Mushi Mushi Mushi! Welcome to the Lackloves 2003 Japan Tour Diary. The tour starts 11/05/03, so check back to live vicariously through the Lacklove's Japanese experience.

11-3-03. Oh hi. Yeah, we're still home. Check back later. But we will say that we are certainly looking forward to our hotel which offers "an oasis of discretion and tranquility", and also a "soothing tea ceremony". We also can't wait to rock out to the melodic musical stylings of Super Hard Rock Unit. More from Tokyo soon.

11-6-03 Dateline Tokyo, Japan, 9:09am local time. We have arrived. Long day yesterday, really was about two days long. Awake at 6am Tuesday to catch plane, layover in Minneapolis, flight to Tokyo leaves at 1pm. About 12 hours, arrive in Japan the next day at 4pm. Hook up with Tracey Maloney from Rainbow Quartz Records, and labelmates The Singles, 2 hours or so to negotiate customs, then the ONE AND A HALF HOUR SUBWAY RIDE AT RUSH HOUR TO THE HOTEL! Smooth sailing. Oh yes, converted our money as well. I have 38,000 yen! I am buying a Lexus.

Our contact in Japan, Daisuke (pronounced "DICE-kay") got us to our rather fancy hotel, the Keio Plaza Shinjuku, then took us out for a a traditional Japanese dinner, shoe removal and all. Sake, sake, sake, sake, Asahi, sake, Asahi, sake, sake, Asahi. And food. I kept doing my bad Sean Connery impersonation ("The Sake is excellent. And served at the proper temperature, 96.4 degrees fahrenheit."). It got old really fast. Food consumed: Fried oysters, fried smelt (looked exactly like a good old fashioned Milwaukee smelt f maybe sukiyaki, they're similar (meat and vegetables cooked at the table in broth). Much sushi, much chicken, yaki tori (chicken, chicken parts, chicken skins-"foreskins", according to Daisuke), miso soup. And that was just what Tom ate! Hey now. I kid Tom. Everyone got pretty good at the chopsticks fairly quickly. Anyway, it was tasty.

Random observances: Basically hasn't stopped raining since we got here. EVERYBODY has an umbrella. Don bought an umbrella. Room is very nice, Westernized but with a nice tranquil Eastern vibe to it. Robes and slippers came with room. Photos to come soon. Milwaukee is 15 hours behind, thus we all slept fairly well. Of course we went to bed at the equivalent of 10 in the morning, after being up all night. Oh yes. Mike's snoring, no longer a problem. New snoring issue: Tom.

Plan today, buy an umbrella and walk around. More later. Sayonara.

11-7-03. 12:20pm. Here's what the Japanese are like: Yesterday we went to Asakusa (oh yeah, it finally stopped raining and the sun came out, about 70 degrees outside-beautiful. Good thing Don bought an umbrella ), which is one of the only kus (a ku is like a borough of NYC) in Tokyo that still retains some of the vibe of old Japan. Senjosi Temple is there, one of the oldest temples in Japan dating back to the 7th century (although the current building dates only back to post WWII, as the original was destroyed), as well as Demboin garden, a beautiful bonsai garden with koi ponds and lots of statues of the Buddha and whatnot. It was pretty cool. Connected to that is Nakamise Dori which is a huge long covered street with shop after shop after shop in it selling everything from cheesy Japanese souvenirs to Samurai swords to rice krispie treats, and everything in between. So I'm buying a little trinket from a nice middle aged Japanese woman, leave the store, walk 20 feet or so down the street, and for some reason decide to check my pocket where I notice that I seem to be missing a 10,000 yen note (about $100). This is not good. I mean, that's like 6 beers here! I stop and search my pockets trying to find it for several minutes, no luck. Suddently the woman from whom I had just purchased the trinket comes pushing through the crowds (politely, of course) and comes up to me and says "Money?" I say "yes!" Actually I might have even said "Hai!" She motions me to follow her back to her booth where she had picked up the bill which I dropped in her shop, and she set it aside in case I came back for it. She just happened to see me looking for it. I thanked her profusely, bowing and saying "domo arigato, domo arigoto" over and over again, while she chattered in fast Japanese and punched me repeatedly in the shoulder for some reason. I think she was telling me to be more careful with my money. Don't know why she was hitting me, but she was smiling the whole time so whatever. Unfailingly honest, polite, wonderful people, even when they're punching you in the arm.

Eventually we wandered back to the subway, and made our way to Roppongi, which is one of the swinging going out parts of town, where we hooked up with Tom's brother Tim. This was also the only time we were accosted on the street, at no point in our journey did anybody approach us to beg for money, or to sell us drugs, or to sell us anything else for that matter (other than to chat and practice their English), except for here where many many strip club, sorry, "gentlemen's club" employees, all claiming to be the manager, harrassed us with their cards and promises of big discounts (because they were the manager) to lure us into their wretched hives of scum and villainy. Sorry, couldn't resist the Star Wars reference. Anyway, we had to meet Tim so we had to take a rain check. We met Tim and went to an Irish bar for a couple Guinesses and Strongbows, then exhausted despite the hour (8pm), retired back to the hotel. Well, the hotel bar, to be quite blunt. One of the 10 bars in the hotel, actually. It was called The Sky Bar and is located on the 45th floor of the hotel and offers a spectacular view of the Shinjuku area, not to mention ludicrously expensive drinks.

So if you've never been here you probably don't know that very few streets in Tokyo have names. Also they're laid out in a completely random pattern, like a really big, crowded downtown Waukesha. Also the address system is a little odd. You've probably seen Japanese addresses written where it'll be something like 2-6-9 Abakusa, Taito-ku. Taito is the ku, Abakusa is the name of the district withing the ku, 2 is the number of the chome (which is a smaller breakdown of the district), 6 is a smaller breakdown of the chome, usually about the size of a city block but not necessarily, and then 9 is the building number. Does building #9 come after #8 and before #10? Of course not. It just means that it's the ninth building built and assigned a number there. It could be between 4 and 13. Or 23 and 6. Or 2 and 7. So good luck finding anything if you come here. The best thing to do is just ask, and when they point in the general direction, just head that way and ask again. Repeat until you find it.

11-9-03. 10:07am. Sorry I haven't been updating this as regularly as I'd like, believe it or not there are very few internet cafes here, and the ones that are here, I cannot locate (see above), also the hotel business office where I sit now, closes at 5:00 so I can't roll in here at 2am and do updates, which is the best time to do them. Anyway, to try to catch up briefly: So the neighborhood of Cave Be is, yep, another unbelievably interesting neighborhood, tiny twisty streets full of people, shops everywhere, music stores, restaurants, CD stores, clothes stores, toy stores. The club is about 20'X40', which coincides with what Mike Hoffmann told me about Japan, which is you'll get to a club about the size of your basement and you'll ask what's the capacity here and they'll say "750". Well actually it was 150, and considering a place like Shank Hall is 300 and is literally 8 times bigger, you can imagine it got a little crowded. Also it had the loudest, but most meticulously engineered sound I've heard. The sound equipment looked like something you'd have at an arena show, and the reason they soundchecked at 3 is so they could get it perfect. And near perfect is was. The light shows were something else too, that's something we could use around here. Cool light shows in rock clubs. So anyway, the coolest band in the world is The Oranges , sort of a Japanese version of the Bay City Rollers with a little Thin Lizzy thrown in, wearing matching (except different colors) Speed Racer racing suits and matching haircuts, and they had, get this, choreography! They totally rocked, were tighter than a duck's behind (and that's waterproof ), and we felt really bad for The Singles who had to follow them. But The Singles stepped up to the occasion and rocked the people, as did we. The first two bands (The Sunbeams and Salt Water Taffy) were great too, they seem to rehearse a lot here, everybody was really tight and solid. A brief note about Daisuke. Great guy, hilarious, speaks very good English, but has an odd way of talking, hard to describe but he's very nonspecific with things and tends to contradict himself. Example, we finish soundcheck, and Tom says "Hey Daisuke, is there a backroom where we can put our stuff?" and Daisuke says "Yes" and points to it, and Tom says "Okay can we put it back there now?" and Daisuke says "No, not now" and Tom says "Okay, when can we put it back there?" and Daisuke says "Whenever you want." So after the last band finishes, which is us, it's like 10:30. Club shows seem to start very early here. Daisuke comes up and says "Okay, I need 1000 yen from everybody" and we say "Okay, why?" and Daisuke says "Party" and we say "Okay, great" and Daisuke says "So we can all drink free as much as we want the rest of the night" and we say "Really? Okay. As much as we want?" and Daisuke says "No, but some free beers." Which aren't really free anyway, but whatever. We give him our money, sit around for a while waiting for further instruction, and finally Daisuke comes up and Don asks "What do we do, just go up to the bar?" and Diasuke says "No." and we say "Okay, what do we do?" and Diasuke says "Now we wait." Eventually it worked itself out. So all 5 bands plus assorted hangers- on got to hang out at the club drinking beers for a few hours. The Japanese speak much better English than any of us speak Japanese, obviously, so we had fun quizzing each other out of our various phrasebooks and talking baseball. Yeah, they heard of Hideo Nomo but they've never heard of the Milwaukee Brewers. Tom was holding court with his little personal group of fans, I think they were fascinated by his......presence. As the many of you who know Tom know, he is freaking hilarious, and rather loud, with a big boomy radio DJ voice. I don't think they're used to that sort of thing here. They were mesmerized and enthralled.

Yesterday, and I have to make this quick, gotta go soon, Tom and his brother Tim who is hanging with us (Tim lives in Okinawa and had business in Tokyo so he set it up to be here this week-great guy, we're very glad to have him around) went to a bath house (no, not THAT kind of bath house, a common public bath house, which was, naturally, more like a carnival). Tom will be telling you amusing stories in great detail about that, so stay tuned for his report. It was Mike's day to chill in the hotel room, and Don and I (after much, much deliberation) got up very early, very exhausted, and somewhat hung over to boot, to take the train to Kamakura, a small town (by "small" I mean 175,000 people) about an hour south of here. Kamakura is known for its temples and shrines (of which there are 65 and 19 of each respectively), and we saw the Diabutusu, or Great Buddha, the hat makes sense. That was quite an unbelievable sight. Kannon is a 30 foot high statue carved in the 8th century from a single piece of camphor wood, and is the tallest wooden statue in Japan. Interesting story about this statue, which I'll paraphrase from Frommer's Tokyo, which by the way if you go to Tokyo, buy this book and do everything it tells you to. It never let us down. Apparently there were 2 huge statues built from one piece of wood, one was set up in Nara (no idea where what is or whatever happened to that statue), and the other one was tossed into the sea to find a home of its own. Why? I do not know. Anyway, it drifted 300 miles where is washed ashore, but everybody who touched it got sick or suffered some other misfortune, so they tossed it back into the drink. It then drifted to Kamakura, where everybody who touched it was fine, so they figured it was content with its surroundings there and they built the Kannon Temple. Overall the best and most awe inspiring day I personally had in terms of sightseeing (not to mention crap buying), though Asakusa was not far behind.

Last night we went out to dinner with Tim, Tracey, and the Singles, then to the Cavern Club in Roppongi, which is a recreation of the Cavern Club in Liverpool. They had a Japanese Beatles tribute band there that sounded, and weirder still, LOOKED, exactly like the Beatles, especially John, except that Ringo was left-handed and Paul was right handed. It was pretty corporate, like watching a Japanese Beatles tribute band play at TGI Friday's, but fun, and quite surreal, like, well, watching a Japanese Beatles tribute band play at TGI Friday's. Which reminds me, we did actually go to a TGI Friday's in Tokyo, this was also in the Roppongi ku, on our way to meet Tim the other night. Why? Curiousity. And to get a beer, as it was a little after 4 and most regular bars don't open until 5. It was exactly like a TGI Friday's here, except there was one restroom for the entire 2-story restaurant, co-ed, with a single toilet. The Japanese bartenders certainly did have a lot of flair, though. And wacky hats. Gotta go, stay tuned for more updates and photos when we get home. Sayonara.

11-10-03 Tokyo Narita Airport. 1:34pm. Got about a half hour until our flight so here we go, except this computer is really hard to type on so I don' t know how far I will get. Everything is in a different spot. Yesterday we went to Harajuku, the swinging hipster young folks part of town, lots of Japanese Goth kids and whatnot running around. They were so cute. We felt totally old. Walked around, went to Get Back, the Beatles memorabelia store, and I hate to do this but I' m having such a hard time typing plus a bunch of people are waiting for this computer so I`m gonna stop now. Once again, more to come. By the way, in the four days we have been here we have all become quite fluent in conversational Japanese. Can anybody tell me if there is a single Japanese word with the letter L in it? Because we can't find any.

Our friend Beth has informed me that there aren't any L's in Japanese, in fact many Japanese people have difficulty pronouncing the L sound, and also have trouble differentiating between the L sound and the W sound. This probably accounts for certain not particularly funny stereotypes about the Japanese by the likes of Buddy Hackett. Interesting. Thank you, Beth.

11-11-03. 10:30pm Milwaukee time. Home. Okay I don't know what all those little squares were, but I fixed them. Also instead of adding a bunch of stuff after the fact under this date, we're going to go back and try to organize the rest as it all happened and add more details, so do check back for more. Returned home at 5pm yesterday after being up for 26 hours I think we figured it, Tom slept for 16 hours last night, I slept 12 then took a 2 hour nap today. Don't know how Mike and Don fared, but Don was almost dead yesterday so I imagine he's still asleep, and probably will be for quite some time. Thanks to the  Salt Water Taffy, The Sunbeams, and Nudge 'em All), all of whom I can honestly say were fantastic and rocked us, and I'm old and jaded and don't like anything. Honestly, why The Oranges and Hartfield in particular aren't huge internationally known rock bands is beyond me. They have got it. And most of all, thanks to Diasuke Kambe, we couldn't have done it without you. Happy birthday, old man. Kampai! -Jack

11-13-03 We just got an email from Daisuke. He said this, verbatim: "How was the flight? ha ha ha... I know that was pain in the ass thing."

Daisuke rules.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you our drummer, Mister Thomas Dougherty (the pictures to which he refers will be up soon) (APOLOGY ABOUT THE LACK OF PICTURES SO FAR: Sorry there aren't any pictures yet. Having a little trouble figuring out the ol' HTML. Patience, please, grasshopper.):

Tommy here.

So there I was, buried up to my neck in hot sand, a lovely young Japanese woman kneeling next to me blotting sweat from my face. Aside from my eyelids, the only movement I could muster was a faint shimmy. It was simultaneously the worst and best time to have a monster hangover. But I'm getting ahead of myself. What follows is "Tommy's Tokyo " presented in Digital Surround Sound Technicolor Recollection.

Our one and a half hour subway ride during rush hour on our way into town and our subsequent half mile subterranean trek to our hotel was rough indeed. Made worse by the fact that I read in one of our 5 or so tour books that the locals, due to the crowded nature of their subways, HATE IT when foreigners ("gaijin" in Japanese) bring luggage onto the train. So right off the bat I felt like we were pissing them all off. Fortunately, the Japanese would never dream of telling you you were pissing them off, so score one for the ugly Americans! Dinner that first night -- Jack has already teased that I ate a lot that night. I just want to set the record straight. I ate a lot that night. To know me is to know that I love food. Even now I don't know which part of the trip I enjoyed more; the rocking or the eating. Anyway, I wasn't taking food off of other people's plates or anything, but after everyone else was finished, sitting back and sipping sake, I was still shoveling. The shabu-shabu was the highlight of the meal.

On our 11/6 trip to the marketplace where Jack lost the $100, he mentions the rice krispie treats available there. I bought some, of course. They are not, however, like the ones we have here. I got a combo bag of individually-wrapped bite-sized ones. I liken this to the Every Flavor Jellybeans from the Harry Potter movies. (Prof. Dumbledore: "In my youth, I was most unfortunate to come across a vomit flavored one." Chews. "Alas...earwax.") The first one I tried was peanut butter -- so far, so good. Then came nori (toasted seaweed), sesame, wasabi, maple, and what tasted like (I swear to God) the fried smelt from dinner last night! (Alas... earwax!) Other treats from that afternoon include green tea ice cream (delicious) and fluffy-dough-balls-on-a-stick wrapped in nori (unimpressive). Some sights from that afternoon:

(Photos coming soon) That evening Tracey booked time in one of our hotel's private karaoke rooms.     Don: "It's Not Unusual", Jack: "Mack the Knife", Mike: "Just What I Needed", Tommy: "Modern Love".

11/7/03 . My brother Tim, Mike and I take a walk around Shibuya and find StarCityBaby on sale at the local Tower Records. It was on the 3rd of 7 floors. Mike signs an autograph card one of the employees presents to him so they can display it by the disc. Sweet. Mike heads back to the hotel, while Tim and I go for dinner at a local sushi hut. This was, by far, my favorite dining experience of the trip. Imagine you're sitting at the counter of any random diner. Between you and those behind the counter is a little raised conveyor belt. Slowly sliding by on said conveyor belt is every kind of sushi you can imagine. Each is on a color-coded plate that corresponds to a price chart on the wall. You simply take what looks good to you one plate at a time, stacking them as you go. When you're done, they tally up your plates and you pay as you leave. Brilliant! Let's see... I had shrimp, yellowtail, salmon roe, eel, a couple more that I had no idea what they were, and clam. I loved them all... except the clam -- so I only had one more of those.

After that it was off to Cave Be. We walked, with our instruments, to the subway, rode the subway, then walked through the winding streets to the gig. In reference to Jack's account of the after party; of the little group of people I was "holding court" with, only one girl said anything in English. Two small phrases, and I quote, "We are big fan." and, "You so cool." She was my favorite. Otherwise it was all charades. Incredibly fun. Speaking of charades, I wanted to do a shot with samurai bartender (see pic. below) and I don't think they do shots there so I had to walk him through it. I point to him, then to me, then to the Cuervo and say "Tequila!" He nods and smiles and grabs the bottle. I hold up two fingers and he grabs two beer cups and holds them up as if to ask if those were OK. I nod and he puts them on the bar. I hold two fingers close together at the base of the cups while he slowly pours until I stop him. I take my cup, hand him his, and say "Kampai!!" (cheers). He repeats, we tap our cups and throw 'em back. I put my cup on the bar, smiling. He bends over coughing and wheezing -- but still smiling! Hilarious! The next thing I remember is waking up back at the hotel the next morning.

11/8/03 . ...Ohmygod, hangover, ohmygod, hangover, ohmygod, hangover.......... My brother calls this morning and says "I want to take you to this re-creation of a bath house from the year 600!" He was kind of excited because it was new since the last time he was here. Two things instantly go through my head: #1) An enormous pool filled with really hot water and naked men, #2) Ohmygod, hangover. I figure if Tim thinks it'll be cool, it'll be cool. The subway ride to the monorail station sucked! Standing, swaying, my head and intestines churning, hot...so hot... I needed a restroom as soon as we got to the station. My brother said he laughed when he heard the desperation in my voice as the first stall I checked contained a Japanese toilet (see pic above) and I said, "Oh God!" Fortunately stall 2 had a western toilet. Tim had a bottle of Pocari Sweat (Japanese Gatorade) waiting for me afterward. Good stuff. Feeling better. The monorail ride is really cool -- winding through Tokyo and over Tokyo Bay . Really cool because I learn that the answer is CAB! The question is: How did we get home last night? Incredible architecture everywhere. Check these out. (not all pics from the monorail) (Photos coming soon)

The Bath House: You have to remove your shoes when you first walk in and put them in a locker. I was under the impression that we were going to a traditional, ceremonial, solemn kind of thing. This place is a public attraction-day spa. Imagine going to the public museum and taking your shoes off right inside the door. You pay your admission and are directed to a wall display of 12 or so robes you can choose from. Mine had a samurai on it.

Off to the locker room to change into our robes (and nothing but our robes) and through the next door into what I expect will be a room with an enormous pool filled with hot water and naked men. Nope! It's a marketplace. Gift shops, sushi stands, a ninja star throwing carnival game, a palm reader! To paraphrase Seinfeld, the only thing between me and a couple hundred people is a thin layer of cotton! I felt rather vulnerable... and a bit of a draft. You wear the locker key around your neck. There's a little pouch for your key. On the outside of the pouch are your locker number and a bar code. Any thing you want to do or buy, they scan your bar code and you pay when you leave. Even the vending machines used the bar code! Clever. First up: the foot bath. An outdoor garden through which winds a 4 foot wide shallow pool/path, with small stones embedded into the floor, filled with nice warm water. The idea is that you walk through the warm water to either give your feet a vigorous massage or punish yourself for all the evil you've ever done, depending on your threshold for pain. It hurt like hell! There were areas with larger rocks that felt great on the arches, but the little ones sucked. At one point I sat on the edge of the walkway and immediately, that little "draft" I've been feeling became a very big draft! I threw my knees together and started tucking the robe around my legs. Nobody saw, and when I told Tim about it, he eloquently stated, "Yeah, ya gotta be careful, you never know when your crank is gonna go wandering..." Ladies wearing skirts, I get it now.

Next was the sand sauna. We go to another locker room to change out of my robe into... another robe. We proceed to a hut. A wood plank walkway down the middle, a 30 foot trough of hot sand on either side. We lay down in the sand and three young women came and buried us from neck to toe. So there I was, buried up to my neck in hot sand, a lovely, young, Japanese woman kneeling next to me blotting sweat from my face. Aside from my eyelids, the only movement I could muster was a faint shimmy. It was simultaneously the worst and best time to have a monster hangover. 15 sweaty minutes later we're dug up, swept off, and off to the showers to rinse off what they couldn't sweep. Sadly, the robe couldn't prevent the sand from getting in my... everywhere. The sand warmed us up perfectly for our 20 minute massages (fantastic). We then found yet another locker room, beyond which was an enormous pool filled with really hot water and naked men (A-ha! I knew it!). The sheer volume of naked men in the locker room was staggering. I suddenly remembered I saw something in the marketplace I wanted to buy... immediately. Tim went in and had a shave. After that we changed, paid up and headed back to the hotel. Oh, one last thing. The cashier gave us each a little piece of wood with a number on it to give to the guy at the exit. It was for a little fortune that you plucked from your corresponding number on a wall. Tim showed his to the guy and he says, "Big lucky!" Tim: "Alright, big lucky!" I show him mine and he says, "Lucky" Me: "Alright, big lucky!" The guy says, "No. 'lucky'." I give him a curious look. He says, "Big lucky, medium lucky, little lucky." I ask which one I got. He says, "Lucky." Apparently, I got the worst of all luckies. But it's still lucky!

On the way to the Cavern Club we have dinner at a really cool place where there are grills mounted into the tables. We ordered beef, chicken and veg, and grill 'em up right there. Very tasty.

11/9/03 . Here's a pic of Hirasuku where the goth kids were. Note that it's as crowded as Jack's $100 marketplace. Pretty much everywhere is. Tim said it's like half the population of the USA all living in Louisiana . Crazy.

Between sound check and the gig we found a quaint little ramen joint. Tim ordered us up some potstickers and a few bowls of ramen. The bowls were huge! We engaged in the local custom of slurping loudly to indicate that we were enjoying our meal.

The show went great. Both bands rocked proudly.

11/10/03 . 12 hour flight out of Japan , 3 hour layover in Minneapolis , 1 hour flight to Chicago . 90 minute drive back to Milwaukee . Not one wink of sleep. Mike gets the Trooper award for driving home. Arriving back in town, we realize that Milwaukee and Tokyo have many of the same things -- with slight differences. We have a sports stadium... they have 5 sports stadiums. We have orange construction cones...they have orange construction cones that light up! (Blue ones too). We have vending machines...they have vending machines that sell beer. We have cars...they have cars, only they're smaller. (Their fire trucks are more like fire mini vans). Their citizens are charming, respectful and unfailingly polite...we have cars.

Well, that's my two cents. Actually, looking back over it, it was more like a buck-fifty. But a buck-fifty comes out to 165 yen so you're making out on the deal!!