SEE YOU IN HELL Japanese tour 2006
(from Profane Existence 52/53)
I play guitar in band called SEE YOU IN HELL. Between April 29th and May 7th 2006 we played 10 gigs in Japan and I am here to tell you more about it.
 
Intro
Let’s get straight to the point: Japanese tour isn’t something which can happen to you every month and there’s no way to deny that it was an amazing experience for us. Not many bands got the chance to do something like this and if we talk about hardcore/punk bands from Eastern Europe region {we’re from Czech Rep.}, then I think that only Polish DEZERTER were able to tour Japan before us: I think they got invited in early 90’s by THE STALIN. We were extremely lucky to have Japanese guy willing to set up the whole tour and to spend his few free holiday days with us, our friend Shingo Maeda. He lives in Tokyo, runs Too Circle Records label and sings in ENCROACHED. Shingo re-released our debut LP on CD in Japan in 2005 and after some e-mail exchange decided to bring us to the land of rising sun.
There are many obstacles which band do face when attempting to tour Japan. I know that for most of you this probably won’t be something totally new {as there were some Japanese tour reports printed in various zines already}, but anyway, I will quickly mention some of them. First thing is that there are no cheap or even free D.I.Y. spaces for shows. Organizers have to rent the club {so called “live house”} and it’s damn expensive. Some of the live houses we have played, for example Warp or 20000 V in Tokyo cost as much as 140.000 Yen {= more than 1.000 USD} to rent. Of course that this price do include very good backline {even full drum set including cymbals and crash drum, two things which every drummer holds dear and would never share}, so bands need to show up only with guitars in their hands, but still it’s very expensive. Usually more bands {six or seven bands is no exception} play together and share the costs as it is often impossible to break even. The only alternative is to rent a rehearsal room/studio space, which is cheaper or sometimes, very rarely you can see some bands playing in public parks, which I guess is for free, but we didn’t tried it.
Another thing is transportation: to own the car in bigger cities is super-expensive as there’s not enough space and everything is over-crowded, so you have to find somebody with the car or the organizer has to rent it. Highway fees on Japanese roads and gas prices are also pretty high, not to mention that you often end up in tough traffic jams. And don’t even get me started on the issue of orientation in crazy Japanese street system, where the streets don’t have names! Even the domestic citizens have huge problems to find the right address! Two more things which are very difficult for foreigners: communication {it’s really not easy to communicate in English there} and food {Japan is pure hell for vegetarians/vegans: we mostly ate just rice with soy sauce during tour}. But don’t take this as complaining... I think that to experience something totally different from your daily routine is the amazing thing about traveling and touring abroad!
 
Arrival
After 15 hours flight from Prague through Moscow to Tokyo - Narita airport we are finally in Japan. The flight with infamous Russian airlines Aeroflot went OK despite the shitty food, but I think it’s not so different from other companies, Most important anyway thing is the cheap plane ticket {around 800 USD return ticket}. Only funny situation took place when we went through metal detectors with different pieces of important punk fashion, I think that our label “boss” Barvak from Insane Society label {who came with us} had to repeat the whole procedure like three times, hahaha. We arrived on Thursday April 28th in the morning and immediately took the train to city centre, as the airport is located 60 km outside Tokyo. Shingo had to work on this day and couldn’t wait for us upon our arrival. We were supposed to meet him at Base Record Shop in Koenji quarter. He came there few hours sooner than expected so early afternoon we could take another train from Koenji to his far away suburb Kodaira which is in the western part of the city. He lives in 5 story housing estate in bigger {at least for Japanese standards} flat, which is cool as we will spend the beginning and the end of the tour here. In late afternoon we went shopping and later Shingo cooked the traditional Japanese misou-soup. He invited some friends for the “welcome party” where we dawned the first of our ten bottles of home-burned 55% strong spirit {so you see that we were well prepared for the outrageous prices of Japanese alcohol!}.
 
April 29th, Tokyo - eM7 {+ TRIKORONA, DEEP SLAUGHTER, NK6, DUDMAN, SU19B, DISCLAPTIES}
We got picked up from Shingo’s flat {he had to go to work again} by Takuya and Daiken from TRIKORONA, who organized today’s show. We took different trains through the whole city as the eM7 live house is located in completely opposite part, the eastern Koiwa district. Gig place itself was pretty small {for something like 60 or 70 people} with huge sound system and great backline. After quick sound check we go to eat with TRIKORONA guys to local Italian restaurant, where we can get some vegetarian and vegan food. I won’t describe each band as this report would be endless, so just quickly: TRIKORONA blown everybody off with huge wall of sound, they play kind of experimental music w/keyboards reminding me GASP or LOCUST a bit. If you live on west-coast of U.S., then you probably saw NK6/DUDMAN on their recent tour, fuck, what can I say, NK6 are the closest thing to GAUZE you can imagine {except maybe another band from Tokyo, HAMMER}, but what else can be expected from GAUZE roadies! I love this band as they are super-wild and devastating and also very friendly and funny guys {sorry for getting you completely wasted on our D.I.Y. booze!}. DUDMAN play ultra-fast noisy thrash, very extreme band! I was looking forward to see SU19B since I used to be pen pal with their drummer Ryohei back in mid 90’s, when I played in MRTVA BUDOUCNOST. I thought that they already split up as their last records were released few years ago. But like many other Japanese bands they keep really low profile playing few gigs here and there and releasing something new only very rarely. Their set was completely punishing w/slow and heavy devastating parts ala CORRUPTED combined with the ultra-fast power violence explosions in the vein of CROSSED OUT, amazing shit! They finished with Ryohei kicking down his drum-set and stage diving straight into the crowd. We were little nervous before our first Japanese show, but as soon as we have jumped into our set it was OK. We have played almost without any breaks between songs, during the first chords of our “Distort Japan” cover by GAUZE all hell break loose and we had to play encore in the end. It was great show with cool audience and killer sound, later we celebrated it with  more drinking with our friends from NK6, DUDMAN, ABRAHAM CROSS, DISCLAPTIES, TRIKORONA etc. Shingo has arrived with our rented tour mini-van {it had space just for 8 persons and guitars, not for backline - but it wasn’t needed anyway} and along with another driver, Kouske, we packed up our stuff and drove to next show. To escape heavy traffic we had to drive often over-night, straight after the previous gig’s end, which was super-tiring, but there was no other way. So around midnight we are on the road to Sendai, which is cca 400 km away up in the North.
 
April 30th, Sendai - Fly {+ UNRESTRAINED, NOT ONE TRUTH, A.V.A., FOURXFOUR, DERIDE}
We’ve arrived to Sendai in early morning hours and went to “sleep” to huge pachinko slot, which was the most bizarre place I’ve ever slept in. Imagine dozens of playing machines screaming loud and sleeping near them in small wooden boxes... shit, it was cool just out of the curiosity, but it didn’t helped us too much to get out of the sleep deprivation. Around noon we drove to city centre, checked out local record shop Globe Records, then went to club {another pretty tiny space} and did sound check. One of the many crazy things about Japan is that the soundcheck do start around 14:00 in early afternoon already, so you have to be at gig place very early. Then we went to eat rice w/soy sauce to nearby huge shopping mall. This show had many bands in line-up playing different styles which I don’t enjoy you have to forgive my “musical narrow mindness”. I will talk only about DERIDE, which were just amazing! Coming from Niigata they brought some fans with them, who went wild during their set, just in the same way as the singer who was jumping on the metal barrier in front of the stage all the time. DERIDE play early U.S. hardcore/thrash with some Japanese thrash bands influences {GAUZE, OUTO etc.}, their set was non-stop bombardment of raw energy and  full of shouted choruses, fucking great! It was hard to play right after them, but again, after some long introduction from gig-organizer Takeshi we managed to destroy and the gig ended up with another encore. After show we drove to sleep in Takeshi’s flat, where we peacefully collapsed on his floor.
 
April 31th Tokyo - Warp {+ VOCO PROTESTA, BRUTAL TERRORISM, GUILLOTINE TERROR, SNOWLINE, AGE}
Today’s line-up was simply insane, this was one of the long-time running ABC Partisan shows, set up by D.I.Y. punx from Tokyo in Warp live house in Kichioji district. We drove from Sendai right to the club to be on time for sound check. The sound today was again over-helming as the woman behind the soundboard {another interesting thing in Japan was that there were females behind the soundboard on almost every our gig, which is not so usual in Europe!} was the master of knobs! Again, fucking huge wall of sound, great! Some of us went record shopping to local Disk Union shop and some went to get vegan food to Indian restaurant, I went with other group and we almost missed the opening band VOCO PROTESTA as the show started already at 18:00. Shit, luckily we managed to see second part of their devastating and very noisy set. These insane crust-hippies play raw punk influenced by South-American bands {they even cover KAOS from Ecuador} with ferocity and loudness of old Japanese bands like CONFUSE or GAI. They are also very political with speeches between songs against Japanese military taking part in Iraqi invasion for example. Definitely make sure to check out their full 7” and split 7” w/BLINDED HUMANITY on drummer’s Aktiva Protesta label. Trio BRUTAL TERRORISM have assaulted the audience with their short, fast and loud fastcore, they have couple of demo tapes out and you can hear them on comp. CD of Japanese thrash bands on 625, good stuff. GUILLOTINE TERROR just floored us, imagine four really big tough guys playing heavy and menacing death metal/hardcore. They do it since early 90’s {I have their “No God” 7” from I think 92 or 92} and they do it very well, killer band! ASBESTOS are another veteran band, who started already back in 80’s, they have played basic raw and distorted hardcore/crust, again, another excellent band. You should check out their double-LP discography on Putrid Filth Conspiracy. SNOWLINE was some guitar experiment space-rock with members from 90’s Tokyo crust band CROCODILE SKINK, not my cup of tea, sorry. Finally AGE! Four men in black coming from Niigata {Again! After DERIDE yesterday we see another amazing band from this city, is there something in the water there?!} floored us with their sharp and totally rocking hardcore/crust/metal! Influenced by AMEBIX, ANTISECT, CIVILISED SOCIETY? or CONCRETE SOX, executed with 100% tight and precise musicianship and in the end even preceding their 80’s influences. This happens so often in Japan: bands take some influence {or just blatantly steal!}, study it really well and then build something new and ten times better upon it. AGE is just typical example of this. They were simply the best band we saw in Japan and we saw more than 50 of them! Finally also the audience {which was just standing still and politely clapping during previous bands} went wild for them with couple of suicidal stage-dives and some crazy dancing. AGE have a huge discography incl. two LP’s, also don’t miss their previous band HAKUCHI who played similar style already back in early 90’s. After AGE set we were just standing there speechless with our jaws collectively dropped on the floor and the last thing we wanted was to go on stage and play, but after some words of encouragement from our tour-mate Shingo we jumped on stage and just don’t gave a fuck, played like mad and the gig went great. Thanx a lot for the support to our friends in BRUTAL TERRORISM, VIVISICK, VOCO PROTESTA... This gig was really good with some 60 or 70 people in the audience and just insane line-up of bands. Big thanx goes also to whole  ABC collective and especially to Masaki {POWER OF IDEA/Tribal War Asia Rec.} and to Takeushi, who painted our banner which was flying high over the stage for the whole show.
 
May 1st Mie - Question {+ CONTRAST ATTITUDE, ACROSTIX, TOTAL NOISE ACCORD}
We spent most of the day driving from Tokyo down south to Mie, this time we had also funny guy from Nagoya called Karaki on the board as the 2nd driver. Live house Question is right near the highway in town’s suburbs. With tons of trash lying around, it reminded us immediately of some European squats. Today’s show was organized by CONTRAST ATTITUDE guys under their ongoing line of “Who Can Change The Future?” shows, I think that next month they had here the same line-up of three local bands supporting LEBENDEN TOTEN from Portland-city. Anyway, the audience today {it was Monday} was just 30 or 40 people, but the show went on with great family-alike vibes and some of the craziest dancing we saw here, also all three bands playing with us were completely devastating! CONTRAST ATTITUDE opened up the party with their massive wall of rampaging dis-beat, of course the guitar sound was-super distorted {it went through no less that ten guitar effects} and their DISCLOSE/DISCHARGE influence undeniable... great shit! ACROSTIX followed, they play slower and heavier AMEBIX-style, out of all Japanese AMEBIX-imitators they do this most authentic, I would say. By the way CONTRAST ATTITUDE and ACROSTIX do share great split LP released 2 years ago on Crust War Records, make sure to get it! TOTAL NOISE ACCORD were a big surprise as we’ve never heard about them before and they kicked out some raw and distorted jams in the chaotic punk as fuck tradition of DISORDER and CHAOS U.K! Their ended up their set with all the members jumping from the stage right into wild pogoing audience and still managed to play throwing their guitars across the pit, madmen! Mie-punx are pretty crazy, but very friendly in the same time, they just killed each other during our set... it was the wildest show we had here so far and we had to play some encores in the end. Domo arigato! After show it was time for uchiage:  traditional Japanese after-party, when Gori {guitar-player from CONTRAST ATTITUDE} invited us to typical Japanese old-school restaurant. Just imagine 30 punx sitting bare-footed in their total punk as fuck outfits on the floor of ancient-looking restaurant, getting drunk and rowdy! It was really great loud and drunk night spent here in Mie!
 
May 2nd Osaka - Bears {+ FRAMTID, HUMPTY DUMPTY, EFFIGY}
After just few hours of sleep at Gori’s house we are on the road again, hitting Osaka around lunch time. At first we visited Punk And Destroy shop run by Shin {FRAMTID’s drummer} and spent huge amount of money there. It’s situated in the cellar right next to Osaka’s crusties main assembly point, the Konton Bar. Back in front of Bears club we see a funny sight of all FRAMTID members in total punk gear {all black clothes, bullet bells, spikes etc.} driving their cheap bikes through busy Osaka street with guitars on their backs, very cool! We also met Satoshi from Nagoya {he plays in MUGA}, who will be our new 2nd driver for next few shows, while Karaki went back home. Bears is again very small place in the underground and it’s totally overcrowded with something like 100 people inside. I was very excited to see FRAMTID live as they are one of my currently favorite bands! The sound was so fucking loud and the place so packed, that in the end it was not so much fun, but the band played of course well, attacking the audience with all their hit-songs from split 7” w/DISCLOSE + more stuff in their raw Scandi/Norwegian patented crust vein. I know it sounds kind of wimpy, but I don’t use ear-plugs and the level of noise was just ear-deafening. A little less would be definitely more, I think. Local hardcore veterans HUMPTY DUMPTY were next playing fast violent thrash with lots of double bass-drum action, I didn’t found them too memorable, but audience was more into them. We played third and I think it wasn’t the most exciting show of the tour, we were still tired after previous night, but in the end some people liked it, so it was OK. EFFIGY closed the gig with their massacre metal punk, their super-heavy and down-tuned music is obviously influenced by old U.K. crust bands and in the end they threw few AMEBIX covers in, which caused some manic dancing. This was another show with great line-up, but this time I was really not in the mood to fully enjoy it, fucking shame. We managed to empty another bottle drinking with local punx, it was great to meet people from NIGHTMARE {two months later we played with them in Prague}, regular MRR’s contributor Kevin Hunt from New Zealand and many other guys, I think that there were members from almost every Osaka’s past and present hardcore band in the audience, which was amazing. There was another uchiage, which wasn’t so wild like this one yesterday in Mie, but very friendly and warm too. Completely drunk Shin then navigated us to his small flat where we slept for some short time. I can’t wait to see FRAMTID in Europe in 2007 as they were some of the friendliest people we met in Japan - thanx a lot for everything!
 
May 3rd Kochi - Feet {+ PRESSURES, BLIND SNIPER, AGGRESSION, CONGA FURY, DISCLOSE}
The drive to Kochi was the longest since it has started with 3-4 hours long traffic jam already in Osaka’s centre and the we had to drive all the way south crossing the monster bridge cascade to Shikoku island. I took some sleeping pills, so I managed to remain fresh later at night, while the rest of the company was totally worn out. We met with Kawakami from DISCLOSE in one of the main city streets. Just few minutes before the black van with big stereo system drove by shouting nationalist slogans and playing old Japanese traditional songs celebrating the emperor system. This is the typical propaganda tool of Japanese nationalists, you can see these loud cars pretty often also in Tokyo and other cities. Feet is another super-small place, I know that I repeat myself, but most of Japanese live houses are really tiny compared to European standards, I find this great as the vibes are more intimate and in the same time the p.a. and backline is designed for much bigger spaces so the sound is always super-powerful. But Feet was really the smallest place we played in Japan, with size of just bigger living room. No problem here! We had some cool discussions with DISCLOSE’s main man about tattoos {he works as tattoo artist} and about the supposed split 7” which DISCLOSE planned with our drummer’s old band LOS SOMMROS back in 1994. While DISCLOSE recorded for it {these songs were later released on their picture 7” on Distortion Rec.}, LOS SOMMROS never managed to get their shit together. Anyway, the show was again packed up with great bands, I was blown away especially by AGGRESSION, which was another band I have never heard about before, but they just destroyed with their mid-tempo rocking japancore similar to FORWARD. Excellent stuff by this relatively unknown Kochi band! I managed to buy their old 7” on Dan-Doh label and later we saw their bass-player playing drums for DISCLOSE. I was looking forward to see CONGA FURY and they definitely didn’t disappointed me, playing blazing and blinding fastcore/thrash with ultra-noisy guitar sound and screaming vocals provided by their vocalist Oden. She was swinging the mike stand in the air like mad-woman! I think that most of you will be comfortable with this band since they toured U.S. some years ago and just put out full LP on Six Weeks Records. We’ve played right after them, I was honored to use Kawakami’s guitar gear, but it all sounded like total noise, so we have played our most loud and noisy set ever. But audience liked it, seems like they are totally used to it over here. And finally DISCLOSE finishing the gig, well, what can I say? Super-distorted wall of guitar noise run through 4 stacks of Marshall boxes, 2 amps, 10-15 guitar effects and all this plugged into p.a.! The whole space was just filled up with their sound and we could only kiss our ears goodbye... They are the true masters of noise, but it was the same like with FRAMTID yesterday: the level of noise sometimes didn’t let you enjoy their crushing dis-beat. After the gig it was time for third after-party in three days. Of course we couldn’t say no, even we were dead-tired. It was again very friendly drinking session with some hot sake provided by Oden. Around midnight we drove to village where Kawakami lives, it was more than 2 hours long drive. His house {and his custom van} near the cemetery is a completely different story... let me just say that he use it as a tattoo studio {“Bones tattoo”} as well and that inside it looks like at museum of pure evil and that his collection of dangerous animals {incl. snakes, spiders, cockroaches etc.} and DISCHARGE T-shirts is impressive. Big thanx for having us stay here over the night, we’ve never seen something like this before and will never forget this!
 
May 4th Kurashiki – Red Box {+ S41, EL NUDO, ENCROACHED, CYNIC-19 and cca 5 more bands}
We had short drive today as Kurashiki {smaller town right next to bigger Okayama} was only something like 100 km away from Kawakami’s village. Some of us went to local tourist area of old gardens and museums, some tried to catch little sleep as we left again very early. This gig was least memorable, I hate to talk shit about the other bands, but most of them were really not so exciting playing just tuneless thrash with some of the worst sound imaginable. Also the audience was almost only the other band members {there were 9 or 10 bands on the bill and the place was just small rehearsal studio} and looked very bored. I think that only ENCROACHED, who drove down here from Tokyo just for this one show were better than the rest with their fast screaming hardcore with some emotive parts, but they had some problems with bass amp going off. We managed to play pretty angry and fast set and in the end played an encore, also the sound got much better, maybe because we did soundcheck in the afternoon unlike the other bands. But in general this show wasn’t good at all and later Shingo told me that we got no money here, which is pretty weird. We drove straight after CYNIC-19 have finished their set {they played last} all the night to Nagoya. Fuck, another tiring hours spent crammed in this tidy car, but there’s no other way.
 
May 5th Nagoya – Huck Finn {+ CHEAPSKATE, J.U.U.M., EASIES, CONTRAST ATTITUDE, LOW VISION, CONTRAST ATTITUDE}
We’ve arrived around 6 in the morning and went to sleep to another bizarre place, this time it was typical Japanese sauna! I shit you not, really! They had these small wooden boxes again where you could relax after bathing, so we rented one for each of us and went to sleep. You can not enter the bathing facilities if you have tattoos {this is some law against Yakuza members}, so 3 of us couldn’t shower or bath, funny! Huck Finn is one of the most known live houses in Japan where hardcore/punk bands play, this place just celebrated its 25th anniversary! Maybe you have some live recordings from this club {especially old local raw punk heroes C.F.D.L. released couple of tapes/records recorded live here back in mid 90’s}. Karaki put bands both from crust and thrash genres together, so the audience was big enough {almost 100 people} and more important crazy enough to have great show. More Mie punx arrived with CONTRAST ATTITUDE, so it was a warm welcome! We also managed to visit cheap Chinese bistro for another dose of rice and soy sauce and also the well known local record shop Answer. I am sorry, but I don’t remember enough all three thrashcore bands who’ve played, I just think that LOW VISION from Tokyo were best, check them out on “Japan Thrash Revolution” comp. CD on 625 and on “Common Life Vol. 2” comp. LP released in Czech {the best fastcore/thrash sampler of recent times!}. Nagoya area based J.U.U.M. were killer surprise, another unknown {well, at least to us} name, but they’ve played well executed driving punk in the vein of 80’s U.K. bands. Again, influences from DISORDER or CHAOS U.K. could be found here, but they were not so noisy and chaotic, instead they provided some cool sing-along choruses. Great! CONTRAST ATTITUDE was today even better than in Mie, their “dis-noise attack survivor raw shit” {their own words!} was just amazing, just massive attack of guitar-chainsaws and pure energy to boot. The crowd has erupted during their set! SEE YOU IN HELL jumped on the stage in high spirits, the audience including around dozen or so of out-of-control Mie punx has reacted with some wild moshing. It was pure pogo mayhem in front of the stage, while local thrashers were circle-pitting in the back of the room, great! Well, what do you want to hear, this was the best gig of our tour, thanx a lot to everybody to over-helming support! After saying goodbye to our Mie and Nagoya friends, who were causing drunk havoc together with us in front of the club, we drove through another sleepless night, this time back home to Tokyo.
 
May 6th Tokyo – Rinky Dink Studio {+ GIVE ME CHOCOLATE, RINTO, ENCROACHED, IT’S YOU, KOLA, GROANING GROOVE}
After sleeping until noon in Shingo’s flat we took the van and drove to nearby South-Eastern suburb of Hachioji. Today’s show was the “most D.I.Y.” of all our 10 gigs, it was set up by Shingo in practice space, also the price was very cheap, only 1.000 Yen {most of our gigs cost twice as much}. Mostly other bands from Too Circle label played and it was cool to see more young people coming to see this gig, maybe because the price was really low!? Some of the bands were again too experimental for me, which doesn’t mean they were necessary bad. If you like some of the more eclectic and crazy Japanese bands like FUTURES or UG MAN, then you would enjoy some of the stuff Shingo often puts out. I personally think that it’s pretty cool that Japanese bands try hard to push the music on and on to bigger extremes, but sometimes the variety of their sounds is too much for me. Anyway, I’ve enjoyed the opening GIVE ME CHOCOLATE a lot, they’ve played hard-driving crusty punk, also ENCROACHED delivered goods this time w/their blazing fastcore assault and RINTO {or was it GROANING GROOVE?} played tight and rocking punk influenced by MINUTEMEN. In the end some GUILLOTINE TERROR and BRUTAL TERRORISM guys + Masaki/Tribal War came to see us, it was nice and we’ve played another fast and raw set. Thanx a lot to Shingo for borrowing me his guitar as I managed to damage my own in the end of our Nagoya show!
 
May 7th Tokyo – 20000 V {+ ANODE, EL CAMINO 53, IDORA, PADLOCK, CROW}
The final show of our tour, fuck it has passed so quickly! 20000 V is along w/D.O.M. and Antiknock most famous hardcore live house in Tokyo, so it was honor to play here. In the afternoon we did another sound check and then went record-shopping. Koenji station area is full of cool record shops, while Base and Boy Records are most known, we managed to hit the jackpot in nearby 2nd hand vinyl shop, where we find some Japanese classics for really great prices! Today’s crowd was much older than yesterday, we were happy to meet some friends in the audience from NK6, DUDMAN, VIVISICK, TRIKORONA, IGNITIONS etc. Opening ANODE played intense emo HC, usually not my favorite style {quite the opposite, haha!}, but they did it with so big passion and intensity, that even emo-hater like me enjoyed them. I missed most of EL CAMINO 53 and IDORA’s set, I was really tired and I just hanged out outside, the first band played fast screaming thrash and you are probably familiar with IDORA as they are another veteran band active since at least early 90’s. Their newer stuff is heavier mid tempo HC with big emphasis on quirky bass-playing, it’s very rhythmical and hard stuff, just again little too experimental for me. The band who stole the show today were PADLOCK, fuck, this was just insane “Burning Spirits”-styled hardcore completely exploding on stage! Their mohawked singer was flying in the air all the time stage diving from metal barrier into the crowd, which went nuts. Another band I’ve never heard before, another huge surprise! Finally CROW, the hardcore masters from mid 80’s! Only the singer Crow remains from the old line-up accompanied by guitar player from JUNTESS, bass-player from 324 and drummer called Iron Fist, who’ve played with G.I.S.M. Fuck, this was 100% insane line-up! And CROW didn’t disappointed, they devastated the stage with barrage of their crushing crust/metal with many solos, shouting vocals and hammering drums. Classic song “Give Up All Hope” was played as well, but I would also like to hear “Last Chaos”, “Who Killed Dove?” and other old time classics, haha... Most of you probably already have their new full LP on Prank or you saw them live during some of their U.S. tours, right? SEE YOU IN HELL played last and again, it wasn’t easy to follow CROW, but thanx to endless support of audience and totally slashing sound we survived it and closed our set with an encore in the form of two songs from the best Czechoslovakian 80’s hardcore band RADEGAST. The tour is over.
 
Last Days
We spent the following week in Tokyo doing mostly classic tourist stuff, record shopping or just having a rest after some very tiring days. We got invited to great party by VIVISICK and ANODE guys at Korean restaurant, which our drummer almost managed to set on fire when showing our Japanese friends how our spirit burns in the glass. We also visited anarchist infoshop Irregular Rhytm Asylum near Shinjuku train station {big thanx for the great vegan food!}. These were some really cool much needed laid-back days, well if you can use these words in stressful and overcrowded Tokyo! In the end we lost money {we paid the plane tickets by ourselves}, but we didn’t cared as we were saving up like mad for all the year and we didn’t hoped to have these money back anyway. I would really like to write more about our Japanese adventures, about the huge cultural shock we had here as a band coming from completely different part of the world, but the space here is really limited {the report I wrote for my Hluboka Orba zine is five times as long, but written in Czech language only}. Also I don’t feel too qualified to describe the different ways in which the Japanese society works as it would require some more research and knowledge. Let me just say that punx in Japan are very friendly, respectful and really enthusiastic about music, it’s no exception to see people in their 30’s or 40’s still coming to gigs, playing in bands, releasing records etc. They also take things more seriously, especially the gigs are set up with 100% reliability and preciousness. I like this a lot.
Of course that huge thank you goes to Shingo Maeda for being courageous enough to invite band from little known part of the world, to Kouske, Karaki, Satoshi, other ENCROACHED guys and to everybody else who have helped us, there are so many of you, but you know who you are: domo arigato!
If you need the moral of this story, then it’s quite simple: keep on fighting, transform your dreams into reality, never give up. When my old band MRTVA BUDOUCNOST covered CROW’s “Last Chaos” song back in 1995, I would never imagine {not even in my wildest dreams!} that one day I will share the same stage with them. And another moral is, that really can’t see rice with soy sauce ever again, hahaha...
SEE YOU IN HELL will become “full-fathers band” very soon and as our free time for touring gets more and more limited, it’s hard to think about future plans. Anyway we hope to tour Brazil in 2007 right after the release of our second full LP {on Insane Society and Phobia Records} and one day we may return to Japan for another tour... who knows?
 
Filip, August 2006
 
For more photos check out www.seeyouinhell.cz site.
Thanx to Profane Existence, Insane Society and Phobia Records for the chance to be part of this comp. CD!