The gig that turned into what will be one of my most joyous memories of the Tokyo leg.
For much of my duration in Tokyo I’d been lucky enough to be housed by my friend Callum Grant. A legend of a man who is a budding musician himself. Many post show rituals would involve a quite whisky or two whilst the world would slowly be put to rights. Often we would bypass some of the issues considered to be pressing by some and the debate would stray into more personally urgent matters. For example the pros and cons to weather or not a zombie should be entitled the right to run.
Anyway aside from Preparation for Zday. We had a show together in the wonderful Cafe Mignon located a short bus ride from Callums apartment. There we were joined not just by Eric Gebow who is a steady drummer and experimental effects wizard but also Adam Erdossy who has joined me multiple times with his Baritone Sax.
And to add to the mix was Brett Gillen who opens the night with a short but very entertaining set. He plays as a part of the group Samishi Cowboys and has been actively writing and performing where ever his work takes him.
Next up was Callums Whisky Tales. Well Callum and Eric to be precise. Now about 2 3rds of the way through recording their debut album and fresh off of a host of recent shows in Tokyo the band have developed to be super tight. The atmosphere in the cafe was really intimate and the audience are so closely involved in the performance that Callum’s ukulele songs really worked wonders for the atmosphere. Callum also embraced the intimacy well and invited audience member Shoichi to contribute to the songs on Guitar and a self made recorder looking device.
Erics playing on his pre war vintage kit were tasteful and methodical yet spontaneous enough to work in audience clap alongs and at one point a duet with Shoichi with he and Eric both playing Omnichords.
By the time it came to my set I was honestly overwhelmed with the turn out for the show and with the feeling that a great collection of people were crossing paths and that I was lucky enough to be a part of it. Member of the audience included Kodo Drummers who were in town with their own performances.
Eric joined me on the kit for the first couple of songs before Daniel Karras stepped into improvise.
I blasted through a couple more numbers with Daniel and we were then joined by Adam. Shouichi was also a guest musician for the duration of my set adding lines and textured to my set on a host of various instruments.
The set was mostly older material in order to give the guest musicians the possibility of having a slight if only distant connection to the material.
A brief moment or two of the night are captured here from Callums iPhone. You can get a perspective of just how small Cafe Mignon is and also you see that the entire night was a dreamscape soundtrack for Adam’s baby son who managed to sleep right through the whole thing 🙂
Stuart O'Connor 
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