Eva no ukiyo...エヴァのうきよ: Digging under ground

I had been looking for a place with a good live underground music in Osaka since I arrived to Japan. The main advantage and disadvantage of the underground music is that it is hard to find if you don’t know where to look. It is the music that is not played by mainstream radios or TV, It is not advertised much and their concerts are usually hidden away in small basement venues. So it’s pretty much literally UNDER GROUND.

The day I got a map from a tattoo artist with directions to Hokage live house in Osaka I was so stoked that I had to go there right away. It was Monday but I was feeling lucky. Once I got there I knew immediately that this was the place I was looking for the whole time. Hokage venue had two basement floors – the concert “hall” that was more like a small concert room and a bar. It was messy and not fancy at all, just a place to enjoy music. Me and my friend (also a music enthusiast) were welcomed in Hokage in such a warm and heartful way that it blew our minds. It was obvious that just by the act of finding the place we were accepted by the small community straight away. There were just about 10 to 15 people and half of them were the guys from bands playing that night. The bands were very different from each other. It was a perfect mix of psychedelic played on metal trash, alternative rock from Singapore, metal by Cyberne and amazing Knellt balancing metal with alternative rock.

As I understood from numerous chats with band members and the manager of Hokage, the underground scene in Osaka is a lot different than the independent scene in Tokyo. There are a lot more foreigners in Tokyo and a lot more people in general who support the scene there. The community in Osaka is much much smaller with just about 10-15 small clubs just 3 of them are really good (and Hokage is probably the best one). During the weekdays there are usually just about 10-15 people in the audience and during weekends there are sometimes up to 50. The alternative music that is not a marketing product with the “right looks”, is often too loud and not easy to understand for average Japanese people. The songs are sometimes even 10 minutes long with not a single word sang, on the other hand there can be a lot of screaming, weird sounds or bizarre shows involved too.

I was in Hokage about 5 times already and every time I was amazed by the true friendliness expressed towards me and my friend. I experienced many different bands, many outstanding, unusual (a band consisted of just two drummers) or even bizzare performances like a band with an extravagant lead singer wearing a see-through woman's panties covering just a part of his "instrument". All the people in the audience (majority of them men) came there simply because they love the music and you could see that in their expressions. No one came just to stand at the bar or to show off their way over-done hair and extreme fashion. Sano-san (the manager of Hokage and member of few bands) told me that to him music is the only thing that matters. He is choosing the bands just by the energy he feels from their music. It is not cheap to go to there (1500-2500yen including 1 drink) but it is worth every yen for me. One of the reasons is that you support the bands directly- if there is not enough people buying the tickets for a particular band, the band has to pay the difference of the minimum income for the club agreed. And that happens a lot of times here.

Check out this link for a documentary about Japanese live houses awarded Japan Foundation Grant.