Strike Anywhere Detained / Questioned In Japan

that Strike Anywhere's recent tour
of Japan was halted before it even began. The band was detained in a Tokyo airport
and questioned for hours by immigration officers. The Japanese promoter who brought
the band to the nation failed to secure them visas. Click below for the band's
full story about the incident. They are currently in Brisbane, Australia making
use of their unexpected change of plans.

Dear Everybody,
Some things have happened! We ( Garth, Eric, Sherwood, and myself ) were detained
inside Narita airport in Tokyo upon arrival, and then questioned for hours,
then placed under house arrest in a closed wing of a hotel near the airport
which was guarded round the clock by Japanese immigration officers. I guess
the Japanese promoter ( Motoyoshi Mitsumi ) did not get us visas, and he did
not instruct us on which ways to fill out our immigration cards so as to not
red flag the immigration attendant at the end of the queue. These are the two
reasons why the four of us are now in Brisbane, staying at this fellow Cameron's
house, and enjoying fine Australian hospitality .
There is so much to tell about our incarceration, and the eventual coming around
to our innocence and helplessness which occurred with the two guards who had
the most English . One slipped us a phone card, tragically on the morning of
the day when they didn't allow us to leave the rooms, with only Graham's ( the
conscientious Australian promoter with the now astronomical phone bill ) incoming
calls to guide us through our options. The other gold shirted Immigration official
, having previously presented us with the non-choice of flying back to Los Angeles
at our expense , managed to get us early tickets to Brisbane, and get us on
a plane two nights ago. Those two fellows were really nice to us by the end
of our stay in the landless limbo of ' Persona Non Grata', and even gave us
their emails to correspond, and to alert them of our next Japanese Tour. They
said they would ensure our entry and aid us in all protocols which we missed
this time. At the moment, all blame for this sits squarely on the shoulders
of Moto, who, being Japanese, might have been bothered to secure these $ 40
US per person entertainment visas for us beforehand. We have a kind of delirious
sympathy for him, though, he has lost a truckload of Yen for his negligence
as we found out that all of the Tokyo shows had sold out. Matt Smith , who got
into Japan we imagine for no other reason than just the luck of the line, was
out front of these shows, signing autographs and bowing apologies, representing
for us all. ( Matt, we miss you and hope you are having a great time. We await
your arrival in Sydney, you and Tim and Darren enjoy yourselves thotoughly and
give the Japanese our love ! ) . We wish Smith, Tim, Darren and Moto the best
in sorting all of this out, and we remain undaunted in our perserverance to
tour Japan. We hope to make it over there sometime in 2004, with the proper
visas this time. And we apologize to each of you in Japan who were planning
on seeing us, singing along and hanging out. Its such a fucking shame that we
couldn't get in your country to play, and each of us send our best and thank
all of you for your trouble , enthusiasm and kindness. Consider this letter
a certificate of our rain date !
We were told of the good and strange times of the missed shows, and Smith's
solo adventures while keeping time by the BBC news program reruns in our rooms.
Under House Arrest, we were allowed no way of communicating with the world
outside except one ten minute internet session granted us by a young guard in
the middle of our first night . The first nine minutes I spent trying to change
the text to English from Japanese characters. The last one I decided to email
Graham, the Australian, because I thought that maybe had had the most communications
power in the situation. That ended up being the right choice. He managed to
stay in touch with Smith, Tim and Darren, Moto and ourselves - becoming this
kind of beacon with which we guided our understanding.
The rooms which they required us to pay for each had three big beds. The particular
collusion that the Immigration Office had with the hotel floor was such that
we were also required to get two rooms instead of just the one that would have
been fine for the four of us. Garth and I took one and Matthew and Eric the
other. There was something fascinating about these rooms. Besides the electronic
locks across the doorjams, and the ever-present guards outside on round the
clock shifts, these clean and mostly comfortable spaces were decorated with
hundreds of pen written paragraphs, the grief and rage stricken testimonies
of previous occupants. Every language I had ever seen in print was represented
in triplicate, as well as at least seven different alphabets. I had a lot of
time to count them. There was a lot of pretty Arabic, many different Asian pictograms,
and I think Georgian script with its distinctive grape vine characters among
the cornucopia of Roman and Cyrillic alphabets. These paragraphs, each signed
in desperate, earnest, angry flourish by the imprisoned author were not only
covering the walls. Once, I opened the night table drawer and the inside was
thick with writing. When we turned on the lamps in the room, the insides of
the lightshades glowed like some inverted spiderweb with the scrawl of the disappointed
and the damned. I could discern quickly that many of the writers were'nt native
speakers of English, but they chose it as their language of complaint nonetheless.
I have several theories about this, but my mind isn't completely made up about
it. Much of the content of these letters was highly emotional, including the
near death and life stories of some of these anguished and luckless folks, refugees
from many Middle eastern, African and Central Asian places. there was passionate
protests from Portuguese, Spaniards, French, and Italians, peppered with the
curses of both the highest and the lowest literature: A young woman named Maria,
defiant though alone, cursing the Japanese as a whole, and insulting the manhood
of each. It was certainly a unique place, with the hot showers, green tea, and
unbelievable Japanese television ( The Simpsons episode where Homer discovers
that he shares his face with Japanese commercial icon ? ) ; but these writings
helped us to keep perspective and peace with our lot drawn. We weren't escaping
from a disintegrating, lethal homeland ( at least not physically lethal, good
arguments can be made for culture and consciousness, though ) , nor were we
utterly without advocates like most of these people seemed. There was the odd
paragraph written by an American ( and at least one by a Thai ) that called
for a renewed bombing of Japan to achieve justice for their incarceration. When
each of us reviewed the decorated walls, our final impression was that we did
feel the hopelessness and the frustration, but we didn't share the racial hatred
or sense of personal insult that the situation seemed to inspire in some others.
It was just a feature present in all nations, and we weren't on the right side
this once. The guards were just doing their jobs, and the two fellas who tried
to speak with us truly helped us to continue our tour where we could. Australia
!
Anyway, we are here in Brisbane, six days early from our previous planned arrival
which was five days earlier than our first scheduled show ( up here again in
Brisbane ) due to SARS cancelling Taiwan but plane tickets already being bought.
D'oh ! But luckily, the Australian Promoter, our benefactor Graham, has everything
under control ( including the proper visas ) , and has a friend up here, named
Cameron who cheerfully ( and at 7 AM ) picked us up from the Airport in his
vintage reconditioned Ford Falcon. It fit all of us and our belongings heroically,
and got us to this lovely suburban cottage where we've been sleeping and cleaning
ourselves after the merciless jet lag and mental fatigue of the last six days.
Everything at the Australian Airport was the exact opposite of the Japanese
experience. We even declared the small amounts of merchandise that we had carried
over with us, to pay the proper tax and bask in the glow of utter legitimacy,
but the customs lady caught me before I could even start waiting in the day
long line, and she told me to go over to the Green line because Australia didn't
want to tax us ! Amazing, and , although still surreal and dizzying, the polar
opposite of our previous ordeal. And the sunrise out the window, as we hovered
over Queensland's North East Coast was this silent prismatic hymn coloring the
cloud layers and filling us with relief, and a sense of purpose again.
We will stay here, helping out with the cleaning and cooking, and trying to
find a space to rehearse, until Tuesday morning when we fly down to Sydney.
Matt Smith and Darren ( from Jade Tree ) will meet us ( fingers crossed ) on
schedule on the 18th, and then we will start the tour after a bit of sightseeing,
press interviews, and relaxing in this mild and breezy Australian Winter. And
I will get to be only the third member of my extended family in the States who
has ever been able to get down under to visit My Uncle and cousins in Sydney.
I am very grateful to Punk Rock for this opportunity. Excellent. Again this
Graham fellow has come through with unprecedented efficiency and bought us plane
tickets from here down to Sydney.
We are each in good health, and getting happier, letting all the pensiveness
and the torment of our confusion pass with each hour we aren't flying , or being
moved somewhere under round the clock guard.
There is a brewing storm in the air here as I look out from the porch of this
bungalow we share with three others ( for a grand total of eight -we sleep in
a laundry room ) . They've been real kind to us, offering food and drink and
showers and good conversation. We send our eternal thanks to Cameron, Fleur,
Alex and all the rest of the ver hospitable Brisbane Punks. We send our best
to all of you reading this, especially to those in Japan and our friends back
at home who've been worried and waiting.
Exit English,
Thomas, Eric, Garth, and Matthew.