Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on December 2012
clubbing
Countdowns at Tokyo clubs generally mean a posse of mega DJs flying in for big-money engagements. This year is no exception, but A-listers seem a bit thin on the ground—maybe a reflection of the declining fees Japanese clubs can afford to pay.
2012’s big contribution to clubland came in the form of new Shibuya superclub Sound Museum Vision, which boasts headliners Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson for its New Year’s countdown. Comprising two out of the “Bellevue Three” who founded the mechanistic funk style that came to be called “Detroit Techno,” May and Saunderson always receive the royal treatment in techno-mad Japan.
Rival Shibuya superclub Womb turns to another axis of worldwide dance music. Berlin electro aristocracy Ellen Allien and frequent collaborator Apparat will be loosing one of their signature live sets of moody Teutonic disco on Dogenzaka revelers.
Vision sister club Air in Daikanyama is also in a German mood. Veteran techno DJ Hell will be busting up the crowd with a set that looks back on three decades behind the decks.
Have your decadent club bash and eat your traditional zoni soup, too, at venerable house basement Eleven. The nightspot embraced the tradition in its previous incarnation as Yellow, and this year will see its zoni and all-you-can-drink sake blast soundtracked to the soulful tones of New York house DJs Chez Damier and Ron Trent.
Elsewhere, Tokyo clubs turn to the royalty of Japan’s electronic dance music scene for their own countdown parties.
Bayside monster club Ageha covers all the bases from DJ Kaori’s hip-hop pop and Mitomi Tokoto’s slinky cyber dancers, to Ken Ishii’s minimal techno. The club also offers by far the best setting to take in the auspicious hatsuhinode or first sunrise of the year—if your idea of auspicious is watching the sun emerge over oily Tokyo Bay.
Club Asia has cobbled together a lineup of residents from its most successful parties. Electro producer Yasutaka Tanaka is the force behind J-pop acts from Kyary Pamyu Pamyu to Perfume and also helms Asia’s Flash!!! event. Goth-Trad waves the banner for Japan’s dubstep scene and runs the club’s Back To Chill nights.
Liquidroom in Ebisu upholds another tradition, with storied techno DJs Takkyu Ishino and Fumiya Tanaka the masters of ceremony at its long-running countdown event.
Up the hill at Daikanyamaya’s Unit, downtempo stylist Force of Nature will be dueling with the likes of house producer Kaoru Inoue and techno turntablist Kenji Takami.
High-in-the-sky Tokyo City View atop Roppongi Hills sees alternative hip-hop sensei DJ Krush behind the decks with acid-jazz avatars Shuya Okino and Toshio Matsuura in what looks to be a perfectly swish affair.
Also perched atop the skyline is Shangri-La Hotel, which dives into the holiday spirit with its Countdown Party@Shangri-La Hotel. The event welcomes the arrival of Ibiza diva Rebeka Brown, with domestic housemeisters Masanori Morita and DJ Vivid providing backup behind the decks. The countdown itself will be conducted by a team of traditional otsuzumi drummers.
Finally, expat club crew Eggworm is hosting its annual do at Xex Nihonbashi with Groove Patrol, Bryan Burton-Lewis and more laying down sonic slabs of house, techno, minimal and the like.
rock & indie
Tokyo’s numberless rock dives will be teeming with indie kids in full celebration mode, but pop bible Rockin On’s annual Countdown Japan 1213 at Makuhari convention center is the ginormous mother of all New Year’s events.
Launching on December 28 and running four days through to countdown, CJ is the winter counterpart to the summertime Rock In Japan fest, with a similarly mainstream approach. Notwithstanding, there will be some great acts for J-rock trainspotters, ranging from skronk rockers Zazen Boys to punk warhorse The Cromagnons. Fey pop rockers Quruli have been given the reins of the headlining countdown slot itself.
Revered Japanese alt-rockers The Pillows return after some time off to present their annual leg-up at O-East in Shibuya, Countdown Bump Show!! 2012→2013. Joining them will be fellow Hokkaido bands Dohatsuten and Bugy Craxone as well as two of Japan’s more convincing women rock outfits, Noodles and Pop Chocolat.
Across town in Shinjuku, Loft hosts its Kabukicho Rock ‘n’ Roll Olympics 2012, with hoary punk veterans Newroteka heading up a bill that runs from Laughin’ Nose, who give Chili Peppers-style funk-punk the Japanese visual kei once over, to hardcore unit The Slut Banks.
Over in counterculture hub Shimokitazawa, Club Que presents Countdown 2013, with tuneful pop outfit Kaminarigumo and dapper retro rockers The Neatbeats heading up the festivities.
Koenji out-countercultures Shimokita in some respects, and is the epicenter of Japan’s avant-noise scene. Appropriate then, that noise godfather Keiji Haino will again be hosting his traditional pre-New Year’s event at Show Boat. Haino this year starts the event in the afternoon of December 30 with associated noise-nicks providing backup. Is the indefatigable Haino finally starting to slow down?
Another counterculture edifice is Club Goodman, situated in the unlikely context of otaku nucleus Akihabara. This year’s Good Vibration Countdown 2013 sounds promising, with postpunk force of nature Tacobands and the equally visceral Otori, as well as the superbly arch and experimentally minded Emily Likes Tennis.
jazz & r&b
If price is no object, revel in the lap of luxury at a posh supper club champagne affair.
The dean of the lot, Blue Note, is hosting a familiar friend in the form of funk father Nile Rodgers & Chic. The legendary Rodgers returns to Japan for the second time since going public with his battle against aggressive prostate cancer. A former member of the house band at Harlem’s fabled Apollo theater, Rodgers topped the charts with disco outfit Chic before producing everyone from David Bowie to Madonna.
If you like your funk with a view, Billboard Live overlooking Midtown garden sees the Al McKay Allstars mount the stage for a set of music by ’70s space-funk innovators Earth, Wind & Fire. The Allstars are a ten-member powerhouse led by McKay, EWF’s former guitarist, songwriter and producer.
Shinjuku jazz club Pit Inn, with over 40 years of history, will host an annual marathon countdown, All Night Concert 2012-2013. From 7pm on the 31st until the first train on the 1st, a pack of jazz heavyweights play musical chairs. Among them is sax man Kazutoki Umezu’s Komacha Klezmer band, with fellow sax polymath Naruyoshi Kikuchi again taking the reins for countdown.
classical
What is it about Japan and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony? The days before New Year’s Eve see numerous stagings of “nenmatsu no daiku,” a tradition that reportedly started when German World War I POWs taught it to their guards at camps in Japan. Most established Kanto orchestras hold their own performances, with the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra slated to perform this Friday, Saturday and Sunday at Tokyo Opera City, Suntory Hall and Bunkamura respectively.
In a heroic feat of endurance, the Iwaki Memorial Orchestra will perform all the Beethoven symphonies from 1 through 9 over ten hours on December 31 at Tokyo Bunka Kaikan, in a marathon tradition that started in 2003.
A newer feature of the Japanese classical New Year are late-night “Sylvester” countdown concerts. These take the form of homages to Viennese waltz composer Johann Strauss (December 31 is Saint Sylvester’s Day—Austrians call it “Sylvester”), such as the Suntory Hall Sylvester Concert 2012, again featuring the charming Vienna Folk Opera.
In Shibuya, Bunkamura Orchard Hall’s 17th Tokyu Sylvester Concert 2012-2013 sees the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra featuring renowned classical saxophonist Nobuya Sugawa and violinist Emily Miyamoto ringing in the New Year with a performance of Elgar’s stirring Pomp and Circumstance.
dinners & disneyland
Those who want to splash out on gourmet meals suffer no lack of choice. The Peninsula has lavish, multi-course dinners planned at both its Western restaurant Peter and its Chinese eatery Hei Fung. Those actually staying the night can even enjoy traditional toshikoshi soba at the stroke of midnight. Elsewhere, Park Hyatt’s fabled New York Grill, immortalized in the film Lost in Translation, is a tried-and-tested option, as is the Ritz-Carlton’s Azure 45.
And for those who’d like to have their countdown hosted by Mickey and friends? Fuggedaboutit. While Tokyo Disneyland is open continuously through the 31st till 10pm of the 1st, the park is open only to lucky lottery ticket winners and guests at its nearby branded hotels from 8pm-2am. Still, one can take in the countdown fireworks from nearby and then have a full night of fun, even heading next door for DisneySea’s Oshagatsu New Year Greeting should one wish.
More accessible and a good deal cheaper is New Year’s at Yokohama’s Hakkeijima Sea Paradise, which combines dolphin shows and an aquarium with an amusement park. This year’s Happy Island Countdown ’13 also doubles as the 100th anniversary of entertainment giant Yoshimoto Kogyo, and will see the park alight with fireworks till 8am for pilgrims who wish to see the first sunrise of the year over the Pacific.
hatsumode & kohaku
You didn’t come all the way to Japan for a typical Western countdown now did you? Japan may have shifted its New Year to the Western calendar, but traditionalists still observe it by performing hatsumode, the auspicious first shrine visit of the year.
Many of greater Tokyo’s 30-odd million inhabitants jostle their way through popular shrines like Meiji Jingu in Harajuku, which usually welcomes some three million visitors, and Sensoji in Asakusa, a popular place to pray for health and wealth. Preferred visiting hours are during nighttime, when the shrines are brightly lit and gussied up for the occasion with yatai food stalls and omiyage souvenir shops. To steer clear of the crowds, avoid January 1, or head to your local neighborhood shrine.
Hatsumode may be traditional, but you haven’t really experienced a Japanese New Year’s eve until you’ve subjected yourself to NHK’s year-end song contest Kohaku Uta Gassen (“Red and White Song Battle”). Kind of a Japanese version of Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, Kohaku pits a red team of female singers against a white team of male belters. This year’s show generated a minor flap over producers’ decision to exclude South Korean artists out of consideration for “public opinion.” Despite declining ratings, it’s the nation’s most-watched musical event of the year.
beyond countdown
After the oshogatsu stillness, Tokyo revs back into gear with a number of New Year’s rituals. One of the most entertaining is the annual firefighters performance. Japanese firefighting skills were honed in the Edo era when the entire city was made of wood and frequently engulfed by devastating conflagrations. Thousands of firefighters and a phalanx of 100 engines and helicopters gather at Tokyo Big Sight for the January 6 Dezomeshiki (New Year’s Fire Review) and perform daredevil acrobatic performances atop six-meter ladders.
