Tokyo Tower Wax Museum. 3rd floor. “No pictures please,” the sign up front says but the place is closing soon and security is a non-issue. Tomo once warned me the place was run by a rich music nerd. Time to whip out the broken Kodak and snap a few off…
This is Elvis, probably sculpted by a person who’d never actually seen The King before. Looks more like Nicolas Cage after a binge to me.
Incredible wax work of Carl Gustav Horn. Wait...it's JFK. I think.
Jimi looks like someone who'd be walking around Shinjuku huffing paint thinner circa 1973.
Freak out. It's classic wax museum staple Frank Zappa. There was a massive Last Supper tableau on the other side, meaning beardy weirdies everywhere.
Space is at a premium so some of these guys are going to have to share the same glass case. Note Toshiro Mifune lurking in the background.
Nice use of sickly green light on the Bush.
Behind a door marked "The Torture Never Stops!" I found an incredible likeness of how I spend most of my time in Kabuki-cho.
People begin scratching their heads in unison wondering "who the fuck is that?" as wax statues of obscure krautrock acts suddenly take over. Here's your fav and mine, Klaus Shulze!
Things get positively Matt Gray once Faust shows up...
But prog isn't entirely Germany's fault. There's also Jethro Tull to blame.
Robert Fripp and a single crafty guitar.
Your dream super-team up and mine: Sabbath's Toni Iommi meets ELP's Keith Emerson (hopefully playing the Godzilla Final Wars soundtrack).
After this, you get dumped out into a gift store full of Iron Maiden stickers and fake Rainbow platinum records. I doubt anything in the new Tokyo Tower could possibly top it.
Yeah, JFK does look a bit like Carl Horn.
The Zappa figure does look pretty on-model, though.
Posted by: Avery Davies | May 24, 2006 at 04:44 AM
MMmm, I dunno, that JFK looks too puffy in the jowls to be Carl, Carl has more a lean Roman look about him. That's a JFK as played by Powers Booth.
OTOH that 'Elvis' looks pretty close to the announcer guy at Kaiju Big Battel.
Zappa is dead on. um. no joke intended.
Was that a cardboard C-3PO at the back of the huddled masses?.
Now for the 'Steve has culture shock' moment.
There are still wax museums? And how do you fit one on Tokyo Tower?!
So what happens to all these? Unemployment? Forced to turn tricks on the street? Some private investor buys them by the pound and has sad, sad tea parties with his new 'friends'?
Or are they RESTORED TO PSEUDO LIFE and left to rampage and feed on the blood of virgins?
I'm so tired...
Posted by: Steve Harrison | May 24, 2006 at 10:50 AM
It's more like Martin Sheen playing me. His suit isn't bad at all, but I wonder about the tie. Looks like James Dean, Thomas Edison, and Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra are stuck there in the case with Mifune. Did at any point you find yourself saying, "...Good Lord! This isn't wax! This is a HUMAN hand!"
—C.
P.S. It looks like an Oscar to me, rather than Threepio.
Posted by: Carl Horn | May 24, 2006 at 12:25 PM
That's Robert Fripp? It looks more like one of my Profs at LA Valley College than the Frippmeister. At least they could have sprung for a nice big Nabeshin-style 'fro wig so he could have looked like he did around 1968 or so. Then again they really skimped on Hendrix's hair.
Good to know Prog lives...somewhere...
Posted by: Ms. Geek | May 24, 2006 at 03:18 PM
Man, what a nuthouse! Those things look like they were made outta EAR WAX.
Keith Emerson looks kinda sexy in all the wrong ways (is that a hard nipple I see peeking out? That's Hot!) and Iommi looks seriously-fucking PISSED!
No Damo Suzuki, eh?
Posted by: Matt Gray | May 24, 2006 at 05:34 PM
Fripp looks like a cross between Steve Hackett (now there's a turnaround!) and ex P.M. John Major ("I'm still here..")
Toni Iomi looks as if he's got genuine John Birch Hyperflux-G pickups on his guitar. I'm wondering if it's the one I played in the JB factory many years ago!
Posted by: Rocklogicxxxxx | May 30, 2006 at 06:59 AM
Fripp in a baseball cap?
Um,uh...yeah.
I got nothin'.
Posted by: Tim Gainer | May 30, 2006 at 12:44 PM
Well, at least it's a *Discipline* baseball cap . . . or so it seems to appear to be . . .
Posted by: Mike Champagne | June 02, 2006 at 02:17 PM
"Holy shit" I can't tell who any of these waxies are? Where is this at!!! ha, ha, ha, Did you pay to get in this place? If you did tell me how much & I will pay you back, I love Elvis, are you sure that's who it is? It's a great laugh.
Thanks
Don Greene
Hayden, Idaho
Posted by: Don Greene | April 29, 2007 at 08:22 PM