September 29th Wednesday
Day One

Day one in Japan! We were so excited to be in Japan and couldn't believe we had made it. Since I was flying out of Seattle and Anne-Marie and Justin were arriving from Vancouver it was pretty stressful wondering if we'd all make it through customs and immigration. Normally you have to buy these crazy work visas to play shows, but we are a broke ass clown band, so as if we can afford those! Anyway, I went through customs as a "tourist" and when the Japanese officers found out I had a guitar with me, instead of questioning me about being in a band and all that, they just smiled and played air guitar. The same thing happened to Justin too. More on air guitar later. The fact that we were actually in Japan was sort of unbelievable, and it didn't really "feel" like Japan until we left the airport. It was more of a Parker Place (Asian Mall) experience, but then we saw the urban sprawl on the train ride into Tokyo and it really started to sink in. Getting on the express train from the airport with all our heavy suitcases and guitars was a total pain in the ass, and expensive too! About forty bucks one way! Eventually we made our way to the fancy Sheraton hotel where we were staying and were greeted by about ten uniformed "greeters" whose only job was to bow at every single guest at the hotel. We checked in and then tried to go swimming in the pool, but it was 2,000 Yen for admission. Anyway, we went to dinner at a very traditional Japanese style restaurant called T.G.I. Fridays. Anne-Marie and I decided to split the Nachos and when they came there were seriously eight nacho chips, each with a bit of cheese melted on them. I wish we took photos of stuff like that, but we're not that smart.

Alf Costume at the 80s Store in Koenji.

September 30th Thursday
Day Two

Met our tour manager Ayumi and our driver Reiko in the hotel lobby. Ayumi warned us that Reiko's car was a bit old, so we were really surprised when she pulled up to the hotel in a shiny 2002 SUV. Enjoyed watching the little greeter ladies lugging all our heavy stuff into the back of our car. Ended up driving for hours in Tokyo traffic to get to Ayumi's house. It was very weird being on the wrong side of the road.


Our favorite beer machine.

October 1st Friday
Day Three

My Birthday! We spent the day exploring Ayumi's neighborhood which happened to be one of the coolest parts of Tokyo. Her part of town, Koenji, is filled with tons of wicked vintage shops and cheap clothing shops and a really cool 80s store full of toys from when we were little. For lunch we ate at Mos Burger. The burgers there are really small compared to North American burgers. I could easily eat three burgers in one meal PLUS fries AND a soda. After lunch we didn't end up buying too much stuff because we didn't really have a feel for what a good deal was. After tons and tons of walking around we went to a Japanese Izakaya (bar with lots of different appetizer meals that you all share) and pigged out. Ayumi surprised me with the cutest little birthday cake.

Exploring Ayumi's neighborhood, minutes before Justin almost got ran over by a truck.

Our favorite place to eat in all of Japan. Anne-Marie and I always ordered the fish burger. Justin ordered the Teriyaki Chicken Burger. One of us would usually order a Melon Soda.

The outside of our Yokkaichi show. "What A Wonderful Night" was the actual title of the show that night.

The view from onstage in Yokkaichi.

I know this doesn't look like it, but this is a picture of the out of control Jam Session party.

 

More of the "out of control" jam session.

After the show this girl who "played" the bass during our JAM came up to me and said she'd never forget this night, for the rest of her life. Funny!

This is our coolest fan ever, Sho! She made me that J-Lo hat for my birthday!

Backstage at club Pipe 69. Busy writing our set list.

Hanging out with the bartender at Pipe 69 in Osaka (He took the photo).

Singer of Random Hearts and Hirocky T. Wimpy at Pipe 69.

October 4th Monday
Day Six

Drove all day to get to Yamaguchi where Ayumi's parents live. Were treated to beer and a yummy Italian dish called spaghetti. Justin and I even tried some of the fresh raw fish. Slept on futons in a tatami room.

October 5th Tuesday
Day Seven

Arrived at our hotel in Fukuoka in the early afternoon. The promoter of the show came and took us to a popular noodle house which the city of Fukuoka is famous for. After that meal, we snuck another bite at Mos Burger because Anne-Marie and Justin aren't that into Pork and I was still kind of hungry. We went to the club, which was on the fifth floor of a huge building. The show was actually a music festival called "Hit and Run" and we played with Love Bites, 5 Speed and Nervous Breakdown (who are getting really popular in Japan). We drank lots of beer, but the toilets at the club were really gross and smelly (no offence to the club!), so I ended up taking the elevator downstairs and then crossing the street to Mos Burger every time I had to pee. During our set a girl was holding a big sign that said "Riff Randells" and she was dancing around all crazily. As she was trying to come onstage to join us for our last song she tripped and fell on her bum and the sign broke in half. That girl falling remains my favorite memory of Fukuoka. Another cool thing was how the DJ acted like a band. He'd hold up the next record he was going to play and the dance floor would go wild and cheer like crazy for him. It was like the DJ booth was the centre of the dance floor. Everyone would take turns doing crazy air guitar solos and jumps in front of him. He was a rock star DJ. It was great, but I still left the club after an hour of the dance party and stumbled through a sketchy park and back to the hotel. Apparently I missed out though because the promoter Seto or "shyboy" served popsicles and popcorn to everyone on paper plates.

October 6th Wednesday
Day Eight

Drove to Ayumi's parents house again and they treated us to a delicious backyard barbeque of veggies and meat. We signed a few autographs for the local teenage band and drank some Asahi beer.

Hanging out in the Tsubouchi's backyard.


Japanese style backyard BBQ. I ate a lot that night.

October 7th Thursday
Day Nine

Drove all day to get to Reiko's parents house. Went out for udon noodles.

October 8th Friday
Day Ten

Drove eight hours or so to get to Tokyo and went pretty much straight to the club for our rehearsal. It was pouring rain outside so we didn't expect the show to be that great but a lot of people eventually showed up! There was no free band beer at this club so we brought in tons of beer that we bought at the convenience store next door. The club people seemed to have no problem with us doing that but wouldn't let me bring a corn dog(?!) inside with me which made no sense. We got pretty drunk and watched all the opening bands play. The Gimmies were a really tight rocknroll band, Jackie and Enocky was Buddy Holly-ish and very good, and the Jet Boys were insane punk rock. They were all really good, but the highlight of the show was definitely Jet Boys crazy set where the lead singer got naked onstage (We saw his youknowwhat).

 

Jet Boys!


Hanging out at the Shelter.


Corndog DENIED.

October 9th Saturday
Day Eleven

Played another show at the Shelter club but this time during a typhoon. A lot of people who were there the night before came again and said our set was even better the second time around, which was a shock to hear because Justin and I both thought the night before was way better. I think it's just because we were drunker. Driving around in the typhoon was scary but the worst part was getting into the car with our umbrellas because we couldn't figure out how to do it without getting soaked. Anyway, enough about the Typhoon. We got to play with Supersnazz again which was a big treat. We also got to play with High Vox, a rocknroll band and with The Pebbles. All of them were great. After the show a lot of people were fascinated by Anne-Marie's humongous early-nineties camera because everyone in Japan uses puny digital cameras now.

At the Shelter with our pals Supersnazz!!!

October 10th Sunday
Day Twelve

We survived the typhoon so we rewarded ourselves by going shopping on our own in Shinjuku. Justin bought a bondage mask for eight bucks at a crazy store called Don Quixotes. We wandered around through underground malls and ate at a shitty Italian Restaurant cafe. Anne-Marie ordered the vegetarian pizza which was so lame because it was like a salad on a pizza crust with NO CHEESE! It was a major disappointment. Since we had time to kill and were getting nowhere shopping, we went for a second dinner at another Italian Restaurant but this one was good, our fave La Pausa. Since the show was starting so late we didn't have to be at the club until 10:30PM. Got there at 11:00PM or so and missed our rehearsal. Found out from Ayumi that we were playing sort of an illegal show that night and that if the lights all went off, it just meant that the police had shut down the show! Hung out backstage and met a guy named Grace Common (pronounced like Ramone) who had brought us some really good homemade food to eat. So we ate a third dinner of gyoza (dumplings) and fried rice. The show didn't actually start until midnight so we had tons of time to drink and hangout before we played. Our set was fun and sweaty. The opening bands were Rocket K, and The Clicks who were both cute pop punk bands. After the bands there was an all night dance party again which went on until six in the morning. Tons of people ended up passing out and going to sleep in the back of the club, including our driver Reiko. Since there was no last call we all ended up drinking way too much. Anne-Marie lost all of her purchases for the day AGAIN due to drunken forgetfulness, which was funny because she did the same thing at our show in Osaka. When we got back to Ayumi's place Anne-Marie fell down a flight of stairs, which was scary then, but funny now.

Cute DJ A-Yummy at the Loft Bar.

Backstage at the Loft Bar with Grace Common and Chiharu from The Clicks.


Grace Common on stage during our last song at the Loft Bar.


Backstage at the Loft Bar.


Party Time in Shinjuku.


We caught Reiko sleeping at the back of the bar.

October 11th Monday
Day Thirteen  

Spent most of the day catching up on our sleep. We were all really really hungover which sucked because we wanted to drink tons on our last show of the tour. We showed up at the club and found out that the show was sold out, which was a total relief because we weren't exactly sure how smart it was to play four shows in a row in the same city. It was so packed inside the club that I had to put on my makeup while sitting on a curb in front of the club, and I ended up tuning my guitar and writing the set list in a broom closet, which doubled as the "backstage." After the Simpsons, Dazes, Spandex and The Headbangers played we squeezed through the crowd onto the stage and played a 45 minute set. Probably our sweatiest set ever. Right after it we spent about twenty minutes straight posing for photos and signing stuff. Fun times! After the ego-building session a huge group of us walked over to an Izakaya restaurant for drinks and food. We had to take our shoes off as usual, but this time we had to put our shoes in little plastic bags and bring them with us to the table which was weird. I ended up making a lame toast about the tour as I had been doing at almost all the Izakaya post show parties, then we ate and drank.

 

Signing autographs at our last show!


Signing our article in VAMP Magazine for a fan!

October 12th Tuesday
Day Fourteen

Met up with the Dazes (awesome band!) for a bit then spent the rest of the afternoon shopping in Harajuku with Ayumi. I split off with the group and went on a long train ride to visit my cute uncle (5'0" tall), and everyone else went to see the JetBoys and The Gimmies play a show at the all night party bar. I missed out on hanging out with Sachiko from the 5678s, so that was a bummer.

October 13th Wednesday
Day Fifteen

Perfected the art of speed shopping in Shibuya and Harajuku. Bought shoes, purses, belts, blazers, coats, etc.. It was nonstop for hours and hours. We ended the day at an Izakaya again where a bunch of our new friends from the tour came to say goodbye at our farewell party. Somebody ordered horse meat and actually ate it. Good times were had by all.

October 14th Thursday
Day Sixteen

After only about three hours of sleep, Ayumi tried to call us a cab to get us to the airport. They were totally booked up, so she actually had to run around her neighborhood until she found one. We loaded the car totally full and went to Shinjuku Station (which we had gotten lost inside only days before. It is as big as the Vancouver Airport!). We bought our last few cheesebuns and Japanese sodas for the road then lugged all our heavy gear and bags to the Narita Airport Express train platform, which had no escalators or elevators! Ack! Carrying my road case across that station was seriously one of the hardest things I've ever had to do in life, and I've vowed to never bring it on tour again unless we have a hulky dude as a roadie.

I think it was the perfect amount of time for a tour in Japan. I was starting to miss our wide roads and being able to eat honey mustard sauce with my fries (The clerk at Mos Burger refused to let me do this). As soon as we got home we started talking about going back to Japan for another tour, so we'll definitely be back. I guess we just have to put out an album or something crazy like that. Anyway, thank-you to Ayumi, Reiko and all our Japanese fans for making our first trip to Japan such as success! This is the end of the Nerd Chronicles.

Love, Kathy