Tokyo's underground live houses are crawling with bands who refuse to play by the rules, who are willing to take musical experimentation to such extremes that they've given up all hope -- that's if they gave a toss in the first place -- of making money out of what they love most: making sounds.
They are outcasts and belong in no genre, as the music each makes is so disparate. Some may be noise terrorists, all are musical anarchists, and because they don't fit in anywhere else, they often end up playing together, like tonight at Manda-la2 in Kichijoji.
Incense is wafting down the street from the nearby funeral home. But once in the basement of this live house-cum-cafe, you'd think it was mainstream music that had just bitten the dust.