The tiny Kansai recording label Tag Rag made a strong showing for the "Osaka sound" at its showcase concert at Shibuya's Club Quattro last February. From the pummeling drum patterns of five-piece percussion group Grind Orchestra (led by lively, ex-Boredoms co-frontman Yoshikawa) to the extended dub/hardcore of Rise From the Dead, Tag Rag gave us three hours of inspired West-Japan underground. Best of the night was the aggressive guitar-bass-drums trio U, a band that evokes some of the unwavering power-through-repetition of Tokyo trio Friction, but with a more melodic, almost dream-like edge.

But Kanto holds its own. At La Mama live house, between the Ginza Line tracks and Route 246 near Shibuya Station, music-hall humor and polka band rhythms blended with noise-pop and a tuba bassline for the CD launch of eccentric Tokyo band Olivia*New*Ton*Jon, led by enigmatic keyboard player/producer Hoppy Kamiyama, dressed as a woman. Also on the bill was instrumental band Happy Family--brilliant proof that progressive rock is breathing freely in Tokyo. The Happy Family secret is to maintain a loose-rocking, improvisational spontaneity within complex time signatures and compositional structures that would have Robert Fripp pricking up his ears. It's not as academic as Osaka's Altered States, which is, nevertheless, an awesome free-rock/jazz trio in a similar vein (and plays this month at Shinjuku Pit Inn).

At Milk, TJ Award winner Yoshihide Otomo exploited the remarkable bass range of the club's PA in a solo exploration of sampled sounds, turntable abuse and homemade-guitar noise in a rare gig at a rock venue. Percussionist/sampler player Samm Bennett, together with guitarist Hahn Rowe--both New Yorkers--did similarly the following week. Many of Bennett's catchy songs bend around "Eastern" influences and Rowe is a rare guitarist--both a listener and a player--capable of extracting almost any color of sound from the instrument.

On a more mainstream front, Californian trio Primus turned in an entertaining show to a near-capacity crowd at Liquid Room. Bassist/leader/hyper-nerd Les Claypool high-kicked his way around the stage as if at a hillbilly hoe-down, slapping out funk basslines at astounding speeds then segueing, deadpan, into songs with titles like "Douglas the Eggplant." Primus are fun, although Claypool had me struggling to follow his myriad tangents. Sometimes I wondered if he even listened to his own, technically mind-boggling, playing.

Back at Club Quattro, former Bo Gumbos leader and recent Okinawan music convert Donto turned what might have been a merely pleasant evening of folksong into a raucous party when he invaded the stage at the Shimauta Rakuen concert. Rake-thin, wild-haired and dressed in a green-checked yukata, Donto's every move is electric, expressive and outrageously camp. His guitar playing is taut and sweet, his attacks on the sanshin a radical departure from the studied norm and his vocals a delightfully cracked falsetto.

Local indies rock continues on its expansive way with Tokyo's melodic, California-style punk trio Hi-Standard signing a record deal with America's Fat Wreck Chords. This follows on the heels of their strong performance supporting Green Day here last February, a show where they were smart (and extravagant) enough to distribute free CD singles to the crowd. Hi-Standard comes from the same live house scene that gave us Super Junky Monkey (new album, Parasitic People out now) and the no-holds-barred, wall-of-sound guitar band Taifuu Ikka. Offering more hope for the indies scene, the traditionally conservative label King Records, through its subsidiary Paw Records, has just released the band's second album, Kashi 99 Do ("99 degrees Fahrenheit").

Speaking of new albums, Boredoms' rock-solid bassist Hira and his band, Hanadensha, releases Narcotic Guitar this month. If you've seen Hanadensha before in its frighteningly precise, hardcore/heavy metal/psychedelic incarnation, be prepared for something different. The band is now exploring a trance-influenced, soundtrack-for-imaginary-film edge, logically and aggressively, and will be supporting German psychedelic outfit Amon Düül II at ON AIR WEST this month.