Tokyo Below: A Documentary of Independent Rock Music in Japan from James R Petix on Vimeo.

For the first time ever, I’ve posted my 25 minute documentary short, Tokyo Below on the internet in its entirety.  The film was shot in December of 2000 in Tokyo, Japan for my senior thesis at the Savannah College of Art and Design.  Looking back, I have many fond memories of creating this piece, as well as traveling to different film festivals to promote it.  It is the reason I started It Came From Detroit, and I used it as a calling card to get many of my first interviews with the bands here.

It was shot over fourteen days by myself, Kaoru Imafuku, and Kristian Donaldson who went on to become an incredible comic artist for DC and IDW. He also created the artwork for the original DVD cover. While we were only able to discover a sliver of the independent rock scene at the time, I think what we found still stands out to this day.  I still get an email every few months about people looking for more music from the band Bluebeard.  A clip of the band I put on YouTube has over 90,000 hits!  I was recently contacted by the lead singer of the band, Yoshikazu (who is now in another band, As Meias that sounds just as good) and he provided me a link to Japanese shop where you can buy their original CD.

So here it is, almost seven years later.  I hope you enjoy it, and share it with others.
-James