Underground Music-Making in Contemporary Tokyo

On any given night, the curious novice or expert prowler can visit any one of myriad bars, clubs, and livehouses that spread throughout Tokyo. Many spaces are small, dingy, and difficult to find without a knowledgeable taxi driver, intricate map, or better yet, your very own personal guide. Located in the basements of buildings, down shopping arcades, or tucked between a coffee shop and Italian restaurant -- hip-hop, techno, noise, punk, and various types of hardcore pour from the distorted sound systems, sometimes reaching the street despite double doors. These spaces offer an opportunity not only to participate through the performance of music and dance until dawn breaks, but also to escape from daily social expectations. Such underground establishments promise a warm, family feeling for the regular, offering moments of repose or rebellion which are desperately needed in the busy, socially stratified, impersonal mass that is Tokyo. Let me serve as your personal guide and briefly take you backstage at one such establishment on a chilly winter's afternoon in December 1998.

JENNIFER MILITIO MATSUE

The audience during a hardcore gig.

* By JENNIFER MILIOTO MATSUE

We arrive at the train station on Sunday afternoon and begin hunting for the club called Yellow, nestled down a side street in the affluent Nishi Azabu neighbourhood of Tokyo, where I will introduce you to my band mates, informants, and friends -- Jug. This is a special night for Jug, as many of the bands performing have already recorded for a hardcore compilation CD produced by Omnibus, while other bands, including Jug, will be recording for later volumes in the coming months. We find Jug waiting at the entrance. They greet us nervously, as they have never performed in this club before. We descend the stairs together.

Backstage at Yellow

It is strange to see this space, typically crowded with foreigners and Japanese dancing to techno music, but now relatively empty in the afternoon. The normally smoky front bar appears rather dirty and sad in the bright fluorescent lights as we pass through the doors to find the staff building out a stage with large wooden blocks across half the dance floor. Various band members are milling about, storing equipment, and chatting with each other. Several bands have brought not only their instruments, but also amplifiers and mixers. The drum kit, with the name 'Guilty Vice' proudly stamped on the two bass drums, clearly belongs to the headlining band, who are already preparing for a soundcheck.

We are directed up steel stairs at the back of the room to the upstairs bar, again shocking as the light reflects off the various mirrors along the walls and reveals every scuff mark in the white retro-plastic furniture arranged in groupings around the room. We find several men sporting wild hairstyles and tattoos, drinking, and socializing with girlfriends. One man actually changes his clothes several times in front of all of us, asking his band mates their opinions on these various costumes. Although the bands are generally friendly with each other, there are definite cliques. Some individuals actually use drugs in the open and receive slightly chilly, polite responses from other bands that frown upon such behaviour.

Jug's turn for a soundcheck finally arrives several hours later. Miyuki, the female drummer, adjusts the drums as best she can, 'Q' plugs in his own bass amp while the guitarist, Nagaru, works with a rented one, and Jug plays through two or three songs. The actual performance begins shortly afterwards with Jug opening the night. Miyuki has some trouble during the performance, as the drum kit is so large that she, quite petite, can barely reach the cymbals, and the set is surprisingly sluggish. Jug is followed by a series of bands, which increase in experience, intensity, and sheer loudness. The bands are all typical hardcore in the sense that they perform aggressive music, often leaning towards a punk aesthetic, with screaming vocals, and a noticeable absence of guitar solos. The audience, in typical Japanese fashion, politely hovers about the dance floor, occasionally pressing forward in their enthusiasm for favourite bands. The last group closes the evening around 11pm as other bands pack up their equipment, and everyone rushes to catch the last train home.

Jug performing live
JENNIFER MILITIO MATSUE

The underground Tokyo hardcore scene

The above description highlights a moment in the underground music-making world of Tokyo. Here, 'underground' refers to the music-making associated with bands without labels, or on local, independent labels. Such events are often connected with or understood as comprising experiential moments of a larger system or 'scene' -- in this case what I label as the 'underground Tokyo hardcore scene'. Scenes, particularly those associated with a musical aesthetic such as that produced by hardcore bands in Tokyo, are often viewed as existing in some sort of opposition to mainstream dominant culture; they may even share more with other similar scenes globally than with music production closer to home. Thus, we may find many similarities with performance practice in hardcore scenes globally. Indeed, the above backstage view of the live event at Yellow will sound similar to many other hardcore performances in different locations. Yet deeper ethnographic work reveals the elements which characterize the scene in Tokyo.

'Some ... receive slightly chilly, polite responses from other bands that frown upon such behaviour...'

Through two years of ethnographic study from 1997 to 1999, and continued contact with informants and friends since, I have come to understand this particular scene in several ways. As with many cities, Tokyo has its own nature, style, and identity that distinguishes it from other urban locations both inside Japan and beyond. This serves as the backdrop for musical practices within. Although certain commonalities in performance practice can be identified in other urban centres within Japan, such as Sapporo, Kyoto, and Osaka, each area exerts its own distinct character with architectural difference, history, and even linguistic variation. Thus, it is important to view underground music-making in Japan in its local context, with ethnography playing an especially important role.

Typical hardcore events in Tokyo take place in fairly run down, small spaces, often positioned in the basements of buildings and holding at most fifty to one-hundred people. Most venues possess decent sound systems and provide performance equipment such as amplifiers, drums, and microphones for bands. The access to equipment, coupled with the extensive train system, precludes the necessity of owning a car for transportation, and it is not uncommon to see groups of people toting snare drums, guitars, and pedal boxes on the trains at any given time. Livehouses survive largely on the proceeds from tickets which bands sell, or cover the expense themselves. In addition, guests are required to purchase drink tickets, although there is actually limited alcohol consumption at the lighter hardcore shows, and individuals often bring their own drinks from close by convenience stores to avoid the high livehouse prices. Despite such common practices, each livehouse tends to have its own style, its own regular performers, and its own audience.

Indeed, it is the performers who bring this scene to life. By 'performers', I refer not only to the musicians, but also to the audience members, stagehands, mixers, managers, and others involved in the production and reception of the music itself. Performers at a variety of Japanese livehouses that host frequent hardcore shows range in age and occupation from teenage students to the occasional middle-aged salaryman or white-collar worker. The majority of performers in this particular hardcore scene are in their mid- to late twenties and work parttime to support the band, although college bands and older performers are not uncommon. Many performers claim preferences for particular livehouses based on quality of sound, friendliness of the community, or proximity and convenience. Four to six bands will perform on a given night, playing half-hour sets, while audiences remain small, often comprised almost entirely of the members of other bands performing on the same evening.

Although several of these descriptive factors can be found in other imagined scenes, this hardcore world does indeed feel somehow 'Japanese'. For example, the majority of bands sing in what is commonly referred to as 'Japanglish', an often confusing use of English common in Japan, in turn freeing the vocalist from having to convey literal meaning and allowing more creativity in sound production. In addition, the hardcore world remains very polite in the Japanese context, with language and body movements revealing the hierarchical relationships between the bands, audiences, and management systems involved. Perhaps most interesting is the surprising number of women performing in the underground in every capacity. It is quite common to find several female or mixed gender groups performing on any given night, in addition to the women working behind the stage.

It is perhaps difficult to locate this study sonically in the context of Tokyo, as the sound of hardcore music is both hard to define and is produced in many local contexts globally. Deeper exploration of performance practice, though, proves useful in revealing how this scene reflects contemporary Japanese culture. Ethnographic studies of such musical moments will prove useful not only towards understanding contemporary Japan, but also how global musical scenes are performed locally. *

Pop Musicin Asia

Underground Music-Making in Contemporary Tokyo