The Dokuros

I can't explain how, but I feel like The Dokuros have been a huge influence on me.

Ever since I started listening to them, their music's just always felt like it was part of my life. Whenever I think of bands that've influenced my musical styling, they're always one of the first to pop into my mind. This, even though I myself can't really see much resemblence between the music I make and the music they made.

Maybe it was when I first bought one of their CDs about two and a half years ago that I started to open up to the wonders of pop music. When I first saw them live, their combination of weirdness with good, catchy rock hit me slowly, crept up as I watched them, sandwiched between the screaming noise groups I had come to see that night at U-La-La in Kyoto. I'm so glad that that first psychadelic duo wasn't selling any CDs, leading me to buy The Dokuros' just released third album on a good feeling. This may have been the beginning of the breakdown of my musical elitism, my movement from overwrought principles of creating "new" music to releasing music that feels good and right.

The Dokuros make music that just feels good. And for people who feel more at home with a lifestyle separated from the mainstream, it feels really good. But it doesn't feel to me like a crusade to progress; it's music that fits different parts of our lives, and brings people together. And if it blends genres, is psychadelic, and screams its head off at the same time, it's just the way they, and we, feel.



And man, listen to that singer's voice! I remember listening to that third album of theirs for the first time and thinking they had gotten a man to sing the first song - a very weird-sounding man. Then, as I listened to the rest of the album, I started thinking it had to be one of the coolest and most unique singing voices I'd ever heard! It's one of my musical dreams to be able to sing a mix of that style and my own.

There's also something about their style, their dress, in the way they carry themselves on-stage and off. For me, it feels if anything like the granting of a musician's dream (or them granting it for themselves). Starting the band as first-years in college, they've changed members a couple of times, gone through huge musical change, and continued up until somewhere in their thirties. And the attitude of it all is still so normal. Rather, almost because of all they've done it seems normal. Watching them, and talking to them, you feel like you're witnessing proof that some people do just make music for a living. And not "a living" as in making end's meet - I'm sure every member must be working a separate job to support themselves moneywise - but meaning in their free time, to fulfill themselves, they make music and feel so enlivened by it that they continue to do it for years and continuously give more creativity and life to a community of people over time. That is amazing.



I got to meet The Dokuros a few times since I first went to see one of their shows (and completely failed) after coming to Japan this time. If I saw them after their shows, sometimes it was fun, sometimes it was awkward, sometimes it was really funny. I ended up getting to know the drummer the most. We talked for a while after their last show, before the drummer and lead guitarist were to leave. Turns out she's traveled a lot. We talked about L.A. and Mexico. She said L.A. looked like it was made out of jewels and that she liked Mexicans because they're おおさっぱ,　ozappa, or don't stress about the details, completely different from the typical Japanese and also both positive and negative. Before I left that night I bought the last CD and record I didn't have by them and said bye to them together for the last time.

Since then, I've seen the lead singer/guitarist and bass player play a show as a duo, which was pretty good, especially since they played some of the new stuff The Dokuros had been working on as a band before they broke up. But, やっぱり, it wasn't the same, without the lead guitarist, and without the drummer - the whole mood and atmosphere was different. The lead singer's loud personality was no longer countered by the chill drummer's observing expressions, nor the cringingly shy lead guitarist's demeanor, and even though I hung around at the venue for a little while after the show, I didn't really talk to them that much.

Since then, I haven't gone to see The Dokuros, though I recently checked their site and saw that the singer and bassist are still playing shows as a duo act and are sometimes joined by the rest of the band from the halfway through the performance. I'd like to see them again. I've been out of the music loop for a while, and it might be good for me to get back into things and start saying hi to people again. I think it would be nice to say hey to The Dokuros again, and see where our talks go this time.

http://www.myspace.com/dokuros

Their myspace only has their most recent songs up, which, while good, don't give the listener a taste of their louder, more rockish side. If anyone would like I can send them those songs, too.

So, how have they influenced my life, musically and otherwise...I don't know. But I definitely feel it. I think sometimes, that if The Dokuros' influence suddenly started becoming apparent in the music I was making it would be a cool, exciting, and satisfying thing to notice. But, I think it might even be better if I never knew where it was coming from, nor to where it was going.