Welcome Keikaku readers to what I’m hoping will become a regular feature here. I’ve begun to collect old J-Pop 45s and LPs over the past few months. Just 50 yen here, and 100 yen there, and all of a sudden I’ve amassed a ridiculous amount of records. There’ve been some real gems mixed in amongst all the impulse buys and judged-by-their-cover buys (Take my word for it, young Matsuda Seiko may have been cute, but those records are garbage!).

17 years ago to this day, for those of us in this time zone anyway, Yakushimaru Hiroko’s first single exploded onto the Japanese pop charts. The song, entitled “Sailor Fuku to Kikanju” (Sailor Suit and Machine Gun), was the theme song to a movie of the same name in which Yakushimaru herself starred. Because I unfortunately have yet to see the movie, I’m not sure what a melancholy love song has to do with a movie about a teenage yakuza heiress with an AK-47, but I sure as heck want to find out!

While listening to this for the first time with my bargain record hunting partner Randy, he mentioned how it had this sort of nostalgic quality about it, as if we had already heard this song a hundred times before. The melody is indeed that good, instrumentally and vocally. As with most pop starlets and idols, I might say that this song would be equally good had anyone else sung it, and certainly the version put out under the title “Yume no Tochuu” by songwriter Kisugi Takao is a great song in itself. But, the truth is that, despite having only been 17 at the time, Yakushimaru’s voice has a sort of simple world-weariness to it that really shines through in a sad song about bidding “sayonara” to a former love. Her voice shakes, rises and falls, with a slight vibrato that sounds more regal than your average cutesy idol. Released in the same month as Kisugi’s version, Yakushimaru’s single hit #1 on the Oricon charts.

The single’s b-side, “Atarimae no Niji” (Ordinary Rainbow), isn’t as driving or dramatic as the single itself, but it’s tinkling piano and lyrics about a crumbling relationship manage to even be more gloomy! It’s definitely a great complement.

Here’s video of Yakushimaru performing the song with Kisugi, a bit older with a slightly more refined voice. Enjoy!

I’ve had a strange fascination with the rapper Illreme ever since I saw him back in 2005 with Bloodthirsty Butchers, Your Song Is Good, and BREAKfAST, among others at a small festival in Ebisu, Tokyo. I had no idea who this gangly, effeminate goofball sporting a microphone headset and sampler on his shoulder was, but he was cartoonishly likable enough. His set time passed by rather quickly and I would’ve probably forgotten about him otherwise, but he returned later on that day to rap over a song with Your Song Is Good as his backing band.

Soon enough, that song ended up on a 7″ split that Your Song Is Good would release with Mu-Stars (who, featuring Morimoto Zakkan from BREAKfAST, would deliver an equally wacky team up on the record’s other side). I snapped that record up, as a devoted YSIG fan, but didn’t expect to hear too much more out of our weird ol’ friend Illreme.

Then came We Love Katamari Damacy, the sequel to possibly the greatest game ever, featuring a song performed by none other than that thorn in your side with that high-pitched voice, Illreme. His contribution, “Kuru Kuru Rock,” was actually an amazingly catchy tune, with an appropriately shuffling beat with cute little falsetto voices and sound effects littered throughout. It’s truly a great compliment to a cute and silly game such as Katamari.

I’ll admit to having bought a few of Illreme’s records since, but I’ve never quite completely come around to his insane style. I think I may have latched onto him as my hope for something good to finally come out of the Japanese hip-hop scene (sorry for the blanket trashing, J-rap lovers), but I’m not sure if I’ve put my money on a good horse or not. Then again, even he’s got more class than something like this:

While digging up Illreme videos on youtube I was inspired to try to find other Japanese artists who I may have been missing out on in my hermit’s shell, but even the best I could find was still kind of disappointing, in that stilted vocal delivery sort of way:

I hate to be some sort of pro-English snob, but maybe the Japanese language doesn’t lend itself well to hip hop. Heck, even the catchy chorus of that Cypress Ueno song above uses an English phrase, “Make Money Money!!!” Furthermore, if Illreme is the most interesting thing I can find in Japanese hip-hop, what does that have to say for the whole country? Seriously, even a blind, albino rapper from Minnesota has more flavor than this stuff:

No, snazzy suits and booty shaking skanks do not equate to flavor, Rip Slyme. And, what exactly are they trying to do at the 3:15 mark? It almost looks like, well, the way a blind, whitey would dance (sorry for the blanket trashing, whiteys, but if it makes you feel better, my white half makes me a horrible dancer too).

Illreme will be touring Europe later this month as part of a group with Belgian DJ Duo Afrojaws called the Baleine 3000 Crew. He’s definitely a strange ambassador for Japanese hip-hop, but I hope the tour goes well.

23 May a-musik shop, Germany, (http://www.a-musik.com/)
24 May Koln, Germany Borderclash Radioshow
24 May Koln, Germany (http://www.tsunami-club.de/index.php?page=termine&id=263)
25 May Hamburg, Germany, Golden Pudel Club (http://www.pudel.com/)
27 May Aarhus, Denmark, TBA
29 May Copenhagen, Denmark, TBA
31 May Cherbourg, France, La Terra Trema Festival (http://laterratrema.com/)
01 June Cherbourg, France, (http://chaudelande.free.fr/) Residence
02 June Cherbourg, France, (http://chaudelande.free.fr/) Residence
03 June Cherbourg, France, (http://chaudelande.free.fr/) Residence
04 June Cherbourg, France, (http://chaudelande.free.fr/) Residence
06 June, Lille, France, TBA
07 June, Brussels, Bozar (http://www.bozar.be/home.php?lng=fr)

BOREDOMS!!!!!!! (?)

Confession time: I never really understood the insane love affair that the indie world at large has had with Boredoms. Sure, Super AE and Vision Creation Newsun are pretty great records. Incredibly original, often fun, very cerebral, but… it just doesn’t stick with you after the record finishes spinning. Trying to decode their variety of releases is even more confusing than the ideas contained in them, there’s the Super Roots series (which doesn’t seem to really have a central idea, as far as I can tell), various side projects, the Rebore series, and God knows what else. So I’ve definitely committed the “crime” of being perplexed and wary of Boredoms but following on the advice of the entire independent music world, I decided that the live setting was a much better path for approach. And slap me if everybody and their super-hip mother wasn’t right! GOD DAMN! This is a live show and a half!
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Beloved readers, we are proud to present to you a [mostly] unedited excerpt from a dialogue between Ricardo and Bob two days after The Kaze to Rock Festival show featuring Romanes, Sakerock and The Ging Nang Boyz on July 10, 2007.

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I had the misfortune to have been in attendance at Anime Expo this past weekend in Long Beach, California. The weather was beautiful, but I was unfortunately sequestered in a dimly lit dealer’s room peddling nerd wares to nerds, instead of enjoying the cool ocean breeze and ogling southern Californian honeys.

The convention organizers managed to snag some big name rockers to perform this year, among them punky diva Anna Tsuchiya and androgynous heartthrob Gackt’s new band S.K.I.N. The other guy working in the booth with me decided to go see Anna Tsuchiya, so I agreed to cover the booth while he took a short break to catch some of her noon time concert. Not only is scheduling a concert at noon a moronic idea, but Ms. Tsuchiya didn’t even start promptly, forcing my coworker to come back from break before he could even catch a single song. Apparently he missed out on a great show though, as I read in Anime Expo’s newsletter: “Dressed in a punk style of ripped tank top and cut-off shorts, she strutted across the stage like a teenager in a mall, not a care about what people thought—I am Anna Tsuchiya; love me for who I am.”
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A little while ago there was some debate on our forums about whether Melt-Banana’s live show was completely amazing or just plain confusing. I can see how the band’s live show would be off-putting if you weren’t intimately familiar with the band’s records or if their brand of noise-punk-grind-experimentalism is simply not your bag. It might not even be all that great if you’re standing more than 15 feet away from the stage.

But hooooo-boy! If you love this kind of music, there is simply nothing more exhilarating and jaw-dropping than a Melt-Banana live performance. I’d seen them do a show with Fantômas way back in my high-school days but the one last night was far superior for one reason: the audience was completely in love with them! Back at the first show, it was at a larger venue and sure people were into it and all but it was nothing like the moshing, screaming masses that greeted them on the Fourth of July at Dante’s. Almost made me feel proud that my fellow countrymen could show them the love they deserve!
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You know what I’m talking about. There’s a certain quality that’s shared in the sound of bands like Sparta Locals, Vola and the Oriental Machine, and to a much lesser extent 9mm Parabellum Bullet. None of these bands are too similar to each other, but there’s certain aspects inherited from bands like Television and Gang of Four that they share, be it driving octave fueled bass lines and really tight, yet danceable rhythm.

So now we have… Chatmonchy, an all girl group that has a few of these qualities, but in a much more derivative manner. It seems like they were more influenced by bands like Sparta Locals rather than directly by Television, but the influence is there. It’s cool that there’s a girl group going for that type of sound. However, I’d say they’re 85% ZONE, 10% Television, and 5% GO!GO!7188. I guess being a cute girl band that plays cute songs with a cute singer that sings off key is what makes them popular. It’s also because they’re much more willing to go into a pop ballad than any of the other Televisoneers. I definitely see them getting more popular as time goes by. I bet they’re slated to be the next ZONE. Is this a good thing?

So on March 27th, Yoshimi P-We of Boredoms fame returned to LA to play a show in the all-female band OOIOO (pronounced oh-oh-eye-oh-oh). But before I headed to the concert, I stopped by Little Tokyo to get some ramen. It seemed like that wasn’t a smart choice, as my stomach somehow ended up being in pain throughout the opening act, Neung Phak.

Neung Phak consisted of a bunch of weirdos aspiring to be performance artists. I can’t say that it wasn’t entertaining (at one point they pulled American flags out of their pants while yelling in pain), but towards the end of their set I started to get pretty sick of them. It didn’t help that my stomach was getting more upset the more they played. But I knew that a delicious serving of OOIOO was coming up soon, and I was aware of their magical revitalizing power since I’ve seen them play live before. I figured this show would be the true test to see whether or not they really had this power or if it was just something in my head.

They started their set with the tribal beats and chants of “UMA,” the opener for TAIGA, their latest album. Although I don’t have the album, I’ve seen the music video for the song multiple times (it’s easily found on YouTube) and enjoyed it. The song seemed to also please my stomach, so I was happy. Since I don’t know too many songs out of OOIOO’s discography, it seemed like a lot of their songs blended into one another over the course of their set. This was actually happening though, as I soon realized they were meshing and merging tunes once they played only 2 minutes of my favorite song of theirs, “mountain book” (which is a usually a seven minute song).

That taste of pure awesome really made my stomach feel better, and for the rest of the show my stomach was completely fine. It was somewhere in the middle of “On Mani,” the final song before the obligatory encore, that I accepted as fact that OOIOO really do have some kind of magical revitalizing power. It’s hard to explain, but there’s just something that happens in their presence that makes the audience as a whole feel really good. OOIOO cured me, and for that I thank them.

It’s been about six weeks since Zazen Boys’ bassist Hinata Hidekazu announced he was leaving the band, and already ringleader Mukai Shutoku (restless as he is) has brought in a new bassist, Yoshida Ichiro. Yoshida was originally in the (now defunct) band 12939db (he also played in Nine Days Wonder), which appeared to be from Tokyo, so rumors that Mukai was going to hire someone from his home base in Fukuoka apparently didn’t pan out.

I’ve been surprised at some of the negative reactions over Hinata’s leaving, but I don’t think it matters who plays the instruments in Zazen Boys. This band is Mukai’s baby, and he could have Radiohead as the backing band without the results being much different. That said, there’s no way to even speculate what Zazen Boys’ next album will sound like, but don’t look for this new guy to be changing things.

I think I’ve mentioned to death how awesome I thought the HY and Doug E. Fresh performance of “Street Story” at New York’s Japan Nite concert was. It totally came out of left field for me. It’s not like Japanese and Western collaborations are not possible, but they are pretty rare. Sometimes they turn out great (Christopher McGuire in Quruli) and sometimes they don’t meet all the hype (Utada Hikaru and Timbaland). What do you think would make a good team up as far as some of your favorite Japanese and Western artists?