that foreign music blog🌎

(featured pic credit to CLUB QUATTRO)

While this post is delayed, the great thing is that I had actually decided to make this show the last of the year because of how exhausted I’d been. Coincidentally, this post may be the last of the year! At the very least, it’ll come close.

Anyway, I’d bought the tickets several months in advance, unaware of how many more shows I’d end up seeing in between. I’d even invited my colleague this time around, hoping to take him to his first Japanese rock show. However, due to some unforeseen plans, he wasn’t able to make it. Granted, when I texted him details after the show about how the bands were all vintage rock, he responded with “that sounds awful”, so…I guess it’s good he hadn’t gone.

Anyway, the three bands that night had been in China on their ” 中国巡演增加演出” tour, which finished in Nagoya. While I waited in line, I saw this slew of kanji printed on several t-shirts and was greeted by the pang of Chinese symbols and drums upon entering the venue. Needless to say that I’d been extremely confused, knowing well that it was nowhere near Chinese New Year. I began to wonder if one of the members was Chinese or if there was some international holiday involving China that I’d missed on the calendar. I spent the twenty-minutes before the show, beer in hand, mulling over these things when the lights finally dimmed. However, instead of finding the band on stage, a projector screen slowly unrolled from the ceiling. We all watched in awe as the vocalists from each band (Shukei from MONO NO AWARE, Ryota from TEMPALAY, and Hikaru from Domico) introduced the tour, said their thanks, then surprised us with a three-way match on Mario Kart’s Rainbow Road. We all laughed as they drove each other off course or fell victim to pranks like cleverly placed banana peels or thunderbolts. It was a unique way to start a show, as well as depict how well the bands had bonded over the course of the tour.

When the projector screen was raised, in came the four-piece city band MONO NO AWARE, which consists of Shukei (vox/guitar), Seijun (lead guitar), Ayako (bass), and Yutaka (drums). With their layered guitar effects and crisp vocals against an even melody, there were elements to this band that reminded me a little of ‘surfer’ and ‘psychedelic’ rock, especially noting twang of the guitar in their single “Tokyo“. However, in being introduced to the term ‘city pop’, which is sort of an umbrella term for mellow-core/soft rock, I came to realize that that’s really what these guys are.

Noting other city pop artists like Never Young Beach, this band is very chic with their straight-faced performances and distinctively vintage style of clothing. Shukei was donning corduroy and an afro! If this was a high school movie, they’d definitely be the poets, as even their name can be interpreted as a piece of poetry in of itself. When looking for information on the band, I came to find that MONO NO AWARE means “an empathy towards things”. With insightful melodies like “If there are no words“, it’s only natural that this band take such a name. What I really enjoy about this band is that, while they seem like the cool kids, they really don’t take themselves as seriously as one would think. Their quirky tastes are best expressed in their song comprised of tongue-twisters, “Kamukamo-Shikamo-Nidomokamo!!” Understandably, when Shukei performed this song, the crowd became a bit livelier as he showcased his lightening tongue.

There are also songs like “A.I.A.O.U“, the drone of the vocals against the ambient guitar and keyboard leaning towards the more psychedelic sound that I’d initially mistook them for. Although, I guess we can say that city pop has all those elements embedded in the genre. All the bands that night shared this sort of dreamy sound.

Dreamiest of all, however, was TEMPALAY. Perhaps unsurprisingly so, given their sixties-inspired rock guitar and eighties synth-effects. Made up of Ryota (vox/guitar), AMY (keyboard/synth), and John Natsuki (drums), this band broke through the indie wall with their entrancing track, “Doooshiyo“. The song seems to reflect on the disconnect between expectation and reality, which results in dissatisfaction and destruction. The way the droning vocals loop back onto themselves might be expressing a kind of unbreakable cycle, hence the ending scene when both Ryotas look at each other. The song even got praise from superstar, RAPMONSTER, from BTS!

This band is definitely more ambitious as far as sound goes. They’re all really talented musicians who really just enjoy playing music….and WITH music. When you watch them on stage, it feels less like a practiced performance and more like we all got tickets to see an impromptu jam session. And it’s really damn cool. Going back to the high-school reference, this band could easily be seen as the stoners who really don’t care what others think. For instance, even though “Dooooshiyo” is one of their most popular songs, going against my expectations, the song came SECOND on their setlist. I thought it was a pretty risky move for such an indie band, but I respected their insistence to give us a lot of different stuff that us newer fans, drawn in by ‘Doooshiyo’, may not have been exposed to otherwise. I will say that their popular songs are way less experimental than some of their other stuff, though. Another one of their bigger songs is “革命前夜“, or “Eve of the Revolution”. It takes a sort of funky approach, but contorts the familiar bass and guitar with a hypnotic keyboard and discordant vocals.

Even though I’m not a big fan of these guys, I really respect them as artists. More than musicality, the provoking imagery in their music videos really challenges the Japanese norm with the use of guns, themes of death and suicide, and even using dark-skinned foreigners! Their video for “Sonatine” is particularly interesting with its story between a young boy and a gang member.

Last act was duo DOMICO, made up of Hikaru (vox/guitar) and Keita (drums). Unlike the first two bands, these guys have the energy and grit of garage rock, all while keeping the dreamy/psychedelic theme of the touring bands. Their danceable beat and throaty vocals have earned them quite the international fanbase, as they’d stepped into the U.S. for their first American tour in 2018! I remember distinctly that while waiting through a Youtube AD, their song “こんなのおかしくない？” came on. I ended up listening to a good minute of it before proceeding onto my video of preference. Seeing the quirkiness of the video, I knew that they band would be recognized—if not already–for their originality and catchy melodics. With their sound sounding closer to what people are generally used to, I wasn’t surprised that the lineup ended with them. What WAS surprising, though, was that it really was just the two of them on stage!

What I mean is…like…yeah. THERE WERE JUST TWO OF THEM. TEMPALAY, for example, doesn’t have a regular bassist so they often borrow someone for their shows. There are three official members, though, which is why I introduced them as a three-piece band. However, while I knew that DOMICO was officially two members, I had expected to find another guitarist and bassist to support them. Instead, Hikaru used what seemed to be a sort of recording system he’d control with his feet; he’d first play the rhythm, and then he’d play the lead over it. While I’d seen one-man bands like The Rocket Summer do something similar on stage, I’d still been a little surprised. I admit that for the majority of their performance, I was trying hard to figure out what the hell was going on, and if studio guys would emerge from backstage to bow out. It really was just the two of them, though.

What also makes this band interesting is their use of color and psychedelic imagery. Their album art for “Nice Body?” for example, is painted with curvy woman and watery designs reminiscent of the seventies. I actually wouldn’t be surprised if this band were fans of bands from that era, especially with how Hikaru incorporates funk guitar in songs like, “What’s up summer?” While this band isn’t necessarily “sexy”, their general stage presence and the kind of sensual tone of Hikaru’s voice bring on notions of the sixties/seventies sex appeal. As far as my high-school analogy goes, I think this band would be the cool kids—the ones with the sunglasses, cigarettes, and girls hanging on their arms.

The reason I keep talking about high school is because, despite their different appeals, the three bands were clearly very close friends with each other. I found the contrast so hilarious that it nearly inspired a high school drama!

By the end of the show, all three bands got on stage to take group photo with all of us. The couple in front of me raised their towel and covered my face, but I was really too tired to care much about being seen in a dark room of about five hundred. I was shocked by how many people there were, by the way; never had I gone to that venue when it was sold out, and having stood for a good several hours BEFORE hand, I was really aching to hurry up and get home. All the fatigue aside, though, I really appreciated the break from mosh pits and the known vulgarities of punk. No doubt that these bands I’d been able to see fairly up close will be playing at much, MUCH bigger venues next year.