Sept. 14: Kyoto

Yes, I slept, but not, it seemed, for very long. I was pooped after only 6 1/2 hours of sleep, but we had the Shinkansen bullet train to Kyoto to catch. It was raining again. Is this why I’ve found it so easy to get hotel rooms here? Because any “old Japan hand” would know better than to travel here in September?

After breakfast, we checked out and stowed our baggage at the hotel, and then everybody went shopping. I went with Noda-san, who first went to a bank to get some dough and then hit a gourmet store which I found utterly fascinating. He was after some Nagoya specialties -- noodles, in particular -- and I roamed the aisles seeing old friends like De Cecco spaghetti and Best Foods mayonnaise and even some flour tortillas, which the salesman was trying to explain to a distinguished-looking older gentleman. I really do wish I’d been able to understand that conversation. Noda got his stuff together and I picked out some rice-crackers which he approved of, and we headed out, only to return to the hotel. I spent a half-hour reading in the lobby and one by one the rest of the crew trickled in. Some cabs were obtained, and we hit the station.

I spent most of the trip trying to make sense out of the Japan Times’ coverage of the WTC disaster, but it had clearly been superseded by the TV I’d watched while packing. I continue to be impressed by the Shinkansen, although the view from it was mostly grimy industrial towns and block housing.

We certainly did make it to Kyoto fast, which was good news. Carl had gone back to Ogaki to check in at the university, and would be coming later with Yoshiko. We were met at the track by two guys from the Club Metro, where tonight’s performance would take place. I still can’t get over how formal and polite everyone here is with each other. Although these guys are the equivalent of nearly every young club owner I’ve known in the States, there’s still lots of bowing and polite language exchanged. We threaded our way down a crowded main street and wound up right across from the Imperial Palace at the Palace Side Hotel. Looked pretty low-key, but the woman who took my reservation was clearly Japanese-American -- or had spent time in the States or had one hell of a teacher. I observed pretty quickly that they did a good trade in the international young folks’ crowd, and there were -- hooray! -- two internet terminals in the lobby. At last I could contact people, check the Web, check in at the Well, and so on!

There was also a laundromat in the hotel, which was good because with all the places I’d been, my socks took a beating, not to mention the way my clothes got soaked in this weather. But I went downstairs and started hitting the net right away. I sent mail to Taylor, Susan, Chris, Ray and Natalie to see what was up from elvispresley.com -- thank heaven for free e-mail websites! -- and then went to the Well to see how the attack had shaken people up there.

Noda-san of course came downsairs pretty quickly and asked if I were hungry. A pretty stupid question when he’s around: he seems to know great places everywhere in Japan, a walking compendium of regional delicacies. There was a cafe down the street, where, because it was so hot, I just had some cold soba while Ami, Sachiko, Noda, and his girlfriend all had soup. Then they headed to the 7-11 to load up on snacks and so on for later and as we left we saw Carl and Yoshiko on the other side of the street blithely strolling in the wrong direction. Noda and Carl and the others went off to the club to rehearse and do sound-check and I relaxed. There wouldn’t be dinner tonight.

An 8:50 call got us to the club in time to witness the end of a rather pointless vinyl-terror group’s messing around with records, mostly sliding the needle around to make screeching sounds, sampling them, and using the samples to make other horrid noise. Club Metro is in the entrance to a subway station, weirdly enough, although appropriate for the name, and it’s a long, dark, smoky joint that was getting filled with young folks (all, again, bowing to each other) who seemed to know each other and the artists and hovered around the CD stall without seeming to buy anything. Eventually Sachiko and Ami went on with pretty much a recap of the previous night’s stuff, after which the DJ filled in for a while and a guy with a Powerbook came on and did some fairly interesting, if disjointed, sample work which ended with an endless string-quartet sample which he didn’t seem interested in modifying or playing with until he distorted it slightly, then a lot more, and then turned himself off.

After more DJ, Otomo went on, starting with a really loud bass tone and working up to 20 minutes of extreme noise terror of just the sort I’d been expecting in Japan, from what I’d read. Frank, the French guy I’d met in Nagoya, was there, too, and I marvelled at his capacity for this sort of thing. I was really pissed off that I’d left my earplugs back at the hotel (as had Carl), and spent most of the time in the lobby of the club, from which vantage-point I could hear everything perfectly well. Carl was worried because Yoshiko had disappeared (“This is just the kind of place she hates,” he said, and it was easy, with all the smoke and noise, to see why), and now he was getting worried at having to follow Otomo. He certainly rose to the challenge, providing plenty of volume, but, I thought, a lot more structure and coherence. Otomo’s set had mostly been a roar and a thrash; this seemed more thought out, although it was, in the end, just an improvisation. He got good applause, and then he and Otomo went on to duet. At one point, Carl was feeding a bunch of dripping sounds into the mix, and I began to feel I was in a dank cave, what with the oppressive smoke and humidity. It really got into a battle for a while, and then they found a way to end it (pull the plug: Carl commented later to Frank that “I have trouble with endings, but I always remember what Aaron Copland said: ‘Be sure to use the big bass drum at the end.’”). There was the usual post-gig hang-around although this show was going on til 5 am -- and Frank, who’d been unable to find a place to stay in Kyoto, was going to stay til the end and then take the first train to Osaka, where someone was putting him up. I spent a lot of time outside talking to Frank, and then Carl came out to chat, and finally he went inside, got his stuff, and we took a cab back to the hotel.