Tokyo's Coolest Sound

Many of the musicians friendly with the group Three Berry Icecream live in that rectangular zone in Tokyo west of Shibuya, surrounding Shimo-Kitazawa, along the Inokashira-line and east of Mitaka. It's a (relatively) green area, with modest homes for the most part, school kids, locally run shops and restaurants, and a feeling of community. Tokyo is a huge metropolis, but inside it are many neighborhoods that are like small towns. Exiting those communities, their residents are swept back into the anonymity and isolation of Tokyo's large crowds.

I thought about these communities because I knew many of the musicians playing an afternoon gig at Mona Records lived in them. Their homes just a few blocks apart, bumping into each other in the local market, chatting on the street--those are important things.

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Last weekend, on Sunday September 12, I had the chance to go to this very special event. Wack Wack Rhythm Band recently lost one of their important members 6 months ago, percussionist and mood-maker Nozawa Tōru (aka Sunny) who passed away last March. To say goodbye properly, they threw this 6-hour party, titled "It's a Sunny Day", featuring many artists who were all related to Sunny in various ways. At the back of the stage were set Sunny's congas, remaining mostly untouched.

On August 28, I went to Future Pop Lounge (official site), a festival style event at Shibuya O-Nest. It was the 3rd time the yearly summer event was held though it was the first time I made it. The line-up was quite reminiscent of Usagi-chang Night Fever that used to also be held every summer. I'm really glad there's still a place where great bands such as The Aprils, sono na wa Spade (The Lady Spade), and EeL can be seen all at once! I was also really looking forward to Sexy-Synthesizer which I was seeing for the first time.

Starting at 16:00, the event opened with Candles, which I had seen once before at event Switched On. They played a really fun set, sounding maybe a bit more techno than I remembered. The set included songs "Shy Boy" (YouTube), "Maybe Tonight" and a few others.

On Sunday August 22, I went to Liquidroom in Ebisu for "Rocketman Summer Fes 2010", an event celebrating the 10 years since the debut of Rocketman, Fukawa Ryō's music unit.

Let me sum up those 10 years briefly. Rocketman first started on Readymade and it was a unit formed of Fukawa Ryō with producer Konishi Yasuharu. First album "Flying Rocketman" contained a good amount of spoken word comedy, and some music tracks (a few borrowing from Pizzicato Five songs). 2nd album "Rocketman Deluxe", still on Readymade, wasn't a 2-piece unit anymore, and featured some more music with producers including FPM, Comoestas and Fukutomi Yukihiro. Afterwards, Fukawa went to concentrate more on his musical talents as a songwriter, and released two original albums, "Love, sea & music" and "The Sound of Musique". Recently he has had some success producing idol trio Cosmetics, and this month he released his first greatest hits album.

The 6-hour event featured many of his collaborators since the beginning, as well as some of his comedian friends between each set. The place was quite packed, he said there were over 1000 people!