So my sister tells me that I need to see the group “American Analog Set”. They are currently touring Japan, and as luck would have it they played in Kyoto while I was there interviewing. According to my sister, the girl making her dress, Jesse, is dating the drummer of AmAnSet. Since I’m staying about 40 minutes away from Kyoto, it is a bit of a hike for me, but I thought it would be stupid not to see them, so I headed out.

I got to the venue (Metro) at about 7pm, and people had started lining up. They started to let people in about about 7:25 or so, and luckily they hadn’t sold the place out completely so I was able to get in. Unlike New York, small live shows are really expensive: 5,000 yen for this one (included one drink.)

The first group up was 13 & God and I liked them. They had some nice soft soothing music, punctuated by really hard rocking parts and loud, fast rap. A guy I was talking to in the audience told me that the album is almost completely mellow, which was really surprising given the show, but I’m definitely interested in picking up their album, or perhaps some of the stuff from the component bands, since “13 & God” is apparently the joint work of a group called “the Notwist” and “Themselves”. Here is a kind of nice review of their history together. “Doseone” even had one of those thinkgeek favorite LED belts. And at least one song was about gravity and atmosphere, so it has a geek appeal that I would like to check out.

After 13 & God, American Analog Set came on. Unfortunately, I had to leave after their first song in order to make it back to the station to catch the last train (I actually got the second-to-last train) back to my hotel. But I did pick up their latest album, “Set Free” which has 4 bonus tracks (remixes) for the Japanese release.

I didn’t hear a thing out of the closing band, Her Space Holiday.