14 posts tagged “clammbon”
Hi, I just wanted to complain that:
- There's a new clammbon tour documentary DVD coming out in a few days, and I'm not supposed to be spending money on frivolous things right now.
- Shiina Ringo has a new CD and a new DVD coming out, and and I'm not supposed to be spending money on frivolous things right now.
- The one frivolous purchase I was able to get away with last month, the Ar tonelico 2 Design Materials book, is still not in at Kinokuniya, four weeks and five days after I ordered it.
So we went to Chicago for a week, and within that, we made a mini-trip to Wisconsin. The awesomeness of our friends and families is encapsulated in this stuff:
- A big party thrown by my family, in my sister’s back yard, complete with lots of food on sticks, a chocolate fountain, cream puffs, a big bowl of Shirley Temples, and ham roll-ups
- A whole bunch of origami cranes and a tiny, ceramic origami crane from my young cousin Emily
- A whole huge set of Japanesque dishes and utensils and such from my sisters, bought at a fundraising auction
- One of my mom’s famous cross-stitches in a frame, commemorating our wedding day
- A set of wine glasses from my boss
- Lots of money and really lovely cards full of well-wishes
- My ski pants, found in the cedar closet at Ben’s house
- Two suitcases worth of gifts from the lady’s parents, the highlights of which include calligraphy equipment, milk-senbei, terrycloth blankets, the Japanese-style pillows I’ve wanted forever, rice bowls, miso-soup bowls, high-tech glasses-cleaning cloths, and an ear cleaner made from a whale’s beard
- My clammbon shirt, found while crawling around in Ben’s attic, after thinking it was lost forever
That’s all just off the top of my head; in reality there’s even more. We’re so spoiled.
As good as clammbon’s studio albums are, their live performances seem to be on an entirely different level: the word that keeps coming to mind as I watch or listen to their concerts is chemistry. Each member of the band, the music itself, and the audience are involved in a big, profuse positive-feedback loop that precipitates happiness.
It’s not common for a non-comedy music album to make me laugh out loud while I listen to it. But the way the members of the band and the audience crack each other up makes me want to laugh along with them. At the beginning of “Gaishutsu-chuu”:
Mito starts making weird, rhythmic mouth noises that aren’t in the studio version
Ikuko: “Wait a second…!?”
Mito: “Uh, I was trying to sound kind of hip-hop, but it ended up sounding like a male adult-video actor…”
Audience member: “I wouldn’t want to see an adult video like that!”
Everyone laughs
This all happens during the song. Several audience members call out jokes, comments, and exclamations during and between the songs. One guy in particular quite annoyed me for a while, until I realized that the band was dealing with him in the most graceful way possible: not darkening the atmosphere of the show by complaining, but playing along, dubbing him the voice of God, and telling their own jokes back at him.
The show is a record of how close and friendly the band is with their fans. Through the antics in their music videos, their encouragement of tape-trading, the tone of their live shows, even the whimsical designs of their album packages, the band has always been saying, hey, let’s be friends.
When I first heard that the next clammbon album was going to be comprised of covers, I was a little disappointed. I had been hoping for some new original material. But I faithfully ordered it and waited for it to arrive. When I started listening to it, it was the middle of summer 2006 and I had just moved to a new apartment closer to work, so I was having a couple of nice walks through the city every day.
So, this album will always summon up images of summer in Seattle. It turned out to be nearly as satisfying as a real new clammbon album; some of the songs like “Summer Nude” by Magokoro Brothers and “Kahlua Milk” by Okamura Yasuyuki have really stuck with me strongly. And so far, the album has helped me discover at least one excellent band, Magokoro Brothers, to listen to.
Also, you can’t beat that album art. :D
When this album came out, I was living in Seattle, getting used to my new job. I checked with the folks at the local Kinokuniya about whether they’d have the album, and they said they would. Moving to Seattle meant having physical access to stores where I could buy the music, comics, and video games I’d come to love in Tokyo. It’s nice to be able to walk the aisles, looking at what’s new and popular right now. At the same time, the atmosphere is just a facsimile of the various nichey shops that I frequented in Japan, so it’s kind of like trying to sate an appetite for sushi by buying a prewrapped box at the grocery store.
Anyway, the Kinokuniya turned out to be lying; they weren’t getting the CD in stock. So I went on iChat and talked to my roommate from when I lived in Nakano: “Can you pick up a CD for me?” Half an hour later, he came back online, “got it.” I wanted to ask him to rip the CD and send me the files, but he’d done enough for me already. I had to wait.
If you add up listens between the two differently-mastered discs, this is strongly my most-listened-to album of the past three years. The music is even more experimental, the lyrics are even more introspective, and the execution is even more direct and unrefined. The subtlety is there, but the main message is right out front: We want to rock out together. We want to emit positivity. We want to hold on to our impressions and memories.
When this album came out, I was back in the USA, living in a house in Green Bay with my coworkers Jon and Ben. I had a weird nocturnal lifestyle, getting up at 16:00, working 19:00 to 7:30, then coming home to eat breakfast before going to bed at 9:00. I had started pouring a lot of money into Japanese import sites such as YesAsia and Play-Asia, to support the game and music buying habits I’d developed in that land. Now I live in this strange state where the way I discover and acquire the items I treasure most is by clicking tiny images on a glowing screen and waiting for the physical objects to show up at my door a couple of weeks later.
The first listening of imagination is highlighted in my mind: when the package came in the mail, I opened it excitedly and put it on Ben’s stereo in the living room. Jon, The Lady, and I listened to it together as I perused the liner notes. The high quality of Ben’s stereo, in contrast to the cheap headphones I usually use, made the music seem more realistic than what I was used to. I liked the album immediately, which is kind of rare for me.
These days, I still tend to use “tourist on the mirai’n” as a good introduction to show people what makes clammbon so special.
At the end of August 2002, water started pouring from the ceiling of my apartment in Nakano, Tokyo. My roommate was gone, having just set off on his month-long butterfly-catching trip in Burma. I called his parents, who own the building, and they advised me to wait it out until a repair guy could come by in the morning.
I had a ticket to see clammbon the next day. In retrospect, I have no idea how I managed to secure it; even now I’m not confident that I could properly purchase a concert ticket by myself in Japan. But somehow I did the online research, found the nearest venue, went into the convenience store, located the ticket machine, pushed the right buttons, talked to the staff person on the little phone, and successfully bought my ticket. I was going to be in the same room as clammbon!
The next day, I got calls from the repair guy every few hours, telling me that he’d be later and later. Eventually it got to the moment that I knew I should be making the walk to Shinjuku to get to the show on time. I called my rommate’s mom for guidance. She told me to forget about the repair guy and get to the show.
I made it to the venue, on the 7th floor of a big old building, halfway through clammbon’s one-hour set. It took me several minutes to realize that I was dumbly wandering around the place missing the show, because there were so many people milling around outside the main performance area, and the doors blocked out the noise so well, that I didn’t even know the band was playing. I rushed in there, took my place at the back of the crowd, and sang along as best I could.
I bought a clammbon shirt to show my loyalty: teal, with Dramatickers written on it in gold, fancy cursive writing, it was my most prized article of clothing for years. Somehow, it has disappeared somewhere between Tokyo, Green Bay, Chicago, and Seattle. I also filled out the survey card at the show in my awful Japanese handwriting, trying desperately to get across how much I adore the band. Maybe they read it.
Between songs, Mito announced that they would release a new album soon. That album turned out to be id. This one, recorded in the USA, produced by a USAmerican guy, has such an unusual personality. It starts with two quiet, thoughtful songs, then bursts into one of the most rocking and memorable clammbon songs ever (“Adolescence”), then keeps alternating back and forth between loud rockingness and quiet reflection for the rest of the album. Come to think of it, this album kind of is clammbon’s adolescence. The songs move further away from topics of cuteness and childhood, and start being weird, artsy experiments.
The strongest memories of this album are of listening to it as I rode my tiny bike around Nakano.
When this album came out, they had a listening station set up at the store. I listened, but I guess I wasn’t comfortable enough with it, because I didn’t even buy it until about a year ago, four years after it came out. It has grown on me since then, with a playful and experimental atmosphere that seems mainly for the enjoyment of the band and the friends they invited to perform with them. Some songs, like “Re-Hanakaoru” and “Re-Zansho” have even become five-star tracks for me.
Also, it has one of my favorite album covers of all time. It seems like something I would have photographed and put in the photo-journal I started shortly before this album came out.
The third time I came to Japan, it was to stay. In March of 2002, I moved in with my friend’s parents and started my exchange program at Sophia University in Tokyo. This album had been out for a while, and I went out to get it at my first opportunity.
This album has strong memories associated with it; until Vapor Trails came out, this was what I listened to on my two-walk, three-train commute to class every day. To me, it’s the surrounding sound of coming to live in that discombobulating town.
What still makes me pause and shiver is the way each song segues perfectly into the next one (between “Rainbow” and “Koiwazurai” gets me every time). The whole album fits together like a long, perfect meal, where every dish is perfect, the conversation is crackling, and you get espresso at the end.
On my second trip to Japan, this album had already been out for a while. Back then, we didn’t have Yesasia and Play-Asia and all these fancy importy onliney shops. Traveling to Japan meant I could get things that I just couldn’t get at home. I made a point of getting to the music store as quickly as possible to pick up the CD.
Buying it doubled the volume of my clammbon world, expanded it into the epic pop territory that they have since explored more and more deeply. I’m actually kind of surprised that “epic pop” is not an existing accepted genre; anyway, that’s my favorite way of describing their music these days.
