Unbelievable – two uploads within one week! As you can see,
my new job is not too busy at the moment…
All the better, since this gives me time to write.
Still in London – nothing has changed there. Still getting
adjusted to the subtle and not-so-subtle differences between England and
Germany/Japan.
Before coming to London, I had heard a lot about how things
work over here and had been working for an English company for quite a while
but there are still lots of surprises.
Worst example is definitely the real estate market. Real
estate agents and people working for property companies tend to be assholes in
Germany and Japan too but what I experienced here is on a whole new level.
First of all, London is expensive. No news there, but even
compared to Tokyo, London is expensive!
Of course we could have moved to the countryside, since my
company is on the outskirts of London but I had German countryside for a year
now and needed some big city again.
Therefore I am willing to pay a bit more but the problem is
that you don’t get shit in return:
First of all houses
here are generally very old and run down but still cost a fortune. On top of
that you have to pay for all services (water, gas, electricity) and the Council
Tax.
The Council Tax bill was already in our post box when we
moved in. Considering you have to wait forever if you want anything from an
office, things seem pretty efficient when they want something from you.
What I am getting at is that even if you are willing to pay
lots of money every month for a dump and crappy service, estate agents and
landlords still manage to fuck you over.
I didn’t really have the time to look for accommodation
thoroughly, so I had to choose from five places I was shown by different real
estate agents. Since the places they show you first are usually the ones they
cannot get rid of easily, all of them were shit.
I took the least shitty one on the condition that they
changed the carpet (which I have in written confirmation) but later they simply
decided that it didn’t need changing. “We had it cleaned real thoroughly”, I
was assured. Right.
I could have taken legal steps but since I was still in
Germany at the time and hadn’t even received the countersigned lease agreement
from the landlord, I was afraid they’d just put me on the street again, so I
decided to swallow my pride and take the place as it is.
It didn’t stop there though: despite the fact that I paid
everything in time (deposit, rent…), I received demands for all rents I had
already paid.
Naturally I didn’t get an answer when enquiring.
Instead I was offered the very house I am renting by an
automated mail from one of the big real estate websites.
Available from February 2.
So I still have 10 days left before the new tenants might
move in. Hope it doesn’t get too crammed.
I’d never thought I would say this but I have come to value
German thoroughness…
Next time I will complain about London’s parking situation…
but now back to the music!
Today’s band is Tokyo’s “The Prisoner”.
At my age it is quite hard to find new bands that make it
onto my “drunk playlist”. This is the list of bands/songs I eventually come
back to after a few beers, no matter what I was listening to before. Somehow
most of the songs on that list are the bands I grew up with and I do not get
tired listening to even after decades. “Going underground” by the Jam is on
there, as well as about 20 Pogues songs, The Churches “Unguarded Moment”,
Ramones’ “Poison Heart, Chasing the Night, Real Cool Time”, Eddie and the Hot
Rods’ “Do Anything You Wanna Do”. “Younger” bands on the list would probably
the Caesars with their “Paper Tigers” album and The Sounds with “Something to
Die for” and “Crossing the Rubicon”.
As you can see, I lean a little towards melancholy when
drunk…
However, The Prisoner is one of the bands who made the list
and not only with one song but with most of their last two records “Rats and
Crows” and “Believe”.
They have some really well made videos on YouTube of three
of those songs:
Stay Free
Rock and Roll People
Letter
But getting the albums is obviously the better option!
The Prisoner’s singer Junichiro comes from an Oi background
with his former band the Avoided but the Prisoner take in much more influences,
such as Mod, Soul and Beat. I’ll call it Punkrock based Rude Boy sound with a
melancholy edge…
For me the Punkrock song work best, so I eventually skipped
the others… but to those songs I have been listening to on heavy rotation. My
wife’s comment would simply be “again!?”
The Prisoner are playing quite frequently in Tokyo and are
liked by people of all backgrounds. They fit into a pure Punk show as well as
opening for a Soul all-nighter.
There is a downside however: avoid the English songs! I
don’t want to come across arrogant but Junichiro sounds like a frog when
singing in English.
I don’t know why the Japanese insist on putting English into
their lyrics / sing in English, when most of them really struggle with the
language.
In many cases it sounds quite funny and the grammar looks
like copy and pasted from Google Translate.
There’s two bands that really start to suck when they start
singing in English but are brilliant otherwise and that are The Prisoner and Last
Target. I guess the reason for that is their fake American accent.
I am not a native speaker so it might seem nit-picky to go
on about it but I would not want to sing in English if I weren’t a hundred
percent sure it sounds at least decent and is grammatically ok.
Nevertheless, the Prisoner’s albums are well worth buying. I
have to admit that I started with “Rats and Crows” and do not own any of their
older stuff but considering how great their latest two albums are, those can’t
be too bad either.
Here’s their homepage:
By the way, if you are wondering why you can’t find much
about Japanese bands when googling, try google.co.jp. On European Google
versions you might have to look on page five or six before being referred to “The
Prisoner”.
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