Booked! Blood Rite Vol. 8

Bitching about not having enough time to "properly" do a show is a hobby of mine that I'm quite passionate about, so when the opportunity came up to get something together very last minute at a club I'd never been to, you better believe I pounced on that like a drunken, mangey cat going after super-mice its hallucinated in its liquor-fever.



It actually wasn't so terrible an opportunity. I mean, yeah, I more or less require 4 months lead time on a show in order to make sure that everything gets done, and done right, so booking a show with less than a month to put everything together was, perhaps, a bit cocky, but I had the guys over at Legion of Andromeda on the hook for a show anyway, so that was 1 band I didn't have to worry about from the start. On top of that, I met the guys in Neuroticos at Blood Rite Vol. 7, who have just moved up to Tokyo from Hiroshima, and had been wanting to get them on a bill since. I reached out to them about playing the show and it all went pretty smoothly.

Of course Retch is on the bill as well (not that a Blood Rite requires us to play, it just tends to happen like that, and especially considering the time limitations, it made sense), so from the start I really only had 1 band to worry about for this event. That band turned out to be one that I've been getting to know a lot better lately, the schizophrenic avant-grinders Self Deconstruction. Very excited to have them on a bill again, especially because this time Retch will be on the bill with them from the start (the last time we played with them was on the Blood Rite Vol. 6 bill when Retch had to fill in last-minute for Danish death metallers Undergang, who were stuck somewhere in Southeast Asia because of a typhoon). Great folks, SxDx, and they got back to me pretty quickly with their answer, which leads me to the next talking point.

So it only took a few days for SxDx to get back to me about playing this particular gig, but part of the reason I typically aim for about 4 months to organize a show is that it can take bands a whole lot of fucking time to figure out if they can play a gig or not. A week? Sure, that's kind of understandable, but more than that (as frequently happens) is, in my own honest opinion, not something I can understand very easily, and, if I think about it hard enough, it borders on being mystical - how the fuck can you take so much time for what is, at its base, a yes/no question? A band of 4 people has no more work to do than:

1. Bring up the topic of playing a show in a conversation with all band members
2. Consider the other bands, the promoter, and the venue
3. Consider your schedule
4. Make a decision based on (2.) and (3.)
5. Inform the promoter of that decision

Factoring in jobs, this should take a day, max. But it doesn't. It takes 2 weeks, or longer, and while it used to be something to get angry about, at some point you realize that its just the way things are and unless you put significant effort into it, its not going to change. Unfortunately, (again, factoring in jobs) I don't have enough time to worry about following up with bands more than I already do, and I certainly don't make enough money putting these shows together to worry about changing this aspect of the scene. Maybe that'll change by itself... Maybe people'll start to care about this shitty blog... Maybe they'll start to get more interested in what's going on in the murky depths of the Japanese underground... Maybe more people will go to shows!... Maybe that'll miraculously funnel more money to BEnB & Blood Rite!!... Maybe, some day, Bloody Ears & Beer, and Blood Rite Productions, and Retch will be this huge & wonderful & influential powerhouse and we'll have both the time and money to address not just this little issue of needing to commit the time to stay on top of bands to get a timely reply from them, but the bigger problems with the world of music in Japan, from promotion & visibility to management & logistics!!!...

...

One can dream. In the mean time, check this show out. It'll be great.

March 27th, 2015: Blood Rite Vol. 8
@ Nakano Heavy Sick Zero
w/ Retch, Legion of Andromeda, Neuroticos, Self Deconstruction
¥1800 + drink
645PM open, 710PM start