Minoru Tezuka remembers the beginning of the Nineteen Seventies in Japan as a time when the youth appeared misplaced. “The coed protest motion had died down, and younger folks had been depressed, looking for out new concepts,” he says.
They wanted room to specific themselves, and Tezuka performed a central position in creating that area. He managed the “stay home” OZ, a good two-storey constructing located within the western suburbs of Tokyo that opened in 1972. Intent on making an area for younger folks to get collectively and collaborate, he held live shows and different occasions and stored entry charges low. It attracted musicians from throughout Tokyo together with native college college students sporting then on-trend lengthy hair and bell bottoms. “It was a free ambiance, and doubtless a straightforward place to get medicine – although I don’t find out about that,” laughs Makoto Kubota, who performed with Les Rallizes Dénudés on the time.
Regardless of closing simply over a 12 months later, its affect has lasted for many years: it’s right here that a few of the most influential underground rock acts in Japanese historical past – together with Les Rallizes Dénudés, Taj Mahal Vacationers and Masato Minami – developed their sound, whereas additionally exhibiting that impartial areas may flourish within the nation. “We had been the primary technology of college dropouts and hippies, and OZ was the primary place for us to play,” says Kubota.
California-based label Temporal Drift locations a highlight on this era of underground music historical past with OZ Days Reside 72-73 Kichijoji: The fiftieth Anniversary Assortment, a reissue of a private-press assortment of stay recordings, together with from the venue’s blowout run of ultimate reveals in 1973. “OZ introduced legitimacy to the underground, offering a house base for likeminded musicians and artists who in any other case didn't have many alternatives to showcase their expertise,” says Temporal Drift co-founder Yosuke Kitazawa. “Main labels and live performance promoters weren’t mandatory for nice music to exist and be skilled. OZ might be seen as a precursor to the DIY actions within the punk period and past.”
Earlier than OZ, underground rock in Sixties Japan intersected with hippie tradition impressed by occasions within the US and propelled domestically by opposition to the Vietnam warfare. A brand new wave of impartial Japanese artists was rising, influenced by the embers of home leftwing protests, publicity to world hippie tradition and encounters with medicine. “It was an epoch shift when younger folks began writing songs with philosophical lyrics criticising society as a substitute of affection songs,” says OZ-regular Hiroaki Horiuchi. “It was all in opposition to the leisure world, about presence over method or singing potential.”
However there have been few venues that may welcome them. Within the late 60s, a extra polished, major-label type of music dubbed Group Sounds was taking on area on the bigger music halls and discos scattered throughout the nation. These venues didn’t look fondly on the kind of artists with lengthy hair who hoped to discover the outer reaches of rock, says Tezuka. They generally discovered a house at cafes, however usually needed to go to nice lengths to play stay.
“Everybody within the scene performed at out of doors music halls that we’d hitchhike to,” says the self-styled Dr Seven, who recorded as Acid Seven and performed at OZ regularly. “Lots of them had been up within the mountains, close to communes, or we’d typically use college lecture halls.” Even campus occasions may flip tense: future OZ common Hiroaki Horiuchi remembers being always antagonised by the police and rightwing scholar teams, to the purpose the place they had been brawling extra usually than performing.
OZ grew to become the house this wave of artists wanted. Situated steps away from the prepare station within the western Tokyo neighbourhood of Kichijoji, it was the endeavor of couple Shinya and Tami Kawauchi, who had discovered success one station over in Nishi-Ogikubo by opening a home made accent retailer. Tami’s brother Arita Takeo urged they open an area the place musicians like himself may play reveals, given how onerous it was to land them. They procured the area, set to work renovating it, and made Tezuka, a daily in Nishi-Ogikubo, the supervisor.
It was a good, homespun place: a bar on the primary ground, not far more than a darkish, slender passage on the second, says Tezuka. The primary efficiency area featured a disjointed assortment of things – kid-sized chairs, empty beer crates – as furnishings. They'd area for folks to sit down and loosen up and a chandelier. “It match lower than 100 folks inside,” says Kubota. “Even if you had 80, it regarded packed. By Japanese requirements, it in all probability regarded just a little soiled.”
“I used to be blown away,” says Dr Seven. “It was like an underground cave.”
Though lectures reminiscent of “Beatniks and poetry” proved influential, live shows had been the principle draw. Connections between pals within the underground music group created alternatives to carry out. Arranging a gig might be fairly casual: Kyoto-born group Les Rallizes Dénudés merely walked in at some point with a photographer pal and requested if they might carry out. “They had been taking part in whereas carrying all black and sun shades,” Dr Seven says.
OZ attracted the like of psych-rock pioneers reminiscent of prolific experimental artist Keiji Haino, mop-topped Beatles tribute act turned onerous rockers Miyako Ochi (that includes Horiuchi) and extra. “I noticed [folk singer] Minami Misato and pals carry out, and I used to be frightened the ground would collapse as a result of we had been dancing so onerous,” says Dr Seven. “Everybody was drenched in sweat. They arrange a bucket close to the door the place you may squeeze it out of your garments.”
OZ closed in 1973, as Tezuka determined to pursue greater objectives, together with managing Les Rallizes Dénudés. The world round Kichijoji Station was additionally set for redevelopment – at present, the spot the place OZ as soon as stood is a financial institution. To mark the tip of the venue, Tezuka held the five-day live performance sequence OZ Final Days, which featured venue staples reminiscent of Les Rallizes Dénudés, Miyako Ochi and Acid Seven delivering ferocious rock units to a full capability crowd. Whereas Tezuka was frightened the ground would fall in, seeing the sweat-soaked crowd caught up on this second of Japanese rock historical past made him really feel joyful.
OZ Days Reside was launched quickly after, packaged in a brown paper bag. For years it remained a rarity, save for some bootlegs uploaded to YouTube. However along with the stay recordings, it featured a particular no-audience efficiency from Les Rallizes Dénudés. It was whereas engaged on the OZ Days Reside reissue that Temporal Drift discovered a couple of trove of unreleased tracks from that very same session, which are actually included within the new set.
“I hope that this set will permit listeners to grasp that there was this actually fascinating and important music scene taking place, not within the US or Europe – the place the vast majority of some of these releases are inclined to give attention to – however in Japan,” says Kitazawa. “And that the times of OZ ought to be regarded again upon as a pioneering, historic second in time, similar to how we place Woodstock or the Fillmore within the echelons of rock historical past.”
After OZ, stay homes began proliferating within the Japanese music panorama, turning into central spots for younger artists – from the members of cosmic-facing psych rockers Boredoms to modern pop-rock quartet Chai – to hone their expertise and experiment. It supplied a blueprint – though many stay homes have turn out to be extra financially motivated, with performers having to promote a specific amount of tickets or face owing the venue. “House owners confronted the fact that they needed to make cash, and the unique spirit steadily light away,” says Horiuchi. “I feel OZ was the uncommon stay home to stay to that ethos to the tip.”
Tezuka isn’t inquisitive about taking credit score for serving to to forge Japan’s underground rock scene. “I feel it actually set the younger folks again then on fireplace,” he says. Nonetheless, listening to the remastered model of OZ Days Livedoes immediate some delight. “I used to be satisfied that the standard of it transcended time,” he says. “It’s all nonetheless related at present.”
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