When Shit Hits The Fan, Nothing is Safe

Ugh, so I've had my first bout of... everything-bad-that-could-happen-happeneditis. From last Friday until today (Wednesday), I have had 0 contact with anyone via technology. Last Wednesday I took my computer in to the Apple Store in Ginza to try and get it to stop crashing, and while my computer is now fixed (or at least so it seems thus far) it took them exactly 1 week to accomplish that. Something about my logicboard being totally fucked. So that by itself isn't so bad, but paired with my phone falling out of my pocket at a concert, it gets much much worse. Then, pair that with trying to get a new phone but having softbank (phone company) finally realize that I have ~$750 of debt owed them from my last stint in Japan, and that unless I pay that I can't GET a new phone, it gets even worse.

But hey, I'm still alive and getting by, so lets talk about good things, right?

The concert I lost my phone at was for a band called Corrupted. You probably don't know them. If you do know them, though, I can't imagine how jealous you are of me having seen them live. And they played for 90 freaking minutes, starting off with El Mundo-fucking-Frio. The show was at a pretty hip joint out in Kumagaya, and that was a bit of a problem in itself. See, on the train maps, a lot of stops are written only in Kanji (chinese characters), and that's no problem by me - I can read most of the stops. Buuuuut, there is a place that is called Kumagawa (熊川), as opposed to Kumagaya (熊谷). Kumagawa is kind of south-westerly of Tokyo and to get there from where I live in Chiba you have to transfer.... 4? 5? times. Kumagaya, on the other hand, is north-north-westerly of Tokyo, and from where I live in Chiba I can take 2 trains to get there. So when I was looking for the map, obviously I was looking for the character 熊 (kuma), but unfortunately I went with the first place that started with 熊 that I saw, which was Kumagawa and not Kumagaya. I realized this only when I was about to arrive at Kumagawa, which is about an hour and then some outside of Tokyo. So, long story short, instead of spending maybe an hour in transit, I ended up arriving at the concert at about 730 PM where I had left at ~3 PM. Ridiculous.

But back to the show. There were a few alright opening acts, none particularly memorable but sufficiently down-tuned and bass-heavy, but this night was more or less given to Corrupted, as it should be wherever they play. A lot of people have misconceptions about metal, mostly centered around the fact that without any knowledge of the various different subgenres contained within, you can't really begin analyzing the numerous aspects of that most unholy of monikers (METALLLLLL). There's thrash, death, sludge, fantasy, prog, heavy, and many more, but the most affecting of them all, in my opinion, is the one known as doom metal, and this is due partially to its black-sheepish-ness. A lot of metal IS played fast, this is no lie. Doom metal, for the most part, lies outside of that realm. Where Napalm Death said "we can be mind-boggilingly technical and STILL be all kinds of bad ass", Doom opted to pursue the almighty riff that bands like Sabbath and Zeppelin put to use (mostly leaning towards the former), so instead of executing you with a flurry of searing solos and yelped/grunted vocals, Doom seeks to crush yr will to live by dragging you down to the deepest, darkest depths of an ocean of tar. What that all means is, Doom tends to be much slower than all other kinds of metal, and delivers its brutality through detuned guitars, sunn amps cranked to 11, and the patience to meditate on a riff or even single note instead of working the fretboard; it is the definition of "heavy".

And Corrupted is the king of Doom. Though they are Japanese, they choose to sing mostly in Spanish (don't ask me why), and have looooooong segments of quiet accented with the pluck of a string here and there. Time ceases to exist with these guys, and they'll lull you into a false calm for great lengths of time, and then kaBAM, they stomp on their pedals, and with pick in hand stroke, one, two or maybe even three of the most dissonant, soul-crushingly heavy progressions, and all the while they have become loud enough to skin a goat. Their vocalist has an impressively deep voice for this kind of music, and while the long passages of him uttering incomprehensible bubbling-oil-speak are interesting by themselves, they serve merely to accent they sheer monolith of sonic doom that this band creates. Theirs is a music that goes beyond words, that describes something of the human condition so deep and dark that language ceases to suffice and all we are left with through their music is an impression that evil exists, and that something is very, very wrong. Its quite moving, and totally metal.

So then Halloween was the next day, and I spent most of the night at a bar in Shinjuku called Current. When bands tour in Tokyo, they tend to end up at Current, so a lot people there are in the know and are relatively connected. I went there with a Norwegian friend, Chris, who's in a band called Zombie Blasphemy. Not too much to tell, met some new people, danced with some ladies, drank beer, put lots of fake blood on my face and arms, you know the routine. All in all a real fun night.