Buskers

It seems very common in Japan to see people playing music in the street, everywhere. I saw lot of musicians and singers down the Kamogawa river in Kyoto at night. If the weather is good I suggest everyone to pass one evening by the shore and listen to random musicians. But it is also easly to find people playing in Osaka and also in smaller city like Hirakatashi, I met some guitar players down the station there really good.

So, it seems kind a normal behavior for japanese young musicians to stop in the street and play, with all the amplications and often with friends that help them. In other countries such Italy, playing in the street is related to people that beg for money. In England instead there are just few spots in the street or in the tube where is legally possible to play and only few people that registered themselve at the city hall can do it.

Japan looks more freedom for everyone that want express its art, at least musicians. Some day ago I passed by Osaka station and, over the bridge, there was a full band playing live in front of 30 people more or less. It was quite nice, they where playing J-pop while trains where running behind them. The bad was called KAEDE, formed by drums, bass, guitar and young girl as singer. They where selling and promoting theire new cd and the future live performance in clubs. The price for the cd was affordable, 1000 yen. So, I suggest to take a look on theire website for more informations: http://www.edeak.net/. If you also want to vote for them in a contest you can do it here!

I also discovered a really nice Japanese band, they are already really famous! The band is called Tokyo Jihen and the beautiful singer is Shiina Ringo.

Here are some links if you wanna have a look:

Video

Tokyo Jhien on Emi music

Official web site (under construction)

Mondo Grosso & Japanese clubbers

(Picture of Shinichi Osawa taken from his official myspace)

Mondo grosso means "big world" in italian, but it also means Shinichi Osawa, an artist rated in the Top 100 Japanese Pop Artists. Till some years ago, this musician was only known with the name of Mondo Grosso, taken from his ex music band. He was well known for house, jazzy, soulful and similar productions. But time has changed, and lately with his real name is producting different music such as electro, electro-rock, spank-rock and so on. His new album "The one" has been released the 26th of november, you can listen to the tracks HERE and also have a look to his official web site. I listened live to him october the 20th in the world club in Kyoto. Here is a short video of what it was about....fasten your seat belts before playing it!

Links: Official Shinichi's myspace

In this kind of event, such as Shinichi's partys, you may like or dislike the music, but you cannot feel the energy of the Japanese clubbers. Expecially in Osaka the crowd is absolutely amazing, and is different from any other part of the world. The young kids that go to specific clubs like Triangle (shinsaibashi) is really involved in the event, they know who is playing and they know everything about that kind of music. All the people dance looking at the dj, singing and jumping...I can assure and I have been told that there are no other better places in the world for a dj to play than Osaka.


Links: Triangle club

(Pictures from World club Kyoto)

The great gig in the sky

The 7th of october I went to the TEN-ON music festival: http://www.ten-on.jp/. Is a quite big festival of different kind of music: classical, swing, blues and so on. The event was based at the OAP tower in temmabashi, a building tall 176 meters with 38 floors. The view from there is amazing, is possible to see all Osaka, here are some night shots from a japanese website. I took a picture during the day while i was listening to different gigs around the 38 floors.

Inside the buildin there are also shops and restaurant, but mostly offices. That day there were also some second hand music markets. You can find there old japanese and international vinyls, books, clothes, and very cheap instruments!!! Is possible to buy a good acoustic guitar for 5000 yen (unfortunally I bought a small crappy one 3 days before for 4500!!!!).

The musicians were great! So I can definitely say that japanese people can play music, and they do it very well. I've been told that if a japanese want to do something is going to do only that thing, but really really good! I'm asking myself why there are not so many japanese famous musicians in the west countries. Is easy to say that the language can be a barrier, but I'm talking about music, and the guy on the picture below needs to say nothing but play! While he was playing (at the 38th floor!), the crowd couldn't belive of what was hearing. The pure blues that came out of his guitar didn't have a nationality.

Blog essay one

Cleaning up: Facial expression and gestures

I found this post interesting since as posted before, I was once trying to communicate with deaf people at the eisa festival. As write on the post in visual anthropology of japan, I think it's very bad too that the gesture system, known as teburi, will be discontinued, I don't really know much about that specific kind of sign language, but I'm sure that every types of sign language can't be usless. Since I don't speak Japanese at all (and it's been a month now that I'm studying it!!!), that day at the festival I discovered that in certain occasions is easier comunicate with hands and facial expression. Ok, every culture has its differences, and the italian way to express positivity moving the head can be different from the indian or japanese one, but interacting directly with people can be easier than write an email to a suomi o russian person....basically I think that you can read eyes!!! But first of all, whatever the situation is just SMILE, isn`t the smile the worldwide sign of positivity?

Deaf people at eisa festival