After more visits than I care to admit to Rocky Top for live bluegrass, it was finally time to try one of the other Ginza country music live venues. Nashville is the obvious contender (there’s also one near Yurakucho called, enticingly enough, Banjo, but I’m not sure if they hav bands or not), but I had avoided it because of the charge (Y2600). On balance, I would still say you should go to Rocky Top due to the lower charge, bigger beers, and more intimate setting. But if you’ve gotta have country and not bluegrass for your ironic-American-music-in-Japan fix, this’ll do ya.
One thing I disliked about it is the shape of the room – long and narrow, making it hard to see all the way to the front. The seating is all benches, and they just slot people in as they arrive.
Something about the pictures hanging from the walls at angles makes this shot look almost fisheyed, doesn’t it?
The band was Morishita Noburu and Friends, where Friends included drums, bass and pedal steel. As expected, a quick chat revealed that Ozaki san got his steel from Fuzzy out in Tachikawa; I don’t think there’s any other place to get steels in Japan (just in case you needed one). He was a good player, as was bassist Mike Dunn (although, despite his full-denim outfit, he seemed like he’d rather be playing funk). Morishita san played a lot of slow songs, weepers we call ’em, with the odd uptempo bit like Love’s Gonna Live Here. He was cool with Peahen’s requests, and played some extra Willie and Hank for us.
The back bar is kinda pretty. We was sat across from it, so there was plenty of time to take pitchers. Not shown is the huge wall of kept bottles of whiskey; the done thing seems to be getting a bottle for Y7000 or so (4 Roses Black was on special for Y6500 though, so get your orders in quick).
Next to us was a wacky guy in a cheap suit with greased back hair and tinted glasses. He kept apologizing in his three words of English every time he lit up a smoke. When he went to the bathroom, Peacock grabbed a quick picture of his cigarette case; you’d think he was rolling doobies, woun’cha? Let’s go chill wit’ Mary indeed.
This is just a great picture. ‘Paul’ was an aging and somewhat slick Japanese businessman who was entertaining a colleague. I like to think this sums it up, or would if you could see the incongruity of Paul and his bottle.
No weed, no life!
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Ginza with my Gaijin – makes for a fun night!