Last night was a night of many firsts:
1) my first performance in Tokyo. Or in Japan, rather. It was awesome. I don't know if awesome is even a good enough word, but it was awesome. First of all, here's the website of the place I played at (it's in English): http://www.rubyroomtokyo.com. I was allowed to play for 30 minutes, including set-up time, so more like 25 minutes. I almost didn't go at all because my throat wasn't really feeling much better, but thank goodness I didn't skip out. As soon as I started playing, my voice just felt like it was back to normal. Of course, I only played songs that wouldn't strain my voice too much, but they were good nonetheless. I felt good singing and I didn't feel nearly as nervous as I always do when I perform back home. I guess playing in front of a ton of strangers is way less stressful (for me, at least) than playing in front of your friends. The venue is really cool, very intimate, and everyone there was so nice and friendly. Most of the people actually already knew each other pretty well because some of the same people come back week after week (and from now on, I will be one of them). I spent most of the night talking to this guy Satoshi, who is 24 years old and he gave me his business card which said he is a "music concierge." I asked him what that meant and he said he helps small bands find venues to play in and stuff. So I told him, hey, I'm a small band. He said he'd look into it. He seemed very happy to have made friends with me and he said he couldn't wait to talk to me more next week. Oh yeah, they invited me back to open for some funk band next week. Their keyboard sucked, though, and it had no pedal, haha, so I'm going to try to find one that's decent and not too much money and then I can sell it when I go back home.
2) my first conversation with a Japanese person in which he/she did not tell me that my Japanese was excellent. This is a good thing. Actually a great thing. I've heard it said time and time again that when the Japanese people stop telling you how great your Japanese is, that's when your Japanese is actually REALLY good. And the whole night while I was talking to Satoshi, he never said a thing about it. We just talked as though it was normal that I was speaking Japanese. It was awesome.
3) my first time being approached and propositioned by a prostitute. And in fact, I was approached by not one; not two or three, but five of them on the way home last night. It was crazy. I guess Wednesday is hooker night in Shimbashi. Basically, if you just ignore them they'll leave you alone. It was totally off-putting, though, because they were dressed like normal women so at first I couldn't tell if this was just a normal person who wanted to talk to me or if something else was going on... It didn't take long for me to figure it out, though. One of the women, though, was so persistent with me. She followed me for almost a block just saying like "you want a massage? I'm very cute. It's okay to look at me," etc. and I was so close to pulling out some of the phrases I've never had to use before like "ざけんなよ！" (fuck off!) or "おとといこい！" (basically the same), but she pulled away from me before I got that far. Goodness, though, that was a crazy experience. I guess they thrive there because that's the area where all the businessmen go at night to drink or play pachinko or whatever.
Speaking of pachinko, the thing that always amuses me on my walk to work in the morning is seeing so many people lined up outside of the pachinko parlors, just waiting for them to open. I can't believe it's so popular.
In other good news, Grant Barton and Michael Anderson (two of my best friends from high school) will be coming to Tokyo this weekend! They are spending a a couple weeks traveling around Japan, and they're gonna first spend 5 days here in Tokyo. I'm so excited. I've gotta figure out what to do with them...
Okay, I'm still on such a high from that show last night. haha. It was so fun and amazing. Plus, now I have two more Japanese people in my cell phone's phone book. Must make more friends!
Tokyo Love!
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