Seemed like months ago that Swannie and I planned this; in fact it was 6 weeks, which is a pretty good lead time. He’s an important guy though. Anyhoo, Abbey Road is Tokyo’s best Beatles live bar. I say this with no knowledge of what the other(s) are like; the only one I know is […]
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Country House, Akasaka
After repeated success and enjoyment at Rocky Top, and really quite serious letdown at Nashville, I’ve been gun-shy about trying more country music live venues in Tokyo. Part of the problem is that, in so many ways, my economic mentality is mired in the 90’s (or so). I think a concert ticket should cost about […]
35 Annual Chiba Bluegrass Festival, Sakura
Saturday was clear and hot, until it rained like hell and started steaming, and the agenda was for nothing but renting a car, doing some driving, and listening to American country music played by unironic Japanese men. And some women. If you don’t know what bluegrass is, this post is unlikely to change your life. […]
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Rocky Top, Ginza
It’s a good thing none of you showed up – Rocky Top was jammed last night. Kataoka san was nice enough to let me rock out on his 30’s original 5-string RB-1, and Kojima san stepped up to sing a song for a change. Actual playing starts around 1:15; I’m too lazy to edit the […]
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Nashville, Ginza
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 […]
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Sunny Spot, Ikebukuro
Emboldened by success at Rocky Top, I decided to branch out and explore some of Tokyo’s other live country music venues. Sunny Spot is on the west side of Ikebukuro, and turns out to be a smallish, friendly one-room bar in an odd basement that contains at least 3 live-music venues. And a decent sake […]
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Blue Drag, Takadanobaba
Takadanobaba, as we previously learned, is a funky sort of student-low end town, with tons of ramen and other down-market specialties. On the other hand, it also features several live music venues, and I went to one of them on Saturday. It’s well worth checking out if you’re at all into the style of music […]
Body and Soul, Minami Aoyama
Not strictly food. In fact, not very food at all. In fact, the food looks kinda crappy. But they have food, and plenty of drinks, and this is a nice thing in a tiny basement jazz club in out-of-the way Aoyama. Out-of-the-way means out-of-the-way. They have a big neon sign, but due to the vagaries […]