Out again last night, this time to Haus de Dekadanz, a goth night in Akasaka. Getting there, through the rain, was not as difficult as I imagined, my sense of direction was taking me the right way but I didn’t trust it and headed off track. A brief stop to look at the map, back to find a series of black clads heading in the direction I was expecting. Then off, on a little loop of a road into a deeply residential looking area, round the corner, and there it is.
Now, how do I get in? Try the lift, after a little handwaving negotiation with a couple of Japanese guys we arrive on the third floor to discover an empty foyer with no sign of an event happening. Back down to the entrance lobby, try the stairs. Theres a pay desk tucked away in the corner, in just the right position that its obscured if the actual door to the venue is open, so people arriving as a paying customer is entering just follow them into the venue without even noticing the desk.
When I get inside there is a DJ on stage when I enter playing “Church of no return”, its always a good sign when you recognise the song playing as you arrive, but by the time I’d gotten out of my coat the song was over and we were into some things I didn’t know.
Once again, I’m one of the few people with a band tshirt on – Nekromantiks ‘happy stitch people’ shirt today – the other is my Argentinian friend who is wearing a black metal shirt of some kind but I can’t make it out in the dim light. Admittedly there were only around forty people there anyway but that was a nice number for a venue of that size.
A couple of Fernandos friends were there, Alex and his girlfriend, they had recently moved to Tokyo from London, Alex seemed to spend much of the night reminiscing about slimelight and how the goth scene isn’t so good here. In some ways I agree, but somehow the scene here suits me better, I’m too old to be out clubbing every week so having something going on once or twice a month is about the pace I can deal with. And the music here is more to my task, the London scene has drifted off into the dance / gabba scene, which is nice music but I just can’t take that pace any more.
Anyway, it seems Alex was mostly into the kind of stuff that played back home.
The djs swap around, the girl who was playing when I arrived wanders up to me and says “I rike that” pointing at my tshirt, and I notice that behind the headphone strap (headphones don’t go *over* the head when you’ve got hair like that) she actually has a really scary painted on stitch smile. We spoke a little about Nekromantik, she was impressed that I saw them four times (they’re just a band, y’know, its not like I was obsessed with them) and scurried off to try to get the dj to play some.
Here the djs don’t do requests, they seem to play entirely for their own pleasure and appear even not to be particularly bothered about how many people are dancing, so I didn’t really expect for it to happen. All the while I was thinking ‘please let there be only one Nekromantik’. She bounds back to show me some photos of when she went to New York.
Once again, as the night went on, the number of Japanese guys there dwindled, there was a reasonable balance when I arrived but none left by about 330. They didn’t take all the cute girls with them, so I’m not complaining. This is something I don’t understand yet – why this demographic shift?
“You’re a psuedo-Jesus monster” – bounce, she did it! They’re playing Honeysucker… time to jump around.
All in all, a good night. The dj was cute in a “I can’t help staring at your scary painted smile” way, no idea what she really looked like. The music was good (I must see if I can find a set list somewhere, lots of good things I don’t know). The surround sound system is just weird, since it only seems to kick in for a few of the songs as most are recorded only in stereo.
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