"Magical Chain"

The following is from a post I made in small forum I help moderate.  There's very little activity on the forum so I haven't had to do much moderating there in ages.  Nonetheless here's my blurb about the concert I attended last night....

I got to see Ulful Keisuke in concert last night. Lady Luck was on my side this time.  I think the gig sold out in about 30 minutes.   I saw a poster with the "Sold Out - Thank You!" sticker on it at Billy's Bar back in February.  I mentioned to a friend I had seen him in concert last year and it looked like I was going to miss out on his show this year.   She said she had heard that someone had six returned tickets from cancellations.   So I asked her to put in a word for me.  A few days later she got back to me and said she had managed to secure the last ticket for me.  Needless to say I was extremely pleased with the turn of events.

I've been to Billy's Bar for concerts in the past.  It's not a big place so I've learned the lesson that it doesn't pay to show up just before shows start.  So yesterday I showed up 15 minutes before the doors opened.  Even then I has at the back of the queue.  Luckily it wasn't a long one.  So I managed to nab a good seat about a meter behind the soundboard.

Opening act was MinxZone (http://www.last.fm/music/MinxZone).   They're a trio who originally were based in Osaka but they're now based in Tokyo.  Since they don't have a bassist they had to rely on taped bass track on their opening song.  After that they chugged along as two guitartists and a drummer.  They're an upbeat feel-good pop-rock unit.   Similar to the band I saw last month, Zukunasi, they include elements of audience participation in their set.   Their output isn't limited to music as they had knick-knacks, books, and art T-shirts on sales too.

Ulful Keisuke is the guitarist for the now reformed Ulfuls.  The band started out pre-1993 in Osaka and were known for an irreverent and tongue-in-cheek style of rock and roll in the beginning (the name of the band came from dropping "so" from "soulful").   Commercial success followed in the mid nineties.   I remember seeing them on an edition of the annual Kohaku Uta Gassen (Red-White Song Battle) in the mid 2000s.

I believe Ulful Keisuke has been doing his annual tours through the Tohoku region for a number of years.   He's visited Yonezawa three years in a row.   I was at last year's show and it was a good one but the venue was too small for the size of the audience in attendance.   This year the layout of the venue was better suited to his style of show.  He likes to take an occasional stroll up the aisle to stretch out a guitar solo.  His selection of songs are his own ones which he may or may not have collaborated on with members of Ulfuls.  He definitely doesn't mine the Ulfuls catalogue. He likes to chat things up between tunes too.  Not up to the length of the monologues done by Yamada Koshi though (another person whose shows at Billy's Bar sell out too).  The selection ranged from a cover of an old Stones tune (though written by Lennon and McCartney) to a couple of ballads and a lot of peppy and energetic rockers.

I drained half my wallet again on CD purchases.  Got them autographed by MinxZone and Ulful Keisuke respectively.  I complemented Ulful Keisuke, in English, on his T-shirt selection. It was a Monty Python T-shirt that names the members of the troupe and then, for no particular reason, goes on to list "Spam, Spam, Spam" and other nonsense.  Ulful Keisuke did a double take when he asked what my name was as he was about to sign a CD for me.  Guess he wasn't expecting to get an English name delivered in a flat North American accent in the middle of a sentence in Japanese....


Footnote: I found out last week that the ticket I purchased came courtesy of Pinky-chan (real name Eriko) who sings in the house band Brilliant Shine at Billy's Bar.  I bumped into her at Yasukuni about three weeks ago when I went there to catch an acoustic night gig which I found about from our office manager.   She remembered me from when she made her rounds through the audience after Brilliant Shine finished their set when they had opened for Zukunasi.  That was back in late February,

A Change

I'm not sure what made me decide to purchase a new laptop to replace my early 2011 model Macbook Pro.  I suppose it was the realization that it wasn't performing as quickly under the weight of the latest edition of Mac OS X.  Or perhaps it was the fan spinning away madly while I was playing some game.  Nonetheless, the decision was made a few months ago.  I let a co-worker know that I was looking for a buyer for the old machine and he expressed interest in it.  So the die was cast, so to speak.

Once the new 2015 Macbook Pro models were announced about a month ago I signed onto the Apple Japan online store to place my order.  I checked the option to pay in 6 interest free installments.  With that I was led to a website to submit a loan application.  I dutifully started filling out the form but by the fourth page the questions were getting more difficult to interpret and the information requested harder to obtain.  So I ended up phoning Apple to cancel the order, make changes to what I had ordered, and resubmit it.

Unfortunately there was a problem with the payment option I had chosen.  The e-mail telling me about the issue was delivered to an e-mail address I check somewhat infrequently.  Thus I failed to take action in time and the order was cancelled.  Once more I submitted the order.

Today I'm working away on my new purchase.  It's an interesting example of computing hardware evolution.  The machine has no optical drive and the mass storage device is a flash memory drive.  So it's dead silent.  I had it customized by having it assembled with a US keyboard and additional RAM.  The assembly work was done somewhere in China.  That I know from the tracking information of the package it was sent in.

I had some issues transferring my data from my old machine to this one on account of the smaller capacity of the mass storage device on the new machine.  The initial attempt to transfer the data using Apple's migration assistant failed to complete successfully in spite of the fact that there was ample space on the new machine.  So I ended working on it until the early hours of the morning.  After waking I went about restoring the old machine to its initial condition: Mac OS X Snow Leopard and no user accounts set up on it.  I shot a video of the "Welcome" video and shut down the machine down for the last time. Thus I parted with a machine I had hauled back and forth across the Pacific Ocean five times.

Footnote:  When I was shopping for the original Macbook Pro a friend suggested choosing a Macbook Pro.  I thought about it but decided not on account of the slower processor speed, smaller mass storage device capacity and lack of an optical drive.  The Macbook Pro I purchased this time around is like a Macbook Air...on steroids.  Faster processor, more memory, and the mid-size mass storage device which is the top-end mass storage device on the Air.

A "Congratulations Graduates!" Concert...and Miscellaneous Things

I attended a concert several years ago where a number of the participating musicians were students who were soon to graduate from their respective educational institutions at the time.  The poster advertising that show didn't make mention of that fact...it sort of came out as the night's proceedings carried on.  This past Saturday I attended a concert which was organized by a certain Mr. Shimanuki and was visibly identifiable as a concert for three graduating students who also have connections within the local music scene.  The three musicians, a male and two females, represented three levels of local schools: the fellow is a university grad, the first female is a women's college grad, and the next a high school grad.  The middle section of the concert featured these three musicians: the fellow played keyboard in a band and the two young ladies were acoustic guitar playing singer/songwriters who each did a solo set.

In regards to being nervous on stage, the fellow had the advantage of being a member of a band.  He wasn't at centre stage.  Instead he was stationed near the front on the audience's right hand side of the stage.  The solo artists were dead centre on stage and both admitted they were quite nervous.  Actually, if I recall correctly, both asked Goro-san who was manning the sound board and lighting system to not use the stage lights which shone on the audience.  Megu, the older one, managed to finish her performance with only a minor hitch but the younger one who goes by her stage name of "Yatte Mo-taro?" hit a big bump.  Prior to launching into one her songs she announced that she wasn't going to perform it any more.  That became apparent once she started singing and playing it.  It was a song about high school life and wondering about the future.  As a high school graduate, the time and place for the song had passed.  Things went fine until the third verse.  She stopped mid-song, froze for a second, and said "Oh.  I've forgotten the lyrics (to the next verse).  Does anyone know what they are?".  There was no one around who could yell out the start of the verse so it was few awkward seconds until she was able to recall it.  After she finished the song she removed the school necktie from around her neck (she was on stage in her school uniform) and tossed it into the crowd.  She quickly stormed off stage, leaving a few in the audience wondering what to expect next.  I heard someone say "She's probably changing out of her uniform".  Sure enough that was the case.

After they had finished their sets, the three grads were assembled near the stage to receive congratulations and bouquets.  Ms. "Yatte Mo-taro?" was given a potted flowering plant.  I'm not sure if there was any significance in that.  There was plenty of bowing, words of appreciation, and taking of photos.  Then things were handed over to the last flight of bands to finish off the night's proceedings. 

The last band to take to the stage was from Nagai, a city north of Yonezawa.  They go by the name "Vanishment This World" which Mr. Shimanuki provided a loose translation of.  I didn't get anywhere close to thinking "Yeah, but it doesn't really mean anything in English".   Their music is a form of "speedcore" but they advertise themselves as "A three piece, bass less, downcore" band.  Labels aside, they were loud and fast.   The vocalist was hardly didn't sing so much as he belted out guttural sounds that resembled low frequency yelling.  What was more noticeable were the youths who took to the floor to "dance" to their music.  It wasn't dance so much as it was high intensity bursts of mock fighting moves.  When four of them were going at it in the space in front of the stage, the rest of audience having wisely backed off by about a couple of meters, it was a miracle that no one came out of all that flailing about without taking a kick in the mid-riff or a swinging fist in the back of the head.
 
By the time it was all over the whole event had clocked in at around 5 hours in length.  I had arrived after the first hour and a half but it was still a long night after a day of work so I was quite tuckered out when I got home.

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On Sunday, the next day, I was in the mood to wander off somewhere again but wasn't exactly sure where or for what purpose.  I hastily came up with an idea and found mention on the Internet of a shop which seemed to fit the bill for a place to check out.  Its location was in Nagai city which is north of Yonezawa.  To get there one heads up to Akayu and then hangs a left to head west for a short distance.  I don't think it took me more than 45 minutes to drive there.

Once I got to Nagai I parked my car in the lot of a park more or less in the centre of town.  I headed off to find the shop...and discovered it was no more.  Hence my statement that "its location was in Nagai".  Nonetheless, I took the time to stroll through the side streets back to my car.  I stumbled across a soy sauce shop where they make and sell it in a rather traditional looking building.  Interestingly enough it was located next to a fire bell tower.  Another interesting building featured a thatched roof.  A local temple had a small structure on its ground which housed an altar and had massive 2 meter long straw sandals hanging on its walls outside.  So I didn't go home empty handed.  Well, literally yes, but that didn't matter.

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Over the years, every now and then I have heard a particular song being blasted over a PA system.  It's no more than a single verse and chorus but it is quite loud.  At some point in time I thought it was related to an election campaign but I kept hearing it after voting day.  Until recently I thought it came from a nearby nursery school.

This morning I went for a walk over to Uesugi Shrine and thereabouts.  On my return leg, as I turned onto the street leading up to my apartment a large truck passed me.  And then I heard that song!  It was delivery truck for a local co-op food service.  Ah!  Mystery solved...more or less.  I may time my next walk so that I can shoot a short video of the truck and its song.  Then I can listen to it to my heart's content to try and figure out what the heck its about....

The Peanut Butter Score...Amongst Other Things

A few nights ago I met a friend at a local snack for a few drinks after work.  At some point in the evening we got onto the topic of peanut butter.  I think she said she had heard of peanut butter jam sandwiches from an American TV drama she had watched.  She was a bit curious and wanted to find out what they tasted like.  On the TV show she had seen them make PBJ sandwiches using blueberry jam.  So she slapped together peanut cream and blueberry jam on bread and took a bite.  It wasn't to her liking at all.  Much too sweet.  I laughed and said that made perfect sense as peanut cream (a sweetened peanut tasting spread) tastes nothing like peanut butter.  I rattled off the places in town where I buy peanut butter.  She asked "Isn't it expensive?" but I pointed out that a medium size jar of the stuff, which probably is a small jar back in Canada, could be purchased for less than ¥500.

The places where I go to get peanut butter in Yonezawa are the Gyomu Supermarket and Yamaya.  The stuff they sell at the former is imported from India.  At Yamaya they sell Skippy brand peanut butter.  There was a while of about 6 months where they weren't selling it but they've started carrying it now.  Actually, the choice has improved a bit there as they now sell both the creamy and crunchy variety.  Yamaya isn't a supermarket though.  It's a liquour store.  They sell imported foodstuffs also.  I once surprised a student (her family runs a liquour store) when I told her that liquour stores in Vancouver don't sell snacks, soft drinks, and other related foodstuffs.

This past weekend (my weekend is actually Sunday and Monday) I ended up taking a couple of short trips out of town to eat at places I don't usually go to.  On Sunday I drove up to Akayu to have ramen at the main shop of the locally popular ramen shop chain Ryu Shanghai.  Someone asked me how long it would've taken me to get there.  Since I hadn't gone there directly my answer was 30 minutes if. 1) I hadn't turned off to check out Inamori Kofun, an ancient burial mound, and 2) I hadn't gotten lost.  I don't know the layout of the streets in Akayu and I wasn't stopped long enough at traffic lights to be able to get a good bearing on my iPhone map application.  In the end I pulled over into a convenience store parking lot to check my map.  I had if fact driven past the intersection which lead up to my destination.

On Sunday night, before going to bed, I got it into my head to check out the Denny's restaurant in Fukushima city.  I don't know why but I suppose it was one of those "Why not do something different?" moments in life.  I checked the train schedules, the location of the restaurant, set my alarm, and went to bed.  The next morning I caught the 8:08am train to Fukushima.  I had taken longer to get dressed and ready to go so I had one of those frustrating spells of indecisiveness where I couldn't decide whether to drive to the station or walk.  I compounded the frustration on account of taking my car keys with me.  I started off, turned back, checked the time, and finally headed off to the station briskly on foot.  I made it to the station with ample time to spare.

I've never before taken a local train on that stretch of rail between Yonezawa and Fukushima.  So it was a nice change of pace.  I tried to catch sight of the station which is closed through the winter but failed to do so.  There's still that much snow there.  Breakfast at Denny's was uneventful.  Their menu is not the same as what is offered back home in Canada and the US.  No Grand Slam Breakfast to be seen there.  The rest of the visit to Fukushima was uneventful.  I did a bit of shopping, rode the Fukushima Municipal Transit line train, wandered about a bit, and did a bit more shopping for White Day goodies (White Day is the Japanese reciprocal Valentine's Day - men folk are supposed to give chocolates to the ladies who gave them chocolates on Valentine's Day).  The second round of shopping found me at the Fukushima Jupiter store.  Jupiter is a chain of stores which specializes in coffee and imported foodstuffs.  Their stores are not as snazzy looking as those of their competitor Kaldi(sic) but I like Jupiter's selection better.  In the battle of peanut butter selection they win out for they carry Smucker's Natural Peanut Butter.  That variety is the type where the peanut oil has separated from the peanut mash (I suppose that's what one would call it) and you have to mix the two back together before eating it. 

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Post script:  I didn't get a chance to take a look around at the Inamori Kofun as it's closed during the winter.  I'll go back up there after the spring thaw is over.

It's That Time of Year

I suppose with a title like that there might be someone who will think this post will be about cherry blossom viewing in Japan.  Sorry to disappoint but that isn't the case.  This past winter's snow has just started to melt off and while most sidewalks are now clear, thanks to residents shoveling away the last bit recently, there's plenty of it left elsewhere.  Plus we don't expect to see cherry blossoms around here until well into April.  No, the title comes from a comment made at a "live bar", a bar with a stage where a band can squeeze onto, that I visited last Saturday evening.  That night's show was "Acoustic Night" and the last act to take to the stage was a one man act.  I didn't catch the guy's name but he was a bit of a sight to be seen.  A relatively tall fellow dressed in black jeans and T-shirt with a bright red jacket.  If I recall correctly he might have had a thin mustache.  But his hair was unforgettable: he had used plenty of hair gel to get it all standing on end so that it was part lion mane and part Sid Vicious.  Toss in the acoustic guitar and you have the makings of...something.

Anyways, at the end of his set this fellow announced that he'd like the audience to join in and sing along with him.  I have no idea what the title of the final song was but the singer made sure everyone knew what it was about.  "It's that time of year", he said, "It's graduation time...".  So naturally his selected song was about parting ways and looking towards the future.  And yes, the audience, including myself, did sing along with the acoustic guitar wielding punk.

Next day I didn't have any plans in particular.  Around noon the idea of heading up to Yamagata city to do some shopping popped into my head.  So I checked the train schedule, had a bite to eat, took a shower, and then found out I didn't have enough time to walk to station to make the 1:45 train.  So I drove down to Max Value supermarket close to the station and walked over to it.

When the train I was on arrived in Takahata a number of high school students boarded it.  I noticed corsages and boutonnieres being worn by some of the students.  The comment from the previous evening popped into my head.  Indeed, it's graduation season.  Most of those students got off a few stations up the line.  One girl got off the train and stood around on the platform to wave goodbye to her friends still on board like it was the last she was going to see of them.  Then a fresh batch of new graduates boarded a stop of two later.  Most of them traveled on to the train's last stop which was Yamagata.

Once I got past the ticket turnstiles at Yamagata station I passed by groups of students once again sporting corsages and boutonnieres.  Outside there was hardly any snow to be seen.  The air wasn't too cool either.  One could have imagined that spring was just around the corner waiting to make its entrance.  Alas, a few days later back in Yonezawa, it snowed again....

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Post script: I picked up a sushi bento at the Max Value supermarket on the way home.  I picked one which had been discounted by ¥200.  I didn't notice until when I had gotten to the self-serve checkout that the "inari sushi", sushi stuffed into little pouches made from deep fried tofu, had Hello Kitty faces on them.  I took a picture of them and sent the photo to my sister and second cousin back in Vancouver.  On Tuesday I showed the picture during my evening class to the junior high school student in attendance (she being the one whose teacher had said her English pronunciation was too good).  She chuckled and said "It's Hinamatsuri sushi".  "It was on sale by ¥200", I fired back defensively.  Nonetheless, she still thought it was silly.  After all, in English, Hinamatsuri is "Doll's Festival" or "Girl's Festival"....