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Nishi-Azabu, September 23, around midnight: I’m drinking expensive pints of beer at a noisy bar in one of the nightlife centers of Tokyo. A couple of hours ago the curtains came down on the first live music event I’ve ever organized, and I’m feeling both elated — at one point in the evening the venue was packed — and drained.
People often ask me how they can get their bands to Japan and do shows here, and my boilerplate answer, based on what musician friends tell me, is “It’s not easy.” It’s hard to find good venues and local bands to perform with, and it’s tough to attract an audience. These past couple of months, trying to put together a show myself, I discovered this answer was true. It was simultaneously fun, stressful, and filled with discoveries. But to start at the beginning —
About two-and-a-half months before the show: My friend Philipp, a sound engineer, invites me to dinner. He tells me he knows someone who runs a bar and is looking for acts to feature. The bar can hold about a hundred people; Philipp himself can be the sound guy. Would I be interested in talking to some of the bands I know to see if they might want to do a gig?
I tell Philipp it sounds good, but let me think about it. In my head, though, I’m already making plans about which groups might work. For some time I’ve been vaguely interested in throwing a show in Tokyo, and this looks like a nice chance to do so.
The terms are also attractive: The bar is asking only for half of the ticket sales. There aren’t space rental fees or minimum ticket sale guarantees, terms that often mean bands in Tokyo have to pay to play. It sounds like a good deal.
A week later: I go with Philipp to the bar, The Baron. I love the place — it looks like something out of a restaurant decoration magazine, has a full bar, and serves good tapas. The live space has is separated from the bar area, but has its own small bar as well, and guests can move freely between the two areas. I become excited about doing an event here, and decide to start getting in touch with bands.
About two months before the show: I email the three bands I want to play at the event. Two reply right away saying “yes.” The third, which I’ll call Flying Ninja Blades, replies, “sounds interesting, but let us check our schedule.”
A week later: The Flying Ninja Blades get back to me. Bad news: they can’t do the gig because of a schedule conflict. That’s a bummer, because I wanted them to close the event, and now I have to come up with another band.
4 Bonjour's Parties
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A few days later: I decide to invite another group, which I’ll call Chic Green. I saw them play once and loved their chamber music-like compositions. Chic Green’s leader seems keen to do the gig — he’ll get back to me.
A few days pass: No word from Chic Green.
A week later: Still no word from Chic Green. I’m starting to get worried — it’s only a month-and-a-half until the show, and I need to start promoting it, but I can’t start until I know which three bands will play. Among other things, flyers can’t be printed up until the band lineup is finalized.
I decide to call Chic Green’s leader. He apologizes for the delay, and says the band is interested, but there’s one problem — they are thinking of going in a new musical direction, and aren’t sure whether now’s the right time to do a show. He says he will get back to me though in a few days.
One more week later: No word from Chic Green. I call again. Apologizing profusely, the leader tells me Chic Green can’t play after all, for the previously mentioned reason. But he says he’ll make it up to me.
Around this time I’m growing paranoid — or realistic, maybe — I’m not sure which. Directness is definitely not a dominant Japanese personality trait; they prefer to leave unpleasant things unsaid, and let you piece together the implications on your own. I start thinking maybe the Flying Ninja Blades and Chic Green never wanted to do the gig in the first place, but told me they would consider it just to let me down easy.
Yunn & Yuyake Lamp, photo by Ken M
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Moreover, I’m worried about another thing: What if the other two bands, seeing that I’m having trouble finding a third group, start wondering whether this show is really going to fly, and decide to pull out? Then my event probably won’t happen — there’s no way I could find two or more good bands in a little more than a month.
I’m running out of time. The members of the bands I know are all busy people, with many work and music-related obligations, and it will be hard to find a band whose members are all available and willing to do a gig on short notice. And I can’t talk to more than one group at a time, because if two bands both accept, it would be painful (and a potential relationship-buster) to have to explain to one of them, well, I don’t need you guys to play after all.
The next day: I decide to invite a band I know well (I’ll call them Robotto), and send them an email. The only problem with Robotto is that they are fairly popular, and might attract more fans than the Baron can hold. But I’ll worry about that possibility if and when they say yes.
All these emails to bands, by the way, aren’t easy to write. I have to make the event and the venue sound alluring without going overboard; be a polite solicitor of the band’s services without seeming stiff and formal; and communicate my enthusiasm for the band without making it sound like cheap flattery. Since I’m writing these emails in Japanese, I also hope I’m not making any communication faux pas that would offend the bands.
The next few days: No word from Robotto. I write to several other bands I like, telling them about the event but not specifically inviting them, so that I might get them on board if they sound interested and Robotto turns me down.
DJ Kamaage and his daughter, photo by Ken M
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A week later: Robotto replies — they’ve thought it over, but they are recording now, and don’t want to do any shows until that’s done. A “no,” in other words.
My paranoia deepens. I haven’t got a clue who to invite as the third band. Fortunately, the other two bands don’t seem to mind a two-band event, if it comes to that. But I want this event to feature three bands, for the sake of variety if nothing else.
About a month before the show: Out of the blue, a friend who is in a band tells me Chic Green’s leader told her about my situation, and she says her band might be able to do the show. This is a godsend — her band is exactly right for the evening. I thank her and start waiting again.
A week later: Chic Green’s leader taps my shoulder at an event in Shimokitazawa and tells me our mutual friend says her band will play. I rejoice — the show is on!
Three weeks before the show: The final band lineup: Post-rock pop group 4 Bonjour’s Parties, accordion-wielding neo-acoustic band Three Berry Icecream (whose leader used to play in the popular ’90s group Bridge with Hideki Kaji), and soulful piano-pop ensemble Yunn & Yuyake Lamp. DJ Kamaage will also spin. Each of the bands has another show scheduled before mine, and those gigs will be the best time to pass out flyers because fans of the bands will be there, and they are most likely to be interested. The printer can’t print up the flyers in time for Three Berry Icecream’s gig on Saturday, though, so I color-copy a hundred flyers and bring them to their gig instead.
Three Berry Icecream, photo by Ken M
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The next couple of weeks: I leave flyers in youth hotspots within about a five-kilometer radius of Nishi-Azabu. For the first time I realize that independent record stores in Shibuya, Tokyo’s youth mecca, carry almost exclusively hiphop or house music records. I figure there’s little chance B-boys or clubbers will be into my twee pop event. Meanwhile, a few train stations away in Shimokitazawa, I get to wondering whether the college kids and underemployed young adults that hang out in this neighborhood will bother to transfer trains several times to get to the more posh Nishi-Azabu to go to my event, and pay the equivalent of US$10 for beer.
The night: My premonition turns out to be correct — the flyers I left at stores apparently didn’t attract any guests. But enough regulars from the bands’ other shows, their friends, and their friends’ friends show up so that at the peak of the evening there’s little space to move around in the live area. I’m happy about the big crowd, and the fact that I’m introducing music by my favorite bands to people who might otherwise never have listened to them. But perhaps due to the pressure, I have a stomachache during the first two bands’ sets (two pints of ice-cold beer on an empty stomach likely didn’t help matters either).
Trying to make sure nothing goes wrong, I also can’t focus as much on the bands’ music as I would if I were just a beer-swilling customer, rather than the organizer of the event. By the end of the evening, though, I’m telling everyone who will listen how much fun all this is. I begin to think I can put up with another few months of what I went through to organize another show. I’m ready for Round Two.
Posted October 2006
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