Boris and Greenmachine

[steve eldritch]

Dave and I are going to see Boris and Greenmachine kick off their Japan tour at the Shimokitazawa Shelter tonight. I did an interview with them a few weeks back and I asked their label manager if I could come to the show tonight and take photos of the band to put up with the interview. She's nice and besides doing all the in between work for the interview she also helped procure advance tickets for us in case the show sells out, but she asked us not to take flash photography because they'll be filming a video(!!!?) tonight during Boris' set and aslo informed me that I've got to clear any photos I use on the site with the band in advance.

This is strange for me because I've never HAD to ask permission to use any of the photos I've taken before. That's not saying that I haven't asked in certain instances. I made sure that I got permission to put up the multitude of live shots I got of AsamixJuice simply because she's in her birthday suit in half of them(the most heavily visited page on the site....) and on a similar note, I actually got an e-mail several days ago from Tatsu Mikami from Church of Misery about the photos I had of him naked and drunk at one of their shows last year(see the show reviews on the zine). The second I saw the first line of his e-mail about said photos I figured he was going to conclude by asking me to nicely(his letter was very, very politely written)remove the offending photographs. Instead, he asked for copies for band use!! What the hell?

So it can't really be helped that this Boris pre-approval thing is sitting sort of strange on me. Any Boris photos you see on the zine in the next few months will be Boris approved for you saftey. Just thought you should know that.

Besides all that, I'm stoked beyond words to actually see Boris AND Greenmachine play live. I've been a huge fan of this Greenmachine for a long while now and was beyond dissapointed to find out that they had broken up way back when I first moved here to Japan. I'm going to try and keep the beer consumption to a minimum tonight so I can remember it all. Photos and a review of the show should be up in a couple of weeks after I get settled during my vacation time.

The new Boris "Evil Stack" shirt is one of the coolest spoof designs I've ever seen. I may actually fork over the 2500‰~ and get it tonight. HAIL VENOM!!



homepage1.nifty.com/boris/top.html

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[voided]

so Steve please details on this show (Boris/ Greenmachine)...and who are the current players for Greenmachine?? Datsu on drums and orig. guitar player/ vocalist?? do they have new CD's??

ohh i wouldn't fret much over the Boris approval thing..I just think they are perfectionist to some extent and like to have say over the visuals for their projects when possible...after all they all did go to art school, and if you look over thier website and releases they do have an eye for design

[steve eldritch]

I'll have a slightly more detailed show review on the zine later this week, but seeing as it's only a day old and I'm so drunk now as to qualify retarded, I'll go ahead and write what I remember about the show now. This may actually end up on the site if I'm pleased with it.

Fist of all, Shimokitazawa Shelter is the first fucking club in this country that I had trouble finding, despite a detailed fucking map and directions from their website. Once we got there we were even more fucked up over the overall smallness of the club. I mean, this was fucking small. Fucking American living room small. That an the stage was 3 feet high and had a big fucking bar keeping people at bay. Good for stage diving purposes, but this wasn't the sort of club to draw people wont to do unruly shit like that.

Upon getting up to the door and paying more than I've ever paid for a live show in Japan or elsewhere, despite the fact Dave and I were on the advance discount ticket list, we saw a large(LARGE) crowd of sheep flocked around the merch table. I've been to a lot of shows here and outside of Japan and I've NEVER seen so many people lined up at a fucking merchandise table before. It made me want to fucking cry. Not only that, ...... actually, I won't mention that. Ignore the last sentence. I drained my two tall beer filled bladder and Dave and I took spots at the front of the stage.

Greenmachine took the stage and delivered one of the most flawless live shows I've ever seen. No shit, it was like a goddamn Backstreet Boys concert they were so "on". You'd think they were playing straight from their D.A.M.N. and Earth Beater albums. It was amazing. Sound, performance, everything. I twas perfect. They played nigh on an hour and called it quits. The fucking Electric Wizard/Cavity of Japan. I'm so happy this band got back together. From what I could tell it is still the original members. Having never seen the original members before and not having actually asked the bad, but I did ask a random dick in the crowd that said they were the original three, I must assume that they were. They finished, I turned to Dave and said, "That was fully worth the price of admission. I could leave now happy." I really didn't think their performance could be topped. I was proven wrong.

Boris slooooooowly took the stage due to their having more equipment and effects to set up than I thought possible by the laws of physics, and eventually started playing. During this set up the crowd pushed towards the stage and started making me feel uncomfortable and too close to humankind. I remedied this foul feeling with copious new amounts of alcohol in the form of several 100 yen sake juice boxes. I drunkenly emmitted hatred for the people around me while confusedly watching the band set up. During this time I noticed 6 seperate video cameras taking position around the club, and I'm not talking about your typical home video handheld deals but several thousand dollar, I make more money than I should type of amateur movie deals. One of these cameras, I say camera because that's all I really saw, squirmed it's way right up next to me to which I merely sneered and told to, "fuck off" to which it promptly ignored. I felt like I was in an Orwell novel.

Drunk enough to make a complete fool of myself, the band got the plethora of equipment together and started to play. They started out with the pre "heavy rocks" doom, sludge, to which I promtly got hard and started to enjoy myself for the short amount of time that I knew it would last. The sound was immense. I'll give Boris and their army of equipment this much, they've got fucking sound. After the 3-5 mintues of doom bliss they broke into the sludge rock that would permeate the rest of their set. It was a good fucking set. After taking a bunch of flashless photos, erasing half of them because they came out shit and then taking more until I was satisfied I put the camera away and concentrated on violently knocking back the dick behind me that was hopping his crotch up against my ass in time to the music. This, surprisingly, and I should have known better, only made him/her push harder against me. This was my first hint that these people were looking for an excuse to let loose and fully enjoy the Boris. It's coming.

Boris fans are polite. Not that other fans of other music in Japan aren't polite, but these are normal folks that probably live normal lives and like heavy type rock and bands with attractive female guitarists type of people. I was actually able to go take a piss in the middle of the set and make my way back to my exact space at the front of the stage with no problems. The guy that took my spot even stepped aside and gave me a little bow when he moved out of my way. I'm going to inflate my ego and just assume this guy knew who I was and knew that I was not one to be fucked with. Represent. But in reality he was just a nice guy. Boris played more of "Heavy Rocks" and everyone enjoyed, including me, and I made my way to the bar to cash in my beer ticket. Upon recieving my fuel and drinking over half of it I made my way back to the stage. Boris then broke into their song "Korosu" which caused one guy to start flailing about wildly, into me, spilling my beer, and causing a big fucking ruckus as a result. In my own defense, I didn't start it and I didn't push the frenzy of bodies longer than was necessary. I just wanted to enjoy the band. And enjoy them I did.

So the show ended and I informed Dave that I was going to meet Enju from the Inoxia record label and thank her for setting up the interview with them and reserving our tickets for us and try to meet the band while I was at it, because I have yet to interview a band by e-mail that I hadn't presonally met also. But unfortnately, the crowd around the merchandise table, where Enju was working, was larger than before the show and no matter how long I hung around like a fucking idiot it never let up so I took an early leave.

So yes, it was fun. I wouldn't hesitate to go see either band live again. Boris blew my expectations away and Greenmachine put a grin on me that made most people look at my like I was going to slice their throat open with a hair pin. I wish I had gotten to meet both bands but looking back, I was so shit housed that it was probably a good damn thing I didn't. They were too busy hauling out their thousands of dollars worth of gear anyway and they might have asked me to help them(no they wouldn't) and I would have been obliged to drop some of it in spite.

So the show was fucking amazing. I had a great fucking time and despite the restrictions put upon my photo taking of the band I got to flip the bird "punk fuckin' rawk" style to one of the on-stage video cameras(I got a fucked up look for that one) and a photo of Wata from Boris that rivals any and all photos ever taken of any band member of any band in the history of music. No shit. Most of the photos I took came out shit but this one was gold. If the band/managment approves it I'll have it on the site and maybe some extra cash in my pocket it they decide to use it for personal use. Whoopee.

As for your question about Greenmachine and new material. They had both the DAMN and Earth Beater CDs up for sale, each remastered and with "+3" on them. I didn't check the track listing due to the crowd but I assume that means there were 3 new songs on each. Might be worth checking their website for more information.

Blah....

[voided]

great stuff..yes i went to Shelter while in Japan also to see Boris play and yes with out native Tokyo guidance wouldn't have ever found that tiny tiny club..impressive however with that small club was the size of the soundboard....and the major sets of lights..crazy stuff....and your right the 100 yen sake juice boxes you can buy at the AM PM mini marts rule!! sounds fun wish i was there

[steve eldritch]

The map I had was good and I'm pretty familiar with the Shimokitazawa area, it's just I missed it the first time we walked by it due to being sort of hidden off the road a bit with no signs to inform you what lies beneath. That and the few people milling around outside looked like your typical hip shimokitazawa crowd. I'm used to going to clubs with crusties, metal heads and fashion punks standing around. Easier to spot.

Still, Shelter and two other equally as small clubs I went to recently (Okubo Hot Shot and Shinjuku Urga) though smaller in size than their counterparts, have better sound.