Some stuff I forgot to post, boys and girls !

I realized I had not posted this short recording of random zapping on japanese TV :

http://punishyourself.free.fr/fieldrecordingsjapan/japaneseTV.wav

http://punishyourself.free.fr/fieldrecordingsjapan/japaneseTV.mp3

Don't tell me you can't use that !!!!

PY live at Toyohashi - audio file

My last post before I take the plane back, but probably not the last update as I still have some unused material : here's a recording of our gig in Toyohashi, using only the mics of the Zoom (it's not mixed with the soundboard output). Pretty raw, and there are probably a lot of flaws, but still, a document :

http://punishyourself.free.fr/fieldrecordingsjapan/toyohashi/PY_Live_Toyohashi_09_26_10.mp3

the intro and beginning of "shiva only is god" are missing, then the setlist goes like that :

SHiva only is god
Suck My TV
Zmeya
Mothra Lady
Let's Build A Station In Space
Las Vegas 2060's
This is my body this is my gazoline
Primitive
Gay Boys in bondage

No one to talk with

Sounds from Asakusa temple

Some serious stuff there ! To be honest, it's been recorded my fellow Polo (PY tour-manager) while I stayed at the hotel replying mail or something like that, but he did a very good job indeed, capturing a full religious ceremony (including ritual drumming), part of another, the sound of votive coin offerings and some other stuff...



no, that's not me, that's Polo, I told you, stoopid

Being no specialist of shintoism, I can't tell you much about the ritual aspects that are sonically depicted here ; but anyway, that's probably the most interesting batch of documents I got from Japan.

http://punishyourself.free.fr/fieldrecordingsjapan/asakusa_temple .wav files
http://punishyourself.free.fr/fieldrecordingsjapan/asakusa_temple/asakusatemple.rar mp3 archive



Last day in Japan... I recorded most gigs yesterday night, maybe I'll upload these if I have some time left !

ok, some music, right ?

Whilewaiting in the backstages of Ell-Knot club in Toyohashi, I tried filtering a guitar played with my e-bow thru the nasty little filter of my monotron... Did three takes in three minutes, put them together, added some delay, and it's DRONE HELL !!!!! This is just a sound test, won't end up on an album, but well, this is a "music creation in process" blog after all.

here it is :

http://punishyourself.free.fr/fieldrecordingsjapan/monotrondrone.mp3

Who wants more arcades ?

Ok, let's go for more arcade sounds ! This time no slot arcades, video games. Even noisier... Some files captured in Akihabara :

http://punishyourself.free.fr/fieldrecordingsjapan/akihabara_arcades .wav format
http://punishyourself.free.fr/fieldrecordingsjapan/akihabara_arcades/akihabaraarcade.rar mp3 archive

Slot arcades near Ueno / Jam session at Shibuya Ruby Room

Hey, boys and girls, you wanted noisy places ? Here we go ! I spent a bit of time recording what you hear inside and outside slot arcades (near Ueno). Tomorrow I'll try to do some Patchinko field recordings !

http://punishyourself.free.fr/fieldrecordingsjapan/slot_arcades_near_ueno .wav format

http://punishyourself.free.fr/fieldrecordingsjapan/slot_arcades_near_ueno/slotarcadesueno.rar full mp3 archive



Later that day, or, more accurately, that night, I went to Shibuya Ruby Room to spin some records (along with StepH and Emmanuel of The Dead Sexy Inc and Kenzo A of Gabriels Stiletto), as part of the line-up of the Royal Cabaret Release afterparty. I entered the club just in time to see members of all the bands who had played previously (I missed the gigs) performing a quite chaotic jam session... I captured two songs out of this, can't say if these are covers or what, or exactly who played what ; but J-Rock amateurs could be interested...

http://punishyourself.free.fr/fieldrecordingsjapan/jamsessionshibuyaredroom.mp3

(I was two songs later invited to perform "I wanna be your dog" with Kenzo on guitar, but, luckily, that wasn't taped.)

One night in Osaka

We spent two days on the road, driving from Tokyo to Osaka, doing a gig at King Cobra Club, then driving back to Tokyo under the rain. Osaka, from what I've seen, is an interesting city ; the streets around King Cobra are VERY animated, with only a few cars, so I captured some "street ambient" there (I know, I said I would stop street recordings, but Osaka has a strange sonic quality, really). There were also some big oil cans just outside the club, I did some (rather soft indeed) noise with these...

http://punishyourself.free.fr/fieldrecordingsjapan/osaka
http://punishyourself.free.fr/fieldrecordingsjapan/osaka/osaka.rar (full mp3 archive)

I also recorded the Punish Yourself and Dead Sexy Inc gigs. Both need a bit of mastering, and I'm not really sure if they are of any interest, really, except for rabid fans ; I'll think about it tomorrow... There was also quite a lot of filming which will eventually end up on youtube at some point.

September 22 - miscellaneous field recordings

After I got back my stuff, I tried to record some stuff. It's pretty diverse, with some interesting audio events like bakery sellers "chanting" to attract the client in the subway, strange recorded voices and music in a supermarket, a subway employee with a megaphone shouting informations... Plus some street noises etc.

http://punishyourself.free.fr/fieldrecordingsjapan/september22 : .wav
http://punishyourself.free.fr/fieldrecordingsjapan/september22/september22.rar : mp3 archive

PS : finding the Lost and Found office in a Tokyo subway station can be more difficult than finding where you left your bag, really.

Sometimes shit happens ? Not in Japan, seemingly

Hurrah ! I got my bag back from the lost and found, with my Zoom and all the stuff. Can you think of ANY place in the world where people would turn back a bag full of electronic devices ?

Streets of Shinjuku - field recordings

I just edited and uploaded some field recordings I did in Shinjuku while walking around (Shinjuku, Goldengai...) without specific goal. Street noises, conversations, cars, bikes, music from shops and arcades, a guitarist that played in the street, japanese crows, a temple bell... Not everything is interesting but some audio events were really nice. You can download individual tracks (.wav format) or the whole archive in mp3 format ; feel free to use as you like.

Shinjuku Streets Field Recordings (folder with separate .wav)
Shinjuku Streets Field Recordings (mp3 .rar archive)

Punish Yourself live in Japan - that's why I came after all

Yesterday - or, more accurately, early this morning, as we played by 4 AM - we played at the Marz club in Shinjuku ; other bands were Gabriels Stiletto (ex-Gadget), My Horror Revue (side-project of Royal Cabaret), The Dead Sexy Inc, Galaxy 500, plus two DJs (Sisen and the 13th moon singer, can't remember his DJ name right now). The place was PACKED, I can't believe they could put so much people in such a little club, and the show was a blast, even if we were very tired. Sadly, I couldn't record it, as I lost my zoom recorder (see previous post), but here's some video of the event, not the greatest video ever but it captures the spirit of the gig, I think.



The other bands were very cool, especially Gabriels Stiletto (http://www.myspace.com/gabrielsstiletto), they have a HUGE sound and a very high level of musicianship ; don't know how to categorize their sound, but it's definitely dark and psychedelic. In some ways, but I may be wrong, it reminded of a very old japanese band, Flowers Travellin Band, who were some kind of insane japanese response to Black Sabbath...

And we met some really nice people, especially Mikito and U-Tarou of Baal, I really hope we can play together at some point !

some live pictures :

Shit happens, sometimes.

While returning from our first japanese gig (at Christon Cafe, a really cool place if you wanna eat but not that cool to play gigs in) I lost one of my bags in the subway. It contained my faithfull Zoom recording device, which I had used previously to record very interesting street soundscapes... The only good news is I had already transfered these to my hard drive. But the Zoom is lost and I'm very angry at myself. Hope tomorrow will be better.

In Tokyo, at last !

From Toulouse to Amsterdam, then Amsterdam to Narita. A small plane then a big one ; airports of several size too. People, noises. I've been busy capturing ambient sounds with the Zoom, especially inside the planes. The roar of the motors, when filtered, will probably be a nice drone source... I'll keep you updated about that.

The hotel is not by any means what I would call a “luxury” place, but that’s not a problem ; I’ve been given a small single room where I’ve tried to organize my set-up as I could.Here's what it looks like :

By now I feel too tired to do anything else than organizing the files I've recorded and trying to free some free space on my main hard drive... Tomorrow will be noisier, I guess !

(by the way, another musical activity for today : been toying around with the monotron too. My bandmates already threatened several times to “kill me if I don’t fucking turn that fucking thing off”. As a conclusion : the Monotron DOES work. Imagine this on a big big big PA ? Sonic Attack, baby !)

Packing my stuff !

Ok, so here are the pieces of gear I'm gonna take to Japan :
- crappy low-cost headphones (always useful)
- Microkorg synth (don't much like that one, but it's kinda light-weit, which makes a difference when you travel to the other side of the planet. And it has that funny gritty vocoder, too, sounds like shit but very noisy shit)
- AKG C585 mic
- Tascam soundcard
- e-bow (I'll have to ask one of my bandmates to lend me a guitar)
- Dementia noisebox (pretty unpredictable nasty little monster !)
- 2 Korg Monotrons (yeah, the monotron is a toy... but what a hell of a toy ! Killer filter to use on external sources, so easy to make it screeaaaaam)
- zoom H4N recording device (the ultimate weapon for field recordings)
- basic laptop. Didn't take a picture, even though it's quite essential in my set-up ; everybody knows what a laptop looks like.

This is a very "basic" noise-making system, but maybe I'll buy some pedals there to add to it... We'll see.

what is Tokyo Noise Diaries ?

Today is tuesday and I'm still in dirty old France. Thursday, I'll fly to Japan, for the first time of my life, taking with me some audio gear, in order to transform my Tokyo hotel-room into a home studio of sorts. I don't know exactly what kind of noise is going to be produced there, and by who apart me ; but this blog will try to document this process. I also intend to wander randomly in the city with my Zoom H4N to grab some fragments of the dense, noisy, tokyoite sonic sphere - field recordings, soundscapes, free-form interviews, recorded gigs, whatever. I'll try to post these documents on the blog if the internet connection works alright enough...

This is not a tourist blog, not even a musical tourist blog ; it's all about how we're gonna try to create something there, or maybe just work on some unfinished songs. I'm here with my band Punish Yourself and the 1969 Was Fine bass-player ; both projects are due to work on new material, so maybe it will be the occasion... The Dead Sexy Inc will also be here, will they step into my cave ? And japanese musicians, by the way, if I find some interested...