ben frost tokyo weblog
jan 2004 1 2
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busy week last week. have been hanging out with kaoru, she is cool. yesterday we went to the Taro Okamoto Museum in omotesando. for about 600 yen u can look through Taro's studio and look at his paintings and sculptures. the paintings were a bit so so, but his screenprints and sculptures are pretty cool.
did rehearsal tonight at studio for abikyokan. energy level is a little low after last night. it was a great night at TRASH DANDY. my performance was a recreation of the 1981 president reagan asassination attempt. got some good photos and it went to schedule pretty well. there was a decent turn out and it was great to see a lot of friends i hadn't seen for a while. went to womb in shibuya afterwards and ended up at the end of a party in harajuku.
right - dj the jet plane played some weird ass tracks
below left - ben schwartz does beat poetry with awesome energy whipping the audience into a frenzy.
below right - steffi jungling doing her piece 'this is why' - she cut some hair from each person who came throught the door , then gave a speech outlining the german fable that if u eat a piece of hair of someone they will fall in love with you. she put the hair into a glass of wine and drank it. maybe her phone is running off the hook as we speak.
listening to the recording of my band's last rehearsal. its cool. really raw. the experience of being in a practice space and just belting stuff out is so cathartic and fun. i wish we had started this on the day i arrived, cause now im on my way out and its kind of sad, because i can see the potential and i wont get to be a part of it. but i think that putting all of yourself into any project is what its about, and this then leads on to other things in the future, and u grow and different things apply to different applications. went to the dentist today in kayamacho, and had the stitches taken out of my mouth. seems to be all healing well and back to normal more - though i can still feel this big holes in my jaw where the teeth were. work lately has been a blast. lots of fun when the students are upbeat and or female and gorgeous. . hmm i fall in love every day, its too much sometimes. . photos here are of tokyo tower in kamacho which is one stop before roppongi - and i think the first time cushla and i met to talk about TRASH DANDY in nihombashi - maybe it was the second time - the alcohol slurrrrs me into non understanding. oyster magazine in australia has asked for some social pages photos to be taken for the gig - its starting to become this massive monster - and i havent even really worked out what im doing for the performance. i have been researching a lot about the ronald reagan assassination and have some good angles, but equipment is becoming a hassle. i need an OHP and its difficult to find. im going to ask every one of my students tomorrow i think. man im gonna miss this place, but i guess i can always come back if i feel like it, but by that time everything will have changed - but that i think is the nature of tokyo - its always changing... im doing a show in san francisco in september. theyve asked me to be there in person to hopefully do a performance - which would be awesome, but i just dont think i can swing it. money money money. ahhh. . when i get back to oz i know i cna churn out lots of work which will keep me going for another 6 months at least overseas, but this idea of me going back and living in qld and concentrating solely on the painting is kind of daunting. it will be cool though. . have to buy a toy gun tomorrow and get my act together for saturday night. very sad grant wont be able to come. the electric six rocks. rehearsals again on sunday. a club called london next friday night. the coming months will be debaucherous. i cant believe they let me teach children. if only they knew .. haha
yesterday i had a meeting with cushla in asakusa about a performance art gig for saturday the 17th. the place is pretty cool. the back room gallery is period japanese - the whole place was one of only a few places that survived ww2 bombing in the area. really nice. check it out ef gallery. they had a textile show in there which was quite interesting. afterwards i went and took some photos of the cherry blossoms by the river and had a look in the big temple there. so many foreigners there - quite the tourist spot. so on the 17th im going to recreate the 1981 ronald reagan asassination attempt. metropolis magazine is doing a blurb which should be good. see what happens.
asakusa below
friday night went to shibuya east for the ninja tune party. coldcut, hexstatic, kid koala - hextstatic was amazing. the visuals were synched up with the beats on these massive screens. spent too much money though, and took me all day yesterday to recover. abikyokan practice tonite in rehearsal studio, should be great. am getting 2 wisdom teeth pulled this thursday. japanese dentists seem ok and have it all together - it will cost me 70, 000 for both teeth which i think is comparible to any where else.
