TOKYO JAPAN TOUR 2006
DAY NINE

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Wednesday, Feb 15th, 2006

Up for no reason at all at 8. Have I ever mentioned these beds sure aren’t very fun to sleep on? If I killed one of the others, I could stack TWO matresses together! Hmmmm…. Had an awesome time last night. Can’t believe Matt and Dave gave up on that so easy. Watched more TV in disbelief. Dave got up and went to the store, brought me back banana’s and grapefruit juice. I’m not really sure why I’ve wanted to eat banana’s while on this trip, never really ate them much before. Base got up and claimed he’s still a bit drunk. Maybe the rice wine had something to do with that. Got up and took a shower. Hung the clothes I did last night out to dry on the balcony. Started to do some dishes when Matt screamed out he was in the shower. First thought...well, thanks Matt, that’s good to know...then I realized turning on the faucet turned the shower water to ice. HA! Boy, is that good to know…except now I had better be more careful. I suggest we prepare our own meals, and only eat out of cans from now on. Matt later pulled the same trick on BaseAmp. Changed strings. Stood out on the balcony a while today, it’s nice again outside. Women walking their little dogs and making them wear little sweaters…those poor dogs.

Tomo was by at 2. We loaded up the van and drove back to Shibiya, the supermodel capitol of the world. The club was on this incline alley off the street, right next to a Harley Davidson shop. It was hard picturing a Japanese Harley rider. They had employees out front polishing them and smiling. Took out guitars...ALWAYS down some stairs…into what must have been a pretty decent ballroom at one time. Club was called the Chelsea Hotel. There were chandeliers on the ceiling, pink champagne on ice, one of the other bands told us “We are all just prisoners here, of our own device!” Then the bartender pointed at a ghost near the entrance and said “We have’nt had that Spirit here since….oh, 1969!” For real, the place looked cool. They had crash barriers in front of the stage, which I have never seen before in a club. One thing Matt and I noticed about a lot of these clubs is the step up and down levels on the floor. They are really fond of them. You have to always look down at the floor or risk tripping on one of them. How do people get drunk here? Said “hey” to a way-too-friendly band sitting across from us. They kinda looked like Chess Club Geeks. Not that I don’t like Chess Club Geeks…I just love the bastards!

Sat at a little table while Lifeline (headliners tonight) went up to check. I think we are third tonight. Helped Matt write out some song lists. Not too impressed with Lifelines check, and when the singer was done singing, he would stop the song. They kinda sounded like Chess Club Geeks. I do LOVE the bastards, but I hate the way they sound!

Matt was busy rolling up t-shirts and labeling them M, S, and EXS in Japanese. Tomo was kinda laughing at his writing. We are giving away shirts tonight as promo items for people paying to get in.

We went up to soundcheck, Matt has a Fender Twin tonight, and I have a JCM 900. We played Year One and Nazi Clone…it sounds good enough, did’nt take too long. Sat back down and waited on Matt to finish up with the freebie shirts deal. Put the guitars off in the dressing room.

Walked with Tomo and followed him through Shibuya again. Finally stopped at this place called Peppersteak. It was a really cool place, wish we had them back home. It was like a little diner, barstool chairs around an oval type counter, the people worked inside that. You put your money into a vending-like machine by the door and push buttons next to pictures of what you wanted, then it would print you out these little tickets and you would hand that to the girl behind the counter and they brought your order out pretty quick. All the dishes were served on a heat skillet that would cook your meat as you turned it. I had some kind of steak with bean sprouts, green beans, a carrot slice, and rice. Never touch green beans much and I sure as hell don’t eat bean sprouts…but everything was good here. Maybe I’m getting used to this, I dunno. Got to use chopsticks again which I’m getting to like…kinda keeps you from eating too fast. I thought the food out here, especially steak and stuff, would cost way too much, but it’s really no different from home. Tomo eats lightning fast with his chopsticks, then he sits quietly contemplating his next attack, I just don’t trust him.

Stepped back outside…Dave noticed a shop with nothing but Base guitars in it, so he went to check that out. The rest of us waited outside, a shop with Base guitars…how ridiculous! Afterward we kept walking up the street. Matt wants to clothes shop now that we are back in Shibuya, so we all had to follow him like zombies into some high-priced clothes shop upstairs. Really did’nt feel like being there, so I hung around in the back and tried to find a way out. Kept walking and found another clothes shop right off the street. Hung around out front while Matt shopped. Some shirts were tempting, with really bad English sayings on them. A line of girls was walking down the street dressed in goofy outfits and holding these orange balls with saying’s on them…some sort of advertisement….following a snooty older lady like a harim or something. Base told them they looked ridiculous as they walked by. Well…they did, but I did’nt care for him telling them that.

Matt took forever, but we eventually started walking back to the Chelsea Hotel. There are tons…and I mean TONS of people out here! And I’ve said this before, but the girls here are really incredible. Tomo told us girls here would sleep with rich, old men and then come down here to shop. We saw a few things that led us to believe he was’nt lying. Base posed for pictures in front of a two-story condom store.

Back to the club, just in time to see the first band. They had a Japanese name and I never found out what it meant. Guitarist was really good. Very precise…meticulous, clean…boring…forgettable. Waited back in the dressing room a while. Dave went out and set up his tripod to tape the show tonight.

Next band was NineFiveFive. I really liked these guys, but it was still Japanese rock (see above). Guitar guy was wearing a gangster hat, it did seem to help out his sound a little. Did’nt know they were singing English till the end of their set. Went back in the dressing room and tried to warm up. Just don’t feel like this tonight, especially after having a great time last night.

We went on and played probably our worse show on the tour, I think. It was sounding like BaseAmp could’nt hear us at all, can’t remember one song that was on time! He literally took off on “Nobody Loves Me” so damn fast the rest of us could’nt even keep up! Several times I had to stop playing. I leaned back at one point and asked “ Can you hear?” No reply, he flew from one song to the other. Set was over and I walked off pretty upset. I mean, how can we of played a set like that on our eighth show? Especially after doing so well at The Wall last night? Sat mad in the dressing room for a while, Base did’nt say if he could hear us or not out there…he just continued to read his Ramones book, and I guess that frustrated me more.

So I decided to get out of there for a while. Dave was going to check out some shops he saw while we were out earlier, and I went with him. Went to a shop that had nothing but heavymetal sweatshirts and hoodies and stuff. It was unreal! Cool shirts I did’nt know existed from bands like Helloween, Accept, and Saxon. It was all cool stuff, but expensive and I did’nt have any space in my suitcase to get them home. Bowed to the shop owner as we left and gave him some of my blood!

Went not too far to a comic book shop. Dave bought something, I think…Avengers book. They had some awesome 12” Corpse Bride figures upstairs, but again, I would’nt know how to get them home.

Walked back to the club and just leaned on the lockers near the back. Lifeline was on, all dressed up in blue jump suits. Now…was I right about the Chess Club thing? You all owe me an apology! Maikee came up and surprised me! I had no idea she was even there and gave me a huge hug! She said she saw our show and it was’nt bad at all. Not bad? I could’nt believe it! She’s just being nice. After Lifeline was over, she reintroduced me to Yoshi, her friend from Rosana who we played with at Four Valley. Was great to see him again! He could hardly talk any English at all and Maikee had to translate everything for us. I really like Yoshi, too bad we can’t understand each other. We were laughing at him because he had to leave to take back some porn vid he had, and me and Dave were trying to get him to tell us the name of it. He refused so I tried to make him write it on my arm. First Japanese guy I ever saw turn red.

Talked as long as we could. Tomo was wanting to get stuff back to the van, but it was “complicated” driving the van back to the club…so we carried our cases three blocks to the parking lot he was in and loaded up. Matt still wanted to go clothes shopping, and Tomo amazingly agreed to wait in the van while he did. So Matt first ran off to get some beer for BaseAmp, who was kinda down about the show tonight and was waiting in the van with Tomo. Me and Dave hung around outside in the parking lot talking with Maikee. She wanted us to keep it quiet, but she just got a job helping to promote the Rolling Stones when they play Japan in March. Would be in charge of ticket sales, maybe some press conferences, dressing room stuff and the like. Wow! I was really happy for her, especially after she was so down last night. One thing about this parking lot…they had these video displays on each side of the entrance in the shape of like…8’ cylinders. About maybe 3’ around, with the top 3’ being round video footage of dolphins swimming underwater. Round video screens? So we went up and checked them out, there was a light bar spinning around inside so fast, it created the 360 degree display inside like a moving picture drum. Amazing, really! And they had two of these out on the street…in a parking lot!

Matt came back with zee brewski’s , and we all went walking up the street back into the shopping district. Things were starting to close up now, but Jeans West stayed open 24 hours here! Just in case you need a pair of jeans at 3 a.m., you can take the express train to Jeans West. Walked around inside and checked out some shirts I was’nt going to buy. Maikee has a picture of her with Steven Tyler in her purse, her favorite band is Aerosmith. Went back outside and said bye, she went to go catch the trains before they quit for the night, and we walked back to the van. Base was a little drunk and feeling down, which did make me feel bad. I was upset at him earlier, but I think he had monitor trouble more than anything else, and shit like that happens every know and then. You get mad, but it’s your problem if you stay mad.

Did’nt have too far to drive back to the apartment tonight. Lugged our cases up, which are twice as heavy this time of the night. Walked with Base and Matt to the convenience mart around the block. Got grapefruit juice and some more Pringles…low-salt, damn them! Pringles is about the only American snack food I can find here. Something I noticed about clerks here, is they don’t like to take money out of your hand. There is a little tray on the counter and you put your money in that. They also will wait until you hold your hand out to give you back your change. Was tempted to just stand there and see how long it would take for them to insist I take my money. Base tried to beat up a vending machine when it would’nt give him cigerettes. Hard to tell who won…the machine still would’nt give him cigs. Back to the room, ate Pringles and grapefruit juice while watching the vid from the show tonight. It was’nt as bad as I thought it was going to be, and it would have been hard to tell if anyone noticed we were as off as I thought we were. So it’s no big deal after all, I guess. Ended up falling asleep on the floor, woken up later to make my lousy bed and was out by 2.

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