7 Gods and 1 Saizeriya later...

Last night, I trekked to Fuchu for another rehearsal.

PICTURED: FUCHU STATION, NOW WITH FUZZ!

Why suffer the packed Keio line commute? For the awesomeness that is 七福神 (Shichi Fukujin), pictured below in all their OH HAI FIERCENESS!

You bettah WERQ! Seriously, their 下駄(geta)? WANT!

We started rehearsal with an attempt at English to Japanese translation of the lyrics in “Sacramento,” focusing first on the chorus (“Oh - Sacramento / Give me something I can keep / Give me something to feel…”) and then the bridge (“As we volley words back and forth / This love plays out in syndication / Shadow-boxing back and forth / We play on and on in syndication.”)

Having done some Japanese to English copy writing, I figured lyrics would be challenging, but I hadn’t taken into consideration the emotional aspect of a breakup song - “Sacramento” was written in response to a 3 year relationship falling apart. To put it mildly, I was a hot mess when writing it.

In order for the translated “Sacramento” lyrics to fall close to the original English text (rather than just be a Japanese “version” of the song), I provided Tanaka-san (above right) with the background story. At one point, I was thinking “i ain’t got time for this i’m too grown,” but instead jokingly suggested he just translate “I’m sad / Yes I’m sad / My heart is broken / It’s very broken / Did I mention / Did I mention / That I’m sad?”

Afterwards, we switched to English lyrics for some of their songs. And worked on some three part harmonies.

I secretly envision us morphing into a Japanese version of Girlyman, if for no other reason than to take part selling their guitar swag:

After rehearsal, we scooted over to the local Saizeriya. While I regret not sampling the melamine-tainted pizza (?!), we did enjoy pressing the bootleg button to remind our waiter that we couldn’t eat without utensils:

PICTURED: BOOTLEG SPACE EGG

Towards the end of dinner, we were pretty punchy, resulting in gems like:

ULTRAMAN!

and

ULTRA WTF

A great rehearsal - I love working with these guys. But as I returned home, all I could think of was Martin’s take on Cee Lo:

“You’ve got me gigging at the ends of the earth and I, I’m like… FUCHUUUUU!!!”

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