Elevation, The Fadeaways and...Kiss?

"Production ain't easy but it's neccessary..." ~ Ice Cube

At least I think that's what he says...

Yesterday was a day full of intensity in ten cities...early in the afternoon we met up with Elevation, a band that I might describe as fun and heavy rock. They were playing a show that night at 20000V (twenty thousand volts) which is in Koenji, Tokyo. We went to a local bar with them and set up an interview outside on a veranda. The drummer Micah, happened to be from Seattle, so he was a huge help interpreting for the rest of the band.

Here they are backstage at 20000V before the interview:

From that interview, we hopped on a JR (Japan Railway) and headed further out into the fringes of Tokyo to do an interview with The Fadeaways. We set up the interview in a park across the street from the venue but had to move around for a while before we found a quiet enough spot. It wasn't crowded, but there were uncountable amounts of unseen crickets that I think are called "chiba". They're incredibly loud, bursting forth in a caucophony of high pitched dissonance, so we ended up near the street where their melodies were mellower. The Fadeaways described themselves as a garage punk band with neo group sound, and kept emphasizing that anyone out there can play punk music. They don't want to sound pretentious. In fact, they claimed they were not musicians, but rather fans of music. I thought that it was a pretty interesting take on their style.

After the interview, Lewis stayed to film the Fadeaways show which was taking place at a Live House called U.F.O., while Eric and I headed back to Koenji to film the Elevation show. The hardest part about getting around right now has been dealing with the subway and JR lines. You have to buy a ticket that is specific for the station to which you are heading. So you have to know which line you are taking, and how many stops you are going, and then you buy the appropriate pass.

What's tricky is that the stations are all written in Kanji, one of the three written languages here. This isn't a typical alphabet, but instead uses character symbols, so you basically have to memorize which symbols represent your stop. The photo above is really helpful because it translates the Kanji into something we can read. Anyways, we're still asking Lewis which symbol is which, but in the next few days I'm going to try and memorize the common Kanjis, because without a photo like this...I'm lost.

So after the Elevation show, Eric and I went out for drinks and snacks with the band. It's great, they have so much intensity on stage, and have a heavy wild sound, but offstage they were extremely relaxed and easy-going. We'll stay in contact with them, and there was some discussion of producing a music video for them while we're here.

Anyway, its time for some breakfast...here's one last photo to think about: