The Tokyo Concert Experience

  Years ago, when I was new to Japan, I remember seeing this display at the Shibuya Tower Records that held my attention. The cover of one of the albums being advertised was a faded black and white picture of a man wearing a dark suede sports jacket. His detached expression and the wide-eyed naked mannequin in front of him added to the quirkiness. It was definitely intriguing. Some time after that an even more intriguing one, this time as a full-on new release, depicted on its cover the artist as a skeleton playing a steel guitar. I didn’t explore his music even then. It wasn’t until a friend of mine recommended the artist’s former band, Yura Yura Teikoku that I finally caught up. Their garage psychedelic brand of music was right up my alley.  Little did I know that for his solo output Shintaro Sakamoto went the complete opposite direction. He ditched the fuzz pedal and replaced it with a cleaner sound akin to yacht rock or AOR, (hence the covers!). The music was not less fascinating.

  The void left by the absence of live shows in the last year has been filled by quite a few music related movies released in the past few months. The biggest one, by far, being David Byrne’s American Utopia. The Spike Lee directed movie didn’t disappoint. The build-up from the relatively austere opener until the full band reveal with Talking Heads’ I Zimbra , was electrifying and a reminder of the power of the live music experience. Another word to describe this feeling is magic, which is the name of the annual event curated by Peter Barakan. Since 2014 Barakan has assembled each year an eclectic program of artists outside the mainstream from around the world. The sadly departed Gurrumul came to the second edition in 2015. Other artists that have been part of the festival over the years are Dayme Arocena, Joe Bataan, Arto Lindsay, Omar Sosa, 3MA, Tamikrest and Flor de Toloache . You can find reviews of the headlining shows outside the festival for the last two on this blog. The same