Rebuild the Nation: OJ de Villager

A couple of weeks ago, during my little misadventure while shooting Kabukicho, I met a tout named OJ de Villager. OJ is no ordinary tout however, he was quite personable during our chat, and was more interested in telling me about his rap album and t-shirt sales business Happy Home Clothing Co. than in soliciting me into one of the seedy establishments he works for. Anyway, a few people had asked me about him, and my friend Damonovich did this great treatment of the pic I took so I thought he was worthy of a revisit..

Softbank 921SH

The beat up old 912 has gone the way of the dodo, that is, I finally bit the bullet and went and got a new phone. The handset of the 921SH is kinda like Softbank's attempt at an iPhone, with a full face screen and neat little touch sensor at the bottom. The touch sensor isn't at all as responsive as the the iPod touch, but it does the job well enough, the tv works great, and it looks way cool!

Thanks to McGizzle for takin these pics..

Free Tibet Protest in Shibuya

Around 100 protesters marched up Koen dori this afternoon protesting China's ongoing political situation with Tibet. It was a typically calm Tokyo demonstration especially considering the more extreme nature of recent world wide protests..

Background info on the Tibetan unrest can be found here.

Love Hotel Hill..

I don't know why this area is referred to as such, it's more like a slope. This little street takes your into the heart of the hotels, it's also the way you go to Womb, and is just off the street full of clubs (Club Asia etc..) that borders Maruyamacho and Shibuya. It's also the same corner from which I took this pic..

Cat Bloke..

Nothing like taking your cat to the coffee shop! "Um, do you do saucers?"

This guy used to be down at Segafredo on Bunkamura dori quite regularly, with his little feline friend. Put Dog bloke, Goldfish bloke and Cat bloke together and you'd get..

I have no idea what you'd get!

Sleeping in cars..

It's not that uncommon in Tokyo to come across someone sleeping in their car, with their engine and aircon running to maintain a comfortable sleeping environment. By the same token, it's not that common for a total stranger to become so opportunistic as to enter into 'said sleeping stranger's' car for a humorous photo opportunity.

That's what happened here..

Random night shot.. 03

I guess as far as Shibuya goes, the mega-electronics chain Sakuraya on centregai characterizes the common perception of Tokyo's neon landscape. This one might even have been more like evening than night, but anyways..

My Challenge to Japan Probe's 'Photo of the Week..'

To tell you the truth, I am pretty much over photos of cherry blossoms, but this post from Japan Probe motivated me to pull one last pic out of the vaults. This was taken in Ichigaya, the walkway along the Imperial Palace moat, circa 2004.

You guys decide..

Somewhere somebody..

Is filming everyone..

Standing Sushi

There's a bit of a boom with standing bars (both for food and drink) these days in Tokyo, not so difficult to surmise why I guess. Anyways, this is definitely our favorite sushi restaurant in Shibuya, the "Standing Sushi Bar" on centergai. We always go for the aburi ebi and toro-salmon. Yum!

The Jackson Vibe..

Japanese funky rock band Jackson Vibe live at Shibuya O-East. We were there as guests of our good buddy Tak's band Merengue and so had full access to both the balcony and the mezzanine bar!





This recent video for their song "At home Dad' is pretty cool too!

Random night shot.. 02

Roppongi Hills, one of influential building tycoon Minoru Mori's flagship super-towers, exploding with light..

Somewhere somebody's daughter.. 06

.. is being interviewed!

Squadcar: これから live

Squadcar played a lot of shows in their day. The video below was taken in December 2005 at Shibuya Nest, well the main part of it was anyway.. Dan got creative and put it together with some footage of us goofing off backstage at a Shinjuku Marz show as well. It was a very memorable show, partly because we played with the awesome Mothercoat, and also because the amazingly enjoyable and impromptu backstage rehearsal party (that starts the video) was probably better than the set we played when we hit the stage.. >_<

Photo by Andrew McGovern

Kabukicho 2..

I'll put up some more pics of my trip to Shinjuku later, but for now, here's what you might see as you enter the demon's lair that is Kabukicho..

Wild One

Continuing my series of documenting Shibuya's seedier side, here is Wild One. A classic porn shop in the middle of the love hotel and fuzoku-ten district in Shibuya.. The orange building on the right is a Yakuza controlled brothel, technically called a fashion health. The whole block is full of them, seedy bars, and love hotels..

Womb by day..

Actually, a lot of the people that frequent the popular hard-house Shibuya club Womb do probably see it in the early morning light, as they leave, but there's a good chance most of them can't remember what it looks like.

As an aside, given that this location is in the middle of a cluster of Love Hotels, what do you think those guys are gonna do with that tripod?? :)

For all and sundry, here it is...

Kabukicho..

.. is not the kind of place you wanna mess with. A walk around this infamous part of Shinjuku, full of fuzoku-ten, hostess bars, and AV outlets will introduce you to all types of touts, questionable bar establishments, back door restaurants, and just about anything anyone could imagine to commit to video. It's commonly understood to be controlled and regulated by the Yakuza, and is one of the main places that mirrors the worlds common perception of Tokyo's neon landscape.

I've been here a lot over the years, but this night was the first time I was scared into sensibility..

Maruyamacho Y

Every so often when you walk through the love hotel district you come across some S class big body benz, all tinted up and obviously attending to business. Once we even came across a whole group of yakuza middle men guarding a bosses car outside a seedy hotel. They were wearing their sunglasses at night, we kept walking.

This is how they roll..

Koji and Eiko by ~lumi-mae

I have gotten a bunch of hits from all over in the past 24 hours through a link to a pic on my site from a manga artist named Lumi-Mae. The artist submitted a pic for a contest on Deviant Art, and the setting of his/her pic was the staircase that joins NHK and Yoyogi parks, a regular haunt for us on weekends. Anyway, interesting and random, you can find my original post here, and here are both of the pics..

Koji and Eiko by ~lumi-mae:

Osaka video

Here's the video squadcar made for our song 'Osaka', which was on our self-titled 4th album. We did it with a few of the guys from the Tokyo College of Visual Arts, in a railway carriage at some zoo in Yokohama. It was filmed VERY early in the morning, the day after a good friend's birthday party. It was basically a comedy of errors in that our drummer didn't show up, I lost my wallet, we hadn't brought our instruments (as we had supposedly been instructed to), we were given little or no direction, and.. let's just say we hadn't had much sleep.

>_<

Papsadrama

When Fanta releases their new "jelly" drink, you can be sure that all the major press outlets will have their best guys there to "capture the moment"..

夏目ナナ (Natsume Nana)

Nana Natsume is a well-known and award-winning Japanese AV idol and celebrity. She is one of the many Japanese adult video starlets that has been able to successfully cross over to more mainstream media. She was also awarded the AV Grand Prix by Tokyo Sports magazine for 2005. Today I was struck by her presence on a massive billboard (across from 109) designed to help stop the spread of sexually transmitted diseases in Japan. The youtube video, as abstract as it appears to be, states that 1 in 15 Japanese youth have an STD.

Legal pyschedelics

Legal drugs used to be found in abundance along Bunkamura dori in Shibuya or in Kabukicho (Shinjuku). You were also able to buy peyote and magic mushrooms from head shops, that is until around the time of the World cup in 2002 when they were outlawed, supposedly because of the potential dangers of a british soccer hooligans being let loose on the streets with heads full of craziness. However, you can still occasionally run into some wannabe dealers working the streets with a card table and a case full of god knows what kind of untested chemical replicates. Care to be a lab rat anyone?

These guys weren't really keen on me snapping them, and were very quick to close the case containing their wares..

Monitor

We are Monitor

Hachiko

I've heard it said that hachiko crossing is one of the busiest in the world, I guess these pics kind of illustrate why..

Somewhere somebody's daughter.. 05

.. is being photographed.

Misses

Misses was the mini-album that squadcar made with Christopher McGuire. The drama that surrounded this recording would most certainly make it eligable for inclusion in the musical Encyclopedia Dramatica, if there was one anyways.. On the one hand we had a fairly major J-pop celebrity going through the process of implosion, and on the other, well.. In any case, we managed to get a decent pre-order throughout Japan and actually thought we had a shot at doing something for a bit. But alas..

Nonetheless, the album came out great, as did the cover. We invited my hairdresser Chiho to come be our model, threw her on a bed and let 5 guys have their photographic way with her. We then chose a shot and let Deguchi-san work his magic!

Somewhere somebody..

.. is videoing you!

Bye bye Shoto #504

You will be missed..

Sunday morning walk in Maruyamacho..

It's always interesting to explore a new area, Maruyamacho is like Shoto in that there are lots of tiny treets, some of them one way, and medium to old houses crammed in between nondescript apartment buildings. We like it here..