A Super Drummer Appears! hr676

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There used to be numerous kinds of music magazines at book stores in the mid-80’s when my partner and I moved to Tokyo to become professional musicians. Those magazines had classified ads on the last few pages to recruit band members. Among them, a magazine called ‘Player’ spared almost more than half the entire contents for the classified ads. In fact, my partner and I ran across each other through one of the ads in that magazine when I still lived in Kyoto.

One of the reasons why we came to Tokyo was that we had thought many good musicians would be found in Tokyo, which would enable us to form a band with professional quality in no time. Finding a good player had been extremely difficult when we played around the kyoto area. We recruited one after another who had never met our standard. In the end, we used a rhythm machine and sequencers in place of human members. It was the time when those gadgets had been just put on the market so that the technology was lamentably primitive. Machine troubles had been our norm in the gigs and we had bitterly learned the limitations of machine members.

Once we moved to Tokyo, we put as many classified ads as possible in the music magazines and met so many musicians. While we repeated test sessions with each candidate in the studio, we couldn’t find good enough members who matched our quest for the ones with high skill and a strong motivation to become professional. We gradually began to think that we had overestimated Tokyo.

On one of those days, we found Mr. Maejima. He was a highly motivated drummer of a bag of bones, who was refined and courteous, a dropout of college from passion for music as I was. In the studio session, he played accurately and delicately, who was the best drummer we had ever come across. He joined us as a band member instantly. We got along so well. We shared not only eagerness for success in music but also even hobbies, which made us closer. He invited us to his home where he lived with his parents. He gave me his old, first drum set that he had gotten by working part time so strenuously when he was a student, and came to my apartment with it to set it up for me. He also gave me a lot of gaming software that he had finished playing. The legendary film ‘Back to the Future’ was first known to us as his best picture. Together we ate out and even went to that famous theme park of the mouse, where I introduced him to the mouse as my band’s drummer. We were on good terms, that was quite rare for my partner and I who had no friends.

As for other members however, we continuously had no luck. We couldn’t find a bassist and a guitarist, and had to compromise with the temporary members to play for gigs and auditions. Those members played awfully in the studio for rehearsal and in the actual gigs. What irritated us most was they would make a big mistake at the important contest of all things and ruin our chance. On top of that, we were caught in a fight with the promoter of the gig who turned out to be a fraud. We were besieged with bad luck and our band had been in hot water for months.

Then at last, Mr. Maejima told us that he wanted to quit the band. My partner and I understood his feeling since a long predicament of the band added to our part time jobs for living had exhausted us as well. We were too dispirited to persuade him to stay. Nevertheless, it was so hard to see an unfailing partner leaving. A leaden heart by his leaving drove us to switch to recording our songs with synthesizers from playing them in a gig. In hindsight, it was a good decision that would work for us well.

A few years later, I received a letter from Mr. Maejima unexpectedly. It said that he had joined a new religious group and worked as a drummer of the group’s band. He suggested that I join it. While I should have felt happy for him, I felt sad instead. The fact that the mainstream of the music scene had no place for such a talented, motivated musician like Mr. Maejima. The reality that a would-be artist with good looks and no talent sold well and was adored. I knew that the world was unfair, but his letter made me realize it anew.

Decades have passed since then, and I have moved around several times. Still, I have a drum set that Mr. Maejima gave me. It’s on active service, only disassembled to components. They are used as containers in my apartment, holding my stuff including passion. 

Welcome to the Real World hr672

In the mid-80’s, flashy, rhythmic songs were dominant throughout the Japanese pop music scene. It may have had to do with the Japanese bubble economy which sent the nation frivolous and on a spree. The kind of songs that influenced me by touching and reaching my heart had been no longer the mainstream.

The Lousy Neighbor / Hidemi Woods

My partner and I moved to Tokyo to be professional singer-songwriters just in those days. While we continued to search for the band members, we were aggressively sending out our demo tapes to the major record companies. In addition, my partner was visiting the companies in person to hand out the demos. Since we didn’t have any connections or acquaintances there, my partner would sneak through the reception, get into the elevator to the production department floor by mingling with other employees, circle around the desks of the staff with saying, “Please listen to my demo tape.” Most office workers made a face and refused, but there was rarely someone among them who showed him a person he had better turn to, or actually listened to the tape. My partner had routinely visited the production department in all the major record companies in Tokyo in that way and consequently acquired some connections with producers.

One day, a producer introduced to him the in-house competition for a debut song of the company’s contracted idol singer. He allowed my partner to join other contracted songwriters and enter the competition with a song written for the singer. We would get a contract if the song was selected. Until then, we had written songs exclusively for ourselves and had never even imagined writing for other singers. While I had no interest in it at all, my partner gave it a try to use this opportunity as a footing for our possible record deal. He wrote quite a few songs for the idol singer and submitted the best one to the competition. Several weeks later, the producer called him for a meeting where he was told that his song wasn’t selected. The producer let him listen to the selected one. He couldn’t accept the result because the selected song was a disaster. When he asked the producer to point out at least one thing that was superior to his own song, he couldn’t answer.

That was a too familiar instance of what we had experienced about our songs. Whenever we got some advice or opinions from music producers, they sounded irrelevant and off-base. They made us fail the audition or told us our songs were not good, and gave us unconvincing reasons that were out of the point. To sum up, so-called ‘music producers’ of the major Japanese record companies were simply office workers who graduated from the renowned university and happened to like music as a hobby. We, on the other hand, had bet our life on music, had thought about nothing other than music all day and had striven to create better music every day for almost a decade. It was natural we didn’t click with each other as the depth of passion for music was too far different. The more I got involved with the Japanese music business, the more I learned how important aspects of looks, impact, and trends were, much more than quality and creativity.

In fact, it happened so many times that when we got a call from a producer who listened to our songs and liked them, he instantly lost interest the moment he saw our looks at the first meeting. We often brought our own marketing ideas about how we should be produced and promoted, which also made them turn us away. It seemed that they wanted musicians to be beautiful puppets with no brains.

I was naive enough to believe that making better songs would open the door to a contract with a record company. However, that wasn’t true to reality. In reality, the Japanese music industry had become trashy and petty. The question was, if I would give up being a professional singer-songwriter then. Since singing and writing songs was the only thing that I was good at, I couldn’t afford to quit trying. Besides, I still believed that there must have been people who wanted to listen to the songs that could save them by touching their hearts and changing their life, just as those songs did to me once. Now that the Japanese music scene had deteriorated in the real world, sending out that kind of songs was necessary all the more. Although I knew there must have been a way to do so, I couldn’t figure out how to find it. And so it went, the struggle stuck, clutched, and pursued my partner and me all along in those early days of my career.

The Unhappy at the Happiest Place hr671

Looking back, the bottom of my life was several years in the mid-80’s when I left my hometown and came to live in Tokyo where I was struggling for success as a musician. While I was working part-time for a living, I was making songs, looking for band members, doing gigs and selling our demos to the record companies. Those days were so energy-consuming without any luck that my mind and body had been both tuckered out. I began to drink and smoke.

It happened at the theme park in the Tokyo area which host was the mouse. I had been working part-time as an attraction cast member at the park that was newly opened only a few years back. Because it was in the midst of the Japanese holiday week, the park was quite crowded. The attraction where I worked had a full house all day and a long waiting line continued. When I was introducing the attraction over the PA system at the holding area inside, I saw a group of three peevishly-looking men in their late twenties eating popcorn. After I put down the microphone, I approached them and gently with a smile asked not to eat inside, which was strictly instructed as a working procedure. Then I noticed they were sitting on a swung chain in front of the mural painting. I went to them and again asked not to because the chain was easily detached from the poles thus dangerous, which was also what the cast member was strictly told to do. The whole thing originated with these two trivial incidents.

Next to the holding area was the preshow area where the short movie was shown. In the middle of the movie, I saw some people open the door and enter the next theater, which was prohibited. I followed them into the theater where the main attraction was. They were the same men who had infringed the attraction rules at the holding area. I politely asked them to return to the preshow or go out as they weren’t allowed to skip the process. One of them said to me angrily, “You have kept telling me not to do this and that all the way! Stop that already!” They refused what I asked and tried to stay in the main theater. I explained the preshow would end merely in about a few minutes and asked them to go back. Then he yelled at me, “Shut up, ugly!”

The word ‘ugly’ had been a cue for me since I was a child. I battered a boy who uttered the word to me at elementary school. Even in my adult life, I once tried to strangle a middle-aged hoodlum and push him over the bridge-rail down to the river. In that case, I was carrying all the musical instruments and walking slowly when the man yelled at me from behind, “Walk fast!” I turned around and explained why I couldn’t do so with a heavy burden, and he said, “Don’t bar the way, ugly!” Probably because of my complex, I easily lost control whenever somebody told me ‘ugly’.

The man’s cue at the theme park made me thrust him with my both hands. He fired up as well and shouted, “Violence! Violence here!” Next moment, I found myself punching him. He looked surprised and terrified, then repeated like a child, “Violence! I was hit by an employee!” Other cast members came running toward us. Without a word, I left the attraction for the break area where I smoked a Camel.

Nobody came to me and I returned to work after I pulled myself together half an hour or so later. Neither the supervisor nor my colleagues mentioned the incident. They acted perfectly as if nothing had happened. They behaved similarly the next day, too, except for a distant attitude. Since it was in those times when companies’ awareness of compliance was low and social media where people upload their video clips was yet to come, the incident didn’t raise a fuss. Even so, I didn’t feel relieved not to be fired. I just felt sorry for the mouse who was the host of the park, that I did violence at my favorite place. I noticed how low I had gotten as a person. The sense I needed to clean up my act and change led me to quit the job soon after the incident.

I am so ashamed of my past self. I couldn’t, and still can’t, forgive my behavior. Just because I was unhappy, I shouldn’t have taken it out to others. I realized I was a foolish punk myself, and bitterly hated myself for that. The decision to quit the job was the new cue to try to become a better person. What I didn’t see was that the cue consequently turned my life for the better. I thought I was completely cornered and resigned to live at the bottom, not knowing I had gotten out of the worst already.

Living by Myself in Tokyo hr663

When I left my hometown for Tokyo and started living by myself there in the mid 80’s, quite a few second-run theaters for movies still remained. Those theaters showed two or three films at the price of one new film. The best experience of mine was when I saw ‘Top Gun’, ‘Taps’ and ‘Back to the Future’ as an all-night triple feature program at a second-run theater in a suburb of Tokyo. Those films were already a bit old by then and the show time was the middle of the night, so that the price was incredibly low accordingly. I left my apartment at night, ate out for dinner, got hamburgers to have inside the theater and was immersed into the movie world until dawn. The main attraction for me had been ‘Top Gun’ that turned out to be so-so. Instead, I was deeply moved by ‘Back to the Future’ although I had thought it would be a silly 50’s comedy judging from its trailer. The film became my best one and had held that position for many years to come.

Back then, I had just moved to Tokyo to become a musician in spite of all the opposition from my family and friends. I had been feeling unsettled constantly because of anxiety and loneliness, which stemmed from uncertainty of my future. I had been clueless about whether I would be successful as a musician and how my life would unfold itself. I saw ‘Back to the Future’ in that state of mind and the story and the ending of the film encouraged me immensely.

When I lived in my hometown with my family, many rules bound me. To begin with, that all-night movie experience was a dream within a dream since my curfew was as early as 9 p.m. Other rules were abundant. Singing while eating was forbidden, a gap between the body and the edge of the table must not exist during the meal, whistling or playing the piano after dark was prohibited, some ways of talking to my grandparents were banned, walking with audible steps inside the house wasn’t allowed, chewing something in the mouth in public was regarded as an act of barbarity, and so on and on. But once I began to live by myself, I was freed from all the family rules and everything was left to my discretion. I ate what I wanted, when I wanted. I woke up when I felt like it, since I didn’t work at an office. I slept until evening at times, and rarely cleaned or did the dishes. The bathroom got moldy. While I appreciated freedom, I realized how slack I really was. My music career didn’t go well either. I had expected I could find my band members easily as Tokyo was the biggest city in Japan where so many aspiring musician gathered from all parts of Japan. The reality was Tokyo simply had too many bad unmotivated musicians. It was extremely hard to find a member whom I desired and my band just kept breaking up. That was far from what I had planned as life in Tokyo. I sometimes got tempted to doubt if my decision to come here was the right one even though I hadn’t had any other choice.

When I finished to see the movies all night and left the theater, it was early morning in the real world. I headed back for my apartment. The train had started running and many commuters were walking hurriedly and gloomily toward the station already. They used the train bound for downtown that was an opposite direction to where I was going. I was waiting on the empty platform for my train while watching them waiting on the nearly overflowing platform. When their train came, they pushed and crammed themselves into the cars. The station workers additionally pushed their backs from outside to squeeze as many passengers as possible in and the train doors barely closed. Minutes after it departed, the platform got filled with commuters quickly again. I stepped in the empty opposite train and yawned in the seat, remembering ‘Back to the Future’. When I decided to live by myself in Tokyo that was a far and unknown big city, I was afraid and trembled for what my life was going to be like. I gave up my right to an inheritance by leaving my family, and a possible steady income by quitting college. I was alone by parting from my family and my friends who disagreed and didn’t support me mentally. I threw away everything which wasn’t easy for me. But as Marty’s father dared, I had dared in my own way and left for Tokyo. I hoped that action of mine changed my future. In a good way, I wished.

Regret and Decision hr639

If I could go back in time by a time machine, I would most certainly choose one summer day in my senior year of high school and redo that day.
In the summer of my senior year, I had been in the final stage of study for the entrance exam to the leading university in Japan. My love for music was the biggest obstacle for study and I tended to lapse into listening to rock and pop records on the stereo easily. Since I spent too much time in music instead of study, I determined to stop listening music until the entrance exam was over. I pulled the plug of my stereo off the outlet, paste it on the wall of my room along with a handmade poster that said ‘Patience!’ in capital letters. I tried to devote everything for a life at the best university in Japan.
I was an avid fan of a Japanese band called Tulip. Most albums and tapes I had were theirs. I frequently went to their concert that would give me a heavenly time. I had had to stop going there as well in that summer. So ironically, or almost fatefully I should say, Tulip was having the 1000th concert that coincided that particular summer of that particular year, of all summers and years in the calendar. It was a milestone big enough for them and their fans to be held at an amusement park that was reserved specifically for the event for the whole day. The amusement park was operated as ‘Tulip Land’ for the day, where paper cups and plates donned Tulip Land’s special logos and designs that were available on that day only, commemorative goods were sold, games and events connected with Tulip were held during the daytime, and the 1000th special open-air concert was held in the evening. As you can imagine, it was a dream event in which fans would drool all over. For me, it would be the day with Woodstock, Comic-Con and Disneyland combined all together at one place. It would be actually a dream. There was no way to miss it.
Back then in Japan, it was an era of so-called ‘Entrance Exam War’. Students with four-hour sleep pass, and with five-hour fail, that was a general rule for the war. Not individual ability but a name of the school one was graduated from decided later income and social rank in Japan. It still does. I think a social structure like that has brought this long economic decline to today’s Japan. In a whirlpool of the relentless era, I was an immature, foolish high school senior who was willingly sucked into the war to get a name of the university. In the depth of it, I had looked for any possible way to spare time for the dream event. It would be held in Tokyo that was over 300 miles away from Kyoto where I lived. It couldn’t be a matter of a couple of hours but a two-day trip. It would be crazy to waste two days in the middle of fierce competition like ‘Entrance Exam War’. I reached a heartbroken decision. I chose to study in my room instead of going to Tulip Land.

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I had had gloomy days for a few months until the day of the event came. My dismal feeling culminated on the day. For the entire day, all I thought of was what was going on in Tulip Land. I glanced at the clock every hour and imagined what game was held by now. Is it a trivia quiz about Tulip? Or a lottery game for Tulip goods? Are fans sipping soda out of a paper cup that has ‘Tulip Land’ printed on the side? Has the concert started? By which song is it kicked off? Which song are they playing now? Are the fireworks showing? Is it done? Is it over now? I couldn’t focus on anything all day long. I spent the whole day in my room without studying at all.
At the end of the day, I realized I could have been there. I just might as well have gone to Tulip Land as wasted the whole day. I intensely regretted it and literally gnashed my teeth. I blamed myself for my stupidity. The size of regret appalled me so that I sincerely hoped never to feel this way.
I hopefully expected time would heal the regret. On the contrary, it had tortured me at length for months. The regret hadn’t been eased but deepened. It continued to ask me what I was doing, and the question had evolved gradually into why I was studying for the entrance exam, what going to the best university meant, whether it would bring happiness, and eventually, it began to ask me what I lived for. As I had grappled with those questions, I studied less and less. By the time of the entrance exam, I had lost interest in the university. Instead, I got a grip on what I really wanted to do.
I failed the exam not only to the leading university but to all the other famed ones I had chosen as a safety measure. Only one college of my worst-case scenario accepted me but I didn’t feel like going there. I decided to do what I want however society works or whatever people say because I simply didn’t want to experience that kind of regret again. All what I went through in that six-month period after one regret of Tulip Land set the course to take. I chose to live as a singer-songwriter.
Decades have passed, and yet Tulip’s 1000th concert pops up in my mind every time I think about regret. Tulip Land had never been held again. Since the band broke up and the guitarist passed away, it never will. I passed up the once in a lifetime event for sure. Time neither solved the problem nor eased the pain. I still agonize over how foolish I was not to go. In me, a word ‘regret’ stands for Tulip Land.