Can Never Say No to a Music Festival

Two weekends ago I made my way down to Kiryu Music Fronts (Japanese site, sorry), the annual music festival in my town, where local performers get to fill all the towns clubs at the same time, and I get to go to any of those clubs for the low price of ¥1000 ($8.75). It's kind of like SXSW if it were held in a small Japanese city and lacked all the overwhelming hype and crowds of Austin in March. In actuality though, the clubs this year were pretty empty compared to last. First of all, the festival last year was a whole weekend long, from Friday night to Sunday night; this year was only a Sunday night. Also the whatever crowd made it out to the festival were more than likely spread thinner than last year after the organizers expanded the number of participating clubs from four to seven.

The event itself aside, watching these Japanese bands in succession hammered home a point about Japanese culture that I have noticed in numerous other situations. Japan really is an incredibly paternalistic society. The dominance of males in music in the U.S. is apparent by how few women there are in bands. Or if there are women in bands, they're only singing and never touch an instrument. Even considering these facts, Japan keeps its women musicians at still farther flung fringes of musical society.

The group I liked the most, Epopsan, had four members: one guitarist (male), one singer/dancer (female), one keyboardist/producer/singer named Ogiwara (male), and one keyboardist/singer (female) who by the way was visibly pregnant. First of all, their music was electronic pop: they used a lot of melodies and thick, clean textures, but wouldn't shy away from letting a beat or loop run on its own for half a minute. Most of the music was prepared ahead of time and it seemed that it was played from and controlled by a production unit. So naturally, the person who came across as having the most power was Ogiwara, who controlled the prepared loops. In terms of traditional musicianship, the guitarist (who stood in a back corner of the stage while the two women flanked their Ogiwara in a line of three across the front of the stage) commanded the most respect. The pregnant keyboardist seemed to only play token hooks and some atmospheric parts, so she came across as number three in the band member hierarchy. And the last woman who danced and sung came in at number four.

The vocals didn't figure into the equation very significantly. However, that's where it starts to get interesting. Not only were all three of the singers underwhelming, but the women sung with thin, girly, and adolescent voices. So that's what clinched their bottom spots in ranking the visible importance of each band member. Their use of thin and weak voices is consistent with how Japanese women speak when in public, especially of those who work in service industries. Besides reinforcing their overall subservient role in society, this shrill voice is simply irritating.

But even though the girls of Epopsan used thin, weak voices, at least they sang in tune. The group that played before them - I don't remember the name, and I won't ever regret forgetting - had a pair of women in their 20s fronting a rhythm section of men. They not only used adolescent voices, but they couldn't stay in tune. There were in fact times when I cringed at notes that were absurdly flat.

Although some people worry about the role that women play in popular music in the U.S., only singing and having no role in the rest of the band's work of playing instruments, recording, and lugging around instruments, the situation in Japan is much worse considering that singing, the one thing they are expected to do, they are expected to do in a way that strips them of the power they're given when they stand at the front of the stage. Though I must say I do respect the keyboardist for performing and even dancing a little while pregnant.

Here are some videos of Epopsan.

Any literate person these days is sick of reading how we live in the iPod age or an iPod society or any of the other variations on the word iPod used as a sociological adjective. So forgive me for starting by stating just that. But the real truth of the matter is I'm not all that happy with some of the side-effects of how we listen to music now that everyone has an iPod. For one, there's just too much choice. And with all that music I had available on my iPod, I never really would listen to anything on repeat. I'd finish one album and then move on to the next, probably out of an obligation to hear as much of the music in my collection as I could. One of the reasons I use an old iPod shuffle when I go out is so I'm not overwhelmed by choice and can focus on a few records or songs for a week or two before moving on to something different.

Not only has this been a way to force myself to listen to all that music I download before I have a chance to forget about it, but it's brought the favorite song back into style. With no pressure to listen to every song I have in my collection, I'm more inclined to repeat songs. A couple of months ago, I was into "Who Do You Love" by Ted Leo. But the new favorite song that I'm celebrating now is "Coffee & TV" by Blur. Besides being a great pop song with an equally great video, I got into the song after Natasha dragged me onto an empty dance floor at my sister's wedding a couple of weeks ago while it was playing. Just a reminder of how context can make music an event so much more than just sound.

After I started using my iPod for a while, I started to feel nostalgic for the times when I only had two or three tapes to choose from when I wanted something to listen to. When I used to drive somewhere, the car I had only had a tape deck and AM/FM radio. So I was limited to only a few tapes that I copied from my broader music collection - at that time in CD format. Just like how in the They Might Be Giants documentary Gigantic: A Tale of Two Johns, Frank Black said that for a while in his car, he only had one tape that he was practically forced to listen to every time he drove somewhere. And that tape just happened to be They Might Be Giants' first record. But being constantly worried about my own authenticity, I'm now worried how artificial it is to keep using the Shuffle when I could afford and genuinely crave an iPod Touch.