Friday, September 9, 2011

Final comment on Enban Summer Festival

I'll skip the customary header, as this is well overdue. Unfortunately, I couldn't commit my thoughts on the 2nd day of the Enban summer festival to blog due to an embarassing lack of knowledge about the performers I wanted to write about. I haven't been able to get in touch with Taguchi-san to ask him about the artists in question (partially due to circumstances explained below) so I'll simply frame the review of the second day as a series of questions about the performers.

1. What is the name of the woman who writes the grotesque/erotic visual stories which feature at Enban events every year? Did they have to rehearse much to get an entire band to play along with her this time? What traditional Japanese story-telling form is her performance based on? Did this year's performance feature her most shocking image so far? There was an audible gasp from the audience as she turned the page to show a lovingly rendered drawing of pre-coital female nether-regions.

2. What was the name of the guy who I thought was merely the token crazy old guy of the festival, but who turned out to be the most unhinged performer of the day? Is Debu-debu the name of his band? Was the bored looking guitar player in the band his daughter? Why does "Debu-debu love nothing" as he chanted for several minutes in what was presumably the band theme song? Has anyone else done the chilly bin as a kick drum thing before? If not, it was a pretty awesome invention, albeit a short lived one...

3. What is the name of the guy who does insane rants with wild gesticulations over a background of odd electronica? Did he rehearse his violent duo with Enban-owner Taguchi-san, where he pullse Taguchi's hair while forcing him to make rapid fire sketches on various themes? When exactly in that performance was Taguchi-san's right arm broken? Is Taguchi-san right handed? Because that would explain why he's not replying to my emails at the moment...

If I find the answers to any of the above questions, I'll fill them in later.

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