band news and other knives through the heart

Monoral has started keeping a blog. It took a bit of translating (man, my skills are R.U.S.T.Y...even now I'm not certain I got it all right) but it was good to hear what they're doing.

Kind of.

I hear news of friends in Japan ~ getting married, going on trips, getting on with life ~ and I love it. It's good to keep track and know what's happening, even when the news is sad (a friend's restaurant closing, etc). But with my bands the opposite is true. Every piece of news I get, no matter how eagerly I seek after it, is like a bittersweet blade through my tender heart.

It sounds melodramatic to say it, but the music became the soul of my Japanese self. I don't care if that sounds silly; music has never been 'just music' to me. And Japanese band boys have something I've never found here in Australia. An innocence (in spite of their wicked ways, haha) and an earnest heart that endears. When you support them they love you for it and you want so badly for all their rock'n'roll dreams to come true.

And so, the fact that the indies scene goes on without me is wonderful (because how could I wish it otherwise) but it also kills me not to be there to see it. It's the one thing about leaving Japan that has never gotten any easier. Even when I get their CDs, it's not the same. Live rock is live rock...there is no substitute. I miss those guys. My emotional investment in them was so great, I think I always will.

The worst is when one of my Osaka indies calls it a day. I ache for them, for what they've lost, and I ache at the fact that I'll never see them on stage again. Sure, I might see those same guys again one day, but in a different band. And the songs are lost forever. I think that's the worst part. I learned that when LAID broke up. Awesome, awesome music gone and with it the best collaboration the band produced (Keizo's music/Ryo's words), with those two guys now in seperate bands and likely to stay that way. When Sclatch broke up all I could think of what that I'd never again stand in a crowd of Japanese girls singing that part of Neverplace that Tetsuya always left to the audience:

時間よ止まれ永遠に街の明かりよ消えないで
そこのみんなの行き着く場所夢を描けるところ
僕らと共に歩いていこう回り道しても遠くない
そこはみんなの楽園 さあきっと見つけられるから

Even so, there is still sweetness in the bittersweet. Just by chance (while looking for a link for this post) I found out that three of the Sclatch boys are in a new band, Crude, and maybe the best part is that their guitarist is none other than Hibiki (ex-Plastic). I wasn't sure I'd see him on stage again. Something to look forward to on my next trip there.

Now as to when that will be...