Music: Live Houses

The first weekend I spent in Japan, the previous German guy, Dominik, was still around. We had only really few time together, but he used it to introduce me to a very cool thing about Japanese music culture: the Live House.

What I missed most in Erlangen was place for small independent local and worldwide bands to perform, without having to pay anything. A place where there is no "proprietor", which wants to sell you his drinks and does not allow you to bring your own. Which might even have security guards or such shit watching your every step, when trying to dance to music. A small place, where not many fit in, building a small , cozy and easy get to know new cool people environment.

In Passau there is such a place, it is called ZAKK, Zentrum fuer Ambulante Kultur und Kommunikation (center for ambulant culture and communication) and I dearly love it.

In Japan/Tokyo I have found no place like the ZAKK until now, but Domi introduced me in cultural thing which at least fits the music and band prerequisites I just counted up. They are called Live Houses.

A Live House usually is a small dirty place with some band equipment in the middle of a town (Tokyo consists of several towns). In our case that was 池袋 (Ikebukuro). This houses or more rooms are rent by bands for a whole day. The rent for that single day is coped for by a small entrance fee. In our case six bands performed and we had to pay 1.000 ￥en, which is approx. 7 Euro (Ok for six bands I think). Since Domi, like so many of my friends, is into Death Metal, this evening only Death Metal bands performed. Well the last one the "Dead Coffins" actually were a Doom Metal band, a r e a l s l o w o n e .
Their predecessors were called SS Orc and made some real nice music. Don't worry, they have no connection whatsoever to German Nazi ideology, they just found the name funny.

Yeah and as I said earlier, we were allowed to bring our own drinks and food, although there was a girl selling some drinks right in the house as well. And in the room were no more than maybe 30 people, which made it easy to get to know others. Especially if you are foreigner, since usually foreign "tourists" don't end up in places like this.

I am really sad that Domi had to leave so early, and I hope this one experience is enough for me to find Live Houses myself. I'd love to experience (like in see, hear, feel, sing and smell x) ) Japanese Punk (Rock) music. As with almost every musical; genre, Japanese love to make their own branch, like in J-Pop, J-Metal, etc. and that's why there is J-Core like in Japanese Hardcore. Apart from that I'd like to try softer Metal, like symphonic or epic Metal. A well and everything else apart from the mainstream. ;p

your little head banging punk
mika