TOKYO JAPAN TOUR 2006
DAY ONE

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Monday, Feb 6th, 2006

Up at 4:30 in the bloody a.m. Tried to get ready by the time Dave arrived around 5. World should not exist this early. We loaded up and went to Jenn’s so she could drive the van and Steph could drive the car. Went by to pick up Matt and his arsenal of suitcases. Was heading to the airport when Matt called me from the van and told me we had to get BassAmp…who called him this morning at 1:30 to get a ride. Already running late, but we went to some subdivision full of slow-moving vehicles and picked Bass up, and was to the Airport by 6:30. Said bye to Steph and Jenn. These anvil cases weigh around 50 lbs each. Dave thinks he’s so damn smart cuz he got one developed by NASA with wheels that weighs practically nothing..and follows him around by remote control, and smells lemony fresh. Matt had to rent some little cart thing to haul everything to check-in. My case weighed 53 lbs, so I had to pay an extra 25.00. There was the longest line I’ve ever seen here waiting to go through security…we made our gate with only five minutes left. Really thought we were going to miss our connecting flight.

Flight to Chicago was pretty short, and we did’nt have far to walk to our gate, had 45 minutes to wait. Me and BassAmp split one of those Cinnabon things that smell much better than they taste. Bass realized he left the house with only 20 bucks. 20 bucks won’t even keep him in cigs for an hour. Had to laugh as he went over to film some lady lost-in-space talking on her cell phone nonstop for a half-hour. Her Joisy accent just made it funnier. I think he erased this later to fit in some drunk people…too bad. First time on an international flight, 777 is pretty big. We all had seats pretty close to the rear screen which displayed the flight path as we took off up and over Canada. Tokyo is 6,275 miles…13 and a half hours…the rough equivalent of listening to 18 cd’s straight. Watched the TV’s in back of the seats in front of us…Walk the Line came on a few times. Sounded pretty lousy in the headphones. About and hour into the flight they served dinner. Not that hungry.. I ate whatever Dave did’nt, couldn't wake BassAmp up to eat.

Spent a lot of time watching the flight path screen…it’s kinda addicting after a while..flying around 600 mph…and trying to listen to cd’s, my freakin’ cheap batteries are dead after one cd. Think I went through 10 which would die right as I would get to sleep and wake me up. Plane went over Alaska and across the International Date Line with Chuck Woolery, and suddenly it was Tuesday. As we approached Japan, Matt let me listen to a cd he had with Pat Benetar’s Le Bel Age on it. I had never heard it before, and this song was stuck in my head for DAYS!! It seemed just right for flying into a neon country that seemed to be in the 80’s anyway. They served food again an hour before we landed…don’t really know if was dinner again, or breakfast or what…but it was pizza and fruit and some other thing.

Plane touched down at 3:00 p.m. Told the guys to go on ahead as one of my bags was in the rear overhead. Walked off, Dave was waiting for me. So we followed the signs to Passport security where we had to turn in these forms we filled out on the plane. To avoid paying taxes on cd’s and shirts, we were supposed to declare them all as promotional items…but no one really asked me about them. The guy could’nt have been less interested with me. The guy next to me was having a hell of a time, though..glad I did’nt get in his line. He even asked me what flight we were on right before he was judo-chopped! Baggage claim was next..the carts are FREE here. We made our way into customs, where the guy must of asked three times if I had any porn on me. I mean…the list was like guns, porn, knives, alcohol, porn, skittles, drugs, and porn. They did’nt believe me, and I was taken to this little tent area to be searched. BassAmp is a damed Iranian and he had no problem getting through. Dave got roped into this too somehow…think he volunteered. They asked me what I was doing in Japan and everything. Stuck to my dental floss salesman from Montana story and all was smiles, even the sniffy dogs.

Walked out and found Matt who had met up with Tomoyuki..who likes to be call Tomo. Yeah, I would too. BassAmp was out having his first smoke in 15 hours. We waited out near the parking lot for Tomo to go get the van from a nearby country. Already see tons of vending machines here. Feels like I’m in a Japanese theme park..like I could walk on the other side of the Airport and be in the Danish area. Tomo eventually pulled up in this white van rounded like a VW Bus in a way. Not sure what I was expecting, but it was a bit beat up on the inside and a little old. Like many vehicles I would come to realize, it had a satelite map display on the dash. Why? Tokyo must be a fairly simple place to drive around in?!

First thing Tomo did was stop for some beers. “You like…bee-yah? “ He went into a convinience mart off the side of the highway somewhere and came out with four of these …..cute little beer cans. They were light blue and spring green with lots of pink flowers on them. I was trying to picture some yah-whos in Imperial sitting around watching football drinking out of these things. Drove about two hours into Tokyo. I knew this was supposed to be a big city, but…my God! There are immense factory areas with funky shaped buildings that defy gravity everywhere with huge signs on top in English and Japanese. Then came the buildings, lights, and TONS of people. Started to get dark as we neared Yotsuya. Could’nt believe how dense this city is packed together, no space left without some sign or light on it, and people just everywhere walking and riding bikes or motorcycles.

Was beginning to wonder if we were being kidnapped when Tomo finally pulled over to the club, which was right off the road..Yotsuya Four Valley. Felt kinda weird about not being able to see where we were staying first, and we had to leave our luggage in the van. We brought our guitars in down the stairs to this really small club, probably about 20 people standing around. First thing I noticed is some kids behind the front desk smiling and bowing as we walked in. I kinda turned around and then thought…oh, me? What nice punkers. Tomo had us put our guitars into this little storage room that barely had enough room for us to stand in, let alone these anvil cases. Checked out the club..really started to get tired..and this whole night is really kinda fuzzy. Met a girl named Maikee who I thought was working at the club, offered to interpret for us tonight. Cool…. American flag jeans. One thing I noticed is all the shirts here have English sayings on them, the vid on the video screen there was showing Japanese stuff with the sound off, and the P.A. had American bands playing. Vending machines are filled with beer. I think Bass asked Tomo for a good Japanese beer, and he recommended Heinekin.

Asked Tomo is he had eaten anything yet, he said no and then he took us down the street to a place called Currey Hell. No, that was’nt it….Currey Purgatory! Yep, that sounds right. Maikee joined us as well, and we cleared the place out and ordered currey related stuff. I had never had curry before, but I thought if Lister from Red Dwarf can eat it all the time, it can’t be that bad. Tomo rang some buzzer on the table when he was ready to order and this guy who was smiling way too much for his own damn good took our orders. Currey is about freakin’ AWFUL! How does Lister do it? I ate all the rice that was’nt infested. When smiley brought the check, I took it and paid for everyone tonight. It was cheap..lot cheaper than I thought it would be. Tomo could’nt believe I did that, and Maikee must of thanked me three times walking back to the club.

Went in to watch the first band..four guys jumping all over the place and looking…well, silly! They did’nt look like they had been playing together very long…that’s a nice way to put it. The changeover went pretty fast..like, 10 minutes and the next band came on…Headscrap. They were trying to be Industrial and the base and guitarist were wearing gasmask’s Rammstein-style. I thought,…geez, their heads must be one soggy-mess about now. Guitarist must have had ten pedals to make up his processed sound. It sounded good, but many bands I came to find out here really relied on lots of pedals for their sound. Never thought punk needed any of that..but I’m not in Kansas anymore. I was impressed with them none-the-less…think I was the only one, though. During the changeover, the singer walked over and gave me a bunch of decals. Bands all use the same drum kit here, and most of the time they will have their own amp head, but use the house cabs. Makes the changeover go pretty quick.

I did’nt catch much of the next band, Rossana. Maikee told me they were her friends, and they were really good from what I remember. I watched a few songs then went back into the little room where all our stuff was packed into. Dave was in there practically asleep sitting up. BassAmp was making balloon animals…oh, where does he find his energy?! Got my SG out and tried to play a bit and wake the hell up. It’s like 5 am our time now.

Rossana went off and we went up and checked out the house amps. We both had Marshalls, Dave had this monster Ampeg. There was no time earlier for a soundcheck, but we’re pretty used to that being from St. Louis. They had this rockstar video screen lowered in front of us, and when that went up we started playing. Don’t really remember much of this set cuz I was really, really tired. It did’nt go too bad though, I was more worried about BassAmp more than anything else, but he did a great job. Really, the only thing I remember is this girl off to the left dancing around in some floppy, beat-up hat. Fashions here are like…the 80’s updated to 2006.

Sat out by the merch tables afterwards and tried to talk to people. Kinda hard when you don’t understand each other, ya know. Most were pretty friendly and bowed a lot. Met the guitarist from Rosanna..name is Yoshi..Maikee helped me talk to him a bit, but for the most part we were all ready to pass out. BassAmp did get challenaged to a Sumo wrestling match by some guy in a blue parka, he put down cigerettes on thefloor for markers and they tried to push each other over them. Match was over when Bass got tired and picked the guy up. Packed up the merch stuff…Tomo said it would take him a while to get the van. He was gone about ten minutes when Dave said he was already here and waiting outside. So we drug all the cases and junk upstairs and out to the corner before we realized it was just another white van. We sat out there for about fifteen minutes in the freakin’ cold! While we were out there…we noticed across the highway they were doing some kind of construction work and the guy directing traffic over was waving this glow wand with such regularity and precision..we thought gee, they really take their jobs seriously here, he’s waving that wand like lightning, in fact..it was a little bit frightening, and it was waved with expert timing. Then we noticed it was a mechanical manaquin. Saw a lot of these here…guess the manaquins have a better union than some of these construction guys.

Loaded stuff up in the van and drove maybe 20 minutes through tons of cool lights, still people out everywhere..what the hell are they doing???…to an area full of apartment complex’s with little alleys between them, stopped outside of one and lugged our stuff up to an elevator to apartment 401. Our place is nothing like what I thought it would be, nor the area we stayed in. It’s small and freezing, only two chairs in the kitchen..so I sat down in the living room and thought about sleeping on this little table as Matt and Tomo began talking about rent. Rent? No one said anything about having to pay rent!! Matt said he would deal with it when he was more awake, and Tomo turned the heater on for us and left. Heater is kinda up high on the wall, and you operate it by a remote…which is all in Japanese. We found our beds all wrapped in plastic in the next bedroom. Matt and Bass took that room, me and Dave drug the table out of the living room and set ours in there. This night I did’nt care that I was sleeping on a little mattress on the floor..was just good to finally sleep. The TV had people on it laughing and acting as stupid as possible. Two weeks of this…maybe I could be drugged the rest of the way….

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