Pretty good week. Got the album details figured out, and it may turn out to be way cheaper than anticipated. Have also picked up a lot of private students in the past while. Hopefully by Decembre I will have increased my monthly income by about a grand. Good times. I have had to stop accepting new students. I'm flooded! Only nine extra hours a week.
Had a good weekend! Went to an international party with one of my private students. After being spanked by five Japanese girls I met a masseuse. Very cute. Later in Kawasaki went to a bar that was having a dance night. More very cute Hokkaido girls, and a hair-dresser. Met up the next day with the masseuse in Yokohama and went for a walk in the park and ate ice-cream. Bay-side stroll, sun, no humidity, actual grass that people were sitting on. I could watch her eat ice-cream all day. But I got my sights on someone very far away.
There will be more international parties. And I will go to these international parties.
I have been invited to two new-years parties. One is in Osaka, and the other is in Hokkaido. I would love to revisit Hokkaido. So maybe I'll truck up there. Anybody wanna come?
Well, another night in Shibuya. Really, for all it's worth, I would have rather listened to my own songs drinking bottled beer by meself than trying to schmooze witha bunch a bunch of rock musicians. I actually don't like rock, for this reason:
people listen to rock music on their CD players at home, or on their mp3 players in space, or however, whenever, in a closed environment, with adjustable volume controls.
So let's start a rock band! So there are AC\DC covers and Black Sabbth covers being done at full volume in a small room. The original bands played arenas. That requires loudness. That requires musicians who don' t need to be aware of how loud they're playing.
For instance. Tonight, a really good drummer was made completely incompetant by the way he hit his snare drum! He was quite technical, had good timing . . . but because he smacked the snare drum with exceeding force with each hit, it felt like an axe grinding into my skull.
Levels are very important to me. It depends on the room. The room dictates the volume in which one plays.
Busy busy busy of late. Lots of private students, some shows lined-up, a rough demo potentially on the way.
Let's bring it.
The bassist and I were hauled off to prison last night and were interrogated for hours. Apparantly the bike I was riding was stolen, and riding stolen bikes is a big no-no. Luckily I ad a few excuses of WHY I was riding a bicycle -- re: pachinko and construction works.
But I got my mug-shot taken and my fingerprints scanned and now there's lost of info about me tucked away in the police technology.
They kept me there, in this little room. The interrogation room is quite like how I imagined it would be -- simple, a table, a few chairs. Dirty floors and questions flying at me with alarm.
Luckily, at the time, I had no idea how to speak Japanese. It all came ack to me when we left the building.
nb: the language and word choices in this entry aren't necessarily high-level kinda stuff that impresses the type of people who wear glasses and drink wine by fireplaces.
When club-guy says: went out to this underground club last night. knew the dj so i got in for free.
What he really means is: a friend of a friend kinda knew the dj, and there wasn't any cover charge. and it wasn't a club but a small bar that happened to have a couple of turntables set up in the corner.
Went out last night with white people, predominantly. Good people actually. We all met at Hachiko, and not many of us knew each other. So we played the name games and exchanged polite type small talk. Everyone was really nice and open. We just had such a nice time!
Rode the last train home and met up with my older friends in Kawasaki. The bar owner is interested in giving me a show. Could work.
Have some preliminary plans for recording a demo cd at the end of the month. It'll be a one shot, one take, kinda thing. Knock it off, get it out. I wanted a full-length but at the moment it's just too much, and the stress.. . . . I was going to get a guest vocalist but I think I'm going to ditch her as scheduling in someone else to come meet up somewhere. . . completely bad.
Yeah. Also have plans to THINK BIG. There's talk that because we are a unique sounding international band formed in Japan, that we have some clout for getting shows with festivals who are looking for diverse acts. So I gotta get my press kit on the go and fire up the sausages.
Went to a live house the other night and scored a drummer -- young japanese guy. in the pocket. now I got a band -- two Japanese guys, a New Zealander, and me. But getting my head wrapped around the idea of recording is punishing. I figure I'll just do a demo for the time being. four or five songs. send it out to some of the labels and hope for the best!
Had some photos developed today from my trip down to Kyoto and Nara. Lots of happy family types smiling and posing for the camera. Good times indeed.
After recruiting the drummer, and went to Arty Fartys -- the most popular gay club in Japan with my new gay friend! He's really nice. At the club, I was groped too many times, but since I never got an erection I know for sure I'm not that gay! I was qutie popular with the fags. They followed me around, some of them going, 'I just LOVE straight men!' These were Japanese dudes. Too funny. Met some French girls and spoke French for a while. Three languages in a night! Good times.
My new friend's friend, a drama queen, blond type with a cute nose, had a crises and she came to Shinjuku and we went to McDonald's twice. Walked around amidst the blatant, illegal sin of all of Kabukicho.
Met up with my middle-aged Kawasaki friends. They are very kind, nice, and fun. I've been guided to some cheap, take-the-right-past-the-post-office type of restaurants. Last night was sashimi and Otokoyama Nihon-shu.
Homosexuals and middle-aged. I obviously hate my own people. They listen to R&B music. Ew! Gross. . .
Tonight I was able to carry on small converastions in Japanese. My conversational Japanese has improved but when it comes to talking to my fellow teachers it's something of a challenge, due to all of the formality involved, and the incredible rate of speech.
But tonight, small conversations carried out in Japanese. Something of a miracle.
Went to the cheapest bar in Tokyo today. We hammered back beers, plus ate an indecipherable amount of food and the bill came to twenty-five bucks each! Holy shit!
Nothing like getting fat and getting a deal.
I have another three-day weekend. The third in the past month.
I need to get my CD on track, but finances make everything a shitty deal.
がんばります