Kazuki Tomokawa and Mikami Kan, psych-folk legends live

The livehouse Showboat in Koenji is having some great shows in July and August to celebrate their sixteen year anniversary.

Two of the shows will be organised by the amazing label PSF Records.
PSF (Psychedelic Speed Freaks from the High Rise album title) releases underground Japanese psychedelic rock and folk, and free and improvised jazz from the 70s through to now. Their two legendary psych-folk singers, Mikami Kan and Kazuki Tomokawa, who have both been making music since the 70s, will be appearing at Showboat as part of the celebrations.


On the 14th of July, you will have the opportunity to see Mikami Kan. A raw and intense singer who became something of a folk star in the 70s, and also a poet, novelist and actor. He has continued his original take on blues and folk, ignoring musical trends, and creating something deeply personal and Japanese. He will be playing in a duo with guitarist Kazuo Imai. Imai is another important underground Japanese musician, famous for his original improvised style combining free jazz, avant-garde and experimental classical and world music. To make the gig even more unmissable is their support, the duo of psych-folk singer/guitarist Ai Aso and avant-garde guitarist Hisato Higuchi. Gig details.

On the 16th of July, you should take advantage of the chance to see 59-year-old acid/psych-folk singer Kazuki Tomokawa live. Known as the "screaming philosopher", Tomokawa has an amazing voice full of pain and emotion with occasional screaming that sends shivers down your spine. His songs have appeared in Takashi Miike films, the most famous being a bizarre, mad performance in Izo. His 2008 Album Blue Water, Red Water was one of my favourites of last year. Tomokawa is also a poet and a painter. Expect an intense performance and snapped strings. Gig details.

Kazuki Tomokawa live at Shibuya Apia:

Google Street View - live house view

Last month Google launched Street View in Japan, receiving criticism about it being an invasion of privacy.

Yeah, but you can explore the streets as if you were actually walking there! How cool is that? Not only can I see my house from above, but I can stand in front and see myself watering the garden!
Okay, I kinda made that up. Unfortunately my street is way too small to be covered by Street View.

I see Street View as a great way of familiarising yourself with the way to a live house from the nearest station, especially when you can't read the kanji on the map or don't know the area well.

Let's take Penguin House in Koenji for example.

If we go to the Penguin House website and get the address in Japanese (unfortunately you can't search Japanese adresses in Google maps in English), it looks like this: 〒166-0002 東京都杉並区高円寺北3-24-8 みすずビルＢ１. We don't need the postcode (〒166-0002) and the building name is unlikely to be known by Google so we can scrap it too (みすずビルＢ１). So we are left with 東京都杉並区高円寺北3-24-8 which we can search for in Google maps. Alternatively, you can often find the live house just by searching for the title. For Penguin House, we can find it by searching for "Penguin House" or "ペンギンハウス".

Okay, so we can see the approximate location of Penguin House marked on the map and can see Koenji station (高円寺) nearby, but it's hard to imagine what things will look like if you haven't been there before, isn't it? So click Street View and familiarise yourself with the route from the station:



You can see you need to go down this street:



And then turn left after Denmark and a pig:



Stop and wonder what this guy is doing:



And then, yay, Penguin House is here on the left:



So okay, this means more future projects:

• Adding an extra field on the Add Livehouse page so we can include the address in Japanese as well as English.
• Adding a link to the URL of the address on Google maps.
• Plotting all (or most) Tokyo live houses on a public user-created Google map.
  

Maher Shalal Hash Baz & Doronco Gumo

Koenji High May 12th





Doronco Gumo





Maher Shalal Hash Baz