I headed out to Shimokitazawa – an area that’s quite well known amongst youths for second hand shops, record stores and other little hole in the walls such as cafes.
I took the Yamanote Line to Shinjuku Station then transferred to Odakyu Line where it stopped at Shimokitazawa – but probably don’t do that. Best off getting to Shibuya and then transferring onto the Keio Inakashira Line towards Kichioji. The Odakyu Line sat on the platform for 20 minutes as we waited for all the Hakone and long distance passengers pile up. After you get to Shimokitazawa, for the trendy places – take the North exit.
I spent a few hours here and ended up buying a staple turtle neck, a custom made ring made by the craftsmen on the spot (bunnies!) and a cool top that looked like it had an Canadian or Alaskan map drawn out on the chest.
It took the craftsmen only 15 minutes to make my ring. I came back in 25 minutes and he made two for me to see which fit my pinky better – what absolute great service! His brand was called ‘Giorno Gioioso’
My new jeans from the other day in Koenji! I love them so much.
I tried on an item of clothing in a store and finally snapped one of the bracelets I had been wearing for years. When I looked down on the ground and saw the absolute chaotic beady mess I had made…. I had two options – try to pick up bead by bead oh so very slowly or run. I ran.
It was raining today so I finally got a good reason to wear my heavy duty Timberlands even though I had a show that night haha. They’re so much warmer with the Teddy fleece but they’re a bit casual bulk for gigs hahaha.
Making friends on the train..
The jewelry craftsmen also made all of his own jewelry stands.. how amazing. His set up was so rustic and cute.
Had Charshiu Ramen for lunch.. yum.
I then met up with my dad and headed to Shinjuku where we were going to play in a real hole in the wall. In a basement in Shinjuku lay Soul Kitchen a very very very very puny watering hole. I knew I had some people coming tonight because Shinjuku is a very convenient and easy location to get to – so it was definitely going to get squishy.
The photos look spacious but it wasn’t. We all probably got to know each other as close friends due to the forced proximity we had to share. Like one of the patrons put it, it was like a sauna but with your clothes left on haha.
Taiga did an amazing job of curating the line up for tonight. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to all of the musicians, what great choices that suited each other yet still were very different from each of our music. Tonight was also my favourite gig of Taiga’s, I think he deserves being a headliner due to his sheer mass of talent. Tonight he finally did get to wrap up the night and so he really came out of his shell.
It was also an international house that night, we had Australians, Americans, French, Chinese, Taiwanese and Japanese in amongst the melting pot. One of the French girls had to run out and cry during my set as she was so moved and it was a reminder to me about what music has the power to do. Doing a gig day in and day out can get very difficult to channel that emotional energy, but that’s what I have to learn to do as every listener deserves to hear my story in the best effort.
How I met Taiga was through his brother Ryuji – a long time listener of my music. And I am so grateful as if I didn’t get that connection I would’ve never have been able to experience all these wonderful memories and people.
I was so surprised to see two familiar faces from Australia stroll in through the door, the Doyle sisters. I met Jess through her boyfriend Ruby of Traxx Radio (a long time friend of mine) a while back and she said she was going to be in Japan and will come see me! I was so surprised that she actually DID come see me. Poor things got squished up into the corner of the room to never move again because it was so packed hahahaha. It definitely was a very intimate gig. They probably could’ve seen my nose hairs if they wanted to.
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