Awww hells yeah!

Front Cover | Back Cover

1. ss:st-shiro sagisu et – Satoshi Tomiie
2. I Don’t Wanna Fall in Love – She Wants Revenge
3. International Dateline – Ladytron
4. The City – Jamie Lidell
5. Banquet (Phones Disco Edit) – Bloc Party
6. A100 – Billy Corgan
7. Playhouses – TV on the Radio
8. “IDOLA” The Strange Fruits – Sega (Let the Winds Blow: Phantasy Star Online Episode III C.A.R.D. Revolution OST)
9. Badlands – 福井健一郎 (Kenichiro Fukui) (Einhander OST)
10. Kremlin Dusk – UTADA
11. Everyone Choose Sides – The Wrens
12. 羽根の涙 (Wings’ Tears) – Spin Aqua

Very pleased with how this one turned out. Feedback, as always, is welcomed and encouraged.

I’ve written about Cocco several times before, but always in a tongue-in-cheek fanboy mode. But before I talk about the concert(s), however, I feel I should talk about her in a more serious fanboy mode. Consider yourself warned.

I’ll start by jumping straight to the hamfisted analogies. When I was a teenager and discovering music for the first time, every new song or artist contained a world of revelation. It was amazing just to learn that music could be so much more than sequential notes. But when I listened to those songs a few years later, the magic was gone, and I realized that those feelings were coming from me, not the music. Cocco’s music gives me those same feelings of discovering new artists and new ways of thinking; of learning something awesomely unexpected about music and the world. But unlike those teenage infatuations, Cocco’s songs hold up to further scrutiny. They have an emotional depth and complexity that makes even my modern, jaded self feel like a starry-eyed teenager once more.

I love music. I’m always listening to music, and I love any number of artists for any number of reasons: their witty lyrics, catchy melodies, clever song construction, or just plain emotional impact. But Cocco stands alone. She is the only artist I like because her songs are true. Cocco is the avatar of human honesty. That is my thesis statement.

Cocco is missing the filter between herself, her emotions, and the world. Watching her sing–or speak, or do anything, really–is galvanizing. Because seeing a person as they actually emotionally are–instead of some meta-presentation of how they are trying to be seen–is terrifying, like looking into the star-filled eye of Jupiter and seeing the raw stuff of creation.

Other songs are about something; Cocco’s songs are the thing itself. It’s the difference between understanding something and believing in it; between reading a romantic story and falling in love yourself. Cocco’s music is an angry, ecstatic knife to the gut. It is the fire of revelation. There is no one else on Earth like Cocco, and that is why I gladly went back to Japan to see her in concert.

1GB USB Key for $15.99.

Returning to Japan for the first time since I moved back to the States in April was pretty odd, mostly because it wasn’t odd at all. I felt more discombobulated when I visited San Francisco in July: California highways are a vast, uncharted universe of mystery and despair; Japan, on the other hand, is a pretty known quantity. Returning to Japan felt backwards; like I’d taken a 4-month sabbatical in the U.S. and was only now returning home. It seemed like an anti-vacation.

I skipped Tokyo completely, flying into the Kansai International Airport outside of Osaka. The airport was quaint compared to Narita; like a regional airport that woke up one morning to an international clientele. I chose the Kansai region as it meant I could see two concerts back-to-back; Monday night in Kobe, Tuesday in Osaka. Critical, when you only have 3 vacation days to your name at your new job.

The ride from the airport to my hotel in Namba was disconcerting. After living in Japan for five years, I stopped feeling like a foreigner every time I stepped onto the train–but I felt like one now, fresh from the States. I knew that I didn’t look any different to the Japanese people on the train (literally; I brought no luggage) and that it was all internal. I guess it’s like Eleanor Roosevelt said: “no one can make you feel foreign without your permission.”

I hadn’t been gone long enough for all the ad campaigns to change over, though a few drinks in the combini had gone through redesigns. Nothing makes you feel the acute passage of time like an unexpectedly new package. When did Gokuri get a new bottle? Three months ago? Last week? You weren’t here, but society moved on, and this unexpected beverage shows it.

My first evening back, I stopped by a Tokyo-Mitsubishi ATM and cleaned out my account. My Tokyo apartment deposit refund had been sitting, inacessible, in my Japanese bank account for the last three months. Oh well, at least it had been accruing interest!^* (* Japanese banking joke.)

I went out to some great restaurants, coffee shops, and bars during my stay. I had takoyaki for breakfast and okonomiyaki for lunch. I didn’t go to McDonald’s once! I learned that Mr. Donut is a lot more enjoyable if you just don’t eat their donuts. I saw the Glico man and the giant animated crab, and I made a joke about the PS3.

I didn’t go to karaoke. Not enough people; not enough girls. You need them to hit the high notes for you.

My first morning in Japan, I went across the street to Bic Camera and did all of my game shopping for the trip in about 10 minutes (Rhythm Tengoku, four BitGenerations, a kanji dictionary and cookbook for the DS). I then went down two floors and converted my points into a new pair of headphones. Later, when I went to Den Den Town, I didn’t buy anything at all. Wither romance?

When I went shopping for the things I missed most, it wasn’t for games or music or even food. It was for the most boring, day-to-day life accoutrements that America gets all wrong. Visiting MUJI was like my first time in Akihabara. I bought pens, pencils, notebooks, and the holy grail of my entire Japanese shopping experience, A4-sized hanging folders for my Swedish flatpack desk drawer. (Incomprehensibly, the folders sold by IKEA US are letter-sized, and have to be placed in the drawer perpendicularly.) I bought several 1-cm-thick clamp files, because defacing paper by punching holes in it is for uncultured neanderthals. I bought every single B2-sized poster frame Loft had.

I didn’t want some cultural or culinary artifact representing Japanese culture. I wanted stuff. The ordinary, metric-measured objects that make up the country. I was homesick to the point of office supplies.

I lived in Japan as long as I’ve ever lived anywhere in the U.S., and I still feel more at home there than I do anywhere else in the world. That’s not a manifesto; it’s just how it is. So it was reassuring to learn that, though I live in the States now, Japan abides. It’s still there to go back to.

Earlier this month, I went back to Japan to see Cocco in concert. This will take a few entries.

Oh, baby. Christmas comes early this year.

My favorite movie that nobody has ever heard of finally came out on DVD today. In a Criterion Collection, no less.

Probably the most realistically biting look at post-college ennui ever put to film. And the dialogue is unbelievably hilarious. Check it out!

Mat Weddle in Arizona does a lingering acoustic cover of Outkast’s Hey Ya.

Even more shockingly, it’s good. I was expecting string-quartet-cover levels of gimmickry, but it’s actually a really good cover. It does an excellent job of highlighting how, well, depressing Hey Ya’s lyrics are. Everyone remembers the “shake it like a Polaroid picture”; most gloss over the first two verses of a relationship in decline.

This is a stupendous Coke commercial.