I remember the first time I listened to a song and knew that it was Japanese. I thought, “Hey! This is new and different!” and as the years went by I later found out that Japanese music and music from Western countries weren’t all that different. You have your avante garde jazz groups, your punk rockers and pop punk poseurs, even your reggae and dub all stars.

Yet one thing has always bothered me. There’s a rare quality among Japanese musicians that Western musicians have no trouble obtaining: beards. I can think of several bearded American and British artists from The Beatles all the way down to System of a Down. Out of all the Japanese artists out there, only Tetsuya Fukagawa of envy comes to mind. Maybe I’m just not listening to enough bearded artists, or maybe I just don’t realize how many artists I do know that possess at least a goatee. Being half asian myself I do know how difficult it is to grow facial hair, but with enough effort it can be done.

So come on guys. Do Oda Nobunaga proud. Grow a beard.

Hello all, this is my first blog post. Let’s see how long and epic (and pointless) I make my posts.

So apparently Sparta Locals made their next album, Maboroshi Forever, in just a few short months WHILE they were touring. For the last few years they’ve been consistently pumping out albums, so it really shouldn’t have been a surprise, but they had lost their drummer. (The Mo’Some Tonebender drummer, Isama Fujita, is apparently appearing on the album as “guest drummer.”)

Most fans seem to believe that their last two albums, Dreamer and the self-titled, come nowhere near the awesome that is Second Fanfare and Sun Sun Sun (to a slightly lesser extent). Will this one be the one that starts going back uphill? If we follow the trend of how good their album art is, the answer is “yes.”

Polysics have a new album coming out this week. Based on the singles (check out the PVs… there are links to them in the Polysics thread in the forum), it sounds much more poppy and slower than what you’d expect from them. They actually pull it off though. I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised, since they’ve pulled off songs (”My Room”) like that before.

 That’s it for my first post. The end.