Next Stop on the Shikoku Express

LEEWAY and Thirsty Chords~

 The last two weekends have been busy with shows, and this next weekend marks the last in making our rounds of Shikoku (3.17 Ehime, 3.25 Kochi, 3.31 Kagawa 4.7 Tokushima). While our Kochi show did not have the best turn-out (and me and Matto had to pay 8000 yen out of pocket because we live in the prefecture?! Just because T. set up a poorly-attended show should not mean we have to pay him for it! >:| ), it was still a fun show, and for once we didn't have to get on the highway and drive.

The delicious Kagawa Udon from WARAYA (わら屋)

The place we practiced in was soooo tight and most of the amps were broken/looked like they'd been hidden in a closet for 10 years. THOUGH! It did have a piano in the room that I got to play <3

It also had two drum sets (???!)

This last weekend we had a show in Takamatsu at this little place called Blowin'Bar. It's a really new live house/bar and it even still had the smell of "new" floating around inside. We all got to the city early in order to eat Kagawa Udon (<3<3<3), see the castle ruins, and practice for an hour and a half at this sketchy little studio. Our usual supporting guitarist had a show with his other band the same night, so we asked someone else to help us out and needed a little more time to get everything solid before the show (plus! We decided to do a cover from Alkaline Trio, "Nose Over Tail").

Cheap Audio guitarist doing his acoustic set.

 There were only three sets for the whole show (Us, Parkmates, and the guitarist from Cheap Audio doing an acoustic set), but surprisingly a lot of people showed up, and the after party was a blast :) I love it when we don't have to go anywhere for the after party and we can just leave stay in the venue and be goofy.

寝っちゃったかな〜

The next day me and Matto toured around Takamatsu for awhile with the guitarist from Parkmates. I've been to Takamatsu three times now and have never properly driven around the city. We ended up eating more udon (curry udon FTW!), going to an amazing natural food store (that had really good soy milk, soy yogurt, and even had dairy-less margarine!!!), and walking around Ritsurin Kouen, this gorgeous park near his house that's a popular tourist location. It had some of the prettiest wooden bridges and flowered paths I've ever seen! The Sakura were also just beginning to bloom so people were out hanami-ing in the open stretches of lawn. I can't wait to do hanami!! If it's possible, and the weather is nice, I'm hoping that we'll all be able to picnic together Sunday afternoon in Tokushima~

栗林公園 in Takamatsu

LEEWAY-Tin Cans Calling Home, First 11 Track Album

Matsuyama Live, "ヤバい夜になるゼー！"

Leeway's second show was once again, speechlessly fun. I don't think I've laughed so much in one day in awhile. <3 The four of us got to hang out in Matsuyama, wandering the streets, drinking beer, taking purikura, and talking about Tanuki (Tokushima is apparently famous for Tanuki! We learned about the Tanuki war and the top three Tanuki in Tokushima!!). The day started out wonderfully when we drove from rainy-depressing Kochi into sun-shiny Matsuyama to meet up with Speed Red and Gyoza Face for some lunch. Noontime beer~

We went second out of the seven bands playing that night. Sanhose was really good and I loved that the guitarist and bassist's instruments were the colors of Christmas (BRIGHT red and BRIGHT green). The Miscasts were also really really good and I'm sooo happy I finally got to see them live (since I had only heard their seven-inch up until this point). Turncoat went last and played a bunch of their really good new songs (Mall said they are trying to make a full-length soon! Can't wait~). It was also nice having the after party at the venue (GREAT tempura <3), being able to hang out with everyone freely without being constrained to seats in a restaurant, and being able to play music from an ipod.

NO PEEING! 恥ずかしくないの？！

Purikura <3

Even Obama approves of noontime beer!

Sanhose and their Christmas-colored instruments.

The Miscasts!

After party in Hoshizora Jett with loads of tempura

Aren't we adorable?

TGIF!!!

Phew~ What a busy week it's been! After an exhausting 8 hours in the studio on Sunday, I've had to phone and e-mail with our band members in Tokushima everyday about what things we want fixed on our new 11 song album. What sort of parts we want mixed better, what parts we want brought to the forefront, what vocals we want softened, what we should do with the lyrics booklet/cover designs I drew, etc.... I even had to drive all the way back to Tokushima on Wednesday to re-record one track (a song where I have aprox 30 seconds of vocals) because the computer decided to delete the damn thing (though our producer cutely said it was because the computer was so surprised a foreigner was singing Japanese into it that it's brain died for a minute). Although, I must admit that even though I had to drive 4 hours round trip to record 30 seconds of vocals, I'm really really proud of what we created, I got the first burned copy of the tracks, and I was taken out to dinner by our producer and fed the most amazing yakitori (that, and getting our guitarist drunk enough to start spouting hilarious English phrases like "Oh Gyoza, get into my mouth. I won't use my teeth, I'll just use my tongue. Get into my dirty mouth" is always worth a 2 hour drive).

Other than that craziness, we plan on having our last practice tomorrow before looking forward to 4 weekends in a row of shows!! Yay!! After this month of shows, we'll have completed the island of Shikoku ;)

3/17: Ehime-Ken; Matsuyama, Hoshizora Jett

Frustration Never Disappear

Miscasts (京都)

Sanhose (京都)

Leeway (高知／徳島)

Turncoat (愛媛)

etc...

3/25: Kochi-Ken; Kochi, Chaotic Noise K-Club

 黒死国

Leeway (高知／徳島)

Thirsty Chords (徳島)

etc...

3/31: Kagawa-Ken; Takamatsu, Blowin'Bar

Parkmates Farewell Live

Leeway (高知／徳島)

Parkmates (香川)

Cheap Audio (香川)

etc...

4/7: Tokushima-Ken, Tokushima, Crowbar

 Leeway's "Tin Cans Calling Tokushima" CD Release Party

 Leeway (高知／徳島)

What's What (岡山)

Parkmates (香川)

Hushpuppy (徳島)

So anyway.... even though it's not all completely finished, I want to share one track from our album with you guys! The song is called "Friday Night Drinking Song" and it is destined to be the first track on our album. The sample at the beginning is from "Blues Brothers" if you weren't sure~ ;)

Friday Night Drinking Song; Leeway

Live @ Crowbar

After-party, everyone hung around the live house and we sang to Arase's acoustic playing.

This past Saturday marked the first show my band, LeeWay, has gotten to perform! Everything about the night was spectacular, and I don't think I've been to a better show than that one (and I'd say that even if my band hadn't been playing). The line-up was amazing (three great Tokushima bands and two great Tokyo bands), everyone was in a good mood, and the place was the most packed I've ever seen it!

We went fourth in a line-up of six bands. At first, we were all kinda nervous about it because that meant we'd have to hold off on the drinks and just let the nerves build up over the course of three other bands.... but honestly once we got up on stage to start setting up and tuning, the nerves just kind of melted away and our set went amazingly. The bass player from FOUR TOMORROW even jumped off the stage and started crowd surfing!!

FOUR TOMORROW went second. Second time I've seen them and they were amazing <3

 After the show, instead of going out to an izakaya as usual, we all stayed at Crowbar and had a birthday party for the guitarist from THE MADWIFE (the band that set the show up in the first place). Everyone sang happy birthday and there was a very very cute cake presented~ Afterward, we all stood around the stage, singing songs to acoustic guitar (the best part of this genre, pop punk, is that even in Japan, everyone knows English songs like Weezer, Jawbreaker and Blink 182). Perfect perfect night.

Our set~

Tuning before hand

Those "speed red" glasses (originally our drummer's) really got around that night. Me with Spalding from What-A-Night's

Sea's b-day was also Saturday so we took her along to the show <3

THE MADWIFE went after us

Kana fell asleep on an amp after the show

But during the show, she showed off speed red too

ELMOC, being amazing as usual

Hikko was sooo drunk she fell over onto stage once, into the crowd once, and into an amp once <3

More speed red

After the show, presenting Ayaka with flowers and cake for her birthday.