Keep on (Baby) Rockin'

If you've been reading for a while, you'll know that I've been fascinated by the relatively new Japanese idol/metal fusion band BABYMETAL. At last update, they had released a schedule for their 2014 world tour.



RocketNews24 reports that they played in LA this weekend, and will be opening this week for Lady Gaga as she tours. Leave it to her to make such an odd choice. Pity they won't be anywhere near the East Coast. If you're interested, you can check out the RocketNews link for some videos of their most recent show.

BABYMETAL goes global

Well, the "world" being three European countries and Japan. But at any rate, exciting news for anyone who's developed a soft spot for one of Japan's latest (only?) J-pop/heavy metal mash-up bands. According to Japanese website Netallica (which I guess I really should be leery of after they published "news" reported by the Onion), BABYMETAL will embark upon a world tour this summer, playing in France, Germany, England, and Japan. And hey, apparently they'll be appearing in London with Iron Maiden.

Rock out!

Update: No one knows what to think.

J-Music and Me: BABYMETAL

Rocketnews recently posted about the new album release of a band called BABYMETAL (all in caps, yes). This is a band I was unfamiliar with. Some might call the marriage of raging guitars and hoarse screamer metal with cutesy girl pop an abomination. I am not such a one. Or maybe I should say that even if it is an abomination, there's something to it. I'm not sure what that something is, but it definitely exists.

To co-opt a thought from one of the top commenters to the above video:

"I didn't want to like this, but it consumed my soul and now I do. Pretty f[#^$ing] metal."

Are there other bands like this? And what other insane musical combinations are out there? Only time will tell, but I will report back with any extraordinary findings.

J-Music and Me: Marty Friedman

So Marty Friedman is not Japanese, in case you didn't know. In fact, he hails from the same town I'm currently living in. It wasn't until a few years ago that I learned he had anything to do with Japan, actually. No, my knowledge of him was much more traditional.

During high school I developed a taste for rock music that over time grew and matured such that my college years were partly soundtracked by the likes of Metallica, Megadeth, Jethro Tull, Blind Guardian, and a number of other heavy metal bands of varying notoriety. And so my exposure to Marty Friedman can be credited to his role as lead guitarist for Megadeth.

A few years ago I remember Dylan mentioning on a tangent to some conversation that Marty Friedman had moved to Japan and spoke perfect fluent Japanese. "Cool," I thought, but it didn't really register.

Fast forward to now. A couple weeks ago I met and caught up with a friend that I hadn't seen in 6 or 7 years, since we studied together at 上智大学 (Sophia University) in Tokyo. She lives in NYC now, and I was in town for a couple days. Turns out she is a big metal fan, and we got to talking about different bands and artists. The other day she sent me this awesome video of Marty Friedman and Paul Gilbert on a Japanese TV show:



There are two more parts, if you care to watch. I think it's pretty rad seeing those guys rock out and speak Japanese. After watching, I did a little research. It turns out that Friedman has been living in Tokyo for about 10 years now, and last year he married a Japanese cellist. He's been a regular on several music and English-themed TV shows over there, and has done cameos in other media. He still plays, and perhaps most notably for you anime/game fans, he's a member of Sound Horizon.

J-Music and Me: Kintama Girls

Detroit Metal City is (as Wiki says) a vulgar, comedy manga, and one that has made it to anime and live movie form. Basically about a gentle, kind of metrosexual country boy who dreams of going to the city to make it big as a pop musician, he somehow winds up as the lead member of this heavy metal band called Detroit Metal City (DMC). I can't speak as to the manga and anime, but in the movie his identity is a secret as he is quite ashamed of his nasty alter ego.

I think the movie is pretty funny and have watched it a few times now. The music is pretty decent, and it's also a good way to study some Japanese that you won't learn in any textbook.

Though I may talk about some of DMC's songs sometime, my favorite track from this movie is actually by another fictional band called Kintama Girls (金玉ガールズ). In the film, Kintama Girls is only shown in one scene where they are playing against DMC (Battle of the Bands style) at some club. They are singing this ridiculous song called "Detarame Mothercon Cherryboy."


Just so you can get an idea of the colorfulness of the movie and the music in particular (the dialogue itself is pretty tame in most cases), let me explain a few key words here:


金玉 (kintama) - you can see that the kanji is "golden jewels" or "golden balls." Yes, it refers to specific male anatomy.


出鱈目 (detarame) - "bullshit," basically.


マザコン (mothercon) - the tamer meaning is "mama's boy," but it can also mean Oedipus complex.


チェリーボイー (cherry boy) - a male virgin.

去勢 (kyosei) - found in the main chorus (きょせい、きょせいせよ！) - castration.

Silly and crude but pretty fun, I think. Incidentally, the lead member of the Kintama Girls, Nina, is played by Minami Hirase, who also appeared in Battle Royale.

Galneryus memories

My first time in Japan was a 6-week trip to study Japanese at Waseda University. We had classes and tests everyday, and most of us were eager to both do well in class and soak in as much of Tokyo as we could in that short period of time. Much of it is a blur to me now, but one thing that takes me back is Galneryus.

Galneryus is a kind of ridiculous Japanese metal band, and their Beyond the End of Despair was the first Japanese CD I ever bought. I don't listen to this kind of music much anymore, but whenever I come across them in my iTunes library I am reminded of my first time in Japan.

Ace of Hearts

AKB they ain't: Ayaman Japan

I think I first heard of/saw this group on Salaryman's blog (he would feature a band like this). The three women form  あやまんJapan (Ayaman Japan), and they sing silly, kind of dirty songs.

Apparently they started off as a group of party organizers, made an appearance on Fuji TV, and then broke into the music scene. It looks like they only got started musically (professionally at least) in 2010, so they've only released a handful of songs.

Yoshie's father hates them and she thinks they're kind of annoying, but I choose to be amused by them. Sure, they're not producing the highest level of art here, but their songs are kind of fun and different, if not catchy. And at least they're not another cute, innocent, generic J-pop group.

Here are two videos of what I believe is their original breakout song, 「ぽいぽいぽいぽぽいぽぴー」("Poi Poi Poi Popoi Poi Popi"):





Here are the lyrics with an approximate translation. As you can see, mostly a mix of nonsense and sexual references; basically just making fun of pop songs.

Here's one of their later songs, which starts off more subtly but then gets quite kooky (and for those of you who know what AKB48 are, yes, I think they are making fun of them):



Update: AKB48 is a large, ever-changing girls pop group (pictured below). I have a lot of problems with AKB48, but that's a story for another post. Below are a picture and video for reference, so you can compare with the more Ayaman Japan parodic video above.

Flickr/Youngelectricpop

Update 2: This one is much more blatantly making fun of AKB (it seems this post has taken a turn in that direction):

J-Music and Me: Shiina Ringo

Recently Joe was asking around for Japanese music suggestions. I made a suggestion to him on Twitter, but due to the extremely transient nature of tweets, I'm not sure that he noticed it. But since this is a suggestion I'd make to anyone looking  for good J-music, I figure I'd write up a post.

I think if you're pretty into Japanese artists, there's a good chance you've at least heard of Shina Ringo [椎名林檎] (or Shiina Ringo, or Sheena Ringo, according to iTunes). She's been on the scene for a few years now, though I only became aware of her a year or two ago. Her music is a bit varied; if I had to assign her a genre, I'd say punky jazz rock.

A few weeks ago I bought her album Kalk Zamen Kurinohana. I had listened to random songs of hers on YouTube before, but this was the first album I've bought, and I really enjoy it. It's definitely rockish, but quite mellow, too. If you're interested in picking it up, it's definitely a lot cheaper to buy it via iTunes if you can. Amazon Japan carries it at a slightly more expensive price, and Amazon.com has an import version that is quite costly.

Anyway, don't take my word for it - check her out. Here are a couple songs from Kalk Zamen Kurinohana performed live. These versions are a little more rocky and less mellow than the album verion, but I like both styles. I particularly like the lyrics of the first song and the kick-ass piano and haunting melody of the second.

Robot Salarymen

Here's a cool one I got from Dylan:

This is a band called World Order, led by Genki Sudo, a retired martial artist who was known for being somewhat flamboyant. I don't know if the salarymen's robotic manner is some kind of social statement or just interesting choreography, but it's entertaining to watch either way.

J-Music and Me: The Little Guys

Yoshie Hatano in Kyoto

First off, this post is a submission to September's Japan Blog Matsuri, hosted this month by Sen over at Nippon Ichigo. Thanks for hosting this month, Sen - give'em hell!


This is the third post I've written in this series, and I enjoy making these ones in particular because they feel rather personal to me. Although music begs to be shared, it also offers a very personal experience to each individual. Am I being vague enough? Good, let's move along. For this post, I've decided not to write about any big bands or artists, but about some people I know who are working hard to get there.

Throughout the last few years, I've noticed that I've become a lot more indirectly involved in the practical side of music, if that makes any sense.  I'll try to clarify that. I've played a few instruments over the years - clarinet, piano, guitar, to varying degrees of skill...but I never chose to pursue any of them beyond anything more than the level of hobby. But these days a lot of the people close to me are musicians; not in the sense of simply playing music, but in the sense of pursuing it professionally. Strangely, they are all connected to Japan.

Back in university, I was friends with this guy who I met in my Japanese class. He was an older fellow, late 20's, who had halted his college education some years back to try and make it big as a musician. When I met him, he was still with the band but was trying to reboot his education by enrolling in part-time studies. He was the first friend I ever had who was properly "in a band." I went to a couple of their shows - he was a guitarist for a Dream Theater-like progressive metal group. I imagine he's still with them, trying to make it big, but who knows? We had a falling out of sorts a few years ago and stopped talking.

Then there's our resident J-Girl Adventurist, Gobbler, another friend of mine from university (who was in the same Japanese class). We also studied together for a semester at Sophia University in Tokyo. These days Gobbler is bassist for a Philly-based Indie rock band.

When I came to Japan, I met Dylan, our resident vegetarian. Dylan was putting himself through grad-school in Osaka while trying to build a name for his band, Ihounokyaku. He still is, though now he's on scholarship. Through Dylan, I met and became friends with his bandmate, Sammy. Going to their shows over the past couple years, I've met a fair amount of musicians and gotten a closer look at the inside of the music scene.

Dylan and Sammy were featured a couple years ago on a TV show about new bands.

Last, but certainly the most impactful now, there's my girlfriend, Yoshie Hatano. We had our first date 6 months ago from Friday! Yoshie is a professional pianist. Talking to her everyday, being around her when I can, and going to some of her shows, I've seen how hard she works to improve and to get exposure. Gigs can be tough to get, so she plays piano at a club 6 nights a week, and additionally works at a cafe here and there...on top of doing shows, weddings, and whatever other work she can get. She's probably one of the hardest-working people I've met. But I suppose that's what it takes. Making it big as a musician is tough no matter where you live, but imagine living in a country roughly the size of California with a population about a third the size of that in the U.S.

Here's a show Yoshie played at this summer. She was asked to do a short solo session and played these songs off the cuff.

One of the biggest challenges I've observed for musicians in Japan is the fact that at most venues here musicians actually have to pay to play. Of course there are some paying gigs, but usually live houses and some bars will require musicians to pay a certain amount to perform. Then they can sell tickets to people to try and get some of that money back (or make a little profit if they can sell enough). I don't know if venues in other countries do the same thing, but it wasn't something I was familiar with until coming here and befriending several musicians.

I gotta say, it's a tough game - as a musician you need exposure to get shows. But in order to get exposure, you need to spend money, which you probably don't have if you're not playing shows. So a lot of musicians putter around at other jobs to make money to pay to play. You have to really love what you're doing to work so hard. You can be really talented and work really hard and never make it big - so much of it is luck and who you know. I have a lot of respect for these people.

If you live in the Kansai area and would like to check out Ihounokyoku, you can leave a comment or send us an email asking for more info. Likewise if you live in Kyushu and would like more information about Yoshie's performances, let us know!

Have you been to a live show in Japan? Are you an aspiring musician either in Japan or in another country? If you, please share your impressions and any interesting experiences or insights you've had!

J-Music and Me: 8-Bit Ikimono

When it comes to J-pop and J-rock, I'm very picky. There's a lot of stuff out there that just doesn't do it for me. Maybe part of the reason is that most rock/pop stars in Japan are also idols and TV or movie stars. They're watered down because they don't focus on their music. Now I'm sure the same charges can be leveled against many Western artists, but in most cases not the ones I like. People like David Bowie and Sting are the exception rather than the rule (and even they are a lot more well-known for their music than the movies they were in).

(Image from: http://www.japan-zone.com/modern/smap.shtml)

That's right, SMAP - stop singing and go make another poopy movie!

Basically a lot of mainstream artists just strike me as toolboxes. That said, I do try to give Japanese artists a chance, and sometimes something will strike a chord with me for one reason or another. This time I wanted to share a music video by a band named Ikimono Gakari (いきものがかり). Some people translate their name into English as "Creature Clerk" or something to that effect, but I don't find that accurate enough. In Japanese, an ikimono is a living thing (or, yes, a creature), and a kakari (or gakari in some cases) is a clerk or caretaker. But an ikimono gakari, I believe, is a school child who is charged with the task of taking care of his or her class' wildlife - whatever pets or plants they may be keeping.

Anyway, while Ikimono Garakri probably isn't a group I would listen to on my i-Pod, they do have some pretty rad music videos and the songs themselves aren't too bad either. Last year I came across a video of their's that features 8-bit video game graphics. Woot - right up my alley. Doesn't hurt that their vocalist is easy on the eyes, either, although that's a pretty standard feature of J-pop. So here's Ikimono Gakari's "Kimagure Romantic," which I figure to mean something like "Fickle Romantic"

(Used to be on YouTube, but appears to have been removed. For now, check it out here: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=48311588857)