Dan Mitchel

In this age of endless choice, with so much competing for our attention, I think I understand just how hard it is to bring a lot of people together in the same place, at the same time.

That is exactly why I want to say, from the bottom of my heart, to everyone who came: thank you for that miracle.

Someone I had only just met came on their own. An old classmate brought his lovely wife. People who met that night even struck a business deal. There was plenty to be happy about!

This was our first time hosting the night at PRISM, and I could not have been happier with the warmth and support from everyone: 武則天后, who invited me, the owner Yuta, and Edwin on the staff.

I certainly never expected to find that one of the staff was the chef who used to run an Argentine restaurant near Teruchi. Honestly, I can never tell whether this world is enormous or tiny.

Lately—or rather, for a while now—the same three of us have been performing together. The smallest possible version of Dandy Asobi Club, perhaps? Or is it about time we called ourselves a group?

They have now gone so far as to help me out, broke as I am, on the basis that we split whatever we get paid that night. No guarantees whatsoever.

Musically, I keep coming back to the same issue I have had since the FS. days: having someone to handle the live sound seems to be the sticking point.

Whenever I go to someone else’s show, whether they are a top professional or a technical virtuoso, I notice every little mistake. I can even hear what led to it—why it happened. In other words, I have an incredibly inconvenient pair of ears.

We properly rehearsed this time, and I cannot shake the feeling that we were better in rehearsal. Nothing could be more frustrating.

I suppose there is always the option of doing what I did at the last Dandy Asobi Club Bar: having a drink and switching those ears right off. The truly depressing thing is that the crowd might actually have a better time that way.

Still, when sound matters, I want to give it the care it deserves. And that is not really about which equipment we have. It is about having someone there to balance the sound and make sure we can hear what we need to hear onstage. That person really is indispensable.

Would anyone turn up if I put out a call for someone willing to do that on a share of the night’s fee? Right now, there is no one.

Granted, there are only three of us playing at the moment, with no percussion and not that many layers of sound, so I do not think it would be especially complicated. But it is an important role. I cannot hand it over to someone without a good ear and musical judgment.

Or does it have to happen the other way around? If I become someone people want to make more of a priority—someone they really want to spend time with—does that naturally mean there will be more money to spend? Then there would be people I could bring in. I do know seasoned professionals I could call, as long as I could pay them.

It was the same with the recent “The Death Row Inmate and the Lawyer.” With ¥100,000, perhaps I could have brought in an outstanding sound recordist. Sound recording matters enormously in drama. You cannot just clip on a lavalier microphone and call it done. It is nowhere near that simple.

I knew that perfectly well. But right now, even ¥40,000 or ¥50,000 is beyond my reach… So which has to come first?

And while we are at it, could I please do something about the way my CPU suddenly blows a fuse whenever there are four or more people? Haha. If we are going to talk, give me one-on-one, face-to-face, every time.

With people skills as clumsy as these, can I really pull off my plan to make philosophers 10% of the world’s population?