BP Fallon | The adventure of Yoyogi Park

The Adventure of Yoyogi Park

Twilight time in the park in Tokyo, a brief respite from neon and noise and the Bladerunner visual assault of Japan on the senses. You've flown halfway around the world from New York to deejay with musicbiznes maverick mogul Alan McGee, this bald deejay duo of Fallon And Alan having played together in Detroit and New York a whole bunch of times. But right now it's the evening of Monday July 2 and Alan and you have played Osaka and Tokyo, riding the Bullet Train in between. Alan's already on a plane to New York. You're still in Tokyo. In 24 hours you'll set off to join Alan and you'll arrive before you left, then do a gig.

It works like this: your United Airlines Flight 800 leaves Tokyo's Narita Airport at 6.15 pm on Tuesday July 3 and arrives at JFK at 5.50 pm the same day. Then, fresh as a mop but vibing on adrenalyn, you join a jet-lagged Alan at the Plant Bar and start spinnin' at 2.30 am on Wednesday the Fourth Of July. And later that day you go see Emmylou Harris give a trancendental free concert in Battery Park. Way t'go...

But meanwhile and in between time we're in Japan. bp has scored another 24 hours in Tokyo and is off on his own trip...

Yoyogi Park as day becomes dark. It's 5.30 in the evening. Already you know it's going to be a beautiful sunset. The light is going. Twilight time.

A confetti culture confection concoction.

Girls teenybopped for teen heart-throb Tetsu 69 with polite little signs begging for tickets for his concert that evening in Yoyogi gym, into which an orderly file of teen ticket-holders is streaming like a well-mannered rope.

Over there, three punkettes giggle. Black nail varnish for ever.

And there, hanging out by the side of the path or under little trees, clustered in threes and fours and twos and, there, one, one but not the same, wafting waif wraiths, surreal and real and brilliant and always always they're beautiful, even the odd grotesque one. If beauty is only skin deep, then these girls have it all. The eyes... sometimes a sense of some unspoken sadness lingers like a hovering hurt, the flected shadows of pain glazing over their pupils like an uncertain curtain, a gentle circus of doubt.

Well, whatever this is, it's Art. Great human visual Art, a brilliant expression of dissatisfaction with the repression of regimentation. Oh, big words. Expensive words for simple emotions that reach out timid and polite and gentle and quiet, no noisy buffoonery, a sense of wounded dignity inside the loud shout-out of visual vibe, amazin' costumes painstaking crafted and worn with the gentle elan of nymph creatures from another planet or Oriental Audrey Hepburns playing Alice In Wonderland on spiked nectar...

The Kubuki tradition - ask white-face 1974 Bob Dylan - via goth gone Tecnicolor on A1 Owsley acid?

Oh, they're happy enough for you to take their picture. Don't seem to care, really. They're just hangin' out. You, you're the only person taking photographs. They, they just stand there mutely, their eyes allowing you a brief glimpse into another world, drawing you in. Ah, fallen angels shining in the twilight...

Or is it all, uh, just a big ol' laugh and you the European is missing the point? I don't know. And I don't care, really. Well, yes I do.

Well anyway these Yoyogi Park girls, they blew my mind beautifully cos wherever they're at they're somewhere else. They permitted me to knock on the door and reach in to their world and allow me to show you the people I saw. I thank them for their graciousness.

Actually, a guy in the human swarm that forms the mouth of Shibuya tube station got me there. He was American, was wearing a smart suit somewhat crumpled in the heat. Polite chap, helpful. He had a big round silver stud jutting from his chin. "I don't usually dress like this" he said apologetically. He went on to say that he was lauching a business that day - he didn't say what - and was forced to dress for the occassion. "Go to Yoyogi Koen station," he said. "You'll find what you're looking for there."

I didn't know what I was looking for... but I found it, there on the wrong side of Yoyogi Park.

My friend Johnnie Fingers, he lives in Tokyo. Johnnie, he played piano with the Boomtown Rats, was quite a star, still is. He married a Japanese girl named Yoko and now rides high in the Japanese music industry. "It keeps me on the streets" he laughs. I asked Johnnie what it was that I'd found that Monday evening in Yoyogi Park.

BP: What's the diddley on the all-dressed-up-in-wonderfully-weird-clothes-and-makeup girls who promenade in Yoyogi Park? (on the side divided by a road from where the park has lakes etc). Do these girls have a name for themseves or for their vibe?

Johnnie: They are called 'Shibuya gals'. They are schools girls/high school and part-time workers

BP: Are they schoolgirls who dress up? Do their parents know? Are they 'regular' kids or are they drop-outs?

Johnnie: Can't be drop outs, the makeup, false nails, fake blond wigs, fake tan (topped up regularily at sun tan solareums, 60 to 100 quid a go) and all the trappings cost too much.

BP: Are they known/famous? Am I correct in thinking that Sunday is their main day, as you suggested?

Johnnie: They dress up at the weekends, Japanese really like gang identity.

BP: What music do they like?

Johnnie: They like 'Para Para' which is 160 bpm euro beat...A bit like early gay disco, Bronski Beat but double the tempo... really fast synth riffs with kick pumping like house ...they have a special dance that goes with that. You can practise on 'Para Para dance' machines at game centers. Japanese often shorten Engish words because it's difficult to say. Hense Para Para = paradise.It's easier for them to say . Really it's an identity thing... like all fashion. Basically they want to look like Barbie dolls or that they come from Las Vegas. The more kitsch the better.