NOTE: Sadly, news of the death of original Blues Creation leader Fumio Nunoya has been confirmed. Japanese memorial here: 日本語の布谷文夫の通信		 For Jrawk radio, click here.
For the update archive, try here.
January 27, 2012 - The Gathers: Pure Pop for Now People

So, as you've probably gathered (ha!) by now, there are a few criteria for things that make in onto this site. Oddity/individuality is one, passion is another. Sounding like Black Sabbath doesn't hurt either.

There's also Power Pop. I can't help it, not that I particularly want to: I'm a Beatles geek and I'm a child of the 80s. I bought the Knack album when it came out, ditto The Vapors debut, and there are (many, many) times I believe inarguably that Cheap Trick are the greatest band on the planet. So The Gathers work for me.


Yes..."She's Are Girl." I know.

The Gathers started when a gent by the name of Katsuhiro Horibe decided that John Lennon was a righteous dude. He got some high school buddies together and voila! The Gathers. They appear to have had enough member changes to make Menudo look like ZZ Top, and according to their website (which, I'll grant you ain't the most trustworthy place for this kind of statement) they're massively influential on the Chiba rock scene. They started in 1980, pretty much the perfect time for a Power Pop band to start.

I find it kinda weird, though, that according to their discography, they only have one album, an EP, a single, a track on an out of print Spiders tribute, and the following track on the even more out of print comp Attack of the Mushroom People (although that last one doesn't really count, as...well, keep reading.) A bit thin for 31 years of activity. But I'm not really complaining. "She's Are Girl" (*snert*) is from the self titled album, which is, like everything else, out of print. Well, OK, except that the EP that contains the Attack of the Mushroom People track, Namida No Okurimomo (i.e. The Gift of Tears, which is a glorious name for a Power Pop thing) is still around. The Mushroom People track is the title track for the EP, and it's pretty Beatlesque. Here's a (mostly) not even close to synchronized clip for the title track, which could actually be official, as it does sync from time to time.


I'm thinking that "massively influential" claim might actually be true, since YouTube has upwards of 60 videos (!) available. OK, 40 of them were uploaded by one dude, so they're at least massively influential for that guy. Still, there's more. Like their first single, "Nemurunai Yo,) (i.e. "I'm Not Sleepy,") which proves they weren't always quite so slick.


Apparently, Horibe thinks of himself as the Mick Jagger of the shinseki (aka The New World.) Seeing as how Shizuoka Rock 'n' Roll Kumiai's vocalist Sean said the same thing about himself and Shizuoka, I'm thinking that every place in Japan has their own private Mick.

I'm not sure how I feel about that.



Greetings, and welcome to jrawk.com, phase three...

Jrawk.com is an appendix, a side project with several intentions. Primarily, it provided structure for research for an upcoming book on Japanese rock music that will (hopefully) be out mid 2012. That was phase one. Phase two is Jrawk Radio, which you can access here. The work from phase one remains in our archives, where you can see reviews and interviews from the three years spent doing research while in Tokyo.

So, phase three: throughout the week, we'll put something up on this front page that demands your attention: video clips, rants, updates, whatever. Monday through Friday, check back to see what's up.

Yep,
-Chad
January 26, 2012 - Kumiko Suyama: Punk, Pork, and Accordions

Sometimes, in the process of digging up info on all this stuff, I'll go YouTube surfing. Some thumbnail might catch my eye, or I'll like what I'm watching enough that I'll click on the recommended stuff just to see what's out there. One day, I came across this thing:


Everything about it drew me in: the creepy, sparse, Jun Togawa meets Morita Doji melancholy, the fuzziness of the recording (which made the vocals even more spectral,) the graininess of the artwork. It was like some indie record made by a ghost, something that leaked its way into the physical world like one of the blurry metaphysical spooks in Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Kairo.

I kinda wanted to preserve the mystery, but being the guy I am, that wasn't gonna happen. So: her name is Kumiko Suyama, she was born in Yokohama, and the track's called "Shoujokashu" (i.e. "Girl Singer.") It was her debut solo single, which was included as an extra on the CD reissue of Suyama's first solo album, Les chansons qui filent du reve... (i.e. Songs That Invoke Dreams…which pretty much sums up my response to "Shoujokashu.") It shared side A with the equally mournful "Paradise."


But I'm getting ahead of myself. Suyama's history is pretty straightforward, at first anyway: she started off in 1979 as vocalist and keyboardist for the punk three piece Henshin Kirin (i.e. The Transforming Giraffe, which also included guitarist Masahiro Kitada, later of Inu, and drummer Chiho Takahata.) Henshin Kirin, like many other Japanese groups of the period, lists writers as influences: Showa era poet and children's book writer Kenji Miyazawa, James Joyce, and Taruho Inagaki (who won Japan's first ever Grand Prize for Literature.) William Burroughs, Lewis Carroll and others have of course influenced Western music, but it seems to be more common in Japan (Inu mainman Ko Machida, for example, is much better known as a writer than a musician these days, despite the impact and importance of his band.) That obviously isn't going to translate well for non Japanese speakers, but musically, Henshin Kirin were pretty good at building up to a stormy climax. Observe: "The Red Shoes:"


At the same time as Henshin Kirin, Suyama was in something called Happy Band, and occasionally played with another band called Idiot. Once Henshin Kirin went their separate ways in 1982, Suyama started her career two years later, and she obviously took those French influences very seriously. She started performing solo with just her and an accordion (like this 1991 performance of "Shoujokashu,") which she took up because she wanted to feel closer to her live audience. She released five more albums before retiring in 2002 (check out her pre-retirement, and completely out of print, Japanese discography here.)

This is where it gets weird.

She came back in 2008 with Ouma-san Gayattekuru (i.e. The Horse is Coming,) the first of two concept albums based on…horse racing. Seriously. Here's "Jikkyou No Mamono" (i.e. "The Demon of Life") from the second album of the…series?…, Kumiko Suyama Ko No Ouma-san Gayattekuru, Sonoda De Katsu Donburi Wo Tabe You! (i.e. Kumiko Suyama's Horse is Coming, It's Time To Eat Fried Pork on Rice!)

Yes. Really. That's the title.


It's not every artist who starts off in a seminal punk band, moves on to solo accordion music, and ends up writing tribute songs to horses and fried pork. OK, Amanda Palmer had The Dresden Dolls and that ukulele album of Radiohead songs, but so far as I know, her discography is horse and pork free. Maybe she should get to work on that.

Suyama is still performing, and while I don't know how many of her songs involve horses, pork, or giraffes these days, at this point, she's stood by her quirks long enough that she's earned the right to do pretty much whatever the hell she wants.

All that from a spooky single on YouTube.

January 25, 2012 - Ultraman Kids, aka This Job Isn't As Easy as You
                                 Think Part 2

I regaled you yesterday with my tale of finally, at long last, finding information on the apparently ridiculously obscure band The Beats. The problem with finding information on that Beatles obsessed bunch o' guys is that, outside of the dearth of information, their name was about as generic as possible. Searching The Beats got me a bunch of sites that included the words the and beats, which, as you can imagine, brought up enough pages to feed a small country. A slightly more specific search on "The Beats" in quotes brought up a bunch of Hip-Hop, Dubstep, Microstep, Ha-Ha-Screw-You-Chadstep, and a bunch of other crap.

Still, while on the hunt, a search on the name of The Beats' first single, "Ainshitendane!," brought me to a power pop blog. Since ainshitendane appears to mean "you know I love you," a power pop blog is exactly the place you'd expect to go. Anyway, I found this page called "Killed By Idol," which is a fantastic name for a Japanese music blog. I didn't find any Beats info there, but Dude posted a couple of vids from these guys.


If I thought searching The Beats was bad, this band threw down another gauntlet: they were named Ultraman Kids.

Not bad, you say? After all, Ultraman Kids is a lot more specific than The Beats. Yeah, except a few years after the band broke up (1980,) a TV show with exactly the same name took to Japanese airwaves (1986.) An anime. In Japan. Ignoring my allergy to anime, this still presented what has so far been an insurmountable problem. Searching for "Ultraman Kids" and the title of that song up there ("Atashi Mo Watashi Mo Miha Miha," i.e. "You and I Are Low Class, Low Class") came up with a lot of links to the same video, and for some reason, a lot of videos of somebody's Lhasa-Apso. A low class Lhasa-Apso, apparently. It also found a link to what is ostensibly an MP3 of the song, which is just an audio only version of the same video.

And, well, you don't want to hear about this. Here's the not-a-cover-of-the Kenji Endo song "Manzoku Dekinai" (i.e. "I Can't Be Satisfied,") obviously from the same source.

Both are from a show at Meiji Memorial Hall. And that's it. That's all the info I can find. Although one of those videos led me to a link to a poorly synchronized video by 80s hair rock band Street Sliders called "Masturbation," which displays the phrase "Blow The Night!" at one point, so at least that amused me.

So yeah, anybody? This kind of stuff kills me, both the high energy not-quite-punk, not-quite-power-pop of the (shortlived? Massively influential?) Ultramans Kids, and the teasing "ha ha, you'll NEVER find them!" I've already been teased with the inaccessable once this week, I need some closure.

January 24, 2012 - The Beats, aka This Job Isn't As Easy as You Think

I'm generally pretty careful about making sure the info that makes its way onto this here site is accurate. Of course, of all the assorted types of historical pursuits one may...er, pursue, rock music has a lot of "embellished" truths anyway, but I'm trying to avoid those as much as I can (besides, sometimes reality is cool enough to make exaggeration pointless...check out number six in this here list.)

But then, there's this. The story of how I found out about today's band is only slightly weird: I was at a birthday party for a friend in a certain underground club in Shibuya, where all sorts of record geeks were geeking. One guy in particular positively exuded fanatic, and that became explicit when he found out I was writing a book about Japanese rock.

His eyebrows went up, and his hand shot out. Said hand was holding a home made CDR. I know that CDRs are by definition home made, but this guy went a lot further than most. He created, obviously by hand, an LP style CD jacket in color (well, red and black anyway,) and even an inner sleeve with liner notes. On top of that, it's a numbered edition (mine is #17,) it says "Not For Sale," and…well, you know those paper bands that Japanese releases often have wrapped around the left side of album covers? They're called obis. This dude made a goddamned obi.

pictured: cover, inner sleeve, goddamned obi

My Japanese wasn't good enough at the time to ask the guy much, and any potential interpreter was well into their eighth or ninth beer, but one thing was communicated very clearly, in the international language of music dorkdom: you have got to tell everybody you can about this fucking great band.

OK man, I will. There's a problem, though: the band is called The Beats. Their song titles are either in Japanese written so tiny on the sleeve I can't make out the more elaborate kanji (although large enough that a native could presumably make it out with a minimum of fuss,) or English titles that might as well be non existent (try doing a search on "the beats baby don't cry" and see where that gets you.) The liner notes to this absurdly elaborate package seem to consist entirely of how cool this guy thinks The Beats were (I did determine that they started in the late 70s and lasted until 1988, so that's something.)

I listened to it, of course, and while The Beats clearly weren't destined to be the next Velvet Underground, they were enjoyable, über bouncy, Beatle worshiping power pop. And when I say Beatle worshiping, I mean they named themselves The Beats. Take a closer look.

None of these guys is the guy who made the disc. Probably.

Yeah. But the pesky research problem remained. I was far too busy dealing with flesh and blood people to spend non-internet time (and money) having the thing professionally translated. So I filed the disc away, pulling it out every couple of months and giving it another shot. I did the Google reverse image search on the cover, tried assorted combinations of what Japanese writing I could make out, but even a search involving the band members' names (conveniently printed in squint-o-vision on the back) never really got anywhere (in case you're wondering, in the order Shibuya dude listed them: Masaaki Agari, bass, Mitsuhiro Hamada, drums, Daisuke Kobayashi, lead guitar and vocals, and Yoshifumi Kurono, vocals and "side guitar." There's a Daisuke Kobayashi who's a TV presenter, but he's too old to be a Beat.)

And last week, lo and fucking behold. I don't remember what random assortment of English and Japanese led to a seven year old blog post, but a blog post I found. And…it mostly consisted of people talking about how cool they thought The Beats were.

Mostly. But after a few posts of the Japanese equivalent of "hell yeah, The Beats," I found one rather surprising piece of information: The Beats were on TV.

How could a band be on TV, even if it was only once, and have so little internet presence? I know they're obscure but for god sakes...when even somebody like Meat Whiplash has a Wikipedia page, or a no hit wonder who are best known for appearing on the TV news show 20/20 in 1982 has a recent MySpace page, there should have been SOMEthing. Especially in obsessive Japan, where I saw guys spend upwards of $300 on stuff like Andrew Gold and Horslips catalog reissues every time I went record shopping. There's even an obsessive fixation on (and a shitload of sites about) a band that has never, ever released anything officially. Come on, man.

Well, anyway, The Beats played a couple of times on the TV music shows Japan has (that culminated in the wildly popular Ikaten in the early 90s.) The songs "Aishitendane!" (which I think means "You Know I Love You,") "Genki Wa Groovy" ("Feelin' Groovy," not a cover,) and "Hello Little Girl" were performed at some point for TV audiences on shows like Hot TV and Hot Jamcon. This last track was apparently the theme for something called Arouna. Arouna is a tiny ass village in the African nation of Chad, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't have a theme. At least not one from a Japanese power pop band. It's also not a cover of the super super early Beatles track of the same name, although god knows these dudes had a Beatles fixation that bordered on creepy.

That song was the B side to their first single, the A side of which was "Aishitendane!" And here's both.


And here's "Genki Wa Groovy" ("Feelin' Groovy")  b/w "Oh! Please."


Apparently, despite the exposure, nobody bought their stuff (not even at their live show…apparently, someone connected with the band got frustrated and sold copies of "Genki Wa Groovy" outside the venue afterwards for ¥100, which is about a buck.) Beyond that…well, there's some connection with late 80s power poppers The Shamrock, but they probably just played some shows together.

So, fellow record dude in Shibuya, that's what I got. It's a given that there's no way for anyone to buy this stuff, but hopefully those YouTube links will at least get some kind of word out. Gambatte, ne?


January 20, 2012 - Rokujou Hitoma: How?

Seriously, how? How does a band like Rokujou Hitoma fall through my cracks, numerous as said cracks may be? They regularly play with bands like DMBQ, Kirihito, Electric Eel Shock, Buffalo Daughter, and a bunch of other people I've not only followed, but interviewed. You'd think a band with those kinds of friends that sounds like they do would have shown up somewhere on my radar before now. Check out this video.

Obviously, fans of the recently departed Yura Yura Teikoku can find a degree of solace in these guys. That's "Taikou No Hoshi" (i.e. "Imploding Star..." I think.) It's from their gloriously titled album Yin Yang Twisted. Even the artwork kicks ass.


And here's this fucking thing.


That's "Banzari Action," and godDAMN them boys can build up a head of steam. That's from the EP Yume No Manshuku  (i.e. A Dream of 10,000 Holidays,) and the artwork for that one kicks ass, too, albeit in less of a Big Daddy Roth kind of way (check the link.)

Their most recent album, 2060, has no video (yet?,) but there's samples on their MySpace page, and there's a High-Rise-level distorted video of the band playing 2060's "Zero Ningen" a couple of months ago at the UFO Club (home of a lot of the classic Tokyo psych bands.)

I've started getting nostalgic for Tokyo in the last few days, and there's a show next month with these guys, Shinji Masuko of DMBQ, Kirihito, and SuGar and Yumiko of Buffalo Daughters on February 5th at Shibuya O-Nest. Aw, man...

And just so you know, I'll be taking Monday off. Mom's birthday, donchaknow.