Saturday, July 30, 2005
davide, shoboy in tsukiji
flocks of seagulls over a sea of fire
shot in kinchijoji and asakusa. i really wish you could zoom into these pics the way i did just a few minutes ago and let your mind wander along the same path i followed, i met some lovely people down there
facts day four, random style
because our very first outdoors session with the portable PA's this morning in Tsukiji was such an exhilarating experience, i'm afraid to stumble over yesterday and ignore what happened. here is a short list:
davide cut stephane's and lozi's hair, we tested the PA's on the roof of our beloved factory, went to kinshicho to buy some batteries for the PA's, then headed to kichijoji to see daisuke's concert (leif elggren and tetsuo furudate were also playing, or so i heard) but we couldn't make it in time, so we waited for him outside the venue then took a charming walk among drunken teenagers in inogachira park. that's what we call a battery refill day among the shoboys. oh yeah, mehdi and stephane seem really hooked on a strange joke involving very cool voice impersonations (french ghetto style) but very bad social issues. i really hope they move on to more dada levels in the forthcoming weeks. and pics are coming.
davide cut stephane's and lozi's hair, we tested the PA's on the roof of our beloved factory, went to kinshicho to buy some batteries for the PA's, then headed to kichijoji to see daisuke's concert (leif elggren and tetsuo furudate were also playing, or so i heard) but we couldn't make it in time, so we waited for him outside the venue then took a charming walk among drunken teenagers in inogachira park. that's what we call a battery refill day among the shoboys. oh yeah, mehdi and stephane seem really hooked on a strange joke involving very cool voice impersonations (french ghetto style) but very bad social issues. i really hope they move on to more dada levels in the forthcoming weeks. and pics are coming.
answers
to G.M - ever heard of Motards en Colère?
to Catjams - thanks for the advice. we'll definitely be very careful with the laptops on the speakers. but it's so cool walking around with them and play mayhem shit with field sounds, we won't be able to behave ourselves. let us all prey for the good health of our laptop buddies.
to Catjams - thanks for the advice. we'll definitely be very careful with the laptops on the speakers. but it's so cool walking around with them and play mayhem shit with field sounds, we won't be able to behave ourselves. let us all prey for the good health of our laptop buddies.
we're so cool
robert noticed this on masagoro's website
dj bobofete also mentions us on his so bobo so chic journal
how cool are we?
dj bobofete also mentions us on his so bobo so chic journal
how cool are we?
Friday, July 29, 2005
altruistic abuse?
so many things, actually
first, about that chalk-white corean beverage we were introduced to yesterday by mister duckworth - it's called "maccori" and not "moccori" and robert had indeed good reasons to be afraid of the confusion between the two, as he wasn't so sure about which one was which, between the beverage and having "your pants are too tight over your "mashroom"
before that, i remember:
a great walk from asakusa to ueno under a hammering sun, a nice crash by the lotus-field/lake in ueno with some crazy insects doing some crazy sounds in the background, an actual thong-with-a-hood and an amazing songwriter playing toy-piano and singing like a genuinely demented joana by the metro in shinjuku, some girl i talked to on some drunken guy's cellphone who wanted to show me how well she could speak english and who asked me if i was drunk as well (i wasn't, really)
and, most of all, a real issue (which was first raised and wildly discussed yesterday evening in shinjuku by me, robert, davide, stephane and mehdi):
as we were seeking for some nice buildings with nice roofs that we could get on to play some music, yesterday morning in asakusa, some guy saw me from the street and asked me to come down. i don't know if it was about privacy, or about something else. i don't even know if he was an inhabitant of the building, or just some old cranky asshole who couldn't stand the view of four gaijin guys with beards and stupid smiles on their faces in a japanese household. i could only babble a few words about visiting a friend (and used the word "todomachi" instead of "tomodachi") and feel like a very guilty kid who just performed some meaningless minor transgression.
but one fact remains: he had every right to ask us to get the hell out of that private place, and the fact that a meaningful part of our project is about playing music and sound in public and private spaces, where we are not invited to play music and sound, is quite a problematic issue precisely because we are doing it in japan.
why?
because we actually CAN do it.
why are we going up on private households' roofs to try and perform experimental music with the environmental sonic activities? because we CAN, in this here country.
this is not only about playing with the local law regulations about noise disturbance, which are really more permissive than anywhere else in the world. this is not really about criticizing, or underlining the singularities of the japanese urban sonic environment. this is not about testing the limits of japanese courtoisie and gentleness either. this is about playing music and, maybe, making art in unexpected contexts, and try to do that in an immersive way. but the mere fact of playing music in the street, the way we're going to do it, BECAUSE we CAN, still makes me uncomfortable. it is not, it never was, it will never be our intention to abuse japanese culture. but the fact is that, in many ways, we are.
davide raised a very interesting question in the end. in japan, intentional noise assaults in urban environment are 99% of the time driven by economical reasons (the remaing 1% being political, i think), as they are the results of aggresive advertisement. and what makes us really transgressive, for the most part, is not our possible abuse of japanese culture and tolerance: it is the totally altruistic and fortuitous nature of our interventions. anyway, we haven't even tried to play in real outdoors conditions yet. i'll keep you updated about this issue as it feeds on actual experience, in context. we still may get beaten up by pissed-off yakusa pachinko owners, or by some old cranky nannies. robert told me that i'll probably feel more guilty and miserable if no one never complains about our doings, than if someone does.
oh, and we'll be posting pics later today.
first, about that chalk-white corean beverage we were introduced to yesterday by mister duckworth - it's called "maccori" and not "moccori" and robert had indeed good reasons to be afraid of the confusion between the two, as he wasn't so sure about which one was which, between the beverage and having "your pants are too tight over your "mashroom"
before that, i remember:
a great walk from asakusa to ueno under a hammering sun, a nice crash by the lotus-field/lake in ueno with some crazy insects doing some crazy sounds in the background, an actual thong-with-a-hood and an amazing songwriter playing toy-piano and singing like a genuinely demented joana by the metro in shinjuku, some girl i talked to on some drunken guy's cellphone who wanted to show me how well she could speak english and who asked me if i was drunk as well (i wasn't, really)
and, most of all, a real issue (which was first raised and wildly discussed yesterday evening in shinjuku by me, robert, davide, stephane and mehdi):
as we were seeking for some nice buildings with nice roofs that we could get on to play some music, yesterday morning in asakusa, some guy saw me from the street and asked me to come down. i don't know if it was about privacy, or about something else. i don't even know if he was an inhabitant of the building, or just some old cranky asshole who couldn't stand the view of four gaijin guys with beards and stupid smiles on their faces in a japanese household. i could only babble a few words about visiting a friend (and used the word "todomachi" instead of "tomodachi") and feel like a very guilty kid who just performed some meaningless minor transgression.
but one fact remains: he had every right to ask us to get the hell out of that private place, and the fact that a meaningful part of our project is about playing music and sound in public and private spaces, where we are not invited to play music and sound, is quite a problematic issue precisely because we are doing it in japan.
why?
because we actually CAN do it.
why are we going up on private households' roofs to try and perform experimental music with the environmental sonic activities? because we CAN, in this here country.
this is not only about playing with the local law regulations about noise disturbance, which are really more permissive than anywhere else in the world. this is not really about criticizing, or underlining the singularities of the japanese urban sonic environment. this is not about testing the limits of japanese courtoisie and gentleness either. this is about playing music and, maybe, making art in unexpected contexts, and try to do that in an immersive way. but the mere fact of playing music in the street, the way we're going to do it, BECAUSE we CAN, still makes me uncomfortable. it is not, it never was, it will never be our intention to abuse japanese culture. but the fact is that, in many ways, we are.
davide raised a very interesting question in the end. in japan, intentional noise assaults in urban environment are 99% of the time driven by economical reasons (the remaing 1% being political, i think), as they are the results of aggresive advertisement. and what makes us really transgressive, for the most part, is not our possible abuse of japanese culture and tolerance: it is the totally altruistic and fortuitous nature of our interventions. anyway, we haven't even tried to play in real outdoors conditions yet. i'll keep you updated about this issue as it feeds on actual experience, in context. we still may get beaten up by pissed-off yakusa pachinko owners, or by some old cranky nannies. robert told me that i'll probably feel more guilty and miserable if no one never complains about our doings, than if someone does.
oh, and we'll be posting pics later today.
Thursday, July 28, 2005
i should be so lucky
davide se réveille, à peine, tiens nous sommes à la yahiro factory il fait toujours chaud il fait toujours beau hier soir je me suis couché avec un mal de tête qui s'appelait gonz il était toujours là ce matin il commence à partir je me rappelle de
hier une sieste dans cet endroit mystérieux monozukuri school comme il y en a tant ici endroit artistique indeterminé avec un café au bout du couloir, et une galerie avec des installations vidéos dernier CRI en face, la fille de l'accueil qui n'arrêtait pas de remuer son café avec une cuillère en fonte mais en fait non c'était un petit mobile qui gigotait avec le vent, il y avait un vent doux, j'ai rêvé un peu à cette boite à musique électronique qu'on pouvait voir dans ce gros catalogue mystérieux
le trajet de chez daisuke à setagaya, avec les gros camions chromés tout neuf (lozi dit que depuis que le diesel est interdit à tokyo tous les camions sont neufs tous les camions sont chromés dernier CRI)
le vendeur à ochanomizu qui m'a vendu cette jolie pignose toute noire mais nettement moins puissante parce que le hp est tout petit que celle de stéphane et qui m'a parlé de zidane en me regardant d'un air incertain
davide qui tourne autour des femmes-sandwiches d'akihabara comme si de rien
hier soir qu'on a vécu comme cette première soirée à fukuoka il y a quoi bien longtemps (derrière stéphane et davide jouent leur hymne russe en version molle moche désaccordée) mais avec un peu moins de passion, ito et les autres pas moins adorables pourtant, on a si bien mangé, on leur a promis un repas français avant de partir mais on ne sait rien faire, on va leur faire un quiche lorraine, à un moment je suis sorti prendre l'air sur la terrasse jonchée de planches dangereuses de trous dangereux d'épaves de machines à télevision quand je suis rentré j'ai entendu "olamm is a black metal otaku" et j'ai sorti un cd de deathspell omega comme un reflexe mais j'avais déjà mal à la tête, impatient de me coucher sur l'échafaudage qui nous sert de lit, il y a quelques minutes noriko et chloé sont arrivées, en tenue de soirée, comme si de rien n'était,
comme à chaque fois, tout ici est comme si de rien
pourtant, je suis toujours heureux-baveux d'être ici on va partir errer un peu dans asakusa, tout prêt, très bientôt plus bientôt
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
facts day one
so yesterday we flew all the way from paris to zurich then zurich to tokyo, leaving paris at 10 local time and arriving in Tokyo at 7.15 local time. we met noriko and chloé on the plane, which was weird, then sawako at narita, which was even weirder, because i hadn't seen her in three years. she was heading back to new york, where she's living now, and i really wasn't sure it was her until she shouted "olamm" and smiled. oh well. we then took the express to shinjuku, where me met might might daisuke, who's been taking care of us ever since (we're just waking up now in his living room), walking us and our luggages through soaking shinjuku, waiting for lozi and a typhoon. lozi arrived a few hours later, at daisuke's family's house. oh, and yoyo, who lives just nearby, also came to say hi later on, but when she arrived we hadn't slept in thirty hours. it's so good to be here.
