Lunedì 5 Set 2011, 5:20

So six months of living apart from the wife and son on weekdays begins; nice new job but a lonely pad and only sporadic Internet access till Softbank "White BB" kicks in this Thursday. Must. Get. Out.

First stop is Bears for this ridiculous t-shirt night event. Cool t-shirts for sale by the designers, including Yoshikawa Shogo who does live painting and album art for some of Osaka's finest nutters. Grabbed a shirt from him before the retarded proceedings got underway. An amusing MC traded dialogue with Bugって花井 chick before she went and did this ridiculous song and dance concerning the megamouth shark (I kid you not). She was also selling megamouth t-shirts, of course. Then Motoko from オシリペンペンズ did this awesome one man "concept" t-shirt show where he had like 10 layers of shirts all on at the same time and he would gradually take one shirt off at a time, modelling each one. Quite amusing, and I like Motoko's demeanor a lot better since he's cut his hair and cut back on the booze a bit (at least apparently). Then Ms. Megamouth chick, the always irresistible Doddodo and outsider 'musician' Chicopido modeled the shirts very amusingly (Doddodo's fake boob-thrusting while she modelled No.305's over-the-top anime-inspired designs was especially hilarious). There was also a live printing event where all the artists would get together and print some shirts to musical accompaniment, but I got restless and left a bit early.

Last night was even more ridiculous. I had to brave the tail end of a typhoon to see my pals play in Carrion Comfort down at Kyoto's Socrates. Got there only to find the owner hammered out of his mind and playing both DJ and lead singer of his band Family. Amazingly he was playing albums by EP-4 and Zelda that I actually had on my iPhone; I think I blew his mind when I showed him. Anyway, Family started out all Nick Cave, then got all black metal at the end, and they were a good opener.

The second band was from Okinawa, 極東ピーコック (Kyokuto-Peacock). The leader came out in a fox mask and shook my hand before heading to the stage. From the first saccharine minutes, I thought they were going to be just another heartfelt-but-shitty J-rock warbler unit, but they thoroughly surprised me by switching gears into noisy Number Girl/Zazen Boys territory. Very sweet guys and very intense musicians; I've gotten permission to upload their latest effort to LMD, and will do so soon.

Anyway, Carrion Comfort were solid as usual, and I would have stuck around longer, save for my long scooter-ride to Hirakata (my new digs). Good to find I can still enjoy the undergroundness on occasion…