Fun Poison and Kyoto
I'm in Berlin now...
24 Apr 2000
I'm in Berlin now... the first thing I notice while I'm doing this is that computers all over te planet have different key layouts which is a real pain. In Germany the Z and Y keys are transposed which is guess is better than a Kanji kezboard.
Well the official Obscure view on Osaka and Japan in general is it's awesome. Me and Larry will both ne back here as soon as we can
The Funpoison gig was at a little bar called Club Cafe Blue. Kinda dark and dingy and because of the Airconditioning, icy too.
Cant say the turnout was huge, but it was a cool little intimate night. Everyone spun great sets, A couple of people got drunk beyond belief. One guy threw up everywhere and pinched Larry's bum lots before passing out in the corner. We met the godfather of music culture in Osaka (he owns the club) and more.
Next on the agenda was a gig called JAMs at Metro (clob-a met-ahr-oo) which is in Kyoto, the old capital (ever notice how To-kyo and Ky-oto are made up of the same syllables?) no well ne neither.
Kyoto was about an hour and 3 transfers from Osaka, riding the subway seems to be a way of life in Japan, it becomes a little dreamtime on the way somewhere... switchoff time. The insides of the trains are plastered with advertising and cool quasienglish phrases. We get off and walk up the bank of the river that flows through Kyoto - really nice sweet smells drift by - very different to the leaking sewer gas that hits you in Osaka. Kyoto is a very beautiful place. Old school, flat, but with a mental main street in full saturdaynight swing that we have to make our way through. Boy racers - who go slow to show off - and cops thattry to move them on. Drunk students, hustlers and more.
In to the club - a cool little space a techno crowd that looks like any anywhere - a selection of cheesers and a few foreigners.
The dj is spinning a totally bad cheesy selection but we dance anyway, tongues firmly in cheek when he suddenly turns his selection 90 degrees and starts playing an Oliver Ho style bangin' linear set... this goes on for a good 90 minutes - wicked - big bombastic techno with some pretty tight mixing... but it cant last and the next guy is on.
This man is suposedly the local hero but he's on a wierd tip - obviously he's trying to educate the crowd on the finer points of Detroit electro which is interesting for a couple of tracks, but quickly looses value when he drops Altern8... and why with a night called the Jams and spinning on the retro tip doesn't he play the KLF's what time is love. doh.
Anyway, we made it to morning (had to, cant walk or catch a taxi home) god some rice cakes wrapped in seeweed and cutsie icecream from a convenience store - I've learned enough Japanese to fake saying hello, yes and thankyou plus some other stuff I wouldn't say to a shokeeper - we go to the riverbank again and munchout. run for a train and try to survive the hour long trip home.
More fun than the clubbing was running around the city itself - it's mad - compact and organised yet totally chaotic - lots of people doing lots of things - insame amounts of neon and advertising - everyone smokes - everyones's a cartoon character. It's great.
That's enough for today. Things slow down a bit now we'in Deutchland (where everyone's grumpy, I got offered drugs within 5 minutes of going for a walk, and the police wear pistols and carry semiautomatics), so more tommorow.
Psi, Saturday 4th September 1999.
