Sounds of Kabukicho: White Rabbit Press takes you on an audio tour

There has been some buzz lately about Max Hodges and his new audio-guided walking tour through Tokyo’s Kabukicho entertainment district. The Tokyo Reporter caught up with the man at a Ginza Renoir coffee shop in the heart of the district to ask all the right questions.

Why did you choose Kabukicho for your first audio tour?

I just think Kabukicho’s one of the most fascinating parts of Tokyo. It has an interesting history, and the most diverse kinds of places, and there are a lot of real characters in the area. You see a lot of hysterical stuff here.

Places like Shibuya and Ginza are nice places to go to and dine and drink, but Kabukicho just has a different atmosphere altogether. There’s just a special kind of excitement in the air. A kind of giddiness. It’s almost a carnival-like atmosphere.

Also, I wanted to dispel some of the stereotypes about the area. When people think of Kabukicho they think of commercial sex and gangsters, but there’s really a lot of diverse things to do here, like go to movie theaters, batting cages, billiard rooms, restaurants and bars, spas, and hotels for all purposes. People come here to unwind and to have fun, and their light-hearted attitude is refreshing.

I recorded a lot of sounds and ambiences which I mixed into the program, and if I had to identify a single distinctive sound which defines Kabukicho, it would have to be laughter. You hear people laughing everywhere here.

What was your goal for this project?

MH: Your typical travel guide is basically a book of lists – lists of places to stay, lists of places to eat and lists of places to shop. But when you arrive in Tokyo, who wants to stand around and read a book? You want to get out on the street and experience the place. The problem is that Tokyo can be a bit bewildering for a lot of people. They don’t know what they’re seeing; they don’t know who these people are and what the heck they’re doing. So I wanted to create a personal guided tour, which takes you though the city and breaks everything down for you from an insider’s perspective.

If I wanted to just tell people facts and tidbits I could have written a book, but my goal for the tours is to create a unique way of experiencing the city, to create an experience that visitors will remember years later.

The sound design mixes narration and interviews with music, sound effects and location ambiences so I had a lot of ways to keep it interesting. The goal was to create an immersive experience that captures the vibe on the street, and the way in which the tour audio overlaps and merges with the real-life sounds can be a bit surreal in at times.

Who do you interview during the tour?

MH: Lee Xiao Mu was very helpful and supportive. He’s been a guide in Kabukicho for some twenty years and he’s written a dozen or so books on the place. He runs a Chinese restaurant here, and I recorded some of my interviews in his karaoke room.

A few of my friends asked me if I’d seen Jim O’Connell’s Kabukicho photos, so I looked them up and immediately wanted to meet up with him. We’re friends now and sometimes shoot together. He has a few bottle-keeps spread around the Golden Gai bar area, so I asked him to shed some light on the place. In the tour he shares some insights on the special etiquette one should be aware of when visiting some of these places—things an outsider would be totally unaware of, like that you might be taking the chair of a regular customer who comes there every Friday night and expects to sit there.

I also talked to bar owners, touts, hosts, other photographers, policemen, and, well, everyone that I could.

What has the reception been like so far?

I did a lot of testing with friends and colleagues before it was released, and everyone has given me very positive feedback. They said it was more interesting than they expected and they really didn’t realize all this stuff was here. Now they are excited to take our next tour, which is for the Harajuku area.

Note: Tokyo Realtime audio tours are available online at www.whiterabbitpress.com and at select bookstores. Note: This article originally appeared in the winter 2009 issue of Tokyo Journal.

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