More Muzak...

Only a few days later and even more music. Although unlike Sunday it was more along the lines of smaller (in some cases, local) bands playing at Zen Sushi. Mainly we were there for Thee Out Mods, but my GF had a friend showing up who knows Justin, the drummer for Lemon Drop Kick. The place was so-so, but I liked the layout with the stage upstairs and all. Unfortunately that rather blah band who’s name I don’t even remember was opening things up again. The singer is weak-sauce (seriously the guitar player sings better), and they don’t have a drummer (yet?), instead relying on drum machine. Plus they looked all disconjointed in terms of image. The bass player was the only one who seemed to fit the image behind name of the band (who’s name I can’t remember). Actually the vocalist tried too, but failed miserably in my opinion.

There was some other band that came on later, but I can’t for the life of me remember their name either, it’s like on the tip of my mind. There weren’t bad, but I didn’t listen to them much. I was downstairs at the bar chatting it up with their tour guide/promoter and Justin (Lemon Drop Kick) along w/the GF and her friend (who’s name I can’t remember now (bear with me, I’ve only met him 3 times!). Actually I did hear one song I really liked, but honestly the conversation downstairs was more interesting.

Eventually we got around to Lemon Drop Kick and they were alright. Honestly the songs didn’t do much for me. The singer was pretty good though, really strong voice, especially considering how tiny she was! Still live music is live music, and it’s the experience (good or bad) that make it, and in general I give ‘em a good rating. Plus it’s always cool when you can chat up members of the band readily, and jabber about videogames.

Anyways, the other band that the guy was with was The Psycrons. They turned out to be a quite a pleasant surprise! At least after a few technical difficulties were resolved. They definitely had that 60’s British Invasion look and sound going on that’s for sure, although perhaps with a bit of Japanese flavour. Being from Kyoto, they immediately reminded me of all the random little bands we saw playing in Kyoto (usually along the Kamo river). I was particularly fond of this one couple that was playing along the banks with a guitar hooked up to a little battery powered amp, and a mic hooked up to a boom box. They (a girl and a guy) sang and played their hearts out. Karaoke basically means empty orchestra. In this case it was more like empty audience as there was nobody really sitting and watching except for me and my GF and a couple of old guys. Still, they prattled on as if they were standing in the middle of a packed Tokyo Dome. It’s things like that that make me feel genki.

But enough of that digression. Finally we got to Thee Out Mods, who we came to see. They rocked as usual, although they had somebody else (who I’ve seen at their other concerts, but for the life of me I can’t remember his name) playing guitar (which allowed Sana jump around the stage a lot more (girl REALLY knows how to shake the head and waggle the tongue)). Yoshiki managed to lose his shirt promptly and by the end of their performance mooned the crowd (I have a good idea for a poster using that shot!). Thankfully the Zen has better acoustics than the Jazz (which usually has malfunctions and other issues), so you could actually hear her singing.

And last but not least Inazuma. I saw them earlier at the 2nd. St. Jazz, but we left early ’cause me and the GF were wiped out. So it was cool to see Thunder (Vo/Gt) jamming. Plus he was nicer than you’d imagine after watching him help out The Psycrons with their technical difficulty earlier on in the evening. However, I think Thunder over powers the rest of the band. Still pretty impressive to watch. Unfortunately, for the last song one of the fans got to go up and sing with them. Cool in principle to let a fan up on stage and sing one of the band’s song with them. Bad execution though. I mean seriously, YOU DON’T NEED TO SCREAM INTO THE MIC at the top of your lungs! It’s amplified so you don’t have to! While listening to that my brain decided to deactivate the ear drums for the rest of the evening.