It took me a while, but I finally got my photos from my trip to the Kansai region of Japan over the New Year break up onto Flickr. Have a look and leave a comment if you'd like. For the first time ever I'm actually pretty proud of a few of my photos. If anyone wanted to see the most impressive parts of Japan in less than a week I would definitely recommend the Kansai region (Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe, etc...). I know I haven't exactly seen the entire country but of the places I have been Kansai really blew me away.
Now onto the main topic for tonight's little update. In case you were wondering, those four characters up there say "KA-RA-O-KE" and yes, oh how the mighty have fallen. Don't worry too much, I haven't started buying SMAP albums (don't google that if you don't know them, just be glad of that fact) or enjoying J-pop or anything crazy like that. However, I have finally learnt just how a mainstream-pop-hater such as myself can enjoy karaoke.
Karaoke is everywhere in Japan (or at least everywhere I've been). There are massive multi-level buildings with many booths decked out with big flat televisions, stereos, microphones and seedy couches. They're almost always busy, whether its school children, young professionals or older people wanting to impress each other away with some slow Japanese ballads. One of the most insane things about karaoke is definitely the cost. From what I've seen the going rate seems to be about 8AUD per person per hour. Lots of the huge commercial places have insane amounts of rules too, such as no drinking (BYE!) and no huffing drugs out of paper bags (yes, they even have hilarious cartoon images to accompany that one, sorry but I couldn't get a photo).
It wasn't until a friend of mine managed to direct a big drunk group of us into a little bar he knew of with a great bar and an even greater karaoke setup that I was finally able to understand what all the fuss was about. Unlike the usual setup which involves private rooms of about 4-6 people singing to each other, this bar had the karaoke setup out in front of everyone. The size of our group and the lack of other customers on that particular night meant that we were able to dominate the machine for a good many hours. At this point I was still highly skeptical and was much more interested in getting a few good glasses of beer in front of me. It wasn't until I realised that this karaoke machine possessed a much much much more impressive collection of English language songs than the usual Japanese karaoke machine.
Quick side note, if you ever wondered where the copyright holders of the music of Billy Joel, BoyzIImen, Bon Jovi, Brian Adams (that's enough and we're still in the B's) were getting all their fat sacks of royalty money from, wonder no more. It is the karaoke bars of Japan! (and probably many other parts of Asia too). The average karaoke joint's collection of English songs really is the worst of the worst of the worst of pop music of the past 30 years with a heavy bias for the late 80s and early 90s.
Anyway, back to "G's Bar" where we were before. I was getting all prepared to down as much beer as quickly as I could until I could safely sit through a Bon Jovi track without wanting to rip my own head off when I heard the beginning thumps and bumping baseline of Another One Bites the Dust. (This song holds a special place in my memory due to its prevalence at baseball games that my old man used to take me to in my much younger days)
There it was, my karaoke yellow-brick road stretching out before me and Freddie was right there ready to take me by the hand. Queen. That's all I need now for any karaoke excursion to put me on a fantastic high (accompanied on "the rocks" by Mr.Osake). Seriously, all the shit, horrible, tragic music that makes it onto the pages of karaoke books only to be discovered by delirious morons who will happily tell you that Bon Jovi really was the world's greatest song writer can just fuck off and keep doing their thing far far away from me. Over here in this corner, we have Bohemian Rhapsody, Another One Bites the Dust and Bicycle Race and I defy any person with a musical bone in their body to resist their allure!
For even better karaoke adventures all you need to do is invite your Japanese friends along. I still think Japanese sounds worse than English when sung but when you walk in a karaoke joint you've already thrown the rule book out the window and pissed on it. My Japanese sucks (still... maybe forever) and I can't read enough kanji when I'm drunk to really sing along properly but I never stop enjoying watching my Japanese friends belt out some oldschool Japanese songs. I've got one verse of one Japanese song down pat now so I'm able to join in albeit a fleeting cameo, it's just a pity that it's a power-pop song for a female voice. No worries mate, the falsetto loves the workout.
I would still much rather have the access to fantastic live music that a city like Melbourne affords but there is no way I'm leaving Japan any time soon so while I'm here I'm going to learn to make the best of the poor music situation. So, grab a nice big fat stack of 1000 yen notes and join me in the sake-soaked seedy leather couch and belt out a good hard verse of Bicycle...
you say black
I say white!
