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)

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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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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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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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.

There are exceptions to the rule. I always like to brag about the one time I saw PE’Z, before anyone knew who they were, play at that square off the east entrance of JR Shinjuku station. Needless to say, upon seeing them my mind was filled with a cornucopia of expletives, all of which run somewhere along the lines of “holy fucking shit!” That’s an extraordinary example of course, but PE’Z aside, it’s not entirely impossible to encounter music that’s actually worthwhile on the streets. Just don’t go out expecting to, because those instances will be rare and few.

Of course, most people in this day and age are equipped with the ability to tune out distractions of this sort, so they are mild annoyances at worst. But it does leave you wondering - can’t Tokyo do any better? The music scene here has got to be one of the most vibrant in the world, so why can’t some of that awesomeness trickle down to the amateur-level street musicians? Or more to the point, why can’t those said street musicians, in light of all the exposure to their better peers that this city affords them, realize how much they suck and keep their shitty music to themselves?

This rant was inspired by one such experience I had yesterday at Kichijoji, on my way from Tower Records to the JR station. It was a typical rock band arrangement - a three-piece consisting of a guitarist/singer, a bassist, and a drummer. I’ll admit to being predisposed to assume they suck, but I can assure you that a more open mind on my part would not have proved me wrong in any way. I couldn’t have spent more than a few seconds listening to their music to (whilst still walking of course, I’m not going to waste any amount of time on these fuckers), so none of this would’ve been worth noting in a blog, except I witnessed something for the first time - though I suspect it’s actually a common occurrence. The musicians have suddenly stopped playing, and are exuding an “oh shit” vibe. I whip my head around to notice that a couple of policemen are walking towards this direction. The rest you can infer.

Seriously, I don’t like policemen in general, and I’m pretty sympathetic to musicians, but the fact of the matter is that the band was horrible, and had resoundingly failed to earn my support. So instead of “come on boys, stick it up to authority” I was thinking “haha.”

Sure I may be a jerk, but at least I don’t engage in indulgent noise pollution, right?