Day 1
Finally in Japan! It's been a lot of Traveling the last week. I came home to Helsinki in the middle of the night a couple of days ago. Next day I had a band practice, a meeting and then off to Japan.
I was running around like speedy Gonzales trying to get everything packed, send the single to printing, feeding my boa snake etc. I probably forgot half of my stuff at home.
Now I'm on the bus on my way to the hotel together with my producer, some Heavy Metal dudes and some people from Music Export Finland.
I'm glad the event doesn't start until tomorrow. Otherwise the Japanese record labels would probably mistake me for a sleep walking zombie rather than a rock/pop artist.
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| My window view |
Day 2
Fighting the jet lag
One heavy jet lag! Rise and shine. I'm so glad I bought a pair of big sunglasses a few weeks ago.
I woke up 3 am feeling weird, sick and tired but not able to sleep. After rolling around in the bed for four hours I called Eric who was awake too and we went out for a very early breakfast.
We found a bar that was closing at 8 am in the morning and there I had the strangest breakfast of my life. A clam soup with ham in it.
A few coffees later and to my big surprise I fell asleep like a baby when I got back to the hotel room.
I woke up a couple of hours before the Reception party organized by Musex.
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| A couple of wonderful Japanese girls I met at the after party. |
Even though my body was longing for some more sleep we went to see some gigs followed by the Houko Music Night after party. The parties are usually what connects people the best.
We had a very interesting taxi experience on the way back. The taxi driver kept on babbling to me in Japanese. First I tried to explain that I didn't understand but after he kept on talking I just replied with "hai" which just made him babble even more.
I heard many Japanese use the word Hai and I think it means something like ok or yes.
Eric filmed the whole thing so I'll post it later.
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| One fancy bathroom. |
Day 3
Sprayed in the face
A jet lag + after party is not the best combination if you wanna feel like a piece of sunshine next morning. I certainly didn't. I guess one reason is because I woke up around 3am. I rolled around in the bed for a couple of hours and when I was finally falling asleep again the toilet suddenly started to make a very loud wheezing noise.
Half asleep I got up to try to do something about it. Next to the toilet seat were a lot of random buttons (in Japanese). I took a shot and pressed one of them, which certainly didn't help.
What happens is that a plastic stick comes out of the toilet and sprays water right in my face. Good morning Jessica!! I feeling like an idiot but the whole situation was so random I couldn't do anything but laugh. It reminded me of Mr. Bean.
I thought I was done with the whole getting sprayed in the face thing, but believe it or not an hour later the same kind of thing happened but in public.
I went to have breakfast with Eric and with the meal they served me mayonnaise in two small weird plastic boxes attached to each other.
There was an image showing "break it in half". So I did, but the wrong way around so instead of getting it on my meal I got a wonderful mayonnaise mustache. I should have gotten paid for entertaining the restaurant guests. Not only was I the only blonde person but I was also wearing my Onepiece.
They probably thought I was from a different planet. Another good morning laugh.
Other than these two random situations the day went pretty smoothly. I went to see a beautiful Japanese garden in Tokyo before going to the "Metal Attack" show later in the evening. It was a four hour dose of Heavy Metal by both Finnish and Japanese bands. The audience went crazy!
After the show I went to a sushi restaurant with a guy from King Records. It was a great meeting and the sushi was probably the best I ever had. Tomorrow we're meeting again at an music business event.
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| For some reason some people call Eric "egg". I'm not sure where the inside joke comes from but he also has a blog with that name http://fmeggblog.blogspot.com/ Long story short, he felt very at home when he found these eggman signs. |
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| A beautiful park in Tokyo |
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| The audience went crazy |
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| It wouldn't take it's eye off me |
Day 4
Meet the Labels
I met a lot of very interesting people today. I had random meetings for 6 hours. It was quite intense. I came to this place where they have tables for each company and the whole day through people from different labels came to visit and if they were interested they would come to your table for a meeting.
I met a lot of distributors, promoters, labels etc. Looking good!
It also turned out that Chip, the base player from Enuff Znuff who is a good friend with my Eric had suggested that we contact his friend Ryo at King Records. Eric thought it would be good to talk with the guy I met at Midem first since he is also working for King Records and we were meeting up with him anyways. It turned out that it was the same person, I just didn't know his nickname was Ryo. What a small world.
We had a good laugh about it called Chip during our meeting. Except for us waking him up he was very happy to talk with his old friends.
After the meetings we went to an amazing restaurant with Eric friend who happened to be in Tokyo. He has been working as a camera man for Eric when they were filming a documentary about how music can help people get through rough times. For instance they went into the war zone in Burma and lived with the soldiers in the jungle and interviewed them and recorded some of their music.
There were some other people joining us at the restaurant as well and I met a very successful artist from Korea. We exchanged our music and talked about working together in the future.
I got back after 1 am in the morning and had the option to go to sleep or have a beer with the guys from the band called "Swallow the Sun". I chose to go for a beer.
I had a really good time and the guys were great. We got back to the hotel around 3 am and I realized it's no point to go to sleep since I would have to wake up 3 hours later to catch the flight. I took an ice cold shower and drank a lot of coffee and water in order to stay awake.
The weirdest thing is that at some point between 2-4 am there was an earthquake (5,2 on the richter scale) and I didn't notice a thing. I still don't know how it's possible, according to people the whole building was shaking.
After a long trip I finally got back to Finland. That night I slept like a baby.
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| It looks so much cooler in Japanese |
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| Having some Sake with some guys from "Swallow the Sun" The bar tender put this weird pearl hat on my head. |
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| Went to a seminar and learn a lot about the Japanese music market. |
