Took another trip out of the city this weekend to visit and record with my friend Julien, who lives in the town of Chino, Nagano. It’s a mountainous area of Japan, and despite looking pretty large from a distance, it has a real small-town, countryside vibe to it.
We did get a few good takes during recording, and afterwards, we decided to step out and get hot soup across town. (Another friend recently said to me - and this makes total sense - “Japan isn’t very cold, but the houses are freezing.”)
I was in the middle of putting my jacket on when Julien said he heard something outside, and that I should go get my recorder really quick. Not one to argue, I went outside with my trusty mic and let ‘er rip:
I had to turn the gain up all the way and pray that the wind would be kind of me (it mostly was), but I got it: The sound of some guy singing somewhere in town. I’m really glad I captured it, it was beautiful to hear. So far away, echoing off mountains, the kinda thing you read about. Not the kind of thing you witness. Amazing.
Apparently this guy can be heard around town every Sunday. Neither of us could hear the actual words he was saying, but we kind of guessed it was a monk performing some loud prayer or someone of similar spiritual inclination. Who knows, it was just one of those moments where you’re like, “Holy shit, I’m in Japan, and this is how shit goes down here.”
In any case, he stopped singing eventually (you can hear at the end of the recording), so we went to get dinner. Dinner was, of course, was off the hook:
Lo and behold, we come back, and you can still hear the dude! Only louder! He’s close now. Was he using a megaphone? Probably, we figured. But who was this dude? What was he doing, where’s he walking from, where’s he walking to? What the hell is this song about?
We decided about two minutes into this recording that we’d set out and try to find him:
He was pretty easy to find by ear. (Turns out he was using a megaphone.) And it turns out, once we turned the corner and saw his truck, it was totally obvious what he was doing. Seriously, watch this before reading on:
That’s right. You catch that? That’s Julien saying, “Guy’s selling fucking potatoes.”
So, we bought a potato, and split it.
It was a pretty good potato. Nice hot food on a freezing night, hey.
A couple other folks gathered around and bought another few potatoes from the guy (which you can hear in the recording). After some quick business, potato guy got back in his potato truck and rode off into the distance, playing his regal and lonesome potato song.
