the guitar player, Kei, attacking his own playing style like a secret handshake. He is accompanied by a woman in traditional Japanese kimono and make up. Her name is saqyudi. and with them is a fellow named ichi. It is a hoot. Rocking and surreal and comedic and rhythmic. Kei palys an old 5 dollar guitar but you can tell he has great prowess lurking.

Apparently the Japanese bob Dylan was also there, having played a show before ours. when I get to the small stage, I am inspired and ready for set revenge from the night before. I manage a great one tonight, even though I knock over the cd player a few times to the floor. Maybe that’s a good thing. In the end I invite the opening band up to slam across the ‘hey jude’ thing. All goes very well. We segued into zep’s ‘whole lotta love’ with kei burning up the page guitar lead.

Whew. Last night’s set is avenged.
Ok then, let’s eat. Tonight’s specialty is octopus sizzling on a small rock that Is placed in the middle of the table over a fire. So I don’t exactly do that, and have another amazing meal anyway. Then back to the hotel and sleep is deep and dreams are thick.

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OCT 9 MATSUMOTO

Train I ride. Through the nihon alps. A good ride. I have managed to not buy anything yet here in japan. no camera. No pictures. Nothing to bore people with my yammerings in some other part of the world.

== == = == =

matsumoto has a vibe to it. I can feel it as we stroll along to the hotel. It is my kind of town. A mellowed mountain vibe. Not the usual thick zoom of most Japanese cities. It is more relaxed. And I think half the folks around here are stoned. It is more my speed then the rumble of the other cities.

The hotel is about perfect too. you can get a much cheaper rate if you book online on the lobby computer then at the lobby check in desk… and then they present you with a gift at the desk for booking on line. We all got the robot reading lamp, but I should have opted for the fresh socks.
Laundry time.

So we check in, check out the electronic bathrooms, then head over to the club. Another night of great musicians and folks who work at the club. They are so cool and easy. Irregardless I will suck tonight. One more night of suckingness. Maybe it’s the altitude after all. Maybe its just how the exhaustion sneaks up on you at this age, but I am lack luster.

What seals my fate is the great lack of tone tonight on stage. The worst electric keyboard. Every night the club will provide their version of whatever piano thing they can muster up for me. Electric pianos in general are a curse. Same with the amps they provide. Tonight’s amp wants to wrestle. And there is also a freaky acoustic guitar tone. It all adds up to a depletion of inspiration. And it is the thing I count on during these random nights when I am too tired from the road, and just want to call in sick and not go to work today.

A solid tone always inspires me to get it up and go.
So. No. Not tonight. A no go show.

But the crowd almost never knows. Only I do and maybe the folks traveling with me. Anyhow, we all still have a good night there. I am not that bad maybe. Just not magic. It felt like work tonight. Usually just the travels and details of the day feels like work.
The playing feels exactly like play.

After the show is a big relief. there was a funny dancer tonight too. even with the stride piano stuff on that miserable piano, she attempted to stumble out a Charleston or something. Maybe it was tap. Or kabuki.

Anyhow.. afterwards, we all muster and congregate.
I am meeting folks and immediately learning more names.

The dancer: herri-go, her friends, hiromi, yuko (who is somehow riveting. I heard someone say all the boys fall for her, and so I study her a bit to see why. This stuff is endlessly fascinating. Traveling around the world and seeing the many variations of attraction. It has intrigue and puzzlement. These days, for me, women are like art. You stare at them for a bit and they remind you of other things. It is just more startling on the road cause all your senses are heightened somewhat. So I look at her and try to determine the source of her Nile.
Can’t really figure it out, but there is something overwhelmingly appealing about her. She is a heart break waiting to happen for some poor gum-shoe, and
It feels sweet to be free of that kind of muck-a-luck). then there was bongo, and a couple of Americans; steve and andy, from missouri and chicago, and hara, and che-fumie ...who seems like an old friend.
Like a smoke from a future fire.

We all hang at a Chinese restaurant, which is a lot more informal in a way and party-full. It’s a good time.

The next morning we get up early despite the night of thick Japanese vodka saturation, and make our way to the castle there. 1500 years old. and they are having a soba noodle festival all around it. famous for it here.
so we get set to sit and slurp.

And then all too soon we gotta make our way to the train, which I was hoping we would have missed just to have any amount of time more here.

But no. norio and aki are extremely well versed in making all the trains they have set up. But their talent lies in the illusion of us never rushing to do so. We always make it just by a few moments. I love this. It is precision without stress. It is getting the most out of a place without having to leave too early to make a travel arrangement. Of course I will push this to the brink when it will be time for me to leave japan altogether, making my own train to the airport by just seconds.

Anyhow, we are off for Tokyo and the final show.

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OCT 1O TOKYO


We get off the train in the middle of a rush hour madness when it is not even near rush hour. That is Tokyo. A sea of humanity all in constant motion.
A warm swarm.

We head back to the bizarrely quiet hotel. Impossibly serene and quiet for a town like this. Cheap too. and literally spittin’ distance from norio’s apartment. So… there is time for a short rest. And I attempt to do some push-ups instead of nap. 50 straight then 10 more elevated. Apparently japan has had an Italian effect on me. Filling up on the meals here and last night was pushing my envelope. Either it is severely difficult to find a bad restaurant here, or maybe norio just has the gift for choice dining. Not expensive, just unforgetable.

But last night in matsumoto left me in the dust. Earlier in the evening we cruised into a restaurant that offered crocodile as their evening specialty. Avoiding that eventuality, horse hit our table instead. And grasshopper. My dinner partners munched heartily.
I slow poked, but could not muster up enough inertia to give it a go. Just happy to watch them have at it. I let them do all the grasshopper and horse munching.
I think they serve their horse raw too.

Anyhow. Tokyo. Playing the nest club. Some fine bands open again tonight. I have made it to see all the opening bands except, sadly, in matsumoto, I had run out of available steam. Tonight tama and domoko and anuki and Uganda are opening with their blend of perfect george jones, hank Williams, merle haggard and jimmy Rodgers. It’s sun and stunning how they pull it off, all decked out in cowboy attire, but somehow twisted in their beautiful accuracy of my favorite country classics. Hoo ha.

I sneak over across the street with my American friend seth high, and probably the link why I ever even was able to come to japan, and catch a bit of the American bands playing there: American analog set, which sound like they must be better enjoyed on the stereo, and her space holiday, which I have to miss because of my own set starting back across the street.

But I begin jamming to the dj spinning beats in between those bands with my empty beer can. I am getting great tone and beat from it. rackita rackita plink plink rackita. That kind of thing. I cannot stop. I keep coming up with new variations. It sounds great.

Then back over through the blade runner rain falling softly there in shibuya [translation: bitter valley] and commence to propagate. I plop the empty beer can on the electric piano provided. I plug in a few wires on the other side of the stage, and when I get back to the piano my can is gone. The efficient stage woman has thought to throw out my garbage for me. Her face slackens when I request the return of my rhythm machine. It appears in seconds. Rackita rackita plink.

The set tonight is in perfect sync. I am stoked. I commence a set unlike any other of this tour. I begin more like the AAAA record that has just been released.

I start with a version of ‘Arizona amp and alternator’, and then evolve into segue after segue… throw in a bit of ‘funny how time slips away’ so I can hang with rainer in my own way. I am playing very well with the cd of drum beats peter dombernowsky sent me (to write and record to). And I am playing a very good beer can. Amazingly musical that can.
It’s a can, not a can’t.

The set rocks. Severely at times.

The place Is full. My job is done. We have definitely poked a hole into gravity and enjoyed some buoyancy.
Feliz gravidad. (translation: happy gravity).

Afterwards, another splendid meal. Almost difficult to get through. So tired at some point during the meal. We eat with toda, and ko-ichi (men my age at the show, and the later who called me with robyn Hitchcock back in Kyoto) and the usual posse plus augie-doggie-daddy from the record company.

Sleep finally celebrates my eventuality.

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OCT 11 TOKYO

My first day off.
It’s a delirious feeling.
No hurry for anything finally. No train to make. No sound check to check sound. Just a random coffee. Maybe a meal. Then we all split up till dinner, and I opt for a Japanese bath to instigate the deep plunge of sleep. The water aids in its singe and puts the slo mo back in the bones.
The isolation is a break and the mind shuts down.

Then back up for a dollup of shop. Some fabrics for sofie. A large missingness of family on the road here instigates the acquisition of some fine silk and traditional elements. Some other fun stuff too. And I check out the cameras anyway, just to see if I can still find the way not to buy one.
I do. So I don’t.

The night ends with a final meal good-bye party. Oh no, hee hee (aki’s lovely and severely pregnant wife) brought me kimonos, and I promised the wife not to bring any back this time.

It’s a fine affair. Low down and up beat. Have a fine chat with the record company kids about a ridiculous idea I have about putting out records on more then one label there since I make too many of them. By morning I will come to my senses, but for now I am amped on them Japanese vodka lemon sours, now being made with grapefuit. The women are drinking men’s drinks; beer and sake. The men are drinking women’s drinks: lemon sours. it works somehow. Mika, augie, aki, norio, hee hee, ginko and seth.

Then when the hotel wraps itself around me, I yip. Sleep sleep sleep. Wonderful fullingness mixed with a fine missingness of family whom I get to see soon. First a dream to lead me to them.

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OCT 12 LEAVING THE PACIFIC RIM TOUR

I get up early and sore from running and push-ups the day before. And heavy from the body requesting more after tour sleep. What happens is the mind keeps the body in check during a tour. Even at this age, the mind is able to keep the body preoccupied with the momentum of constant daily touring rigor. When the tour ends, the mind lets go almost involuntarily. The body then attempts to collapse for days, or at least before the advent of children. So I just try to sleep when I can and be there for them young’uns as much as can be. I get greyer by the second. But what is the alternative ? a dark isolation ?

So I opt to suspend my camera shopping instead to have a nice final meal with norioriororioririo and aki aki. A good choice.

First the packing commences. Hah ha ha ha. it is a puzzle. I load up 5 pair of shoes there for the family, lu lu’s little stuffed animals, luka’s Chinese rocket ship, sofie’s handcarved jade from new Zealand, Australian blundies and Japanese fabrics. And kimonos. Plus tons of cds folks have given me from all the amazing music being made out there on the planet, every one of them a shed of light against the intrepid cursing darkness of war and political poop.

Then off to lunch. We gather and hoo ha over the last weeks worth of yuks. The biggest laugh being me in the train from Nagoya, famous for it spiced chicked wings ( a fave of bob log’s I was told ) that we never managed to get a hold of until we were leaving for the train. So aki had gotten a pile in a ‘to go’ box along with rice bowls, which it is also famous for. Anyhow, my tray is piled high. The train takes off. And in a few moments my crotch is swimming in all of it. the whole ka-boodle slipped off my trey into my lap. Could not react because of the tears forming in my eyes. Hoo ha.

Then we amble off to attempt to make the train on time one last time, that’s headed to the airport. Uh oh. We gotta make a run for it. of course I jam the machine at the turn style and the guards have to come over at the station. Those boys are keeping so beautifully cool, but I reckon we are definitely going to miss this last train. I am lugging 2 guitars, alan olsen’s ( the bob Dylan of denmark ) massive suitcase I borrowed, and a vy and elle back-pack stacked. I am laughing inside and it is beginning to erupt outa me like a volcano. We begin running again. But what kind of run is it with all that stuff attached ?
Train time was less then 5 minutes when I got broke the turn style. No way.

We find the right track stairs, but have to take the elevator anyway. Too much stuff. Tons of humans swarming. We get down to the platform in less then 14 seconds from when the airport train is pulling into the station. I clump all my crap on board and say my very fondest farewells to the boys. Brave men they be. One more belly laugh. A bow. And then off.

I jump though the usual hoops getting on a plane these days. Then I remember I have to change money over, cause it is a way better rate to leave foreign currency in the country of its origin. So I push it again, time wise. What ev.

It’s what I do, and I do it very well. So I find the coin changer, which of course is in the opposite direction of my own gate. I get there and there is a line. But I stick it out and give it a shot. Fill out the form. Attempt to give her all my yen. She does it up fast enough, but then I find some more yen. She redoes it, no complaint. Oops wait, I found more yen. One more time she redoes it. so sweet. Thanks. Almost done, the plane leaves in 20 minutes I think. Wait.. I just found another envelope of yen. We start over.

Ok. At the gate. I have 3 minutes and 23 seconds to do a little more gift shopping I figure. Get something for mom. Gold and red and made in japan. She’ll love that. Ok. Let’s go.

Bam !
the American airlines slam.
I remember it from last time.
The flight attendants never venture forth into Tokyo.
The airport is so far away from the city, like the distance from phoenix to Tucson, that they only ever stay at the hotel by the airport. They get totally ripped off by never having the japanese experience. They have no idea how courteous and full of respect the japanese are to everybody and therefore it does not rub off or inspire. So when I get on the plane it is always a culture shock to get a load of the american mannerisms completely devoid of such respect and courtesy. Especially when they try and take my guitar away and check it in the bilge. What are they thinking ? its in a soft floppy case. You can not check an instrument into the luggage hold like that. It’s a 1950-s national electric guitar and they have no idea what they are talking about, but they would rather just hit me with a manual then accommodate any uniqueness of any situation. The plane is less then half full too.

When I resist, the flight attendant goes off to see if the captain will stick it in the cockpit, which is something that does not thrill me in this day and age. But I have done it before when the insistence of the drones badgering us customers gets too incessant.
She is certain the guitar can not fit in the over head and tries it to show me. And sure enough it does not, which of course boggles me cause I know it does usually. She leaves and then I realize she put it in a slightly smaller overhead then I usually do. So I just stick it up there no problem. No problem.

Then I take my seat. And the other flight attendant tries to make a good impression on me by asking me my name so he can give me a personal service. I tell him. He says howard. I say no, howe. he says oh. “like an Indian”. What ? I look at him boggled. He is serious. “Yeah I have a friend who calls herself ‘how’ to have a have an Indian name.”

Get me off this plane. Back to my japanese posse. I would rather train it with a lap full of chicken wings and fish balls then to sip champagne even in business class here in boggleville.

Momma, I am coming home.