I was recommended hiking route 6 and it appeared from the map we picked up at the base, and later confirmed by a park ranger on the top, that this was the hard route. That didn’t stop us though and we headed out. Luckily its true what they say about Tokyo’s heat island effect, and it was notably cooler at the mountain and got slowly cooler as we worked our way up the mountain.

As we got up the mountain there were more and more huge trees, I haven’t seen trees anywhere near this tall since I’d been to Sequoia National Park. Lots of shrines in Japan have one or two of these trees and claim them as part of their attraction, but this is a whole forest of these mammoths.

When we finally made it to the top there was a great view of west Tokyo, and from the other side of the mountain you are supposed to be able to see Mt. Fuji, but of course it being August there was no such view available. There are a bunch of temples near the summit, but I was on a hike and didn’t linger very long to take photos. Also, my friend wimped out and when we got to the pseudo-cable car halfway down the mountain we took it. Check out the photos!

My friend and I were some of the first to arrive at Red Zone, and as we entered the bar area there was Tusk himself chilling with his merch people. Tusk, headband in hand, is starting to look his age unlike so many of his contemporaries such as Yoshiki and Sugizo. Pushing 40, Tusk has let his hair gray and not attempted to dye it. Most importantly though, he looked pretty content sitting there in this small concert hall puffing on a cigarette and chatting.

He saw me and asked if I was the gaijin that the Yellow House baba(Japanese for old woman, apparently she just doesn’t go by her name) had talked about on the phone. I confirmed I was indeed the one, then he noticed my hand crafted ZI:KILL T-shirt. He asked where I got it and seemed quite pleased when I said I made it myself. He sat back in his chair, and seemed to look off into the distance and said “That was 20 years ago”. He spoke as though it was a pleasant memory, so ZI:KILL fans take heart that Tusk doesn’t seem to be bitter. Maybe they’ll get on the reunion band-wagon one day too. He gathered the staff and venue owner and pointed with a mix of pride and happiness at my shirt.

My friend(who I dragged along and knows nothing about Tusk) went into the concert hall and sat through the performer prior to Tusk and had some concerns about the attendance. Mainly that counting us, there were 7 people there. I counted. When Tusk came on stage to start his one man acoustic show though, 30-40 people appeared out of the nowhere. That was about the max the venue was configured to hold. At 21, I was probably the youngest person in the room. Everyone in the room appeared to be in their late 20’s to 40s; probably fans from the ZI:KILL days but perhaps new fans solely here in appreciation of his new work.

In fact his second song was a ZI:KILL song, “No More to Say”, off the band’s very last album before their unceremonious break up in 1994. He chopped the song to about two minutes in length and proved to anyone in the audience perhaps doubting him that he can still sing the ZI:KILL material.

In fact, while that was the only ZI:KILL song he played in his brief set, it was easy to imagine most of the songs he played as ZI:KILL pieces. While most of what Tusk has done since ZI:KILL(Craze, The Slut Banks) has sounded vastly different from the formerly chart topping band he cut his teeth in it would appear that music style, and indeed the music itself, still strikes a chord with Tusk. Once again, something ZI:KILL fans can take heart in.

On stage with his previous bands Tusk sung with emphasis and facial expressions that would indicate he was having a good time and felt his music, and that hasn’t changed. He waved his head back in forth with his eyes closed, and while he wasn’t bouncing around the stage by any means he still exuded energy. Several times he through his head back and screamed just like it was 20 years ago. You didn’t need to speak Japanese to feel Tusk’s music then and you still don’t.

While many of his song felt like they would fit into a ZI:KILL set, only a few were as good as ZI:KILL’s compositions. That’s not to say the others were bad, in fact they were almost all very good, but without a full instrumental accompaniment and perhaps the creative input of Zen and Seiichi it wasn’t quite up to ZI:KILL. That’s hardly criticism though, considering the level at which ZI:KILL performed and recorded. One criticism you could express, but would be a fool to actually be upset over, is that Tusk is no Ken on guitar. While not all of Tusk’s guitar work was amazing, but most was passable and a few songs actually did impress guitar-wise(and his guitar work was way more interesting then the 3 vocalist/guitarists that performed before him that I caught pieces of.) Tusk, is an incredibly unique vocalist and that is why you would come see Tusk perform. You wouldn’t be disappointed, it took no stretch of imagination to imagine him back on stage before thousands of cheering fans.

Tusk might hide his voice behind punk music these days, but if you find him putting on his one man acoustic show you’ll find that the man that fronted one of Yoshiki’s best investments is still here.

After the show I had to leave relatively quickly due to other plans, so I went and found Tusk to thank him and get a picture with him. He asked me what he thought of the show, I told him it was great and I meant it. 16 years after ZI:KILL broke up I’d never imagined that he’d play one of their songs, and if I hadn’t seen the few videos of his solo stuff on YouTube I’d never have imagined how similar he stills sounds. Hopefully I’ll see him again and have time to buy him a drink.

ZI:KILL’s No More to Say performed by Tusk

Continued from the last photo of the day: My friend and I took that extra doughnut and wandered over to Harajuku where we then delivered it to the Yellow House designer, who I still haven’t been able to get a name out of! She reminded us that if we ate doughnuts every day we’d get fat. Which would mean we couldn’t wear Yellow House anymore!

While we were in there, I asked her if she knew when Tusk was playing next. She flipped through her planner but didn’t find anything. So once again, she called Tusk. We left a message again. Once again we stood around talking about music. She said that regrettably she wasn’t able to go to the X Japan show because she didn’t have any employees at the moment. I hope the store’s fiances are ok. They’ll be a little better after our visit though, because my friend committed to buying a 29,000 Yen coat while we were there.

Last time Tusk didn’t call back in time. This time he did. They chatted on the phone for a while, and Tusk gave us his full live schedule for both his solo project and his reformed punk band The Slut Banks. The next show was tomorrow. I said I’d be there. (I did go, which you can read about soon).

We thanked her and wandered off into the backstreets of Harajuku. We came across Design Festa which my friend said he’d never been to, so I dragged him in to explore it. Design Festa is the anti-Tokyo. Colorful murals and and grid of brightly painted pipes adorn the outside of the front building of this is hidden gem. Design Festa is a decades old mixed-arts convention that takes place at Tokyo Big Sight every year. Its an art event for the people. Anyone can apply to perform in the theater, have a booth, participate in the fashion walks, etc. They opened this gallery in Harajuku in 1998, and according to one thing I saw it is the cheapest gallery space in Tokyo and sees around 80,000 visitors a year in spite of its slightly hidden location

Inside are multiple floors of gallery and studio space, converted from what was a small apartment building. No space is wasted, bathrooms proudly display the work of young up an coming artists covering almost any form of art you can thing of; photography, sculpture, candle making, various painting style, and fashion to name a few.

Most rooms contained not only their artists, but their friends hanging out. There isn’t massive amounts of money in renting space to young unknown artists so between the two buildings(there’s a second smaller building behind the first) there is an outdoors bar and an international restaurant serving fare from around the world. Even on a weekday afternoon afternoon there were quite few people drinking and eating so I’d imagine this is where the money comes from.

It might not be the most exciting thing in Tokyo but its certainly one of the coolest.

When I was a kid, Krispy Kreme expanded worldwide. They opened a bunch of stores in Maryland, but almost all of them closed. I think there’s one left. It had probably been 5 years since I’d have a fresh Krispy Kreme glazed, so when I saw the hot sign lit up Shibuya….I went and ate 4 doughnuts.

Mom, I know you’re reading this, and you’re jealous.

My friend had a leftover doughnut so we bagged it up and went to Harajuku. To be continued.

I live right next to the Azabu-Jyuban district of Minato, Tokyo. Its a pretty rich area, Gackt lives here, so their Matsuri last weekend was a pretty big deal. A quarter of a million people showed up, and the Blue Man Group performed.

1) V-Rock Live Blogging
-Where we complain that the V-Rock feed sucked
2) Swedish rapper “Danish” rips off X Japan’s “Crucify my Love”
-Where commenter crucify the rapper, and his fans show up to defend him.
3)Editorial: X Japan in Yokohama. August 14th.
-Where I come under fire for being disappointed with X Japan.
4)X Japan in Taiwan postponed: Confirmed
-Where stupid fights happen.
5)Deatharmonic at Crash Mansion NYC (Pt. 1: Typherus)
-Actually I didn’t do anything here but get a band member’s name wrong but that touched off a storm.

This is why there are so many blogs that do nothing but poke and prod at people. Its an effective tactic. Its probably the most effective tactic in blogging, other then being independently famous, in getting people to comment. Why do bloggers care about comments so much? First it makes your blog look like you have a lot of readers, which can help get access to stuff. You might have 1,000 page views(I do between 500-2,500 depending on whats on the front page) but if you don’t have any comments no one knows that other then you. Second, if you comment on a article you count as two page views since the page reloads with your comment. Get into a fight and you might view that article many more times to check the comments. OR if you manage to get interesting readers people may refresh to see what they have to say about issues. There are more reasons of course, but those seem to be the most tangible.

Meanwhile, my photos from the press section at X Japan in Baltimore has 0 comments. Food for thought.

More updates as they come.