live in japan
"Sad but true to say... but in Japan they know more about what rock'n'roll is about we do over here". (Lobo eléctrico) QUESTIONS
1- What does it feel like to play to a crowd that know little or nothing about you and have never seen you before?
2- What kind of response did you get from the crowds at the gigs?
3- A reason to go back to Japan… or never set foot in the place again.
4- Your favourite Japanese band.
5- Any funny anecdotes from your travels there?
atom rhumba
1- It’s a good test of a band. It’s gives you the chance to see just how well your songs work in front of a crowd that have no preconceived opinions or ideas of what you’re about.
2- Energy pile-drivers... they’re all totally off their fuckin’ trolleys!
3- The punters. The people who go to concerts. Then there’s also the treatment and respect you’re afforded: technicians, promoters, journalists, managers... and the food is gorgeous too.
4- Uff! There’s loads of them: Boredoms, Guitar Wolf, Teengenerate, Polysics, Acid Mothers Temple, Cibo Matto, Thee, Michelle Gun Elephant, Jet Boys, 5678’s...
5- We experienced the whole ‘fan’ phenomena. It’s like being a Rolling Stone for a week: it’d take us hours to struggle 20 yards... everybody asking for autographs and photos... people screaming. By the time we played our second gig, everybody in the audience was wearing our t shirt! It was an amazing buzz.
Health and Rrrrrrrrrumbas!!!!
joxe ripiau
1- From the start I felt that Japanese culture was really distant from ours. Someone said that it was like getting into some type of Martian machine and somebody else told me it was like dropping acid. I agree with both of them. Joxe Ripau had a ball playing over there.
2- A book I read said that dances over there are horizontal. Well, they certainly enjoyed jumping around at our gigs!
3- There’s loads of reasons I’d go back. The first one is that you get to know a place that’s so far from the one you’re from, and in more sense of the word than one. I was really drawn to the place. The people over there seem to have hung onto the ability to be still surprised by the world, like children over here. Sagarroi are going over to tour there next summer. I’ll tell you all about it when we get back.
4- I saw Doberman in Ondarru a while back (they were invited over by Betagarri). I really enjoyed them.
5- (laughs)... The whole trip was an endless list of anecdotes. Asier the trombonist went to a train station to get a ticket but the people at the ticket desk couldn’t speak English. He pressed the ‘HELP’ button on the machine and a little door popped open. There was a Japanese midget who could speak English inside! Just like the Mortadelo comics. In Osaka they brought us to this Karaoke on the fifth floor of a building and they opened a bottle of Chilean wine called 'Los Vascos' for us. The gave us a book of songs to choose from... it was like a telephone book! During a gig this old geezer jumped up on stage and stated stuffing Yen notes into our trouser pockets... the list is endless...
betagarri
1- The first time we were over was just incredible. We played at a ska festival at the Kawasaki Cita Concert Hall. The place was packed to the rafters and everybody was dancing off their heads! If only it was always like that over here… The Japanese have a wonderful music culture and they GO to concerts. Concerts, not festivals. Nobody goes to a ska concert at six o’ clock on a Wednesday afternoon here, whereas in Japan they do. And you’d wanna see how they get off on the whole thing! Here, if there’s no beer tent or kalimotxo, you’d be hard pushed to fill a hall or a square.
2- Great every time. Just like I said to you before, the Japanese are a really open lot. Could you imagine an unknown group from Denmark playing anywhere in the Basque Country on a Tuesday in November? And people paying to get in? Nobody would go. We’ve always had a crowd turn up to our gigs, mostly at small venues, but a crowd nonetheless, and what’s more, it doesn’t matter how many go, the ones who do go to ave a good time.
3- As a musician, there are thousands of reasons to go back. You play at the most modern venues. Technically speaking they have the best sound systems around, six technicians at your beck and call... I mean, we really have got it all to learn over here. We always kid ourselves that Basque music is the dog’s bollocks, but not in million years. We’re really behind the times over here. We’re still stuck back in the 80s. We’re in the 21st Century for chrissakes! On the other hand, The Japanese can really drive you mental at times. They can be really square-headed. Oh sure, they’ll flash you a little smile, but there’s no way you’re gonna get them to change their minds about doing something. That might be a reason not to go back.
4- I can’t think of any names but there’s loads of them. Imagine like, there are thousands of groups over there.
5- Hundreds every day. We really flipped out with their professionalism. You wouldn’t believe the rigmarole they went through to get a dead pigeon off a motorway. And it was on the side of the road! Or the hundreds of workers on the roads at night going home with serious safety measures. We’ve always heard how hard they work over there, but we’d love to work in the conditions they do. I doubt very much that they get the same amount of deaths at work as we do. On the whole, though there is the odd negative thing, we could certainly learn a whole lot of good from them.
la oreja de van gogh
1- It’s really great to see a crowd that’s not your own and that doesn’t speak your language going to your gigs and getting a buzz out of them because you’re really not sure before you play…it’s quite a challenge to go there...
2- We certainly didn’t get the reception we had expected. We had heard that Japanese audiences were really stand-offish, but they certainly got behind us.
3- It was a beautiful experience for us and we think to play in Japan and sell records there is reason enough for anybody to go.
4- Pizzicato Five and Singer Songer.
5- Our trip began with the final tremors of an earthquake and ended with the arrival of a typhoon. Really Japanese...
1- What does it feel like to play to a crowd that know little or nothing about you and have never seen you before?
2- What kind of response did you get from the crowds at the gigs?
3- A reason to go back to Japan… or never set foot in the place again.
4- Your favourite Japanese band.
5- Any funny anecdotes from your travels there?
atom rhumba
1- It’s a good test of a band. It’s gives you the chance to see just how well your songs work in front of a crowd that have no preconceived opinions or ideas of what you’re about.
2- Energy pile-drivers... they’re all totally off their fuckin’ trolleys!
3- The punters. The people who go to concerts. Then there’s also the treatment and respect you’re afforded: technicians, promoters, journalists, managers... and the food is gorgeous too.
4- Uff! There’s loads of them: Boredoms, Guitar Wolf, Teengenerate, Polysics, Acid Mothers Temple, Cibo Matto, Thee, Michelle Gun Elephant, Jet Boys, 5678’s...
5- We experienced the whole ‘fan’ phenomena. It’s like being a Rolling Stone for a week: it’d take us hours to struggle 20 yards... everybody asking for autographs and photos... people screaming. By the time we played our second gig, everybody in the audience was wearing our t shirt! It was an amazing buzz.
Health and Rrrrrrrrrumbas!!!!
joxe ripiau
1- From the start I felt that Japanese culture was really distant from ours. Someone said that it was like getting into some type of Martian machine and somebody else told me it was like dropping acid. I agree with both of them. Joxe Ripau had a ball playing over there.
2- A book I read said that dances over there are horizontal. Well, they certainly enjoyed jumping around at our gigs!
3- There’s loads of reasons I’d go back. The first one is that you get to know a place that’s so far from the one you’re from, and in more sense of the word than one. I was really drawn to the place. The people over there seem to have hung onto the ability to be still surprised by the world, like children over here. Sagarroi are going over to tour there next summer. I’ll tell you all about it when we get back.
4- I saw Doberman in Ondarru a while back (they were invited over by Betagarri). I really enjoyed them.
5- (laughs)... The whole trip was an endless list of anecdotes. Asier the trombonist went to a train station to get a ticket but the people at the ticket desk couldn’t speak English. He pressed the ‘HELP’ button on the machine and a little door popped open. There was a Japanese midget who could speak English inside! Just like the Mortadelo comics. In Osaka they brought us to this Karaoke on the fifth floor of a building and they opened a bottle of Chilean wine called 'Los Vascos' for us. The gave us a book of songs to choose from... it was like a telephone book! During a gig this old geezer jumped up on stage and stated stuffing Yen notes into our trouser pockets... the list is endless...
betagarri
1- The first time we were over was just incredible. We played at a ska festival at the Kawasaki Cita Concert Hall. The place was packed to the rafters and everybody was dancing off their heads! If only it was always like that over here… The Japanese have a wonderful music culture and they GO to concerts. Concerts, not festivals. Nobody goes to a ska concert at six o’ clock on a Wednesday afternoon here, whereas in Japan they do. And you’d wanna see how they get off on the whole thing! Here, if there’s no beer tent or kalimotxo, you’d be hard pushed to fill a hall or a square.
2- Great every time. Just like I said to you before, the Japanese are a really open lot. Could you imagine an unknown group from Denmark playing anywhere in the Basque Country on a Tuesday in November? And people paying to get in? Nobody would go. We’ve always had a crowd turn up to our gigs, mostly at small venues, but a crowd nonetheless, and what’s more, it doesn’t matter how many go, the ones who do go to ave a good time.
3- As a musician, there are thousands of reasons to go back. You play at the most modern venues. Technically speaking they have the best sound systems around, six technicians at your beck and call... I mean, we really have got it all to learn over here. We always kid ourselves that Basque music is the dog’s bollocks, but not in million years. We’re really behind the times over here. We’re still stuck back in the 80s. We’re in the 21st Century for chrissakes! On the other hand, The Japanese can really drive you mental at times. They can be really square-headed. Oh sure, they’ll flash you a little smile, but there’s no way you’re gonna get them to change their minds about doing something. That might be a reason not to go back.
4- I can’t think of any names but there’s loads of them. Imagine like, there are thousands of groups over there.
5- Hundreds every day. We really flipped out with their professionalism. You wouldn’t believe the rigmarole they went through to get a dead pigeon off a motorway. And it was on the side of the road! Or the hundreds of workers on the roads at night going home with serious safety measures. We’ve always heard how hard they work over there, but we’d love to work in the conditions they do. I doubt very much that they get the same amount of deaths at work as we do. On the whole, though there is the odd negative thing, we could certainly learn a whole lot of good from them.
la oreja de van gogh
1- It’s really great to see a crowd that’s not your own and that doesn’t speak your language going to your gigs and getting a buzz out of them because you’re really not sure before you play…it’s quite a challenge to go there...
2- We certainly didn’t get the reception we had expected. We had heard that Japanese audiences were really stand-offish, but they certainly got behind us.
3- It was a beautiful experience for us and we think to play in Japan and sell records there is reason enough for anybody to go.
4- Pizzicato Five and Singer Songer.
5- Our trip began with the final tremors of an earthquake and ended with the arrival of a typhoon. Really Japanese...
