Thursday, September 13, 2012

Down in the Cave



Again, sorry about the lack of posting and commenting on people's blogs, a combination of business at work, busy at home with the small kids and the return of the summer heat keep my energy pretty low...

While walking home from the train today I had my iPod on, listening to an old playlist and the song Nine While Nine by the Sisters of Mercy started playing. Although I hold the song as one of the best songs ever made it's so firmly implanted in my mind that I rarely feel like I need to listen to it.

It made me recall a hot summer night close to 15 years ago when I was visiting Tokyo with a bunch of friends and a late night in the Shinjuku Kabukicho me and my buddy Henrik found a hole in the wall place that we thought seemed interesting due to the post-punk music band posters plastered around the entrance. The place was called "The Cave" if I'm not mistaken. My buddy was a guitar based indie music kinda guy while I was more of an EBM-head (Industrial music) but we had a common ground in that we both liked the classic old school goth bands.

The place was empty except for the bartender managing the place and was literally only 5 or so seats at the bar counter. The drinks were expensive as we were students, but for some reason this night we didn't care that much. The bartender handed us a book with a huge list of the songs she had on CD so we could pick which ones she should play. I remember me picking Nine While Nine and both of us agreeing that it was the best song ever made, we spent over 2 hours there drinking and going through Joy Division, The Cure, Siouxe and the Banshees and other post-punk goth bands although I remember some debate erupting as to whether the Fields of the Nephilim was good or not (me arguing for, him against).

Nothing particularly exciting or interesting happened that night, no girls, no strange encounters, just us listening to the music and talking; mostly about the music. Still, for some reason it's one of the nights out in Tokyo I remember the best. Good times.  

5 comments:

Will said...

From the cradle bars comes a beckoning voice...

Foggia said...

Sounds like a Kabukicho bar I know called "Mother" (after the Danzig song).
Good times to be had there, even without weird encounters.

Mr Blonde said...

Well, almost as good as the old and classic song "Welcome to Paradise" with good old Front242. Definitely worth returning to.

Mr. Salaryman said...

Will - Nice, but I must admit that I'm a weak fan at best of the Banshees... They did some brilliant stuff but a lot of it I find kinda boring...

Foggia - "Mother"! That's it! It wasn't called the "Cave", it was "Mother". Do you know if the place is still up and running?

Mr. Blonde - I'm a huge F242 fan, but c'mon, they've done much better stuff than "Welcome to Paradise", don't you think? Granted, I'm torn as to whether Tyranny (For you) or Front by Front is their masterpiece. I hold "Gripped by Fear" as their greatest song though!

Steve (Living in Japan) said...

You might be very busy... but at least you got another good article to read. :)

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