Music circles and joining a band in Japan.

[Hokuto-shinken]

[font="Lucida Console"]
[color="Magenta"]Any Gaijin`s out there who have joined a band in Japan? Just wondering are there any good circles and how do you go about getting in one.
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[AssKissinger]

When I first moved to Japan I co-founded a band where I was the only foreign member. I just went to a gig and started talking to people and ended up in a band. I also went snooping around a local college campus and found a flier for their music circle. I just called them and asked if I could join (all this in English only haha) and they said yeah so after that I had access to their practice space and all these instruments and plus I met all these wild and cool college kids. I also put up fliers of my own trying to meet people but no one ever answered those. It's kind of amazing that even though I wasn't a student they let me in their music club. It was very fun. The farewell party at graduation time was off the chain.

[Hokuto-shinken]

[color="Magenta"][font="Lucida Console"]Thanks for your story

I think I might try to see if anybody needs a guitarist in them small gigs called live houses.

By the way, what did you do in the band? Guitar? Bass?[/font][/color]

[kamome]

Thanks for your story

I think I might try to see if anybody needs a guitarist in them small gigs called live houses.

Bye the way, what did you do in the band? Guitar? Bass?

I recall that it was either a banjo or a ukelele, wasn't it AK?

[Greji]

By the way, what did you do in the band? Guitar? Bass?

The Club's mama-san in C-Flat!

[Hokuto-shinken]

The Club's mama-san in C-Flat!

[color="Magenta"][font="Lucida Console"]What do you mean gboothe?[/font][/color]

[maraboutslim]

Once upon a time in the 90s, I saw a flyer in the Vinyl record shop in nishi-shinjuku 7-chome for a band looking for a guitarist, they said their influences were galaxie 500 and the pastels and that sounded great to me. I played with them for a few years, serving as lead guitarist. I felt content to drink a lot, stand in the corner smoking, and not correct any of their poorly written english lyrics. We practiced in those amazingly well equipped and convenient practice studios, played gigs in all the usual western tokyo live houses in shibuya, shinjuku, shimo-kitazawa, etc.

We had songs on a couple of japanese label compilations cds, a couple of foreign label compilations, and two singles on u.s. indie labels.

I also played bass in a blues band with some japanese guys and though i don't sit around listening to the blues at home, it was a lot of fun to play live with these guys. Chicks would get crazy! And there is of course no amount of booze i can drink and not still be able to play blues bass. So that made for some good times. I could actually walk away with 10,000 yen in my pocket after one of these gigs because they would be in bars and the owners would be stoked on how much our crowd (mainly friends we would invite) would drink. By contrast, though i felt more musically satisfied with the indie pop band because we did our own songwriting, it basically cost us money to be in that band. A lot of the live houses we played at aren't really bars so alcohol sales don't get kicked back to the bands. So we were lucky if we made enough dough to pay our practice fees until the next gig. But it was cool seeing a cd with our music on it in the "staff pics" racks in various record stores. Made me feel vaguely like a real musician for a few minutes, ha!

Anyway, playing in a band in Japan is a great experience and will teach you how to speak real street japanese, too. I was the only gaijin in the dozen or so bands we commonly played gigs with, but people seemed open to the idea so you guys shouldn't have too much trouble being excepted as a member in a band if they like your playing.

[AssKissinger]

two singles on u.s. indie labels.

Wow. I didn't know that. You gotta link to any further info? PM if you wanna protect your anonymity.

[maraboutslim]

It sounds more exciting that it is really but I've also been a fan of obscure bands and record labels and so it was cool to kind of join that world.

The band was named Kactus and the two singles were the limited run 7" single thing that labels probably don't even do anymore, but that was still kind of cool in the 90s. The first one had songs "summer vacation" and "how does it feel" on a now-defunct label called Sonorama and the second had songs "suffocating tone" and "plastic stick" (i think that's what was on the B side...) and came out on Fuzzybox which still exists (you can see the sleeve artwork on this page http://www.fuzzybox.com/index2.html). Sonorama also released a compliation CD called Pop Jingu which featured two songs each from a variety of bands in our little scene at the time. All the stuff was self-recorded.

This was us:


A couple of Mp3s: snowflakes and weather vane

That's NOT me on vocals. I just played guitars and tweaked the arrangements...

[AssKissinger]

I'm in love with that girl there and your songs are boss. I like Snowflakes the better of the two, kindof Spaceman3ish with a bit of nice neo-sixties melodics. Better than I would've guessed for sure. Thanks for linking to full mp3's. I'll slam those up on a cd mix for myself.

[GuyJean]

I recall that it was either a banjo or a ukelele, wasn't it AK?

Nah.. It was a kazoo.

GJ

[Hokuto-shinken]

It sounds more exciting that it is really but I've also been a fan of obscure bands and record labels and so it was cool to kind of join that world.

The band was named Kactus and the two singles were the limited run 7" single thing that labels probably don't even do anymore, but that was still kind of cool in the 90s. The first one had songs "summer vacation" and "how does it feel" on a now-defunct label called Sonorama and the second had songs "suffocating tone" and "plastic stick" (i think that's what was on the B side...) and came out on Fuzzybox which still exists (you can see the sleeve artwork on this page http://www.fuzzybox.com/index2.html). Sonorama also released a compliation CD called Pop Jingu which featured two songs each from a variety of bands in our little scene at the time. All the stuff was self-recorded.

This was us:


A couple of Mp3s: snowflakes and weather vane

That's NOT me on vocals. I just played guitars and tweaked the arrangements...

[font="Lucida Console"][color="Magenta"]Thanks maraboutslim! I normally listen to hard rock but I enjoyed listening to your music. Are you in a band now?

Is it easy to make a record in Japan and get it out there?[/color][/font]

[maraboutslim]

I'm not too knowledgable about how to release a record in Japan. There are indie labels that you could approach. Or you could record it yourself at a stuido and get the CDs made and everything yourself.

I'm not doing any music at the moment. I spent some time in the band Foot of Feathers, playing live and playing the guitars when we recorded six or seven songs. But I don't live in the same town so it wasn't practical to stay in the band. But if you go to the myspace page http://myspace.com/footoffeathers you'll hear my guitar playing. I really like those songs, lyrically and structurally. It was more fun playing live since we rocked out a bit more.

[Captain Japan]

The band was named Kactus and the two singles were the limited run 7" single thing that labels probably don't even do anymore, but that was still kind of cool in the 90s.

If you weren't going to mention the name I was going to do it. I think I still have two of those singles you gave me around here.

[Captain Japan]

Here you go...

[Hokuto-shinken]

[color="Magenta"][font="System"]Thanks for the links [color="Blue"]Captain Japan[/color]![/font][/color]

[sono]

A couple of Mp3s: snowflakes and weather vane

That's NOT me on vocals. I just played guitars and tweaked the arrangements...

This was my favorite: how do you feel:cool: