Advantage Lucy - Good News, Not-So-Good News

Advantage Lucy's Aiko at the O-Nest.

First, a news flash for fellow advantage Lucy fans everywhere: the Tokyo pop band’s very long-awaited new album will be released in the next few months, and will be called Echo Park. It will contain about a dozen songs. Those who have heard the works-in-progress say the final album will knock you out. How long we’ve waited to be KO-ed by a new Lucy album!

Lucy singer Aiko announced this happy news during Sunday night’s show at the Shibuya O-Nest. (She said the specific release date would be announced at their next show in June.)

Earlier, Aiko also announced another piece of news that wasn’t good at all—a month ago she had been hit by a car while bicycling, and had broken a collarbone when she fell. She also hit her head (though the collarbone acted as a shock absorber, apparently that's how the human body is designed), and because of that she’s lost about five hours’ worth of memory, from when the car hit her to when her parents came to see her at the hospital.

But besides the broken bone she was fine, and, showing her optimistic side, Aiko says she feels that her mind is somehow reset because of those five missing hours of memory, and she feels energized because of that.

Except that announcement on stage, Aiko didn’t talk about the accident or the injury at all. But she was in a bit of pain during the show, because the bone still wasn’t completely healed. Until she hit the stage her arm was in a sling. On stage though, the only way you could tell she was hurt was in the way she leaned slightly to her side when she played the harmonica because she still couldn’t raise one arm completely.

The way Aiko went on stage and did a fantastic show despite the injury reminded me of something I’ve observed about her personality. While usually a laid-back, modest and friendly person, when it comes to performing, Aiko is completely serious, almost obsessively so. I remember the night before advantage Lucy’s first ever show in Seoul, for example, Aiko spent much of the night at a café preparing detailed schedules for the next night’s shows while the others hung out and chatted. And probably that’s not out of the ordinary for her. She goes through the trouble because I think she wants to keep the stage a special place: it’s where she can really soar, and become the person she wants to be.

Although I’m a devoted advantage Lucy fan, at times I become uncertain as to whether past Lucy shows were truly as good as I remember them, or whether their next show will measure up. But then, I go to the show, and almost inevitably, I’m blown away. I know I was at the O-Nest show.

What’s their secret? Of course there’s the music, which is gorgeous, melodic pop, and which the band plays with skill and passion. But another big thing is that the group performs with so much joy. At times on stage, they seem almost radiant. When I saw them for the first time at the Que nearly two years ago (I’m a nut, I can even remember the exact date—August 6), I remember after the show I walked around the streets of Shimokitazawa like I was on a cloud. I still feel that way sometimes after Lucy shows.

Orange Plankton in Roppongi

Orange Plankton at the Roppongi Morph.

Seemingly every foreigner in Tokyo makes it to Roppongi sooner or later. And most of them conclude quickly that the gaijin entertainment ghetto is a big, uncool dive.

I, however, don’t mind the place. The touts for the gentlemen’s bars and cabaret clubs who march up and down the streets are entertaining, and Roppongi seems to ooze with sleaziness and sin accumulated over decades of being one of the city’s premier entertainment districts. Here, once (still?), Japanese celebrities, yakuza gangsters, right-wing bosses, American big-shots, and hipsters and hustlers of all hues gathered, and there are still little reminders of those days. There are also decent restaurants, bars and clubs.

In one of those clubs, the Roppongi Morph, Tokyo pop band Orange Plankton did a show. Apparently, the manager of the club saw them performing on the street in Shibuya (as they do every Sunday these days), and invited them to play at the Morph. It was a new and clean club, with a high ceiling and fancy light system.

Orange Plankton are headed next week to the southern island of Okinawa to play in front of thousands of people at an indies band festival, and this show tonight was like a dress rehearsal for that big gig-- a good performance. I’m headed to Okinawa with them next Friday, my first trip to the island.

Kiiiiii at the Shibuya O-Nest

Kiiiiii at the O-Nest.

Seeing Japanese pop duo Kiiiiii play live Sunday night was like peeking into a slumber party thrown by grammar school girls.

The two girls that make up Kiiiiii, Ut and Lakin’, walked on to stage wearing bright cocktail dresses, as if they had just gone through mom’s closet for adult clothes. Their faces were painted like members of Kiss. They carried several big bags full of toys, which they placed on stage in a formation whose logic was only known to them. A day-glo pink sleeping bag covered a Fender amp. A big plastic ice cream cone was placed on top of another amp, as was a toy cassette player. An inflatable R2D2 doll stood next to the drums. The grungy club stage was converted into a basement recreation room of some suburban home, packed with toys, a brother’s drum set in one corner.

The Kiiiiii girls began the set with a cheerleading routine, with chants and dance moves. Then, after screaming, “KIIIIIIIIII!”, Lakin’, in a pink dress, dashed to the back to play the drums, while Ut, in a blue dress with a pearl necklace, stood in front, and started to sing, rap, scat, and twirl about. They were like two girls who are having fun being silly, but at the same time are acting out, in completely absorbed seriousness, the parts of their favorite stars—singers, cheerleaders, rappers, rock musicians (at one point Ut did an extended air guitar solo using the mike stand, causing the girls in the audience to titter).

I felt I was seeing in real life the sort of wacko, over-the-top Japanese acts that Hollywood employs as props in films about Japan to show the weirdness of its people. Didn’t Lost in Translation have a scene where Bill Murray is taken to a club featuring, basically, A Band From Outer Space? And the movie Tokyo Pop from way back also briefly had a scene in a club showing an out-there, bohemian band performing. Was there something like that in Kill Bill too?

But the Kiiiiii girls were charming, and those audience members that weren’t completely baffled by them seemed to enjoy their antics. Despite all the craziness their songs weren't gibberish and had actual lyrics, and there was a set list—at one point, the singer and the drummer started performing two different songs, and they said at the same time, in English: “Mistake!”

At some points in the show I got a little tired of the ceaseless silliness, but the Kiiiiii show was without doubt unlike any rock show I had ever seen before.

It seemed fitting that right after the show ended, the song that the DJ put on was the Spice Girls’ ‘Wannabe’.


Ut of Kiiiiii at the O-Nest.

Another band I’d come to see at the O-Nest show was Clisms, a rocking band I’ve written about before. Tonight was the conclusion of a national tour, and their finale was wild: one of the drummers cimbed on top of the bass drum, then crashed into the rest of his equipment, while the lead guitar jumped up and hung by one arm from a ceiling pipe, and hopped on to a one-legged table and in a feat of good balance played some riffs there.

Apila, Reiji Okii Radio Interviewed

Jens Petersen from Sweden wrote to tell me he's done Internet radio interviews of Apila and Reiji Okii, the former leader of the defunct Japanese band Cymbals. I'm a big fan of Apila, who is a female Japanese solo musician, so I enjoyed listening to her talk about recording with Teenage Fanclub, her thoughts on football/soccer, and other matters. (At one point she talked about how, in Japan, when people record music the sessions go from morning to midnight without breaks, but in Glasgow, where she recorded with members of Teenage Fanclub, she and her colleagues frequently took time off to visit the local pub. She says there would often be three to four beer breaks in one day.)

Apila talks in English while Okii speaks in Japanese with interpretations by Petersen. The interview podcast of the show, called MeroMero, mixes in songs by Apila and the Cymbals, so if you are curious to know what these artists sound like, I'd highly recommend it.

Spangle call Talk About Themselves

Japanese art pop band Spangle call Lilli line has published on its homepage a series of interviews that has each of the three band members talking about the new album Trace. The interviews are detailed and long—each taking up four Internet pages. If you are a Spangle fan and can read Japanese, the interviews are well worth a look. If you can’t, here’s a summary of some of the interesting and amusing things the three said.

* Trace, their fourth studio album, was their first since Spangle's original drummer departed (the band released a live album, 68scll, between the third album and Trace), and all three remaining members say they felt they should try out new musical styles with this new album. The members felt the third album, Or, was the culmination of the old, arty, post-rock Spangle sound. The departed drummer, Nobuyuki Kabasawa, provided a lot of musical direction for Or. But because the band strained to create the ultimate old Spangle sound with Or, making that album was highly stressful, causing singer Kana Otsubo to break down crying about once a month. Creating Trace didn't cause as much stress, and was even enjoyable as the band was able to explore and incorporate into its sound new types of music, especially black music.

* Guitarist Ken Fujieda said he was especially influenced by old soul, Motown and dance classic music in making Trace. He also made the other member listen to Prince’s new album, but singer Otsubo said she couldn’t sing like that.

* Two girls from the band Miami All played horns on the album, and they ate sweets with Otsubo during breaks in the recording. (Fujieda)

* The album title, Trace, comes from ‘tracing paper’. The band envisioned ‘tracing’ various musical styles with the latest album. (Fujieda)

* The covers of the first three studio albums featured illustrations by singer Otsubo (who is a professional illustrator when not doing music), but in Trace the band decided to change the album’s appearance. Guitarist Fujieda says the latest album cover was influenced by the designs of Yves Saint Laurent, though the cover also reminds him, in a way, of a bathroom towel.


The cover design.

* Spangle will release in June an album called For Installation containing new songs that didn’t make it into Trace. (Fujieda)

* The band created between 40 and 50 demo songs, and voted on which songs to put into the album, says the other guitarist, Kiyoaki Sasahara.

* The 4th song of Trace, ‘Corner’, was inspired by a riff in an unnamed song by the rap-metal band Korn [and listening to it now, it does sound like a riff that might be used by a heavy metal group, though I would have never guessed unless I read this interview]. (Sasahara)

* Kana Otsubo, Spangle’s singer, says she had images of Bulgarian and Chinese ethnic music in creating this album, though those images didn’t really come through in the end.

* Singer Otsubo is a big fan of R&B and hip hop, and especially likes SWV, Crystal Kay, Prefuse 73 and Dabrye, as well as Sade, who she saw play in Japan.

* Otsubo thought the 3rd song on the album, ‘U-Lite', was pop and upbeat enough that it might work as a TV commercial song for cosmetics, but says that there weren’t any takers among the big cosmetics companies.

CDs of Note

murmur's Good grief!

When the mini-album Good grief! by murmur came out, we devotees of Tokyo pop band advantage Lucy had little choice but to check it out. That’s because on the cover of this CD was the ultimate Seal of Approval: there was a blurb by Yoshiharu Ishizaka, advantage Lucy’s guitarist, saying, “Here is the future of Japanese rock!! A must-listen!!”

With praise like that from Ishizaka-san, how could we not give murmur a try? And we did.

One of my Lucy fan friends, who bought Good grief! for the reason described above, said when he listened to the first song of the album, ‘The man’s wish’, he thought: “Wait, this IS advantage Lucy!” Indeed, with its bossa nova/pop sound, horn parts, and female vocals, it does sound Lucy-like.

But murmur creates its own world in the course of the rest of the album, with gentle acoustic parts and nice pop melodies. Murmur, according to the liner notes, is a girl named Mai Tsuyutani, who plays the guitar, pianica, bell and shaker.

My favorite song on this mini-album is the fourth, called ‘You don’t know’, which reminds me of the mellow-out shoegazer band Slowdive. It sounds like the sort of song someone would think up waking up from a nap in the evening. (And, looking at the lyrics, it is actually about awakening after a dream: “This melody is/ Wonder. Cute. Slow. Green. Sweet & Magic./ I met you in my dream./ I’m happy to see you here./ But you don’t know.”)

Well, Ishizaka-san, as I was told I must do, I listened to this album, and I’m happy to say your advice was sound. I also appreciate it that this CD, like other Japanese pop releases, has stylish album art: a bright orange cover showing a coffee-drinking, fez-wearing bear-like animal looking up at a green bird wearing a kerchief.



Bluebadge Label's guitar pop crazy!

Guitar pop crazy! is the third compilation album to be released by the eminently cool Bluebadge Label. I don’t know the people behind Bluebadge, but I know that it is a relatively new indies label that brings together musicians with a love for guitar pop, neo-acoustic, British and European pop, the Glasgow scene, etc. etc. If advantage Lucy and Swinging Popsicle are among the major league Japanese guitar pop bands, the groups that Bluebadge assembles in compilations like this one might be thought of as the up-and-coming second string bands—but they’re fresh and good, with lots of promise.

Notable songs include: ‘Sunday Clothes’ by the Caraway, which is Swinging Popsicle guitarist Osamu Shimada’s other band; ‘view’ by Spaghetti Vabune, a Kobe-based band that is growing in popularity; winnie’s ‘starless’, their first song release in a couple of years; ‘sweep’ by rockers CleanDistortion; ‘magic rabbit’ by Hong Kong one-girl musical unit the Pancakes; and ‘path’ by humming parlour, which consists of my advantage Lucy fan comrades and friends Ito-san and Kawaie-san.


SP-Tsunagari

Being a Spangle call Lilli line nut, I’ve been trying to buy everything that the Japanese art pop band has ever released (which isn’t all that much anyway: four full-length albums plus a live album, and a few maxi-singles). In the process of that quest to make my collection complete, I found this mini-album called SP-Tsunagari by Line And Meter Nova Society, containing one cover song by SCLL.

The song made me crack up, because it’s a very arty, mood-filled rendition of … Foreigner’s ‘Heat of the Moment’.

Maybe some people are too young to be familiar with this song, but in my teen years it briefly rocketed up the charts. For me growing up in LA, it was the song spoiled Japanese surfer kids listened to in the parking lot in the Toyota Supras that their parents bought them. I also considered buying the Foreigner album, but didn’t, probably because I didn’t have enough money.

It’s a strange feeling to be reminded of that era by this cover by Spangle call, with SCLL’s Kana Otsubo singing in her delicate voice, “Heeeeeeeat of the mo-o-ment”…

Spangle call Lilli line's Trace

Spangle call Lilli Line's new album, Trace.

It’s only April but I have little doubt that Spangle call Lilli line’s Trace will turn out to be, at the end of the year, one of the best Japanese albums of 2005. Trace is a blockbuster.

For long-time fans of this Japanese band, however, the album might take some getting used to. SCLL is clearly exploring new musical territory.

In their first three albums (the self-titled debut album, Nanae and Or), SCLL created music that might be described as avant-garde pop—perhaps a contradiction in terms, but one I think fairly reflects the band’s sound, which is innovative and unorthodox, but also melodious in a pop way. (The band is often characterized as post-rock too.)

In Trace, though, SCLL has added new musical colors to its palette of sound—listeners can hear echoes of popular musical styles such as R&B, soul, and dance music.

The individual songs in Trace are also shorter than the epic compositions in their earlier albums. In their previous albums, almost all songs were longer than five minutes, and some of their best tunes stretched even longer, with ‘Piano’ in their album Or lasting 7 minutes and 23 seconds, and ‘E’ in Nanae continuing for eight-and-a-half minutes.

But those older songs don’t feel long at all. On the contrary, it’s a joy to listen to the way SCLL slowly develops beautiful musical themes. It’s like watching a fast-forwarded video of a flower blooming or an insect emerging from its cocoon. (I’d heartily recommend a listen to their songs ‘E’ or ‘Nano” to get a feel for what I mean.)

In the latest album, however, only two songs are longer and most are about four.

Maybe the most striking example of this new SCLL sound--more pop and shorter in length-- is the third song on the album, “U-Lite”.

Opening with singer Kana Otsubo’s humming accompanied by an electric organ and an ordinary rock band arrangement, this tune, less than three minutes long, is a joyous pop gem. But it’s the sort of song that would have been hard to imagine SCLL doing, considering their previous works. The tune could almost pass for one in the Top 40 chart, though maybe a Top 40 in a parallel universe where pop songs are made with the goal of musical uniqueness and perfection rather than monetary gain…

One thing that hasn’t changed in SCLL’s sound is Otsubo’s instantly recognizable, slightly husky, light, dreamily enchanting singing voice. But her unchanged singing style serves to highlight how different the rest of the music has become. The effect is striking: it’s like a woman you are used to seeing in a kimono dressed up one day in an African dress.

For old fans the song that sounds most like the SCLL of past albums is the seventh track on the album, ‘stereo’. Trace is worth a listen for this song alone, to listen to the way SCLL weaves a gorgeous tapestry of sound in a way only they can.

Plectrum's Uchiage

One for the history books?

I took this photo above for the benefit of Rock Music History. Or so I thought Friday night with a few beers inside me. It was after Plectrum’s stunning solo show at the Que. About fifty of us were celebrating at the uchiage (pronounced something like 'ooh, chee, ah, gay'), an after-show party, at some random Japanese bistro. Everyone was excited.

From right, in the photo, is Osamu Shimada, guitarist for pop bands Swinging Popsicle and Caraway; Yoshiharu Ishizaka, guitarist for advantage Lucy and the creator of that band’s gorgeous music; Jun Inoue, singer for CleanDistortion; and on the left, smiling to someone outside of the picture, is Naoki Kishihara, bassist for Plectrum.

Each one of their bands is outstanding, and I try never to miss any of their shows. To see them all sitting in front of me, chatting about something, was the height of cool. In my musical worldview it was like seeing Nirvana hanging out with Sonic Youth, or witnessing the first meeting in England between the Ramones and the Clash. Sound overblown? Perhaps. But one of the things I’ve found out writing Japan Live is that there are many more fans than I thought, in Asia, Europe and the Americas, of these modest, friendly musicians.

The Plectrum show that preceded the party was mind-blowing. My friend Dr. I said he was on the verge of tears at the band’s rendition of its 1996 hit ‘Flow’, Plectrum’s first major label single. I was in the same state when they did “3 P.M. Lazy” from the album Sorry and “Book End” from Colombia, two of their best songs. The show lasted nearly three hours, but none of us was tired at the end—no, we were energized—and Taisuke Takata, Plectrum’s singer, hopped from one table to the next being a model party host.

Other musicians were at the party too, to revel after a great show. At one point I saw the bassist for the Waffles paying homage to Ishizaka of Lucy, about ten years his senior. During the evening, on top of beer, I downed two big glasses of awamori, the potent liquor of Okinawa, so by the time the group split into two and mine moved to some bar in Shimokitazawa, I was quite smashed. I ended the evening teaching one version of the Jive Handshake to Plectrum's drummer, Mikiya Tatsui. Next morning I suffered from a slight hangover, but I also brought back from the night the picture above to keep its memory fresh.

Hartfield Becomes A Duo

Tokyo rock band Hartfield says in its e-mail magazine that bassist Komine and drummer Tatsu are leaving the band, making it a duo rather than a quartet. I'll miss the two, but what can you do, nothing's permanent. The band says it will have guest musicians playing the rhythm parts at shows, and their April 25 gig at the Que (with Kaimy Plants, ZARIGANI 5 and Throw Curve)will be the last one in Japan for a while so make sure to attend it.

Meanwhile, in an interesting pairing, Hartfield says it will tour South Korea from April 29 with Swinging Popsicle. The two bands play quite difference types of music--Hartfield, melodic rock with lots of distortion, while Swinging Popsicle is soulful pop--but they are both outstanding bands and well worth going to see if you are in the area.

Round Table, Vasallo Crab 75, Swinging Popsicle

Vasallo Crab Kudo's Christmas-lit guitar.

Sunday was Major League Guitar Pop night at the Shimokitazawa Club Que. The three pop bands that played—Swinging Popsicle, Round Table and Vasallo Crab 75—were all outstanding, veteran groups, each with a big fan base of its own. Those three came together for the second installment of the Vasallo-hosted monthly Mirrorball Disco Night, at which the idea is to get down to cool Japanese pop music (though in reality most of the shy audience do no more than shake their heads a bit).


Swinging Popsicle's Fujishima with Vasallo Crab's Kudo.

It had been a while since I’d seen the first act, Swinging Popsicle, and I was happy to see them once again. Singer Mineko Fujishima was spectacular as always—she’s a Soul Woman wearing the body of a petite Japanese girl. Osamu Shimada, the guitarist, and Hironobu Hirata, the bassist, are both virtuosos and also play for a number of other good bands (Shimada is in Caraway, while Hirata is in Auroranote). When the three jam together, the playing is joyful but also professional—this isn’t a band that loses its cool, or gets mushy, but they put their hearts into doing the show.

The second band, Round Table, I’d seen once before. A smooth pop band that reminds me a little of Flippers’ Guitar, the trail-blazing 90's Japanese group, guitarist Katsutoshi Kitagawa sings while keyboardist Rieko Ito punches out explosive solos.


Swinging Popsicle's Hirata with Vasallo Crab's violinist, Yasuhito Kawabe.

Last was Vasallo Crab 75, who I’ve written about many times before. Any music fan in Tokyo who has a taste for funky pop music should check them out. Recently at their shows they’ve interspersed their pop songs with long funky jam sessions. A friend said he preferred the old Vasallo with its more ordinary pop sound, but I’m no pop purist and have to say Vasallo’s sound now gets me moving like an internal metronome.

Vasallo likes interesting stage visuals—for a period a few months back, they played in the pitch dark except for a lone, lit disco ball—but they are an indies band so there are no pyrotechnics or Stonehedge descending down to the stage or what have you. Instead, the band put up reflective sheets on the back wall that glittered in the colors of the stage lights. And at a key moment guitarist Daisuke Kudo said to the audience, ‘look at my guitar’, which then lit up like a little Christmas tree with green light bulbs.

Later Kudo said he bought the mini-lights, taped them onto his guitar, and had a switch on his side to turn it on at the right moment. What if it malfunctioned and the guitar didn’t light up? Yeah, I actually regretted bringing the guitar to the audience’s attention even as I was doing so, he said.

In front of the stage were a mother and her daughter, who looked about eight, with intricately braided hair. The girl had a look that alternated between bewilderment and boredom all through the show, and she glanced nervously once in a while at the dancing adults around her. She made me remember that rock ‘n’ roll made no sense to me either as a child until one pre-pubescent day, when I suddenly understood, and was hooked.

***

UPDATE: For people who will be in Tokyo in May and June, just to let you know that Vasallo Crab 75 will be doing a solo show on May 26, and a show with advantage Lucy and Condor 44 on June 22, both at the Que. Both are must-see shows!

DJ iPod

I don't think Apple is telling iPod customers everything they need to know. There's a lot of weirdness about the iPod. For example, most people believe that the iPod's shuffle function picks songs by random. That, I'm pretty sure, isn't the case.

Now, to back up a bit for people who don't use iPods, the iPod has a thing called 'shuffle' where you can listen to all your songs in 'random' order. It's fun at first, but after a while it gets a bit unsettling. The shuffle command, you see, chooses songs well. You almost never get, say, a hardcore punk song after, for instance, a church hymn. The iPod usually gradually eases you into different kinds of music, going little by little from soft to loud, mellow to intense, and so on. In other words, it can't be random.

So what's going on?

I'm no IT engineer -- I couldn't assemble a transistor radio -- so here I'm going to have to use metaphors to explain how I think the iPod works. The gadget is like a huge library of singles. On the library payroll are a bunch of tiny dwarves. Everytime you press 'play' on a song, one of the dwarves scurries to find the single you requested, and puts it on the record player. That's how you hear the songs.

But there's one dwarf in the staff who has a Gift: he has a genuine, uncanny ability to dee-jay records. When you put on the 'shuffle' function, you're actually telling this dwarf -- let's call him DJ iPod: do the rest. And he does. He's good. He knows how to spin those disks to make you not want to stop listening.

Anyway, to test my dwarf-DJ-in-iPod hypothesis, I decided to observe how the songs were chosen tonight when I turned on the shuffle function.

I started with the Germ's We Must Bleed, because you have to begin somewhere, and I thought it would be a good challenge for DJ iPod: what will he choose next in my mostly punk-free song library?

He picked: Syrup 16g's Roller Met. A good call. While Japan's Syrup 16g isn't punk, the band is certainly hard rock, and one could argue the two bands share a certain attitude of nihilism. Off to a good start. What next?

Next: Travis's Turn. Nice! This is in line with my hypothesis: DJ iPod went from punk to hard rock to the more mellow rock of Travis in a smooth progression. Plus I have a feeling the DJ knows I haven't listened to Travis as much as I've wanted to because I've been busy with Japanese music. I'm looking forward to the next song.

Which is: Japanese songstress Misako Odani's Boku no E ('My painting'). That has moved the mood completely to mellow and pop from the initial punk of the Germs. Impressive. And, again, this is an Odani song I haven't listened to that much.

With the next song, DJ iPod appears to want to make things more upbeat. But not so abruptly that the transition seems unnatural. He picks the Cymbals' Air Guitar. The carefree singing of the Cymbals' Asako Toki is a good follow-up to the intense, passionate voice of Odani, like fruit after prime ribs.

Next: Husking Bee's A Single Word. The change to rock seems a bit sudden, but it works. And I hadn't listened to the Japanese band's song in a while and had half-forgotten how good it is.

Next: Lucy van Pelt's change. Now things are starting to get a little strange. Lucy? The Japanese guitar pop band (now called advantage Lucy) doesn't share much with Husking except that both songs were recorded in the late-90's. Hmm. What's next?

BLACK SABBATH'S TOMORROW'S DREAM.

NO!!!

No! That's just perverse! Black Sabbath following Lucy?? That's just not right. I can't know, but I have a strong feeling that never before in history have these two songs been played one after the other in a music player anywhere...

Here I think DJ iPod was either asleep at the wheels, or some drug he took earlier had started to kick in. Or... my hypothesis is starting to look somewhat shaky. Worried, I wait for the next song.

Which is: Husking Bee's Day Break. Didn't we just listen to Husking? The transition is also a little rocky, though that may be inevitable after Black Sabbath.

Next: Art-School's Charlotte. Nice one. The DJ dwarf is getting back in shape -- Art-School is, like Husking, emotion-packed Japanese rock, and this DJ move makes sense.

Next: Misako Odani's I. I'd complain that we just listened to Odani a few songs back if it weren't for the fact that this transition is unexpected, and brilliant! One sort of passion melting into another. Good stuff, DJ!

Here the DJ decides to be adventurous, and puts on a song by a Korean band, Cocore, but it's in Hangul so I can't read it. But it works.

The DJ decides it's mellow-out time with the next song, and puts on Kuchu- Ko-dan's Kyu-jitsu ('Day Off'). It's as if he's reminding me that I really ought to listen to Kuchu- Ko-dan more. They are a great girl pop band, but I hardly ever listen to their stuff for some reason.

Next: Syrup 16g's Mouth to Mouse. OK, good transition, but Syrup 16g again?

Next: Unicorn's Elegy. This is one of those albums I have in my iPod that I've never listened to, but haven't cleaned it out due to laziness. The pop song by the old Japanese band is actually not bad. Maybe I should go back and listen to the full album.

Which is followed by: The Clash's Remote Control. And then: Husking Bee's Shinkyu- Dynamism. Husking Bee, again?? It's the third time Husking has come on in the space of about fifteen songs.

The next song has a gorgeous acoustic guitar start, and I wonder what is it, until I hear the deep, raspy voice of the male singer. Right away I know it's the U.S. band Tangerine's It's Focus, from a CD the guys sent to me.

Next is early Art-School, the song Negative, which has a garage band feel and works well after Tangerine.

At this point, DJ iPod decides to play a few Western pop songs in a row, starting with Happydeadmen's The Seas Are Sailed, followed by the Lucksmiths' What You'll Miss, and then, another Lucksmiths song (!), Stayaway Stars (I mean, if you think the shuffle function is truly random, think about what a small probability there is of two Lucksmiths songs randomly playing back to back, when I only have about 12 of their songs out of 3,000...).

The final song that comes on for this experiment is Luminous Orange's Fall Again, which matches the mood of the Lucksmiths song that came before it.

If you're still with me, I think I've made my point that a brain, and not randomness, is behind the iPod's shuffle function. What do you think?

Three Berry & Cherry Weekend

Prime Minister Koizumi's flower viewing party.

Three Berry Icecream, the musical unit of singer/accordionist/glockenspiel-player Mayumi Ikemizu, performed on Sunday afternoon at a tiny place called the Cafe See More Glass in Harajuku, Tokyo. If a gig at an arena with mammoth sound and light systems is one extreme of the rock concert spectrum, this show was probably near the other extreme. The cafe was in a non-descript basement floor next to a cheap-looking Chinese restaurant and across from a shop that sells ao-jiru, a bitter, green plankton-like drink that proponents claim is good for you. Inside See More Glass was room for about thirty seated people at most. Its owner must have been trying to bring to life a childhood dream of a warm, comfortable home by creating this cafe - bookshelves were stuffed with hundreds of picture books, and brightly-colored art was everywhere.



Three Berry Icecream live.

Ikemizu, the performer, is a veteran musician who once played in the 90's Japanese pop band Bridge (Hideki Kaji was the group's most famous member). She's now the mother of a cute and outgoing three-year-old daughter, Ruka, and despite the demands of parenthood has continued to record music, though slowly, and has been doing shows occasionally. Ikemizu is friends with members of guitar pop bands like advantage Lucy and Vasallo Crab 75, and indeed, at this show Lucy guitarist Yoshiharu Ishizaka played guitar, and Vasallo's violinist and bassist helped out too.

The sound system was as simple as could be, but that served to highlight what accomplished musicians these guys are. A pleasant surprise for me was to hear how good the accordion and violin sound together playing pop/bossa nova. Three Berry did two shows, each about an hour for a crowd of around 25 people , many of whom knew each other, like cafe regulars.


Prime Minister Koizumi (click to enlarge)

Saturday I was invited to, of all things, the flower-viewing party hosted by Prime Minister Koizumi. It was at the Shinjuku Gyoen, or Shinjuku Gardens, a big park in central Tokyo. The day was perfect for the party, sunny, with the cherry blossoms in full bloom. A pamphlet said the park contained about twenty varieties of cherry trees, including a rare type with green-colored cherry blossoms. And it was true, the park was colored that day in various shades of pink and white of cherry flowers. However, many of the 8,000 or so guests seemed more interested in taking photos of the celebrities that Koizumi had invited, than appreciating the cherry flowers' beauty.

Usually though, Japanese people make a big fuss about the cherry blossoms, partly out of habit, but also in part because the cherry's brief bloom I think confirms their view that youth is fleeting, and strikes a sentimental chord within them. Personally I prefer the plum blossom, which is pretty in its own way (either a dark pink or paler white than the cherry), stays in bloom longer than the cherry, but is largely ignored by people because it flowers ahead of the warmth of spring.

Tornado Tatsumaki, Travelling Panda, On Botton Down

Springtime in Tokyo.

Most of the rock shows I go to in Tokyo take place at the Club Que in Shimokitazawa, and there's a reason for that: its managers book some of the most interesting, innovative, highest quality Japanese bands. Tonight was another reminder why I love this dinky basement club. The three bands that played, Tornado Tatsumaki, Travelling Panda and On Botton Down, were all wonderful.

The three's style might be called progressive pop, as opposed to progressive rock. Their songs are approachable, gorgeous and swinging, but they always have a twist, such as unusual chords or eccentric rhythms. Theirs was pop that rocked and had brains, and I enjoyed it tremendously.

***

On Botton Down is a girl singer and guy guitar duo, and they played with supporting musicians. Maybe I use this word too often to describe Japanese bands, but they were a quirky bunch. At the start of the show, when the drummer took a while to appear on stage, the other members said he was just now in the midst of, er, the final act in the digestive process... The drummer wore about half a dozen T-shirts, and stripped off one T-shirt at the end of each song. Despite those and other eccentricities, on botton down's performance was a delight, melodious and adventurous.


On Botton Down at the Que.

Travelling Panda, not to be confused with Texas Panda, was a girl singer/girl keyboard/guy guitarist trio, also playing tonight with support musicians. They mixed pop, funk, hiphop and fusion jazz sounds in a cauldron of rocking noise. The guitarist looked like a tall Japanese Buddy Holly. The singer marched back and forth on stage in vaguely hiphop way, holding the mike parallel to the ground rapper-like, but in spite of that she sang in a pleasant, girlish voice.

***

I'd come to see the last band, Tornado Tatsumaki ('tatsumaki' means ... 'tornado'. So their name is 'tornado tornado', or, perhaps, 'tornado times two'?). They were the loudest of the three bands, and at times their music dissolved into Sonic Youth-like distorted chaos. The frizzy-haired singer (all three of the bands had female vocalists), wearing a strange white blouse and shorts outfit that puffed up in weird places and seemed on the verge of falling apart, danced in a puppet-like hard-jointed way, but she had a lot of stage presence and a strong voice.

MP3s & 3,000 Yen CDs

I'm not an MP3 file-sharing guy. Napster came and went, without my ever trying it out. I don't use the latest file-sharing services either. Partly I guess I'm old-fashioned -- I grew up on LPs, and it still doesn't feel right when music doesn't come packaged in a box with art and words. What a shock it was to read a few years about Napster-using kids who had never owned a single CD!

But I can understand people outside of Japan who get most, or maybe all, of their Japanese music online. Especially with independent Japanese labels it's hard to buy their CDs abroad, and often expensive. I think there's value in itself in indies bands being listened to by foreign fans, even for free. If you are one of those people though, I urge you, if you become crazy about one of those indies bands that you found on the web, to try to actually buy that group's CD if there is some way to. It would make a lot of difference for the musicians.

Major label artists are another matter. Unless I'm crazy about a band, I'm not ready to fork out the 3,000 yen (about U.S.$30) that big Japanese record labels charge for a full-length album these days. Partly, I'm a cheapskate. But there are also principles involved in this -- why should I pay double the price of equivalent CDs in the U.S.? With a shiny new 10,000 yen bill, I could buy four 2,500 yen indies CDs, or even five 2,000 yen ones, but only three 3,000 yen major label disks, plus maybe a cup of cofee. And even $15 for a CD in the U.S. isn't inexpensive: Fugazi used to charge only $8 for their albums (maybe still do?).

Where does the 3,000 yen go? I picked up a Japanese book called Ongaku Gyo-kai Urawaza ('Tricks of the Trade in the Music Industry'), which gave a hypothetical revenue breakdown for a 3,000 yen CD that sold 100,000 copies. It said the record label gets about 35% of the total. The vendors get 25% to 30%. Advertising accounts for 15% And so on, until the musicians, assuming they wrote the music themselves, only end up with less than one-twentieth of the money.

I'm no expert in the music business and maybe this sort of revenue division is ordinary in other countries too. But even if that were the case, it's clear that Japanese labels are being inefficient because the end result is that CD prices in Japan are double those in the U.S., and as far as I know more expensive than anywhere else.

I read an interview of rock band Art-School, which now records with Toshiba-EMI, in which singer Kinoshita was saying Art-School and Mo'some Tonebender were the only "alternative bands" in Japan. Though I like both groups, that remark disappointed me. So you're proud to be classifying yourself by that genre name, 'alternative', that corporate U.S. dreamed up to market indies music that isn't indies anymore? You, the sensitive poet guy? And meanwhile, you charge 3,000 yen for CDs?

I don't think it's the sole reason, but overpriced CDs must be one big explanation for falling CD sales industry-wide and rampant illegal file-sharing. I mean, I make a decent living but I hardly ever buy 3,000 yen CDs. (Just to add, I'm not unconditionally against major labels. I just want them to cut their prices.)

But maybe I'm just cheap.

***

So how do I spend my money? Tonight would have been a good example, if I had only succeeded.

Yahoo Japan's auction site for the past week has had someone selling as one package 16 late-90's Japanese guitar pop cassette tapes, including that highly-sought rarity, Lucy Van Pelt's Red Bicycle tape, as well as two early tapes of Teeny Frahoop. The auction was to end at 10:05 P.M. tonight. These were treasure the likes of which you don't see on sale often!

As expected, people waited until the last minutes to place their bids, so that by bidding too early they don't encourage some crazy rich guy to outbid them. Ten minutes before the auction finished, the bid price surged to 7,250 yen from the starting 1,000 yen.

I was ready to go as high as 15,000 yen (around $150), and to think really hard and fast on whether to bid higher if even my top bid is defeated. I waited until a minute and 45 seconds before the virtual gavel was to hit the virtual lectern. Then... when I finally inputted my bid, it was rejected because the seller had specified that bidders had to have won a Yahoo Japan auction at least once before, which I hadn't. The tapes slipped through my fingers...

Cool CDs From Japan, Korea, HK & U.S.

A few CDs I've liked a lot recently:


Cocore's Boyish


Peppertones' A Preview

These two are CDs of Korean bands that my friend Wonyul sent me from Seoul. He says one of the two groups, Cocore, is a representative band of Seoul's Hongde scene (Hongde, an abbreviation of Hongik University, has a lot of record shops and music clubs around it. It seems to be a hip Seoul equivalent of Tokyo's Shimokitazawa).

Cocore is Korean grunge. The first time I heard the album, I thought: "Nirvana, but in Korean!". I found I was on the right track when Wonyul confirmed that these guys are big Nirvana fans. Still, they aren't Kurt Cobain clones. Their music, which rocks, is more varied and not as heavy-sounding as the Seattle trio.

The other band, Peppertones, reminds me of the Cymbals of Japan, and, again, Wonyul said I wasn't off the mark - the band members are big Cymbals fans. To back up a bit, since they aren't nearly as well-known as Nirvana: the Cymbals are a defunct Japanese trio that created some of the catchiest pop songs in recent years. My favorite albums of theirs are their first two independent releases, Neat, or Cymbal! and Missiles & Chocolate. Their later major label albums are good too, but I think their first two works contain the essence of Cymbal goodness.

Anyway, the Peppertones play fast-tempoed, danceable pop. Some of the songs in this mini-disk sound like the sort of dance music that was popular in the early 90's, with synthesizer string parts, and rising flute glissandos (the thing where flutes play an ascending passage really fast). Another nice listen.

Wonyul says members of these two bands are soju drinking buddies. I'd like to hang out with them too and drink the potent liquor at one of those tiny Korean barbecue places in Hongde...


Mix Market's Chronicle


Crawl's Milkicking

These two albums are both of Japanese bands that recorded with the independent K.O.G.A. label, whose specialty is girl punk and rock groups. The K.O.G.A. girls typically sing with a high, almost child-like voice (usually higher than their normal speaking voice) over punk or hard rock musical compositions.

I've heard people ask, why don't these girls sing in a more natural voice? I think it's a stylistic issue. The mixing of the child-like voice and heavy rock music parts creates musical tension, and the final product is an interesting sound that is distinctly Japanese.

Mix Market, a quintet (all guys except for the female singer), and Crawl, a trio that has already split up, are two exemplars of this style.

Of the two, Mix Market has the heavier rock sound. Chronicle combines a few new songs with material from four of their singles.

Crawl's singer's voice is Lolita to the max. Their Milkicking, released in 1995, contains several pop gems like "High & Dry", which I heard originally in a compilation album and got me interested in the group. In a parallel universe where record sales accurately reflect quality, this pop song would have been in the Top 40.


My Little Airport's the ok thing to do on sunday afternoon is to toddle in the zoo

At Apple Crumble Record in Shibuya, I picked up this album by the Hong Kong duo My Little Airport, who I'd heard was one of the better Asia ex-Japan bands. And they were. This album, with its provocative cover (what are these two uniformed girls doing in a school hallway?!), includes songs in both English and Cantonese. Like the Pancakes, another Hong Kong unit, the singing is breezy and the compositions quiet and simple, constructed of Casio keyboard and programmed sounds for the most part, but they manage to make the tunes artsy and satisfying to listen to.


Primrose's Abyssal

I admire Tokyo rock band Primrose a lot, but I hadn't been listening to their albums that much recently, because you have to be in a certain state of mind to get into their slowly-developed, psychelic-sounding rock epics. A friend said they reminded him of Pink Floyd.

Then, recently, I was walking somewhere with my iPod on shuffle mode, and "Queer Place" from this album came on, and it KO-ed me on the spot. With trippy distorted guitar parts, a trance-inducing repeated bass line, a drum part that drives the emotion of the music forward, this song (if it can be described in such a traditional manner...) makes you forget it's twelve minutes long as it gradually but surely builds up to an explosive climax. The album is worth buying to listen to this song alone, though the rest is good too. (As an aside, isn't it amazing what a great DJ the iPod's random mode can be? One song melts into the next in the most imaginative ways.)


Ivy's In the Clear

Finally, have you listened yet to In the Clear, the latest album by New York trio Ivy?

I have no idea how popular Ivy is back home in the U.S., but they are huge among the Tokyo pop in-crowd. Their older albums are sold with a sticker quoting singer Chara saying Ivy is a band she's only want to tell her best friends about. That may be just a marketing thing, but I've also seen Winnie singer Iori list the band as one of her favorites, and singer Aiko of advantage Lucy says Ivy's French vocalist Dominique Durand is one of her most beloved singers and one whose style she wants to emulate.