Japan Tour Diary, Part 6

Friday the 13th - lucky for some! And maybe lucky for a band with 13 in their name. I wake up early yet again, having had yet another terrible sleep. I get up and have another early morning wander outside. It seems a fleet of early morning deliveries are passing by as I make a quick phone-call home to Ireland. I’m over my bad gig, I hope and ready to hit the legendary O-Nest in Tokyo!. We bundle into the vans and hit the road. Nobuyuki is travelling with us again. He tells us about playing in the interesting improv band Brother’s Sister’s Daughter at a one off gig in Tokyo. BSD features Mike Watt, Nels Cline and Jim O’Rourke and a host of guests have played with them. How cool is that! Here’s a video of them playing in Tokyo.

We pass Mount Fuji and yet again it is enveloped in cloud. “It doesn’t really exist” jokes Laurids as we stop off for some food at a service station close to Tokyo. Akinori shows me a coffee machine that shows you the coffee being made on a built in screen. Mental! The coffee is pretty decent, never mind the audio visual experience.

So we all arrive at the O-Nest venue in the Shibuya district of Tokyo. It’s a modern venue on the 5th and 6th floor of a modern concrete building. We load in and sound-check after Marvin’s. The sound here is pristine and I’m hopeful I’ll redeem myself after the previous night. Again LITE are playing, but cannot soundcheck after us as Kozo is still at work. Also on the bill is Deepsea Drive Machine, Shinya’s band. Brian’s friend Dave Brennan arrives at the venue. He plays some decent Irish folk on guitar under the name Davey Boy. The two lads head off down town for a bit. Keita heads home for a bit. Given the fact that he hasn’t been home in nine months, this is long overdue! I buy batteries and stay put. Soundcheck comes to a close and doors open. A big crowd begins to file in and again, I hit the 5 o’clock slump and I try to rest up backstage.

Patrick aka Nez, Transduction main dude and Dublin buddy arrives. It’s great to see Patrick. He’s put a lot of work in to get us over here and Transduction Records put out our record to our eternal gratitude. We chat over a few pints. Nez is getting married over here in April. Brian and Dave arrive back, as does Keita and we head into the venue to catch some of LITE’s set. They are on the money as per usual and even play “Infinite Mirror”, one of my favourite tunes which they haven’t played on the tour so far. It’s a terrific set and the crowd are digging it.

I head back to swap batteries yet again and wait nervously for LITE to finish.  Soon on Friday the 13th the Spook of the Thirteenth Lock take to the stage in Tokyo. We start with “The Ragged Rock”. My voice seems tired as I set up the vocal drones, but I rein it in and get more confident and precise as I go along. As I set up the parting vocal loops the band grinds into action, in the slow build up to a frenetic release and we’re away! This set is the best of the tour by my memory. After 40 minutes we’re done and I’m a happy man. We head back to the upstairs bar to rest up as we are well and truly knackered.

Marvin’s take the stage and we watch them on the massive video screen. Again they belt out a great set. After a few pints we are in garrulous form, happy after doing a decent job. Marvin’s are staying in Shinya’s parents’ house tonight and we’re going to return to Kazuto’s house.  Keita heads home to his parents’ house after we pack up the van. We head off and the tiredness is really getting to me. I keep repeating to myself, “I’ve never been so tired before” and five minutes later “I’ve never been so tired before”. The rest of the lads pass out in the car. Poor Brian wakes up with a start after nearly choking in his sleep on some saliva! When we arrive in Kazuto’s gaff his mum has some delicious yakisoba fried noodles waiting “OM! NOM!”. With full bellies, we hit the hay and sleep like logs.