Music, sweet music...

Well, it's been a busy little week. Very, very busy.

We had our first night on the grog on Wednesday for this year. Reminded me why I've not been on the grog. A powerful and bombastic hangover ensued. I strained a muscle in my shoulder whilst being silly and drunk, and have yet to feel it fully heal.

Ah! She'll be right.

I say that because I have been reminded by Tom's recent trip to the doctors (with what was presenting as either tonsillitis or a cold) being quite traumatic. He was bombarded with questions that he couldn't understand, given treatments that he didn't understand either, and was told to come back the next day. He decided that it would be better for his health if he just had a lie in instead. Doctors that don't speak your language = stressful!

All health problems are being put off until we get back to Australia. I've had it with Japanese doctors. Japanese dentists are awesome, Japanese doctors are stressful.

So, anyway, the Wednesday drink was brought on by a gig. Leila was doing her first show, her solo performance called The Patty Hearst Noise Opera. I watched and took photos for Leila's Artists CV. There were some points that I thought were quite moving, hypnotic, interesting, and there were other bits where I was just wondering "what am I meant to be thinking about here?" I'm a bit simple when it comes to performance art. I don't really get it. But I think it might have been good.

Either way, with the entry to the venue, you get a free drink ticket. And that was my undoing. I spent the drink ticket on beer, and had a few more, and was suddenly on Father Jack's Rollercoaster of "drink! drink! drink!" After the gig I had the excellent idea of going to Bar Konton for a few extra drinks, and well, got completely hammered. It was at Bar Konton that I received the shoulder injury. I didn't really feel untoward until the next day when I felt like I'd been hit by a truck.

But I was having a happy hangover, so I went off and tried to make the most of the day. Only much later did I start to realise that I wasn't bouncing back from this.

On Friday I had one weird event lesson type thing, on Saturday they gave me three kids model lessons (!) and one event lesson (!!) - a move that I was kind of annoyed with because I was on that shift with someone who is a more than competent Kids teacher, that the branch have decided to go cold on, so instead of talking to him about it, they just loaded me with all the model lessons. Pretty pissed about that. Will be having firm words with said school this week.

The shoulder strain was a bit of bad timing, that's for sure. We had to play a gig on Sunday evening, and this gig was with bigger and better bands than we've played with since we left Australia, so we were really hoping to put on a good show. I rushed all the way from Kuzuha to Amemura carrying my stupid, heavy, piece of shit kick pedal with me to get there on time, and then realised that this venue doesn't do on-time, and I could have actually saved myself the hassle. Unfortunately, the stars were crossed unfavourably. The amp that was supplied at the venue was a Marshall JCM900 that shat itself every time Tom tried to apply the "big muff" to the sound. So when the music should have sounded louder, it ended up sounding quieter! What a pain! I couldn't get the drum kit to sit together in an ergonomically sensible lay out, and the snare skin looked older than Byōdō-in. No one seemed to be mixing us. Tom's vocals were too quiet, my snare wasn't cutting through. It took us two songs to really lock in, and by the end of the 5th song, I was quite tired from struggling against my injury and my less than ideal set up.

Lesson to be learned from this: soundcheck. YOU MUST SOUNDCHECK. It doesn't matter if everyone has to wait for a few minutes. It's better for all concerned if you soundcheck.

I'm not too disappointed because I think we still did a fairly intense and fierce looking performance, and those three songs in the middle had enough smack down in them to make up for the three that sandwiched them, but I would have liked to have done better.

That said, after the gig, the venue owner asked us to do another show in March. So, we went from "Last show" to "not last show" again! And then we got a call from a dude we met at the gig on Wednesday night asking us to do another show in Kyoto in April. People seem to like us even when we're not firing on all cylinders. How strange.

But I suppose that's it. Music is a powerful force. Surprising. Thought changing. Strong. Emotional. Physical. That's kind of what Thrall is about. Creating something Thrall inducing. To put yourself into a sort of trance and let the music overwhelm you, and your audience. When it works, it is truly gob-smacking. When it doesn't work, it's just another band.

I'm off to another Zeni Geva show tonight. I'm really excited about seeing them again. The last show was so good, and this show is at a much vibier venue, so hopefully they'll be laying the smack down in quantities that won't be able to be resisted by the audience. It's my turn to lay down my will to someone else's sound and feel the power of their 'thrall.'