The four most defining moments of my life:
1. Getting the hell out of my mom¡¯s womb
2. Getting the crap out of school
3. Getting the living christ out of the western hemisphere
4. Getting this letter from Dave Hillyard, sax player of the Slackers:

Hi Jon,
the slackers are coming to japan in march. I was wondering if you knew of any way we could visit korea at the same time?

was just reading your article on the korean ska scene and thought, why the fuck not?

Dave Hillyard

¡°I kept on meeting people from different Asian countries that would come to our gigs in the States,¡± Hillyard explains. ¡°There was this woman from Korea actually who came to one of my Rocksteady 7 gigs at this little jazz club, and I was like hmm...so somebody from Korea likes the Slackers and likes [the Dave Hillyard] Rocksteady 7. And I started looking around the web and I was like ¡®Hmm, there¡¯s actually a bunch of stuff going on. I wonder how tough it would be to get over there.¡¯¡±

On the Slackers website, Courtney, an English teacher from the US encouraged them to come to Korea. ¡°is there any chance of you making it any farhter out into the pacific, like to, say, south korea? there¡¯s a HUGE ska scene here, but it¡¯d be awesome to show them some NYC rocksteady!¡±

Huge ska scene, huh? Well, we had a lot of work to do.

Like most bands that tour to Korea, the Slackers are playing several shows in Japan first. ¡°It¡¯s pretty well known Japan has a big ska scene,¡± says Hillyard. ¡°It has for a long time. Japan since World War II has been so open to western music, they have a big scene for all kinds of stuff. They¡¯re really into music. When they really like something they seek it out. They take musicianship very seriously.¡±

Early in the Slackers¡¯ career, they spent a couple days in Japan in 1993 or 1994, before Hillyard joined. ¡°Then the band didn¡¯t come back until 2004 I think it was,¡± Hillyard says. ¡°So when we come back again it¡¯ll be the third time.¡±

This is only Hillyard¡¯s second tour to Asia. ¡°I definitely felt like I was far away from home being out there, and the cultural differences were really intense,¡± Hillyard reminisces. ¡°It was fun. I mean the crowds were great and the shows were great, but it was definitely intense.¡±

The Slackers already had a large fanbase in Japan. They played three shows in Tokyo, and their first show had 300 people. ¡°It was pretty amazing,¡± says Hillyard. ¡°A lot of people knew some of the basic words and they knew all the songs.¡±

They toured around Japan to Nagoya, Osaka, and several other smaller stops.

¡°I was impressed with the Japanese bands,¡± says Hillyard.¡± They were really good, also I thought they grooved pretty well too. When you go to Europe you¡¯ll come across bands that have precision, but they don¡¯t have that rhythmic oomph, that groove thing, whereas I thought some of the Japanese bands were also pretty groovy.¡±

In Nagoya they ran into Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra, who they¡¯d previously seen in Europe. ¡°Me and Glen Pine the trombone player, we went and sat in with them, and then they came down and sat in with us at our show.¡±

They travelled everywhere with two people: a tour manager and a driver/roadie.

"They made sure we didn¡¯t get lost, which is a real issue actually,¡± Hillyard says. ¡°Some of those cities there¡¯s so much going on like Osaka--America town. There was all these lights fiashing, all this stuff going on, big TVs, I didn¡¯t even know what to do. It¡¯s so much more massive than 42nd Street, I felt like a hick. Plus I couldn¡¯t talk to anybody. You can¡¯t read any of the street signs. It occurred to me, what do I do if I get lost?¡±

The Slackers have toured many different countries, but Japan caused a bit of extra culture shock. ¡°We¡¯ve been all over Europe so it¡¯s not like we¡¯ve never travelled, been to Latin American and stuff, we¡¯ve toured a bunch of countries,¡± says Hillyard. ¡°I was just so disoriented. The big problem is that you could talk to people a little bit but you don¡¯t necessarily know what¡¯s going on sometimes.¡±

¡°I can¡¯t really say I understand Japanese culture at all,¡± Hillyard admits. ¡°I definitely don¡¯t have a clue about what Korean culture is like. I¡¯m assuming they¡¯re definitely different in some ways.¡±

On tour in Japan, they were immersed in Japanese culture the entire time. Unlike Korea, where there¡¯s a large foreigner presence at shows, in Japan ¡°there was a few, definitely not a lot.¡±

Hillyard¡¯s most surreal experience came when they discovered a Chinese restaurant.

¡°We were wandering around, couldn¡¯t read anything in restaurants, couldn¡¯t figure out what the hell was going out half the time. But then we found this Chinese restaurant and all of a sudden everyone¡¯s yelling and screaming and cursing each other, you know the people who work there. And somehow we knew what to order on the menu it all made sense. The funny thing was the chinese restaurant seemed so familiar. The Japanese restaurant, I was like, ¡®Is somebody ordering, are they just saying hello, or I don¡¯t know what the hell¡¯s going on, hey food¡¯s coming, how¡¯d that happen?¡¯¡±

Hillyard is already a little familiar with Korean culture. ¡°There¡¯s a lot of Koreans in New York and a lot of Koreans in California where I grew up too, so I¡¯ve actually known Korean kids my whole life,¡± Hillyard explains. ¡°I¡¯m not going to say that I was intimate with Korean culture, but there¡¯s always been Korean people around. I know about the wars and a little bit about the history and stuff after the war. I¡¯m into history myself so I know a little bit about it. I know about the Japanese and the Koreans.¡±

His brother came here to work for an electronics company. When Hillyard was in Japan, he picked up a bottle of soju, ¡°that firewater liquor stuff.¡±

If this tour is a success, Hillyard is interested in visiting more Asian countries. In the past he¡¯s had offers from the Philippines and Singapore. He¡¯s also interested in touring Taiwan and mainland China, where the scene is growing like wild- fire. Let¡¯s hope this tour opens up a lot of doors.

¡°The main thing for me is just not having too many bands on the bill,¡± Hillyard says, ¡°because then we don¡¯t get to play long. One of the sad things I didn¡¯t like about Japan was we only got to play for about 45 minutes to an hour a lot of the time. We usually like to play 90 minutes.¡±