Well, not much I can say about this that isn’t in the article…Adventures like this make life worth living! This was in November 1997…

You never know…

Life is full of surprises, and you never know what’s going to happen. This was brought home when, as the result of a meeting a new acquaintance, I learned of a seat sale British Airways was having – 99 pounds for a weekend in Japan. Having lived there for four years and visited three times over the past year (as regular Dream Creation readers will know), any excuse to go was welcome, especially at that price. As the Dragonfly office was near the travel agency, I walked in and insisted that “Purple” Richard buy a ticket too. It didn’t take much to twist his arm.

Departure and arrival

As the morning of November 13 dawned, I went for a quick swim at the Highgate Ponds on Hampstead Heath (bloody cold, but a great way to watch the sunrise) and then Richard and I were off. We tried to blag our way into Executive Class, but the fiver we offered was politely refused. I guess the laugh was worth something, though, as the seat next to us was blocked on a pretty full flight, and we had plenty of room for our miniscule gustatory supplements and copious drinks (well, Richard’s copious drinks). We gobbled a melatonin pill, hoping to get some sleep before we got there – no such luck. I suppose being exposed to a full moon at that elevation does something – after a 12-hour flight we arrived in the morning, ran around a fair bit, and didn’t get a wink of shuteye until that night. Richard stayed in Yokohama, a city 45 minutes south of Tokyo, with Jane (a London lass); I stayed with my friends Donaldo and Tomo (who took me to my first party just over 3 years ago) in their stunning apartment in the Harajuku district of Tokyo.

Shopping Time!

A lot had been planned for the next day. I would be DJing the Saturday night with Jeff “Mylar,” whose reviews have graced Dream Creation’s pages, at a party which he and his wife Ayako organized with Matsuri Tokyo’s Junpei. Richard would be playing at an after-hours party the following morning. In the afternoon, we went to Akihabara, or “Electric Town,” to buy Richard a studio for a ridiculously low sum of money. Walking down the street with a Z1, Studio DAT, effects board, blank DATs, and God-knows-what-else was more than a challenge. Through sheer will-power and superhuman strength (never underestimate the power of a trance DJ), Richard got it all back to Jane’s place in Yokohama by himself as I went to prepare for the party.

Movin’ on up!

The party, called “Ascension,” took place at Vitamin Q, a well-known but microscopic ‘underground’ club (on the 9th floor – go figure) near the trendy/sleazy Roppongi area. There’s not a straight line in the place – it’s all silver curves with rainbow windows overlooking Tokyo. It was already scheduled for closure a few weeks later, with Tsuyoshi and Masa (both of whom kindly attended this night) playing among the final gigs there. The flowery evening got off to a fluffy, funky start with Jeff at the helm, until yours truly got on and went for a more full-on vibe. Evidently it was a bit too full-on, as the police showed up in the middle of my set – three uniforms in a club that small is a sure way to kill a party. Fortunately, I didn’t see them, but aware of their presence, I put on Prana’s “Alien Pets.” Sure enough, by the time the sample “There is no final truth” came on, they were gone, and things took off again.

After a bit of a darker section and on an upswing, Jeff took over, dishing out a delicious, floaty, spiritual set. By this time, the volume was cranked again, and we were given the go-ahead for an encore set, which Jeff and I co-piloted for an hour. Looking out over a cloudy Tokyo with fractalized rainbows was a great way to start the day, and we ended the party with a Japanese sample to that effect.

After a brief pit-stop round at my friends’ Carla and Soh (with whom I went to Fuji last May), we were off to Kyodo, about 15 minutes outside of central Tokyo, where Richard’s party was taking place at a club called Urge. We were shocked to see the entire train’s worth of passengers get off at the station at 8:50 Sunday morning. We wondered if they were going to the party too, but they all filed off in the other direction, presumably to some exam (they do these things on Sundays in Japan). After a brief debate as to whether to take the exam and shock everyone by getting the highest grades or to go to the party, we decided on the party. The club was next to a department store called Life, prompting Carla to suggest that we “skip Life and go straight to the Urge.”

Follow the Urge

Good thing we did, too. The spacious, elegant basement club had been beautifully decorated, and had a killer sound system. Jane and her crew had pulled this off on less than two weeks’ notice, and it was their first party. I certainly haven’t seen anything this well put-together in London (sorry to keep rubbing it in, but it’s true), and even very few like it in Japan, so let’s hope that Jane and Co. get over here to set things right. Focused intention does it every time. Richard and I had a great stomp under a fluoro string pyramid while a Japanese geezer spun a few tunes to get everyone warmed up.

By the time Richard came on, we were even more raring to go, and he kept everyone going. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – the Japanese know how to dress and dance, and they went for it. Of course, Richard did have a good deal to do with it – he played a phenomenally together and varied set. The shifts in mood were brilliantly coordinated, and the mixing was beyond reproach. The feedback from the crowd was wicked, though they curiously danced facing the empty (bar beautiful decorations) stage instead of the DJ booth behind them…though I like it when the DJ is a bit more behind the scenes like this. He brought things to a close at about 2PM, after a 4-hour set and the best dance I’d had in ages.

What an afternoon…

We hopped in a taxi back to town and got stuck in a mother of a traffic jam. There was a HUGE social protest going on, with loads of seniors taking to the streets to complain about something (someone’s got to do it). We walked back to Donaldo’s, dumped my stuff, and got on our way. Walking up Omote Sando Dori, considered the Champs Elysees of Tokyo, we bumped into loads of people from various phases of my past life in Japan, and we got to see Japanese Rockabillies doing the jitterbug, or whatever it is that Japanese Rockabillies do. At that stage, nothing could surprise us.

Well, almost nothing. We went to a small club where I had played the previous June. Richard played just a couple of tunes before a misunderstanding led him to tie things up. It was 6PM on Sunday at this point, and the flight was leaving the next morning. It had been a riotously full-on weekend, one in which the unexpected became the norm and the expected became irrelevant.

Off to the boonies

But as Richard took off the next day, I ditched the return portion of my ticket, opting to return 10 days later (an expensive decision, but worth it) to get some more R & R. After a few days in Tokyo, I went down to Jeff’s place in Tokushima (presumably Japanese for “the middle of nowhere”) and spent a couple of days undergoing serious astrological and aromatherapeutic consultations with Ayako. On Sunday morning, we hopped on the ferry to Osaka, where Jeff was playing with Keisuke (Matsuri), Dick (Green Nuns), and Stef (Total Eclipse).

Party in Osaka

It was the first time a trance event was held at this club, and it was incredibly well done. An amazing painter, Joe Ashley, provided some phenomenal fluoro murals, and Avikal, who decorates for Equinox parties in Japan [and who now has quite the international reputation!], provided a cosmic mind-bending string sculpture (later flown to London for the Butterfly Winter Solstice party). Jeff played a cranking albeit slightly political opening set (all tracks I gave him or tracks he gave me) that got things underway. A mediocre Japanese DJ then played a bit before Keisuke played a varied set, ending with some wicked electric tracks. Dick got things klunking away merrily. He took things pretty dark at points, but the crowd was up for it. And then Stef played.

Back to Tokyo

The party ended at 6 AM – Stef had to hide behind the decks from the crowd, as no encores were allowed. But things weren’t over yet. It was a national holiday this Monday, and an outdoor party was taking place near Yoyogi Park in Tokyo. Organized by Rainbow 2000, this was to be a protest against global warming which coincided with an upcoming conference in Kyoto (which turned out to be a joke, but that’s politics for you). We hopped on the shinkansen (bullet train) back to Tokyo, grabbing a bit of shut-eye before going to the park. Keisuke played on a float that went around the surrounding areas, while Tsuyoshi played (after a less memorable DJ) in a teepee erected near a pedestrian overpass near the park.
It was a gloriously warm sunny day, and hundreds of people showed up (there were at least one hundred I knew personally), including (surprise, surprise) a few friends from London. Onlookers crowded on the overpass, wondering what was going on. The same thing crossed my mind when a marching band, in full (blue) uniform, showed up and started playing within earshot of Tsuyoshi. Can we say trippy, boys and girls? Things ended at 4 PM – just before sunset, unfortunately – but it was a brilliant day out.

One would think that the week of partying would end AT LEAST by Monday… but NOOOooo (welcome to Tokyo). The last 36 hours of my visit was another full-on stretch. On Wednesday, Tsuyoshi and I celebrated our shared birthday (who’d ‘ave thunk it?) at Reflex, a gorgeous little ambient bar in trendy Shimo-Kitazawa (not too far from Urge – a natural reflex itself). Owned by Kahn, an Equinox party organizer, this tastefully decorated place had a welcoming vibe that I hadn’t witnessed in ages. London needs something like this (well, every city needs something like this).

This was a THURSDAY? 

The next afternoon and evening, the Tokyo Issey Miyake fashion show took place (twice). With textiles designed by Organix, visuals by Matsuki, and music by Tsuyoshi, it was a brilliant multi-sensual event, a sign of things to come, of the underground becoming overground but not diluted. Certainly, ANY multi-media show of this nature is welcome. But when one of the world’s top designers hops on the psychedelic bandwagon and does it this well, you know that big changes are afoot. Keep your eyes peeled. [As stated in my review of the Paris show, nothing did happen. Miyake chose not to even focus on this collection when he had a retrospective of his work in Paris. How and why this beautiful collection would be ignored like that is completely beyond me.]

Tsuyoshi, arguably the busiest person on the planet (certainly one of the most productive, and the two are not always synonymous), then played an 8-hour set at the Liquid Room (conveniently across the road from the fashion show). My very expensive return flight was Friday morning, so that gave me a chance to have one more bash and hook up with some more friends (everyone’s a friend in Tokyo). The place was packed (on a Thursday, remember), and Tsuyoshi played a wide range of music, most of the night stuff being a bit different from my taste. But by the time he put on that new Delta track (you know the one), things got hard and trancy. One track after the other, he had people going really ballistic. Awesome. One girl was right up next to the screen where Matsuki had images of explosions taking place. I’m not sure if she survived, as I had to leave at five AM to tidy up and de-fluoro myself before going to the airport.

It was quite a walk home. There were groups of people in the street with guitars, singing. Presumably, the Japanese media has agreed that this is a safe option to present to the youth to allow them to feel that they’re expressing themselves. (They were revolting, I assure you.) If they only knew what I’d been through the past two weeks…
After watching the sunrise from the apartment (after a hot shower as opposed to a cold swim), it was time to go. Donning my sunglasses (very important at this stage), I left the deluxe Casa de Donaldo for the less luxurious Narita airport. It was quite a trip. Not at all what I expected when I booked the 99- pound weekend ticket 2 months earlier. But then, life is full of surprises, and you never know what’s going to happen.