Accordians and swag

I met up with my brother in Nihombashi for lunch. We went to a "hole in the wall" restaurant where they only serve 4-5 lunch options but whatever they make they prepare extremely well. Both my brother and I had the saba. Holy mackerel it was good. I also picked up my Neutral Nation ticket from my bro.

The time tables for both Neutral Nation and Tokyo Boredom are up.

I met up with MOTFD's manager and sgt's manager (again) today. Although we don't really have the time for it, the bands really want to go to Niagara Falls. I think I can manage to work the trip in but we won't be able to spend much time there and it'll take away from sightseeing in Montreal.

Here's some of the swag I have to give away. I'll be sending college radio stations CDs by the bands and you guys can help out by requesting to hear them. Apparently at CITR they still play CDs by mothercoat, グーミ, OWARIKARA etc.

Last night I ended up going all the way to Yokohama to watch Charan-Po-Rantan at a tiny venue called Sam's Bar. It is barely bigger than my hotel room. At most there were 30 people in the bar and that's all it could fit. Some people were watching from just outside the doorway. The theme of the night was female accordion players.

遠峰あこ She had a mini accordian but a grandiose and powerful singing voice.

Next up: クボンヌ She played the accordian without singing and dedicated her songs to alcoholic beverages so that customers would buy more drinks.

3rd up: 小春 (Koharu) Koharu started her act solo flexing her supreme skills on the accordian. I wouldn't be surprised if she were one of the absolute best accordian players in Japan. Before tonight I would have thought there wasn't much competition for such a title but there appears to be quite a number of Japanese that play the accordian. I'm sure a lot of girls might even be inspired to pick up an accordian after watching her perform. Looks complicated requiring control of many degrees of freedom to achieve the correct tone and volume. I wonder how much an accordian costs. I wouldn't mind having one to goof around on and to retaliate against my neighbours if they ever play sh*tty music with the volume too loud. lol.

She was later joined by Momo-chan.

She may be only 17 but she shows more sophistication and poise than a veteran chanteuse in a high profile Parisian nightclub. I can't imagine how good she's going to be a decade from now. Apparently she used to play the accordian as well but dropped it to concentrate on singing. She found it difficult playing the accordian with a stuffed pig under her arm.

(this pic is actually from when I saw them in July. Momo is rockin' the NMFT vol 1 poster! I would love to bring Charan-Po-Rantan to Canada on a NMFT tour. They're amazing. I realize accordian playing is more prevalent than I initially thought but no band or act in the world is quite like Charan-Po-Rantan.)