June 19, 2006
Fuji Mountain Breakdown
Posted by Stacy Chandler at June 19, 2006 10:06 AMOver the weekend I picked up a friend from the train station near where I live in the Tokyo suburbs (if you can call 'em that) and was taking advantage of a break in the rainy season's bounty to drive with the windows down on the way home.
A few minutes into our drive I hear a swell of bluegrass music and start slapping at the CD player, thinking "Dammit, I knew this thing was on the fritz -- one minute I can't hear it and the next it's blaring this ... really ... excellent ... bluegrass ... wait ... "
And then I realize the CD player is off.
And the music is coming from outside the car.
And I'm in Tokyo. Tokyo, Japan.
I whipped my head around just in time to glimpse the source of the music, and I still can't believe I didn't wreck the car. For what flashed by was the crowded interior of an instrument store, where an honest-to-god bluegrass jam was happening. In Tokyo. Tokyo, Japan.
I couldn't stop the car or even slow down much, so I only got the quickest look, but the main thing that came into focus was a Japanese dude just wailin' on the banjo. And there were lots of other folks, too, on all kinds of instruments, making an awful pretty sound.
I had to speed around a bend, and it was gone -- the sight and the music. But I'll be going back to that instrument store as soon as I can to find out more. And if I can find out when the next jam happens, you can be sure I'll be there ... and I'll take pictures. And maybe a tape recorder. Because I can barely believe it myself, but I swear to you that Japanese-style bluegrass music sounds a lot like home.
If Japanese bluegrass is as good as Japanese rock music.............I'll pass.
Posted by: Aging HIpster at June 19, 2006 1:28 PMStacy's story reminds me of a trip to the Netherlands in 1973. I was on a train for Arnhem but got off by mistake in a town called Ede. There was a picturesque inn by the train station so I decided to stay.
As I entered the inn, I noticed a poster for a POPKONCERT in town that night. I asked the desk clerk about the band that was performing, and he said they played hard rock "like Deep Purple."
So that night I go to the show. The band played good ol' down-from-the-Appalachians bluegrass. Not a strain of Deep Purple could be heard. And the fellers in the band were a bunch of good old boys from Holland, the land of tulips and wooden shoes -- except for the banjo picker. He was a long-haired, hippiefied Native American; if I recall correctly, I think he was from North Carolina.
The several days I spent in Ede were magical and memorable for a number of reasons. But one of them was hearing top-notch bluegrass played with only a slight foreign accent,
Posted by: Bary at June 22, 2006 10:37 PM
