jrocknyc: October 2005

KISS - Cinematographucked

Monday, October 31, 2005

"For example, one month later, an NBC-TV movie produced by Hanna-Barbera hit the airwaves, titled KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park. The film was proposed to the band as a cross between A Hard Day's Night and Star Wars, though the final results fell far short of these expectations.

Later interviews with bandmembers would have them talk about their moviemaking experience with a mix of humorous embarassment and regret as to the finished product, which was reportedly filmed completely out of proper frame by the cinematographer, resulting in much of what was supposed to be on screen missing from the final product."

LOL! I saw that movie (drunk, in college) and that cinematographer thing explains SO MUCH.

Paul, Gene, Ace & Peter watch their self-respect fly away in a scene from KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park.

I will also never, ever forget the shot of Gene being yanked unexpectedly and violently into the air by a wire (it was supposed to look like he was flying -- but the effect was that of a fish being pulled out of a river).

Interview with Strid (v, Soilwork)

BLABBERMOUTH.NET:

Strid: Some days we played as early as 9:15 a.m. We were always done for the day at around 1:00 p.m.

Ozzfest started at nine o'clock in the fucking morning?!

Macabre

Gothic Aesthetic - Fashion - New York Times:

"That unappetizing cartoon is just one of many Gothic images and themes that have seeped darkly into the culture. Books, movies, stage productions, photographs and, perhaps most emphatically, fashion are all evoking those familiar Gothic obsessions: death, decay, destructive passions and the specter of nature run amok.

Part of Jean Paul Gaultier's fall collection

They've surfaced at times before, of course. But rarely since the mid-19th century, when it first became a crowd pleaser, has the Gothic aesthetic gained such a throttlehold on the collective imagination."

Is goth becoming mainstream? Is that a good thing? I've got a half dozen other things from this weekend to post still, and no time to ponder such mysteries, so you'll have to decide for yourselves. :)

live report: Hattallicaa vs Judas Brieftou @ Numabukuo Sanctuary

Hattallica vs
Judas Brieftou
Numabukuro Sanctuary
/1500 + /500
10.30.2005

Last week was my first time at Shinkiba Studio Coast, this week was my first show at Numabukuro Sanctuary. It's the size of a two-car garage, and was crammed to capacity (250? 300?) for the "Judas vs 'Tallica" show. I got there late enough to avoid the Blind Guardian cover band altogether, and sat (or stood, actually) through just 20 minutes of the Manowar copy band, which was more than enough, for me to not be upset at being late. (I don't even like the original artists, though both Bling Guardian [lol, i'm gonna keep that typo] and Manowar enjoy depressingly wide popularity in Japan.)

I got a beer, scoped out the local talent if you know what i mean and I know you do, and found a spot closer to the stage, directly under the much-needed air conditioning, as the Kiss copy band "Magic Touch" came on. (You can't go ten feet in this town without tripping over a Kiss copy band.)

The adequate Magic Touch.

The Kiss band was adequate; "Ace" broke a string on his first solo but recovered well enough, the bassist wore a bad wig and a pink shirt but delivered funny lines that the crowd laughed ate up, Paul acted Paul-like, the drummer kept a steady beat. The only problem: I didn't know a single song. No Rock n' Roll All Nite or Deuce or Unholy or whatever other songs they have. It's different from person to person, and I'm sure most Kiss fans are sick to death of the hits, but that's all I wanted to hear... I literally had never heard ANY of the Kiss songs before (although I think one was called "Like a Hot Knife Through Butter"?!)

Next up was the Judas Priest copy band Judas Brieftou, which you may remember from an old Heavy Metal San appearance:

Uh-oh, somebody put Evil-Robot-K.K. Downing's head on backwards.

They were pretty good, looking much more like the actual band they were copying, the singer moved in that pseudo-robotic Halford-esque way, Tipton headbanged like Tipton headbangs (with his entire upper body), the bassist even painted a beard on himself. Hilariously, they played Hot Rockin' (see also that old episode of Heavy Metal San if you're not already laughing) but, shockingly, they did not play Painkiller. How can you not play Painkiller?!!? I argued about this with Evil-Robot K.K. Downing after the show, and mentioned it to the singer as well.

Hard Gay! ("I'm not gay! Really!")

Like the Kiss band, Judas Brieftou's set list included none of the most popular anthems (Breakin' the Law, Electric Eye, etc) and Priest is a few years before my time, so I was sort of at a loss, but enjoyed when the singer burst out from behind some fake Marshall amps on the same black tricycle he rode on Heavy Metal San!

Plus the whole band came out in their Judas Briefs -- and nothing else, yikes! -- for the last song. Quite the dedicated showmen.

And then at long last, Hattallica:

"Twisting your mind and smashing your ~fuckin'~ dreams...!"

From the first blasting "DUNT! Dunt dunt duhhhhhnnnn!" of Master of Puppets, these guys were un-fucking-stoppable!!! James & Kirk had the right instruments and identical poses the whole time. Kirk's playing -- even on the ad-libbed solos from between songs on live albums/singles -- was note-perfect. James had a couple little hiccups in his playing and missed a few words, but nothing you'd notice unless you'd heard these albums a million fucking times (which probably everyone there had, but anyway...)

"Do you like?!"

The drummer nailed Lars' style perfectly, and the bassist only failed once, during Creeping Death, when the entire audience was chanting Die! ...Die! ...Die! ...Die! and we were not rewarded with the proper Jasony "Mother fucker DIE!" at the right moment. (As is required by law.)

They stuck to the safety of the first four albums, which I can't fault them for. Kill 'Em All (which I like, but all the songs feel too long to me) got the most play. I would've liked to hear the Mercyful Fate medley, believe it or not, or maybe Through the Never? Something '90s. Truth be told, I wish they coulda played for way more than the 45 minutes (or was it an hour?) that they got! I was really having fun.

I totally got into the spirit of the show, singing along to every word of every song (like most of the crowd). Seriously, it was better than the real thing.

I was pleasantly surprised when they pulled out Harvester of Sorrow (they also do Blackened and Dyer's Eve, Minoruson ("Minoru + Jason") told me later, at the uchiage). When he joked about coming to New York to play, I said, "Dude, we could do that..."

Uchiage! (The one with me in the photo came out terrible, unfortunately, so I'm posting the one without me.)

I went to take a wizz after the show ended, bumping into Kirk in the hallway ("AH! AH! You are Mr. Gordon?! Hello!") and then Jason. And shortly after, James -- who, in my mind, was pretty much the REAL James Hetfield, so to see him politely bowing and smiling like he'd found a shiny new penny when we met was especially surreal.

I sat down with the drummer for a while too, at the izakaya, and got to chatting with the Priest singer, who spoke great english (he'd been to Cali for high school and college) and attracted all the ladies, who wanted to pet his abs and biceps. (If it's not clear in the photos, he's buff!)

He also explained the name Judas Brieftou: the Bu-ri-fu-to matches the japanasized Pu-ri-su-to, of course, and the tou (in kanji) is the same tou that political parties affix to their names. "So we're the White Underwear Party, basically," he joked. Really friendly dude!

Despite the onset of an early hangover, I had a really good time. And I'm leaving a lot of stuff out to! Can't wait til the next one. :)

Despairs Ray Plays Three Songs Then Leaves!

Friday, October 28, 2005

Immediately before walking off stage, Hizumi reportedly mumbled, "While the vast majority of visitors to Jrocknyc are cool, a few of the people who read Go's blog are as annoying as Yuana's hair."

I guess I need to point out that that's Yuana on the right, and that he's not in Despairs Ray, he's in Kagerou, and that Kagerou and Despairs Ray are not touring the U.S. together. Amazingly, this photo, taken to publicize the Coupling Tour, has not changed like some bad time-travel movie into a photo of just Hizumi now that the two bands are no longer touring together.

Call of Awesome Fuckin'-ness 2

Call of Duty 2 is beautiful! Looks nice but more importantly FEELS nice, how the gun shoots and view bobs and grenades fly and everything. Sucked up over an hour of my life and I didnt even realize it, I looked up from the game and everyone's asleep, lights out, stores closed, the end of the day, baby! Sweet.

Are You Calling Uganda Again?!

If a boy answers, you're grounded, young lady!

Kagrra -- The End Nears?

Thursday, October 27, 2005

I found myself on CD Japan today and it appears that Kagrra may have officially joined the dark side. They're re-releasing a large chunk of their back catalog on 11/23.

There's still a possiblity it's a legitimate action, since the stuff they're re-releasing is all out of print, but I'm concerned they're A) out of print on purpose, and B) that PSC/Columbia is gonna try adding one extra bullshit track to each disc or something similarly tricky in an attempt to force Kagrra's fans to re-purchase their first eleven releases (everything up thru 2003, all the "indies" stuff, it looks like).

The old old old stuff could use some remastering, so I might be inclined to get those -- if they're actually remastered. Matching Yuichiro "Hardpain" Fukuya cover art wouldn't hurt either. Some demo takes wouldn't be bad either (but no karaoke versions, please, and no live versions either -- they already have FOUR live dvds, with a fifth on the way, I've got more than enough live tracks, thankyouverymuch)!

Anyway, keep your fingers crossed that this isn't the beginning of the end.

Hide Museum DVD -- Even Duller than the Real Thing

The best thing about this dvd is how the lowercase "e" in hide is the same height as the capital "m" in museum. No, seriously.

Hide's first live spot! Exciting. Any footage from one of his live shows here? Nope! Audio? Nope again! We're just gonna show you the exterior of the building, and you're gonna dam well enjoy it!

Hooray, a clothes shop that looks like every other clothes shop in Japan, except they probably paid the dvd maker a few bucks to get included on the disc.

The Hide Museum has a wedding space, in case you want to stand on a filthy piece of yellow plastic on your special day and be buffeted by rough bay winds.

Hmm, maybe we shouldn't've bought 5x the necessary amount of land...

Ugh there's a giant intestinal parasite curled up in the main room!

Cafe le Psyence, which turned a profit but apparently not enough to keep itself AND the museum afloat... (the museum closed, in case you missed the news).

Let's end the disc with 15 minutes of people you don't care about dancing to Hide songs played back on a large screen! Filler? What filler?! This is Academy Award-level material!

This is the worst jrock dvd ever made. Who woulda though motionless, untrained shots of inanimate objects could be so dull?

The dvd is a bonus that comes with the "memorial" (industryspeak for "cashgrab") singles box set. Luna Sea pulled this same lame stunt too. You take all your old, forgotten 3" singles, put them on 5" discs, and sell them all inseperably in a fancy box set for $100+, even though all the individual 3" singles can be picked EASILY for $.10 - $.50 each in used bins throughout the nation. And people buy the box! People who already own most/all of the 3" singles!

Well, people who don't know about Tonberry, that is... (though I guarantee most of you will only watch 10 seconds, then delete the whole thing. It's not even worth a blank CDr!)

"Also I think We'll Go to War, and Burn Down All Our Forests, and Outlaw Skimpy Clothing on Young Ladies"

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Raising consumption tax 'unavoidable' for next premier: Tanigaki:

Japan's next prime minister will not be able to avoid raising the consumption tax to help secure financial resources to cover ballooning social security costs, Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki said Sunday.

'I believe it is unavoidable, although I don't know whether or not I will become (the next prime minister),' Tanigaki told a TV talk show.

LOL! Well you won't be the next Prime Minister NOW, dumbass!

"The Japanese are [expletive] insane."

Metropolis - The Small Print:

New York City police were reported to be baffled at the news that, because Japanese law requires anyone coming across a lost article to turn it in to the nearest koban, cops [in Japan] spend a considerable amount of time filling out reports of lost umbrellas. A New York City assistant district attorney was heard to murmur, “The Japanese are [expletive] insane."

Another Completely Unrelated
But Entirely Welcome Photo
of Everyone's Favorite Yoko
(from Seven Days Seven Colors)

Meow

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

I am so bored and have nothing to do but I kicked ass in BF2 today; got 131 points in one round! Usually 15-30 is to be expected. I set my video options to the defaults, instead of keeping them cranked, and I guess that made all the difference.

To celebrate my fighting spirit, a pic of Yoko Kumada lightly bound and wearing cat ears:

Meow!

Someone gimme some good websites to go to. Are there any good jrock websites (or is mine the only one?!) :p

Seven-Eleven Bank

Monday, October 24, 2005

Banks are always made of brick or concrete or marble, and look impregnable. The font is usually some solid, reliable, trustworthy typeface. Bankers wear suits and carry an air of assured confidence. Everything about a bank's operation oozes safety and security in every design decision.

UNTIL NOW!

Official Slogan: "When we were thinking of the perfect place to keep our life savings safe, we thought of regularly robbed 24-hour storefronts staffed by illegal immigrants selling condoms, Slurpees and lottery tickets. Shouldn't you?"

And in case you think I photoshopped this, here's the official link: http://www.sevenbank.co.jp/

Nice Flyer Round-Up

D'air

Ghost

Sadie

Sulfuric Acid

I have no real opinions on any of these bands, except that they photograph nicely. Got their flyers at Danger Gang last week; scans at Tonberry. ;)

SNL 31x04

Okay, I so rarely laugh at Saturday Night Live, I don't even watch it much, but tonight I LOL'd -- actual out loud laughter -- twice!! And both times it was because of awkward camera framing.

The blind comic walking in front of their cameras, that was just frickin' genius! Did they plan it? It seemed so spur-of-the-moment in its goodness. LOL!

Then this shot caught me off guard and i LOL'd again! It also came off as unplanned, spur-of-the-moment comedy, which is perhaps what SNL needs -- less rehearsal, more winging it, for the cast AND the crew. Anyway, bravo SNL! I might actually watch more than once a year now.

live report: Arch Enemy & Trivium @ Studio Coast

Sunday, October 23, 2005

Arch Enemy
w/ Trivium
Shinkiba Studio Coast
/7500 + /500
10.22.2005

Okay, well its my first time out to Studio Coast; it's 20 minutes past anywhere good, in an industrial section of Tokyo; industrial office parks, warehousey places, a couple conbini's and fast food joints and a whole lotta highways. I hate areas like this.

Shinkiba Studio Coast

So it was disappointing that the doors, scheduled to open at 4:00, did not in fact open until 4:45! I had gotten there unnecessarily early (3:30) to be sure of a good spot for Trivium too. With no place to go (literally, there was NO PLACE TO GO) I was bored outta my mind waiting wth everyone else in the parking lot. And also a chilly (Studio Coast is on a pier thing... cold winds a-blowin'!) I also kinda ignored some girls I knew that I shoulda said Hi too, but I was grumpy, and ingoring them made me even grumpier. A malicious circle.

Once inside, it was nice, the lobby/drink area is huge, and the bar island in the center had plenty of seats and bartenders. And the auditorium itself is even cooler; more spacious than AX/Blitz/Citta, and more stylish, with dozens of hexagonal-ish red speaker cabinets hanging from the cieling like Picasso'd-up TIE fighters, surrounding the pit; plus the usual twin P.A. stacks, an expansive stage, and the walls are a cement/beige color instead of just black so the place has depth. There are chairs and tables along the edge too.

Great sound, as it would turn out, not too loud. Perfect volume, in fact, with every instrument clear and balanced. Whoever worked the lights missed a lot of opportunites though (it was the first night of the japanese tour though).

I got up front easily, so easily, like I coulda spent the last hour-and-a-half in a nice warm restaurant, fuck. A group of what could only be off duty Marines (if they had been fatter I'd say clergy -- only organized religion or the military could be responsible for mismatching such heads with such appalling haircuts) were Jackass-like, but distracted us all from the boredom of standing around doing nothing. Then Trivium came on.

Matt Heafy (Trivium)

They all skampered on stage, the crowd erupted, half-Japanese lead-singer/guitarist Matt Heafy bellowed "Oretachi wa, Trivium desu!", the crowd EXPLODED (it was just cool, like what a japanese band would shout), and they cranked into the first song, Rain (off Ascendency) and from there, a grand amount of jumping and fists in the air and devil horns and chanting ensued. Also some obnoxious fucking crowdsurfing care of the military guys, who need to get a clue...

Corey & Matt (Trivium)

Matt's face was animated, even as he sang his eyeballs were rolling and when not tied to the mic, his tongue was thrust out Simmonsly, his face happily growling, and all the guy were all over the stage, running from left to right, really filling the space.

Corey (g) and Paolo (b) egged on the crowd, singing the lyrics and headbanging and pointing and shouting, but Heafy was the main attraction, just the posing and jolly, not-too-serious in-your-faceness of it all, 'twas refreshing. The drummer was awesome to, a fuckin' machine, and jumped out of his seat whenever he got the chance, so he was more "there" than the drummers who hide forever behing their tom-toms. Looked a bit too much like Scott Ian though, the poor guy.

The only hitch in the performance was Matt's unsuccessful attempts to get a circle-mosh going. Did he not see the bars that herding us in, cutting the crowd into six unmixable sections, during soundcheck? He even went "Sa-kuru! Sa-kuru!" (Circle! Circle!, Japanese-style) to no avail -- hilarity! We couldn't budge! There was barely enough AIR to go around, dude!

Paolo (Trivium)

They saved Martyr for last, of course, and it was beautiful, as was Flies.

Totally worth the $75 ticket price and 90 minute train ride.

After Trivium, I hung out in the lobby, met up with some friends (hot metal chicks, mainly, mwuah ha ha, which made the Marines jealous, you could tell, but of course they lacked my secret -- baby pictures!) ("Did he show you Kasumi-chan yet? Kawaii ne? Kawaiii!! Papa no kao deshou!")

I got the set lists from one of my buddies from one of the labels, so I knew when to go in for Arch Enemy (an hour after they took the stage!), and hence was fortuante enough to still be in the nearly vacant lobby when Paolo came through, and of course he got stopped and did photos with the girls, and autographs, and the military guys cornered him and got all bonkers, and he nodded and nodded and nodded... he kinda looked bored (I can only imagine how many thousand times he's already heard "that was awesome, man!", poor guy)...

Me n' Paolo

I popped my head in after Michael's guitar solo and caught a couple Arch Enemy songs, including the only one worth hearing, Ravenous (their only truly great track, imho), and when the lights blasted onto the audience I noticed one of the buff Marines makin' out with a fat chick! It was great because in spite of having a muscled physique he still wasn't getting any nice trim. Made me feel good about my inabilty to do more than a dozen pushups. I considered mentioning this to him and his high-fiving friends but decided two years of reconstructive facial surgery and a lifetime spent in a wheelchair after they kicked my ass a thousand ways wouldn't really be worth the laugh I'd get...

It's not that I dislike military guys (my dad was a Marine when he was younger, after all) -- it's just that they're intolerable when they're off-duty. Especially in foreign countries, omfg.

Anyway. I wish Arch Enemy had more variety in their catalog, but song to song and album to album, a lot of their stuff, it's indistinguishable. And that's Sharlee D'Angelo on bass, still, right? He's huge! Not fat, just thick and towering, and he swings that huge bass of his around like it's a wiffleball bat! I like his style.

Chris Amott's replacement on guitar was capable but sorta troll-like (he had one of those chin-only beards and long messy hair and a beer gut; Chris was the only good-looking male in the band til he quit for college, they shoulda found someone not-ugly to replace him).

Sharlee & Angela (Arch Enemy)

Uh, then I headed for home, with a brief detour to a cute little jazz club, which cleared out the the gunky heavy metal residue still echoing inside my brain. Had a pretty good time overall, but I'll probably never go to Studio Coast again, just because it's so far away. And naturally, Arch Enemy and Trivium just added another Tokyo show, next Saturday, at ESP Hall, barely 30 minutes away. Goddammit!

Rearming Japan

Not required reading, but interesting:

Forbes; 9/19/2005,
Vol. 176 Issue 5, p154-161
*MILITARY readiness
*ANTIMISSILE missiles
*GOVERNMENT policy
*JAPAN -- Economic conditions / Foreign relations / Politics & government

Abstract: The article looks at how Japan's development of a missile defense system will affect the country's economic health and its foreign relations with the rest of Asia. A "Pull the Plug" ceremony for Japan's latest high-tech missile defenses took place in an unlikely location in July: Moorestown, N.J. That's where Lockheed Martin Corp. completed testing and unplugged a $60 million-plus weapons system. The system is part of Japan's new push to protect itself from prospective attacks by North Korea and China. All told, the country will spend $10 billion on the antimissile effort over the next five years. Japan's aggressive embrace of antimissile defenses is forcing the nation to undergo the most wrenching revamp of its military posture since the end of World War II. Japan is having to overcome its pacifist past and, in cooperation with the U.S., clear the technological hurdles that have left America's own multibillion-dollar antimissile program mired. And it must do so within a defense budget being shrunk to help contain mammoth fiscal deficits.

Aegis destroyer USS Lake Erie docks
in Japan’s Niigata port October 11.

Rearming Japan

Japan is shedding its pacifism, in all but name, to plow $10 billion into America's troubled Star Wars antimissile program. It's already a victory for U.S. taxpayers and defense contractors

A "Pull the Plug" ceremony for Japan's latest high-tech missile defenses took place in an unlikely location in July: Moorestown, N.J. That's where Lockheed Martin completed testing and unplugged a $60 million-plus weapons system. It is destined for Japan's fifth Aegis-class destroyer, now under construction in Nagasaki by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, maker of the World War II Zero fighter and still Japan's largest weapons producer.

The system is part of Japan's new push to protect itself from prospective attacks by North Korea and China. All told, the country will spend $10 billion on the antimissile effort over the next five years. That will include deploying Lockheed Martin's electronics and Raytheon's antimissile missiles aboard Aegis destroyers and land-based Patriot batteries. Japan will import some U.S. gear wholesale. American and Japanese contractors will jointly develop other systems within six years. Japan is also deploying a homegrown fleet of spy satellites and radar to detect ballistic missile launches hundreds of miles offshore.

Japan's aggressive embrace of antimissile defenses is forcing the nation to undergo the most wrenching revamp of its military posture since the end of World War II. After that war Japan enshrined pacifism into its constitution, which states that "the Japanese people forever renounce war" and that "land, sea and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained." The nation has interpreted that to exclude any military action not directly involving homeland defense. Recent translation: Japan isn't going to shoot down a missile headed to California.

But now Japan is having to overcome its pacifist past and, in cooperation with the U.S., clear the technological hurdles that have left America's own multibillion-dollar antimissile program mired. And it must do so within a defense budget being shrunk to help contain mammoth fiscal deficits.

"The U.S. nuclear umbrella alone is no longer enough to assure our security," says Defense Minister Yoshinori Ohno. "Japan can't just provide the American military with bases. We must cooperate in our own defense."

Coming from elsewhere, Ohno's statement might seem uneventful. But in a region with vivid memories of Japan's World War II atrocities, rife with ancient animosities and modern rivalries, any assertions of Japan's military might have been met with fierce opposition.

Yet Japan has long liberally interpreted its antiwar constitution to permit a strong homeland defense. Its $46 billion fiscal 2004 military budget exceeds Britain's or France's and ranks fourth in the world behind those of only the U.S., China and Russia.

What's new is Japan's willingness to confront regional threats and to participate in military operations thousands of miles offshore. During the first Gulf war Japan's only contribution was money, even though it imports 90% of its oil from the Middle East. As the U.S. considered attacking North Korea in 1994 over its nuclear program, Japan was again a bystander, despite the real risk it would get sucked into the conflict.

The next year the Tokyo subway was hit with a sarin gas attack, and in 1996 China launched missiles into waters near Taiwan, a few dozen miles from Japanese territory. "Taepodong shock" followed in 1998, when North Korea lobbed a ballistic missile over Honshu, the main Japanese island, and into the Pacific Ocean. Japan's politicians were bombarded with questions on what they were doing about the North Korean threat.

The month after the 9/11 attacks in the U.S., Japan's parliament passed a law allowing it to dispatch a flotilla to the Indian Ocean to supply fuel to coalition forces in Afghanistan. Japan has since sent 600 troops to Iraq in its first deployment to a war zone since World War II.

In September 2002 came "9/17," when dictator Kim Jong Il conceded North Korean spies had decades earlier abducted 16 Japanese citizens, 11 of whom remain hostages today. The saga received huge media play and for many Japanese solidified North Korea as an enemy--even before it declared itself nuclear armed.

Japan also faces disputes over islands to its north with Russia and to its west with South Korea. China, which has increased official military spending at double-digit percentage rates for 16 straight years, is building massive rigs to extract natural gas near the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, which both powers claim. Bilateral tensions were stoked further by Japan's detection of a Chinese sub in its waters last year.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, in turn, has angered the Chinese and Koreans with repeated visits to Yasukuni Shrine, where war criminals are honored alongside common soldiers. Beijing vented its spleen by allowing mobs to ransack Japanese government offices and businesses in China this spring.

With 45,000 U.S. troops stationed on its soil, Japan is likely to be dragged into a shooting war on the Korean peninsula. Ditto if China tries to take Taiwan by force and the U.S. intervenes. "In the event of hostilities, we've passed a law enabling us to offer the U.S. support in surrounding areas beyond Japanese territory," says Ohno.

In Tokyo, a city of 12 million, the Disaster Prevention Center operates a command room 24 hours a day and holds drills for everything from smallpox to missile attacks. Japan further plans to distribute to each home in 2007 a survival guide for missile or unconventional weapons attacks. "Someday terrorists will attack us," says Toshiyuki Shikata, a former Self-Defense Forces general who works on disaster simulations and planning.

When Japan released a revised National Defense Program Outline last December, it listed missile shields as its highest military priority, followed by fending off commando raids or invasions of its remote islands and cooperation in international peacekeeping. It also named specific countries--China and North Korea--as primary security threats. Japan has meanwhile ordered U.S. refueling aircraft, which will enable it to make round-trip sorties on the Asian mainland. When the issue of launching a preemptive strike to thwart a missile attack came up in the Diet recently, opposition was muted.

"The Americans aren't going to sacrifice anything for Tokyo, which means we need something more than their nuclear umbrella," says Taro Kono, a lower-house representative of the ruling party.

"The Cold War hasn't ended in North Asia," says David Asher, a public policy fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and former State Department adviser on Asia. "We need the Japanese to get into the game, and for their own reasons the Japanese have decided to get into the game."

Behind the policy change is a rightward shift in politics. Japan's two leading parties are working to amend the pacifist Article 9 of the constitution, a move supported by 56% of respondents in a recent poll. Although elections are scheduled for this month, the hawkishness will likely outlast Koizumi's currently rocky reign.

The real opponents of Japan's remilitarization are elsewhere in Asia. Japan's antimissile program prompted a "fierce argument" during vice-ministerial talks in Beijing last year, when China argued it would "alter the currently stable strategic environment in Asia and bring about a new arms race," the Japanese press said. In August private North and South Korean organizations, with the tacit support of their governments, jointly called on Japan to end its missile defense program.

Tokyo hasn't budged. "Japan had to decide between strengthening its alliance with the U.S., going it alone or kowtowing to the Chinese," says Robyn Lim, a professor of international relations at Nanzan University in Nagoya, Japan.

Meantime conventional arms spending--traditionally plowed into tanks and artillery to fight off a land invasion--will fall 11% this year as Japan pumps $1.2 billion into missile defense.

It's a risky investment. Since Ronald Reagan unveiled his Strategic Defense Initiative in 1983, the U.S. has spent $100 billion on an antimissile program that remains plagued with problems. Japan has been on the fringes of the program since at least 1993, when Mitsubishi Heavy, Mitsubishi Electric, Mitsubishi Corp. (the three are independent), NEC, Hitachi and Fujitsu participated in the bilateral Western Pacific Missile Defense Architecture Study.

The U.S. program has been kept alive with backing from powerful pols such as Alaska's ranking Senator Ted Stevens, a World War II veteran and chairman of the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. The program also received a boost from a 1999 law calling on the U.S. to deploy missile defenses as soon as is technologically feasible. Three years later President Bush eliminated legal barriers by opting out of the antiballistic missile treaty. Still, defending against missiles is a feat so tough the U.S. Missile Defense Agency has been exempted from performance hurdles others must clear to retain funding. The Government Accountability Office recently termed missile defenses "largely unproven" and eight intercepts "repetitive and scripted."

The U.S. is nevertheless committed to spending $50 billion for antimissile development over the next half-decade and pressed Japan in 2003 to commit to the program. Japan agreed later that year to the controversial steps of deploying missile defenses and relaxing its weapons export ban to share technology with the U.S.

"I think the Self-Defense Forces are ambivalent about ballistic missile defense," says Isaku Okabe, a defense analyst in Tokyo. "It's going to take a lot of manpower away from other areas."

Big contractors, by contrast, have a lot to gain. "The Japanese defense industry is clearly looking out for major new projects since the U.S. and Europeans are cheek by jowl in [bilaterally] developing the Joint Strike Fighter," says Richard Samuels, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor researching this area. "That's one reason missile defense seems so alluring to them. It's the way they see the world defense industry going."

Japan aims to begin deploying its antimissile system by 2007 and to have a fully operational two-tier shield in place by 2011, making it only the third country after the U.S. and Israel to have a missile shield.

With Japan's course set, a bilateral military-industrial complex can go to work. At the hub of a murky mix of politics and money is Naoki Akiyama, head of Japan's National Security Research Group and the Japan-American Cultural Society. The son of a military officer (he declines to give details or supply a résumé), Akiyama says he was working for a politician 20 years ago and searching for a not-so-offensive "theme" that would sell Japan on a stronger military. The Strategic Defense Initiative and antiballistics fit perfectly, he says.

Operating in the shadow of Japan's parliament from an office that bristles with models of high-tech weapons and U.S. mementos (like a cloth embroidered with a Camp David logo and a letter from Vice President Dick Cheney), Akiyama arranges bilateral symposiums on military issues, defense-related trips for Japanese pols to the U.S. and expos for American and domestic weaponsmakers in Japan. Lockheed Martin built a full-scale mock-up of its PAC-3 interceptor at one such event in the Parliamentary Museum last November, a month before Japan relaxed its arms export ban to pursue its antimissile mission with the U.S.

Akiyama, who is funded by Japanese politicians and U.S. and Japanese defense contractors, also arranges private meetings between them, the Japanese trading companies that broker U.S. weapons and defense officials. Asked about reports that he set up a meeting between senior military brass and Mitsubishi Group executives at a plush company guesthouse, Akiyama refuses to respond directly. "Japan offers good technology and can learn from the U.S.," he says. "I connect the people involved."

Akiyama's success in pushing Star Wars should help give a quick boost to U.S. military sales to Japan, which, at less than $500 million a year, have been barely a third of those to China in recent years. Japan's first generation of defenses will involve upgrading four domestically built Aegis destroyers with Lockheed Martin radar to track ballistic missiles, as well as planes, ships and subs (two more are under construction). The big winner will be Raytheon, which will supply the Standard Missile-3 that will go on the ships and ground-based radar, worth $1 billion to $1.6 billion in orders over the next few years, Morgan Stanley says. Two Aegis ships patrolling the Sea of Japan could theoretically defend the nation from attacks.

"It was a real wake-up call for Japan when the North Koreans flew their taepodong over," says Kurt Strauss, a Raytheon mission capabilities strategist. "Since Japan's an island nation, putting SM-3s on ships halfway in between the countries, or even further forward, is an obvious way to solve the problem."

Japan has also ordered 16 Lockheed Martin ground-based Patriot Advance Capability-3 missiles to protect critical targets and get a second shot at incoming missiles if the SM-3s miss. Raytheon's SM-3 has successfully intercepted five of six missiles in tests, and Lockheed Martin's PAC-3 has succeeded in 17 out of 19 tries.

Still, doubts that this will offer much of a shield under real-life conditions lead to grousing. One joke is that BMD, an oft-quoted acronym for "ballistic missile defense," stands for baka mitai ni dekai, or "absurdly huge."

For Japan's big contractors, all of which declined to comment, missile defense promises to be a lucrative and cozy business. Since contracts are on a cost-plus basis, profits are built in. Under a bilateral agreement Mitsubishi Heavy is the early winner. It already controls 22% of Japan's weapons business and will make antimissile systems under license from Lockheed Martin in the first foreign PAC-3 production. Other large defense suppliers: Kawasaki Heavy Industries, with 12% of defense work, and Mitsubishi Electric, with 7%.

"Japanese manufacturers were worried that the PAC-3 would be 100% imported," says Keiichi Nagamatsu, managing director for defense production at the Japan Business Federation (Keidanren). "Without our own R&D and manufacturing, Japan won't be able to make what we need for defense."

In the next stage Japan and the U.S. will each invest $600 million to replace the current 13-inch-diameter SM-3 with a 21-inch version that can take down faster and longer-range missiles by 2010.

Tokyo brings to this party the nation's famed engineering prowess. Japanese companies (such as Mitsubishi Heavy) are working on a so-called clamshell nose cone that is supposed to increase reliability by opening outside the atmosphere and reducing the number of maneuvers required to hit an incoming missile. The technology is superior to anything the U.S. has, according to a U.S. government official who declined to be identified. Japan is also working on a new rocket engine using composite materials from Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries and the first infrared seekers, made by Fujitsu, that can see in two colors to distinguish decoys from warheads. Japanese firms are also working on a kinetic warhead that rams into missiles directly rather than exploding nearby.

Ironically, these high-tech achievements might be laid low by down-to-earth political disputes over whether Japan would intercept a U.S.-bound missile. "The government of Japan is in a tremendous debate over this," says the U.S. official. Japan is counting on the U.S. to warn it that a missile is on the way--a trip that takes ten minutes or so from North Korea. But the U.S. is currently delaying data several minutes, as it separates out other secret signals, rendering them next to useless. Japan, in turn, has balked at okaying more U.S. radar deployments, according to defense analyst Okabe.

Amid the standoff, Japan is testing its own missile-launch-monitoring aircraft. It will also turn on a $540 million radar next year to track missile launches. Built by Mitsubishi Electric, it boasts a 59-foot-diameter, turtle-shell-shape antenna dubbed "Gamela," after the Godzilla-slaying tortoise. The aim is to limit future horror shows to the silver screen.

[end]

NIGHTWISH Part Ways With Singer TARJA TURUNEN, Vow To Carry On

Saturday, October 22, 2005

BLABBERMOUTH.NET:

NIGHTWISH mainman Tuomas Holopainen (keyboards) has issued the following 'open letter' to the group's singer, Tarja Turunen:

'Dear Tarja,

'It's time to choose whether the story of NIGHTWISH ends here or whether it will still continue an undetermined period of time. We've been working with this creation for 9 years and we are not ready to give up yet. NIGHTWISH is a way of life, something to live for, and we're certain we can't let it go.

'Equally certain is the fact that we cannot go on with you and Marcelo any longer. During the last year something sad happened, which I've been going over in my head every single day, morning and night. Your attitude and behavior don't go with NIGHTWISH anymore. There are characteristics I would never have believed to see in my old dear friend. People who don't talk with each other for a year do not belong in the same band.

Uh-oh! I thought they were getting big in the wake of Evanescence's popularity, and now they're blowing it!

I bet Tarja's been offered solo deals where she makes all the money instead of splitting it five ways... greedy trollop!

Fair enough though, it ain't like she'll be hard to replace; there's more capable female vocalists in the world that actually ~like~ metal and know how to act not-retarded on stage.

Tarja (v) and Tuomas (k) in better days

Infomercial Marty

Friday, October 21, 2005

I stopped by a guitar shop yesterday and picked up the free Boss dvd with Marty Friedman in it. It's an infomercial! And it's a pain in the ass to rip, DVD Decrypter only sees one track of the eight, DVD Shrink sees all the tracks twice, neither do shit! Otherwise it'd be online by now. I guess Boss doesn't want free publicity.

o_O

Trespassing Charged in Horse-Sex Case: "after the Seattle man died of injuries suffered during intercourse with a horse"

Booth Babes Need Work

MSN-Mainichi Daily News: Photo Specials:

"Booth babes of the Tokyo Motor Show"

These are babes?! Were feminists in charge of selecting the talent and clothing this year? I've seen more skin in a burn ward.

This is pretty cool though, it's a personal mobility unit:

The pinkness sorta emphasizes the penility of it all, tho, don't it? At least the wheels aren't ball-like. "C'mon kids, lets go for a ride to the market in my chin-chin-mobile!"

Nanase's Got a Mini-Album Comin'

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Nanase Aikawa Official Web Site:

R.U.O.K.?!
AVCD-32057 / motorod
2005.11.9 / ￥2,000

1. Foolish 555
2. R.U.O.K?!
3. Fly to Rainbow Ray
4. Rock Star's Steady
5. Red Wheel
6. Snowfall
7. Everybody Gose

Producer：岡野ハジメ
Dr：真矢（ex.LUNA SEA）
Bass："CRAZY" COOL JOE（ex.DEAD END）
Guitar：MARTY FRIEDMAN（ex.MEGADETH）　#2#3#5#6#7
Guitar：PATA（ex.X JAPAN）　#1#4#7
Guitar：室姫深（ex.THE MAD CAPSULE MARKETS）　#2#3
Keyboards：D.I.E.（ex.hide with spredbeaver）　#1#2#4#6#7

I thought it was a mook at first -- did they hire a magazine cover designer to do the CD art?! And Nanase used to have pretty good english on her songs -- what happened?! "Gose" is killin' me here.

Sorta promising is that at least one track will be available online (here, for example, although it's WMA ~and~ ￥200 lol). ITunes I guess will have AAC. Assuming each song is available for ￥200, that means the physical disc will cost 20% *more* than the downloadable version. Should make for some interesting sales numbers.

I'll probably buy it, she's got some high-caliber musicians (Shinya, Marty, Pata) on it and she's sorta my pet j-rocker -- gotta have everything she puts out, as long as she doesn't pull a Muccerou.

J has a new single out soon too, only two songs though, and based on the preview on his site, the new track sounds like every other track he's ever written. I think his management kicked out the two white guys (Scott and Frank) and replaced 'em with some locals... so maybe ~something~ will be different... I haven't even listened to his last single yet (from July) tho, and don't seem to care so much anymore. Definitely a "wait for the torrrent" situation.

Peace & Smile Carnival Tour 2005

12/22[木]
Zepp Tokyo　
[L:38149]
16:30/17:30
￥5,500

Miyavi, Kagrra, Kra, Gazette & Alice Nine.

Alice Nine and Gazette are the reasons I'd go, I still ain't seen either live.

Kagrra would be nice to see again, it's been a year. And Miyavi I feel obliged to see at least once; since he goes on last, I can watch a little and duck out early if necessary, hahaha.

Kra is the thorn, as I've seen them several times already (never on purpose) and HATE THEIR SUGAR-COATED ASSES.

Zepp is a little out of the way (Shibuya AX woulda been so much more convenient). The ￥5,500 price tag is suprisingly fair.

What to do?

Still More Evidence of Kagerou's Rampant Shit-Eating-ness

Five Tracks, Only $45! Fuck you very much, Kagerou!

NEW!ver.A.
「腐った海で溺れかけている僕を救ってくれた君」
C/W
2.響け、この声。
3.羞恥の檻
2005/11/30発売
MAXI \1,575

NEW!ver.B.
「腐った海で溺れかけている僕を救ってくれた君」
C/W
2.響け、この声。
3.夕闇を裂いた花
2005/11/30発売
MAXI \1,575

NEW!ver.C.
「腐った海で溺れかけている僕を救ってくれた君」
C/W
2.響け、この声。
3.ENHANCED-CD仕様
2005/11/30発売 MAXI \1,575

Still, there are fans who will continue to support Kagerou because VK, like a lot of heavy, angry music, attracts more than its share of insecure self-flaggelating dullards who think they gotta own everything, even when it's clear that the band HAS NO RESPECT FOR ITS AUDIENCE.

A \2000 mini-album clearly would've been the way to go here, and you know things are bad when a five-song E.P. for $20 is the reasonable/affordable solution, LOL.

Seriously, someone needs to give these guys a slap.

Maid cafes get 'yellow cards' for going too far with customers

MSN-MDN: National News:

Police issued instructions to two 'maid cafes' in Fukuoka, telling the establishments they were in danger of violating the Law Regulating Adult Entertainment Businesses over their treatment of customers, it has been learned.

Wuh-oh!

On a related note, while doing a search for "maid cafe" in google images, I found the illustration above, for a game called Chocolat, which also happens to be the name of the maid cafe I pass by every day on the way to work, outside Akihabara proper. Someday I'll go in... :)

"You rise to play and go to bed to work"

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

I've got, like, a shitload of games loaded up on my PC at the moment. And this list doesn't even include Wolf:ET or BF2, or old stalwarts like Max Payne 2 and Half-Life 2, that I just keep on my sytem at all times for easy revisiting.

Anyway: Call of Duty is great; the multiplayer is boring though. Call of Duty: United Offensive is too damn hard. Even on the lower settings, it's just IMPOSSIBLE. Very frustating. :|

SWAT 4 is a fun game, you basically just clear out buildings and try NOT to shoot anyone unless they resist. There's no savegame feature, but since the location of enemies is totally randomized, no two run-throughs are the same. The level editor that lets you make nurses and OLs the bad guys is awesome. :)

Far Cry is back on my system because I wanted to see it on my new videocard (the 6800gt). I originally rated it higher than HL2, but this was a mistake; it's gorgreously pretty, the enemies are smart, it's all fun and challenging... but little elements, like the wtf-was-that cut scenes and the amateurish personalities of the main characters knock this game down a peg. Still the best looking game ever made though. :)

Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood is pretty much identical to BIA: Road to Hill 30, with the same effectively employed tactical setup. Weirdly, I both like and dislike the tactical elements of the game. But what I really hate are the eternal cutscenes. If I wanted to watch a movie, I'd watch a fuckihng movie! Stop trying to tell a story in fucking cutscenes! Tell it through MY CHARACTER, dammit. In fact, just eliminate the cutscenes entirely. They're don't belong in a game. :|

Sniper Elite I've only played for five minutes. It seems like it's gonna be slow and repetitive though; crawling around on my belly and having to figure out wind resistance and other shit just to shoot some dude sounds too much like actual work. It's set in the final days of WWII, but has you working for the U.S., killing Soviets, as the Cold War begins. That has some promise... no rating yet.

And speaking of Cold Wars, Cold War is a lot like Splinter Cell, except you play a beatnik photographer instead of a special forces CIA op. As I played, my thoughts were: I can only take photos? I can't kill?! Bah!! Well... maybe it'll be cool... / Oh, I can knock people out, okay... / Oh, i can take their guns and shoot their buddies. Huh! This is just Splinter Cell without the gymkata.

And lastly, Quake 4, which is so brainless I can't believe anyone over the age of six would express any interest in it at all. :(

And the F.E.A.R. demo was so fun, and the reviews online so positive, that I might end up actually buying that title... And isn't HL3 due out at the end of the month? Good time to like shooters..

This Is What Happens When You Lets Yer Womenfolk Runs All Loosey-Goosey!

Metropolis:

"Feminists in China spent two hours eating sushi off a naked man, in retaliation for a meal reportedly served on a naked woman at a Japanese restaurant last year. The 21-year-old youth’s genitals were kept covered with a banana leaf throughout."

LOL! "In retaliation." I sure learned MY lesson!

"Tokyo police arrested two teenage girls who admitted drugging eight men and stealing a total of ¥580,000 from them. They said they needed money for karaoke."

That's more like it. Although the thought of spending $5000 on karaoke makes me physically ill.

Spyware can constitute illegal trespass on home computers

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

USATODAY.com:

A federal trial court in Chicago has ruled recently that the ancient legal doctrine of trespass to chattels (meaning trespass to personal property) applies to the interference caused to home computers by spyware.

Awesome. Will the infectors be put in the stocks, in a public square, so we can throw rotten fruits and vegetables at them? "Boo! Filth! Rubbish! Boo!" :)

Boring Older Sister, More Like

Gotta admit, I only watched the premiere of Kiken na Aneki intermittently. Misaki's hot, but she just can't act! And I thought she was more attractive before the makeover.

Misaki Itoh in Kiken na Aneki (aka "Dangerous Beauty")

I don't know what it is about Japanese dramas featuring over-acting actors... but I can't take it anymore. (It's not just her, it's everyone in the show... every line delivery and posture and expression is vaudevilleian! Who's directing these people?)

Asahi, Kirin & Sapporo Under the Microscope

Monday, October 17, 2005

Microscopy.fsu.edu: Shortly after World War II, allied forces split the Dai Nippon Brewery into the Asahi and Sapporo Breweries, who have produced beers that are featured in our library of photomicrographs.

live report: Danger Gang @ Takadanobaba AREA

Danger Gang
Takadanobaba Area
10.16.2005
\2500 + \500 (drink fee)

Me and Kendra hit Area late, a few minutes before curtain time, and there's only six people in the theater! Six! In a space for 300 or more! And the temperature is so cold icebergs should be floating by.

The first band comes on stage.

The singer goes "Samui!" and rubs his arms to warm himself. Their name is Depa Chika (Deepak Chopra rides again!). They have a drum machine instead of a drummer, and one of their guitarists is missing (lol, where did he go?!) and the other guitarist is a mini-Sugizo and what he lacked in chops and tone he made up for in elegant/angry Sugizo-style posing. Their songs are not quite good, but it's their first gig, give 'em a break.

Depa Chika's Karin (b) & Rei (g)

Hilarity ensues when the audience participation song starts; they have four girls standing up (two in front of the bassist, two in front of the guitarist -- none are really the type of groupie you dream about when you practice guitar for eight hours a day, I'm sad to report) and then there's two more girls sitting to the left, and me and K sitting on the right, desperately clinging to our can of Malts like it's a liferaft to the world of the sane. And there's that drum machine.

So the audience participation part starts in the middle of their last song, and goes on... and on... and on... and it's a drum machine, so you can't change it, you just gotta ride it out!

blah blah -- RARGH!
blah blah -- RARGH!
blah blah -- RARGH!
blah blah -- RARGH!

...and it's like this for HOURS and the singer tries to get the two girls sitting on the left into it, but no. So he moves on to me & K and tries to get us into it, and it's like, I admire your gumption, duder, so (still sitting -- no way am I actually gonna stand!) I lazily lift my arm a couple times, sort of to the beat, I guess. Kendra goes "yay." And the singer goes "Thank you!" and goes back to his blah blah -- RARGH! blah blah -- RARGH! for like, another 90 minutes. In some parallel universe, he's still on stage screaming even now.

Tip for small bands: don't act like us eight people are a sold-out Tokyo Dome crowd.

Afterwards, I looked over at Kendra and explained, "I need to pee."

Shortly after I return (I think with a roman coke, or a rum coke, something...) the second of three bands came on, explosively. The curtain is torn aside as the lights burst on like GOD HIMSELF has leapt on stage and the singer shrieks GRAAAAAAGA!!" and a wave of guitar distortion and bass thrumming and cymbal crashes crash over us... a bunch of girls come outta nowhere behind me and double the size of the audience, climbing the headbang bars and going crazy...

And on stage it's Danger Gang!

They have a few actually GOOD songs and the guitarist, drummer, and singer are all good at what they do. The bass is a bit of a weak link, but i think she's new too. But whereas the other three make an impression, the bass is like, just sorta there, plunk.

Waka (v)

Hiko (g)

Thera (b)

Rei (d)

Since I'm uploading snippets of video of the show (can 18 minutes of footage be called "snippets"?), there's not much to mention except that the guitarist smiles a little too much ("I'm on eighteen kinds of medication!!!") but plays some cool riffs and is frightfully skinny, the singer is a whack-job (Sharon Osbourne on crack!) with solid, sorta tenor vocal chords (i.e., not tin whistly SKREEE-sounding). And the drummer is not just a tight drummer but probably the most attractive chick to ever rock on a stage anywhere ever. She is HAWT, DAWG! As Kendra is fond of saying, "I'd hit that." Afterwards when we met I was just like [giant-eyeballs-face-with-drool].

Then there was a last band, a four-piece called Jagger （ジャガー）, who wore black suits (yawn) and the bassist looked like Die's little brother and the drummer didn't know how to play one song so in the middle of the set the four of them stopped for a couple minutes to confer -- which wasn't really a big deal because there were less people now than for the first band! (All Danger Gang's loyal fans came only for DG and left after DG left the stage.)

Jagger （ジャガー）

Afterwards, the lobby was full of Danger Gang fans, being all polite, respectful, and gawky to the Danger Gang girls (still in costume... ahhhh).

The sad-faced singer from the first band was alone in the corner at his merch table being ignored -- so Kendra bought his photoset.

I meanwhile dazzled the assembled DG throng by stepping up to their merch table and saying "Zenbu!" ("Everything!"). Everything only turned out to be a couple photosets (my first ever!) and their new single, a sticker which I've already lost, and their new single, a CDr called Samurai, and available at CDJapan hint hint. It's the best written, performed, and produced tracks they've released so far.

I also said a few other words in Japanese (Tanoshikatta, otsukaresama deshita, all these things that I used to say all the time after concerts but hadn't for a long time... but it's like riding a bike, this stuff) and after each phrase I think it was the singer who led the rest of the girls in applause and cheers. Hooray me. :)

After that me and K wandered around Ikebukuro and found a Nijyu Maru with these cool little tiny for-two booths that came with these electronic ordering tablet-PC things, and we got way too much to drink, then stumbled back to the station around... well, before the last trains. Kendra's cool, she's fangirly but not overly fangirly, and smart. And wears cool black gothy stuff that makes guys in Ikebukuro mistake her for a harlot. ^_^m

I made it home and drank enough water and took enough Tylenol to avoid a major hangover. There are now no painkillers anywhere in my house.

Danger Gang is a really good band to see live, they are just unstoppable. They would KILL in America, absolutely KILL I say!

"Koi" Flashback

Saturday, October 15, 2005

By request, from the original jrocknyc.com, a flashback to August 2003...

August 2003: Shinya (Dir en grey), Bar Ax's Master, Izumi (Aion), and me.

I'm in the front seat (legroom, baby!) nodding off when Izumi's phone rings and he answers with an, "Oh, Shinya!" and how could my ears NOT perk up (Izumi introduced me to Shinya last time, at the Sugizo live in December, you'll recall) but, bad news, Shinya has shigoto at 5am (ouch!) so he won't be joining us. I had hoped to show him my Rettou Gekishin Angya tattoo, but i'm not too disappointed; I'm still on my J high, smiling to myself. I'm so glad none of the AX staff people came up to me and asked "Where's your pass?" because if they had i woulda had to slunk out with my tail between my legs! I totally lucked out.

That's what i'm reflecting on when at long last -- and it's after 11:30 now, with last trains looming (and me still smelling of mosh pit) -- we land in Kabukicho and go for ramen and cha-han. And Izumi gets his koi-style, which he explains in terms of shots: "koi" is like a double shot.

"So is that like omori?" I'm thinking. But "omori" means "super-size it!" whereas his ramen doesn't look omori'd; so he actually shares a spoonful of his ramen broth with me (and then with K and R as well, so that we may all enjoy the koi-ness and germs together!) and it's not super-size like omori, it's double-strength.... like adding two spoonfuls of sugar to your coffee instead of just one. The broth is thicker; almost gritty. So there's your new word for the day. Interesting new word for the day.

After that, i get the impression that K & R are gonna stick around for an hour or two, then just taxi home; but now in Kabuki-cho, on an exciting, warm Friday night, i've got my second wind back for the second time tonight, and i'm ready for an all-nighter; i can always drop by Godz or maybe Current, they're's always someone i know there. I'm all jazzed up.

As we walk, Izumi an I discuss the relative merits of Mother vs. Ax-Kick (which is directly above mother); he's like "which one you wanna go too?" when we get to the entranceway, and i'm like, "Mother's too damn noisy!", plus it's been a year since i've been in Ax Kick (it's a quieter metal bar; the music is softer, the seats are softer... less rowdy, more laid-back.)

Turns out he's got a bottle there (sorta the equivalent of a member's card), of Four Roses; he gets another one of Jack Daniels for the goils, 'cos they prefer Jack! And so we set to work a-drinkin'! (Verrrry slowly at first... me anyway.)

The visual kid, Yuhei, who's pouring our drinks is "kawaiiiii!" (so sayeth R & K). He sees either my tattoo or my shirt (i'm wearing the white Deg gasmask tour shirt, the sleeves ripped off) and asks, "Do you like Dir en grey?" I think Izumi's on the phone again at this point. And I'm like, "Hell yeah!" :) Then Izumi's rattles off something quick in Japanese and the kid starts quivering and R & K are like, "Awww, kawaiii!" again and i'm like "What'd i miss what'd he say?!" cause the kid is going, "Eh? Honto? Eh? Honto?"

K: Shinya's outside!

So then ~I'm~ like "Eh? Honto? Eh? Honto?" (but only on the inside... my outer demeanor remains relatively blase... thanks to the booze.)

Izumi takes Yuhei out to meet Shinya. I'm like, 'Aw, i wish he was coming in so i could say hi again!" (I can't go out to meet him because Izumi didn't ask me too, and it'd be rude to horn in on that, yanno?)

Then K's like, "Oh, he's coming in."

"Eh? Honto? Eh? Honto!"

(I guess the kid had to go outside to meet him because once inside, he has to be all business-like and professional?)

And a few seconds later, in walks Shinya. Cool Jean Paul Gaultier shirt on. I half-stand up and shake his hand as he sits down next to me, and he points to my shirt and goes, "Ah, Dir en grey!" and smiles, and Yuhei (ah the poor boy!) is back kneeling at the table pouring a whiskey and coke as Izumi joins us on the couch and it's like hi, and hisashiburi, and after a few minutes the worlds coolest drummer pulls out some playing cards and starts doing magic tricks! I remember leaning back and watching him telling Izumi to pick a card out of the deck, and thinking, "Dude, this is surreal." It was a cool trick too! One of those matching-the-card-you-pulled-outta-the-deck kinda things. He repeated it with R, successfully. Quite the magician, our Shinya!

Later, he checks out my tattoo (my tatt is the 6 kanji for Rettou Gekishin Angya, the name of their 2002 tour that i loved so much) ...he comments that Kaoru came up with that phrase. And i think he's kinda impressed! (At least, he doesn't laugh hysterically or roll his eyes, which woulda been bad!)

And we also talk about "koi" -- and we get into an argument over it! I insist it's also a fish (a carp, like in every stream and pond in Japan!) but i don't think anyone believes me, and it's very distressing! Also, there's a brief discussion of whether "oishii" can be used to describe women or only food. ;)

Not long after, K's gotta go home; she hasn't been feeling so good for the last hour; R's like, "i'll come with you," but K's like, "no, no, stay," which is good because i need someone to help me translate my comments into Japanese! But gradually the conversation shifts away from music (i guess when you work in the music business, it gets dull after a while). And all my meager vocabulary is wrapped up in musical terms so I'm lost half the time.

Fortunately on the video they're playing an Aion live show from a decade ago, and there's Izumi, with his hair two feet high, soloing away on his axe. That was followed by some Janne Da Arc and Penicillin and Feel So Bad (who i still love) and then i went to go pee, and my cheap belt buckle fell off and went "ploop" right into the toilet, and i went, "Oh well, it's yours now Mr. Toilet!". And then walking back to our table (the place is only 20 feet long, with two tables and a bar), a girl at the bar stops me and goes, "Were you at Area the other day?" Which i was, so i sit down beside her and we end up chatting for a little about the bands that played -- she was there for Faust ("oh yeah, great band!" i nod in agreement, "but i really dug MiraVills the most") and eventually we end up talking about major bands and she says, oblivious, "Pierrot and Dir en grey and..." and i'm sitting looking at her wondering, "Should i point to the drummer sitting four feet to her left?" and i know, if i was her, i'd hope someone else would point out the presence of a band member to me, but i also don't know if she'll be all crazy fangirly or what, so i keep silent.

In my guilt, i soon have to return my table so i say goodbye and HEY, R has stolen my seat and is sitting next to Shinya! Ah, but only because they're looking at the screen of her computer J/E dictionary. And that's when he (lol!) starts doing the international hand gesture for cow-milking! She's teaching him and Izumi english and that 5am shigoto he has? It has something to do with a farm, and that's all i wanna say because i don't wanna spill too many beans.

One worthwhile piece of info though, no more singles. Next stop, Vulgar!

A few hours pass of shooting the breeze, even the pourkid is relaxed each time he comes over to fix our drinks by now. It's just totally ~hey, hang-in' out~ and that girl i talked to before is gone, but the seat she left is near the bar's net-accessible PC. So we get online i show him to jrocknyc.com (of course!) [vid] and he smiles at the opening "circle" pic, and on the Live Reports page, he has a good time, checking out all of the reports all the way back to last year! (The first one he clicked on was for 7/3, aka Macabre night -- and the animated gifs REALLY had an impact on everyone!)

And he's scrolling and scrolling and checking out the photos, and wait a minute, he's looking for photos of him! And each time he sees one he stops scrolling and goes "Ah!" and R goes "Ay!" and Izumi goes "Ho!" and i smile sheepishly and the process continues for a while...

Sit down again, drink for a while longer, and then the sun is coming up; R has to go home, Shinya has to get to work on the farm! So shake hands, wave, see you again soon! Then me and Zoom return to our whiskeys.

And a few moments after that, the guitar techs for the band Volcano come in, and suddenly we're leaving with them and going to another bar, i can't even remember where -- and it's so bright out all the texture and details of the world are washed out and all i can see is vague shapes! And you can tell in your pores that it's gonna be a soppy, muggy, burning wet hot kinda day even though it's barely 6am. And i meet one of the Volcano guitarists, but he and Izumi seem to have things to discuss, so i meet the other staff guys; they're cool. Then Yohei (the bar kid from Ax Kick!) calls me -- did i give him my number? apparently! And the bar closes, and i say goodbye to everyone and thank Izumi for a great time, then drop by some other bar that Becky has been to before, hoping maybe she's there and up for some breakfast, but she ain't, so i catch a train home, sleep all the way, get home, fall into bed, smell how AWFUL i smell (sweat and tobacco -- koi'd up!), bathe, fall back into bed, and sleep till 4pm. Then awaken and email the pix to Shinya and Izumi. :)

Roadrunner United DVD - Chapter Four

Friday, October 14, 2005

I was watching the Trivium portion of the Roadrunner United DVD; it's one of the more interesting in-the-studio films I've ever seen, full of little educational things and opinions and brief explanations of method and reasoning and funny jokes and bucketloads of profanity! Short and never boring. :)

Matt "If You Dare Wear Short Shorts, Nair for Short Shorts" Heafy, Team Captain, metal wizard.

King Diamond! Sans makeup! I always imagined him as being more... chunky and middle-aged. Like a car salesman.

The other guitarist in Trivium, with the French-ass name (and the only one who looks MET-AL!).

Mike Smith (Suffocation) discusses weakly slapping the snare.

Jason "Hurley" Suecof comments on Smith: He is the king of all that is blasting! You gotta give him credit, he created that shit, no one else was doin' that shit, fuckin' now System of a Down is doin' it! If he coulda copyrighted the motherfuckin' blast beat dude, Suffocation would be like a... (pause) well, they'd prolly be at the same place they are. What can ya fuckin' do, you're in a death metal band?

Dangerous Misaki Itoh!

I did a search for Kiken na Aneki (危険なアネキ) ("Dangerous Older Sister"), Misaki Itoh's new series (starts 10/17) ...and I found a Wiki on her! (It never even occurred to me to look for one!)

Itoh Misaki - DramaWiki:

* Name: 伊東美咲 / Itoh Misaki
* Real Name: 安斉智子 / Anzai Tomoko
* Profession: Actress / Model
* Date of Birth: 26 May 1977
* Height: 171cm
* Weight:
* Blood type: A
* Star Sign: Gemini
* Place of Birth: 福島縣 / Fukushima pref.
* Talent Agency: Ken-On

According to the Wiki, she made like $800,000 last year. Not too shabby. Then why is she hanging out with a guy in a band called "Da Pump"?!?!?! AUGH!!!

Misaki Gets Pumped >.<

Yahoo!ニュース - スポーツ報知 - 伊東美咲とＩＳＳＡがデート:

　女優・伊東美咲（２８）と、人気グループ「ＤＡ　ＰＵＭＰ」のメーンボーカル・ＩＳＳＡ（２６）のデートがキャッチされた。６日発売の女性週刊誌「女性セブン」が報じた。

Issa (Da Pump)

Ugh! Misaki Itoh and washed-up hip-hopper Issa (Da Pump) were spotted exiting a restaurant hand-in-hand earlier this month. They went to an izakaya next, and then back to his apartment at 2am...

...and she left alone at 6am.

Eeeeewwww~!!!

Apple and ABC join forces to offer online TV

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Apple and ABC join forces to offer online TV: It could herald a big change in the way we watch television: ABC network and its corporate parent, The Walt Disney Company, announced today that they will begin offering episodes of selected shows for purchase and download on Apple's iTunes music store. The move coincides with the announcement of a new version of Apple's best-selling MP3 player, the iPod, that will also play video.

ABC will offer its hits Desperate Housewives and Lost, as well as new show Night Stalker. The shows will be put on iTunes the day after they air on their respective networks, and in the case of Lost and Desperate Housewives, the entire first seasons will also be purchasable immediately.

Will it be country-limited? I bet it will be. That'd be pretty useless.
The day after they're televised? As in 24 hours later? If people don't have it for their morning commute they probably won't be interested.
I'll stick with BitTorrent + Mininova, thanks. Quicker and Free-er. :p

Vitamin Muh

I got this ＭＵＨ～(ム～) flyer at the Despairs Ray Citta gig and it definitely seemed worth mentioning, if only for the name ("We are Moo!")

Also picked up flyers for Realice, Altema, and Spider Lily.

I've never heard anything by any of these bands, but thought I'd share the linkage with y'all as I wait for Lost to get seeded...

Realice

Spider Lily

Altema

Obey!

Taken at like 4am...

Sleep? What's that?

Hahaha there's no
such thing as sleep!

"the worst cinematic excrescence I’ve seen in decades"

Metropolis Tokyo :: MOVIES:

The stage percussion group Stomp, in a monumentally bad group career move, appears as the workers in two rival vacuum cleaner factories who occasionally do percussive battle. Also known as the wonderfully opportunistic Japanese title, Stomp’s Beloved Vacuum Cleaner.

Ah, even after all these years of exposure to Japlish, I still manage to get pleasantly surprised every once in a while. :D

My favorite is still the "tootle with vigor" driving instructions one though.

My DAP

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

I just sorta drag-n-dropped a bunch of random music onto the MuVo yesterday (got like 3 or 4 tracks per artist onto it before it burst open like an overripe tomato)...

mors principium est
2005 - the unborn
AWESOME ALBUM! Ripping, shredding, melodic, deathy, technical, unique note choices, somewhat unpredictable arrangements, but still grounded (not like whacked-out over-the-top nearly unlistenable prog death or something). The first couple tracks are especially worthwhile.

Mors Principium Est

nina gordon
2000 - tonight and the rest of my life
Her cover of NWA's Straight Outta Compton is soooo good, but everything on this disc (from about the same period) is so meh.

nonexist
2002 - deus deceptor
Pretty average melodeath, but I got into this disc early in my bittorrent career so it managed to get heard more than once before being pushed aside to make room for new cargo. Cool guitar tone, hollow and metallica like a German u-boat.

norah jones
2004 - feels like home
Had this for over a year and still haven't listened to it.

motley crue
2005 - red, white & crue
Jeez, god awful! Can't believe this band is still around. (Tickets for their show at Saitama Super Arena are \9000 yen! LOL! FUCK THAT.)

nightwish
2002 - from wishes to eternity (live)
Another involving band with an unusual repetoire, a little too much keyboard, a grand female opera vocal, and an over-reliance on words like "Wish" and "Dream," and too many of their songs go nowhere. But when they hit the jackpot (Nemo, Kinslayer, Wishmaster, etc...) they really rouse the soul.

noiz
2004 - zero no keifu
Yanno, this colorful, plastic VK band has some great songwriting and musicianship for a band that's so colorful and plastic. They don't make me jump out of my seat and mosh but I definitely admire what they do.

pain of salvation
2002 - remedy lane
Dunno why, but i just never get into these guys, even though their prog-metal-ness looks good on paper.

opeth
2005 - ghost reveries
Heavy and proggy and immense and enveloping, sorta like a dark gray stormcloud sweeping in and covering the entire sky. But there's so much of Opeth's back cataloguye I've yet to fully plumb! (And I've liked them for what, six years now? Seven? Attended at least two concerts as well?)

pat metheny
2003 - one quiet night
skipped, too slow! (He's like a neo-jazz guitar guy or something.)

rob zombie
1998 - hellbilly deluxe
This dude has three good songs, Dragula, Superbeast, and Living Dead Girl, and that's it.

psycroptic
2003 - the scepter of the ancients
Technical death, skipped it this time, nothing too brilliant but still a little notable.

mullmuzzler
2001 - mullmuzzler 2
So-so. James LaBrie (Dream Theater's) little side band.

move
2004 - dogfight
Hip-hop, dance, and metal in one smashing pulpy track. Their only good song.

morning musume
2004 - best! morning musume 2
Skipped! (Has The Peace, which is all I really need.)

jared diamond
2005 - collapse
Didn't listen to any today. Still great though.

david buss
2005 - the murderer next door
Awesomeness embodied. Best line today: "One might ~think~ killing would be a turn-off to women..."

live report: children of bodom @ shibuya ax

Children of Bodom
Japan Tour 2005
Shibuya AX
10.11.2005
\7000

Gettin ready for this show I felt oddly neutral about it. It felt like going to work. At a nice job, but still, sorta routine.

Got to the show and bumped into Yuki right at the gate, so we hung out and chatted for an hour, mainly about Kate, but also about Trivium and how we could care less about Arch Enemy (Trivium's opening for Arch Enemy on 10/22).

Then she mentions the special guest tonight was supposed to be Sentenced, which would've been awesome (in one year they've surpassed CoB, Soilwork, Darkane, Opeth, and In Flames to become my favorite melodeath band). But of course they had their final gig last week, and broke up.

A few minutes before showtime I got into the auditorium, through the frontest leftest door, and when the lights went out and everyone surged forward, I could've gotten into the prime front & center space easily, but i was holding my jacket -- I hadn't gotten a locker because I had expected to hang towards the back, i was just sorta, yanno, blase -- and so I sorta shimmied off to the side, and spent about an hour of the show there in front of Henkka(b).

Alexi is the living embodiment of heavy metal

Alexi(v/g) and Janne(k) had a cool dueling solo bit around the 45 minute mark; there was also a drum solo that was pretty cool and not overly long, like drum solos tend to be.

They played new songs that I didn't know very well, and old classics that I did, includig Follow the Reaper, which, said Alexi: "we've been to Tokyo five times now and we've never played this one!" There was also a cool break in Bodom After Midnight where everyone stopped playing except Roope and there was a big skreee skronk!!! as he realized he had overshot the stop sign... Alexi looked over and laughed, Roope did one of those "oops" smiles back, the song burst back in, and all was well.

Janne's clever keyboard tilt

Alexi also did a lot of spitting into the air. Janne's fingers blazed over the keys, and with the keyboards aimed down at the audience, you could see every dextrous move. Brilliant idea, aiming the keyboards out like that.

I stood there and nodded to the beat, dutifully, and did a couple sign-o-the-devils and fist-in-the-airs and smiled a bit. Everyone else was thrilled to be there and moshed up a storm, sang along, jumped to every song... Needled 24/7 got an especially warm reception. But i wasn't really feelin' it, yanno? So I ducked out, got a beer in the lobby, and watched them play one more song on the monitors; they left the stage and came out 30 seconds later for the encore, and i exited AX to the sounds of... crap, i forget, their titles are all jumbled together in my head.

The last time Alexi and the boys were in town i ended up backstage, hanging out with them and joking around, and the time before that I ended up drinking with them at Dokken, and before that, with Sinergy, I had actually gotten pulled out of the audience and called on stage with a few other lucky concertgoers to headbang and sing along to... i dunno, some song that I didn't really know the words too.

This evening though, i found myself leaving alone, early, with no place to go. I went to a bookstore looking for a Charles McCarry novel. I found it but decided not to buy it; it wouldn't fill the hole I felt. Then I passed an ice cream joint called Sweden and got a chocolate parfait. Clever Sleazoid was playing while I ate. I threw up the parfait on my way to the train station. Got on a train with some guys in Bodom t-shirts who seemed to recognize me from AX, but I didn't say "hi" or "cool show, ne" because I was in a bummed out antisocial loser mood by that point. And now I'm home.

Sure could use a nice avian flu pandemic, make life exciting again...

I'm really really really hoping Danger Gang (10/16) and Trivium (10/22) and Hattallica (10/30) come through for me, otherwise, ugh, I'm gonna start feeling really OLD and DEPRESSED.

Concertgoing Checklist

As I prepare to head out to Shibuya AX for "Children of Bodom with special guest":

Ticket
One \500 coin (for drink fee)
Six \100 coins (small lockers are \300 -- bring double in case you lock something in accidentally and need to open and re-lock the door)
Wristband - wipes sweat and doesn't get stuck in headbanging girls' hair like a chain bracelet might
T-shirt - to wear in the pit
Plastic Bag - to put the t-shirt you wear in the pit in afterward, as it will be soaking wet with the sweat of a thousand diseased humans
Another T-shirt - to wear after the show.
Perfume - so you don't kill people with your stench after the show
Keitai with camera -- loaded with ebooks so you have something to read before the show starts in the event that no one near you is attractive enough to make suffering through a vapid conversation worthwhile.

And away we go! :)

Forgot to Mention My Favorite Part of the New Orleans Article I Mentioned Below

New York Times: He was fond of citing the Lewis family motto:

Do as little as possible
And that unwillingly
For it is better to incur a slight reprimand
Than to perform an arduous task.

:)

Wading Toward Home

Monday, October 10, 2005

One of the best articles to ever appear in the New York Times Magazine:

But so far as I can tell - and I covered much of the city, along with every inch of the high ground - very few of the many terrible things that people are reported to have done to one another ever happened.

So far as I can tell, no one supposedly defending his property actually fired a shot at anyone else - though there have been a couple of stories, unconfirmed, of warning shots being fired.

Basically, the writer goes back home to New Orleans, post-Katrina, and encounters scared white people with guns afraid of black looters, and scared black people afraid of white vigilantes. He blames these fears on the media and government officials, and rightly so.

And while it's an informative, enlightening article, I wish he had made the following connection:

Weeks later, The Times Picayune wrote that just two people were found killed and there had been no reports of rape. The murder rate in the city the week after Katrina hit was unchanged.

That's right, the fear instilled by the government and media KEPT PEOPLE ALIVE!

Through design or just by accident, I dunno, and y'all know I'm no fan of big government OR the media.

But the point remains: in the long run, the fear was good.

This actually reminds me of the one problem I had with Batman Begins: if you poison the populace with a gas that makes them super-duper scared of everything, everyone would just hude inside their closets, shivering -- not "tear the city apart." But I digress.

Mucc's Saishu Ressha PV

Sunday, October 9, 2005

Hooray, a new video from the band you love to hate! As always, thanks to the kind seeders at Tonberry for sharin'! :)

So if you cover at least half of Tatsurou's face with his hair and a mic diaphragm, light him properly and add some makeup, you can ~almost~ not tell he's the ugliest singer on earth not in The Darkness.

But then you pan around a OOF!

Shots from behind the drumkit are cool, though.

Nothing says ROCK like green plaid and red velour slacks, you fuckin' tards!

Ugh we suck so much our video is giving off giant gas clouds!

JMusicEuropa

JAME is down or dead or something? I always found it handy for when i couldn't remember the name of a bassist or address for a band's site (D!) and when I went there today, there's just a login screen.

D's Sleeper PV

One of the best indie vids of all time.

The camera angle, greenish cement and black suits all feels so Resevoir Dogs, don't it?

This quick shot (not the still image, i mean the actual video's moving shot) has real guts to it. It's framed so badly it's COOL! Probably just a lucky accident that they decded to keep, but I'm glad they did.

And these cutaway shots really grabbed me; Ruiza's sorta same-old same-old but Hidezou and Hiroki fuckin' shine -- check out that star power! Like they're actual thoughtful human beings rather than mannequins with the ability to pose and wear make-up now.

Just a great video! A little (very little!) like Metallica's One too, now that I think about it.

D's Mayutsugi no Hitsugi PV

Saturday, October 8, 2005

So the new D album, The Name of the Rose, comes with either the Sleeper PV or the Mayutsuki no hitsugi PV, your choice. (If you don't feel like paying an extra $36+ for one 5 minute video, they're both up at Tonberry as well.)

Both are cool, though Sleeper has more personality and snappier edits.

Anyway, Mayu:

"Grr! I'm a sleepy hedgehog!" (This first image burst onto the screen and milk shot out through my nose.)

Decoffinated.

Wow, a blonde girl in a gothic setting being molested by the lead singer of a visual band! [holds on for dear life so as to avoid being blown away by the groundbreakingness]

Between Asagi and Mana it's a wonder there's any roses left on the planet for the rest of us!

Ruiza, possibly sporting an upside cross around his neck?

"Ugh, Asagi drooled in here!"

And Hidezou.

Next up... Sleeper!

µTorrent

µTorrent.Com: "µTorrent is an efficient and feature rich BitTorrent client for Windows sporting a very small footprint." Anyone used this before? Azureus is nice but uses Java and eats up tons of resources. :(

Swat of Duty

Two neat video game discoveries:

You can set Call of Duty's aim-down-the-sight feature to aim down when youpress a button, adn to release from the aim when you release the button. The default always had me clicking once to aimand then clicking again to de-aim, reducing the speed of my de-aim-and-flee-quickly "technique."
In SWAT 4, you can create missions, and instead of using the terrorist or gang member models for the bad guys, you can use the nurses and office girls, and make them the gun-toting maniacs that you get to handcuff, taser, then shoot in the face! (Should you be alarmed at this misogyny? Nahhh!) Crank up their "morale" setting for even more fun!

That is all. :)

The Baby Returns, Continuing to Reign

New York Times:

This new DVD will be split into three episodes for broadcast on Fox in 2006, after a six-month period in which the material can be seen only on DVD.

So buying the dvd is sort of a waste. (But then, when is it not, really?)

Of course, the 2's are never so terrible as the way Stewie inflicts them, and part of the larger commentary is about how quickly children grow up, learning methods from the outer world that will help assuage their inner hurt. The show is as much a vehicle for pop-culture commentary as it is a domestic comedy.

Way to overanalyze, frustrated PhD candidate in mid-18th century French literature person.

I also find it humourous that Big Media has only finally discovered Family Guy now that it's a shadow of its former glory.

And lastly, to the 500 people out there who felt the need to seed their own copies of this dvd: YOU CAN STOP NOW! I swear, i've never seen so many redundant torrents before (Advent Children is a distant 2nd)... it's like everyday there were two new ones! WTF!?! Are you blind, did you miss the other 499 before yours?!

Study Finds Young Men Attending Fewer Films

New York Times: "Study Finds Young Men Attending Fewer Films"

Instead, young men ages 13 to 25 reported that they were busy surfing the Web, instant-messaging with friends and playing video games on consoles like PlayStation 2 and Xbox.
The study also found that people who were attending movies less often were doing so because of the cost.

The study, which will be released next week, quantifies what many in Hollywood have theorized this year, as box office revenues have dropped 7 to 10 percent, namely that the increased competition for leisure time from the Internet and interactive gaming has eroded the movie audience.

Shit, movies are barely worth watching when you can get them easily and for free! I can't even recall the last movie that made me feel glad to have seen it. Revenge of the Sith maybe, but really, that's more than just a movie, yanno? Most movies nowadays seem about as memorable as a decent sandwich.

My DAP

dir en grey - gauze (1999)
Really enjoyed hearing this again, but i skipped over the abortion song, the "heedless of the platforms on which they were elected!" song, and Zan (i *know* the titles of the other two... just not right this second...) >_< :)

illogicist - subjected (2004)
technical death metal, a bit better than the usual above-average stuff, but only barely. :|

danger gang - crash (2005)
Dames! Pretty good too (although the new single is what made me sit up and take notice). Didn't know they existed two weeks ago, now I can't wait to see them live. Does the fact they're all relatively attractive japanese chicks (check out the drummer's bazongas!) have anything to do with my devotion? I'm shocked you'd even ask. (~Duh!~ Obviously.) :)

Danger Gang

black label society - kings of damnation (2005)
I've never heard an entire album, yet instinctively knew each song would sound like everyother song, so I never bothered. This new album is a best of (i think)! All the songs sound similar, but not identical, so that's good. :|

dragonlord - black wings of destiny (2005)
has members of testament (petersen) and another band I'm supposed to like but can't recall the name of right now (Soilwork, maybe?). Not bad, sorta gothy death... It's what Mana's band ~should~ sound like (with or without the raspy Dani Filthy vocal). :|

glass casket - we are gathered here today (2005)
totally average technical death i just got yesterday, and already deleted. :(

david buss - the murderer next door (2005)
it's so much fun to just listen to this book as i walk among society, and see everything he says proven again and again everywhere I look. :)

jared diamond - collapse (2001)
this guy did Guns, Germs, & Steel (which is better); this one is about the downfall of various societies, and why they failed, and why/how western societies might fail. Totally interesting, but layman-ized, so it feels a little slow. He also loves numbers but its like, dude, i believe you when you say there were more cows than people, you don't have to give me annual breakdowns from five different sources for the next ten minutes, okay? :)

Oh! Mikey

Friday, October 7, 2005

Just snagged all(?) eighteen 3-minute episodes of "The Faucon Family" (aka "Oh! Mikey"?!) at the Pirate Bay. It's about a family of foreigners in Japan. They are also mannequins, frozen in scary poses and speaking strange thoughts.

I'm not sure if the creators think Westerners talk/act that way, or if they're mocking stereotypical Japanese families, but most of the situations seem to be more Japanese-like than American-like (to me, anyway).

It is the work of a deraged mind.

How the Hell Do I Enter the Despairs Ray Site?!?!

First, go to despairsray.jp

Then click on the lantern in the middle window. It will light:

Then click on the middle of the door, and you're in!

In both cases, your cursor will change, as a hint that you're in the right place.

Then email them and say "Your website intro is a hassle, and drives away half your first time visitors, plus it's like three years old, dudez."

live report: despairs ray & kagerou @ club citta kawasaki

Despairs Ray & Kagerou
Coupling Tour
Club Citta Kawasaki
10.6.2005
\4200 + \500 (drink)

I get to the meeting place two minutes late, and Friend Of A Friend wasn't there (for the second time in as many days!!!) for me to give him his two tickets and to get mah money! I spotted three foreigner VKish girls I went up and said:

"You guys going to Despairs Ray? You have tickets already?"

And got three replies:

"Yes..."
"Yeah!"
"Aren't you Go?"

And I answered: "Fuck!"

We walked to the venue together (thinkg Friend of a Friend might be there), and it turns out that one of the girls, Megan, was at the last Despairs Ray show last year (the on they shot for the live dvd, and my last VK concert il tonight) -- and she doesn't even live here! And Miyu and Kendra remembered the original, Lo/Rez-era jrocknyc, they were like "you had that new york CD shopping guide, i still have a printout of that! And that video of you guys playing Luna Sea's Hurt!" So that made me feel all warm and glowy inside, people actually remember that... :)

Somehow we ended up in an underground parking garage with a million Despairs Ray-lookin' girls and a couple Kagerou cosplayers, but no Friend of a Friend, so i ran back to the station again, past the politican on top of a bus with loudspeakers shouting about, i dunno, Despairs Ray being so much better than Kagerou could ever be, and I get to the top of the stairs at Kawasaki Station (there's this HUGE staircase there, and a ginormous Misaki Itoh ad hovering above it) and i get to the top of the stairs and see a gaijin and he sees me and from like 20 meters away and we both raised our arms up like "Ah! The rescue plane saw us!" and finally I met Mr. Friend Of A Friend, Tom's buddy Erik, who is not a VK fan exactly but was open to the experience.

Then we got back to the unusually warm underground parking garage, from which a steady stream of orderly fans was issuing -- they were on number 500, then ten minutes go by and they're on 1000, finally we go in, we get some drinks, we pick a spot, Erik's like WOW! because Club Citta is not the usual hundred-year-old L.A. venue he's used to but rather a pretty modern, sleek place. We talk about all kinds of shit that I haven't talked about in what seems like years -- how Japanese fangirls like to jam their elbows into the attention-stealing foreign fangirls at shows, about soccer games in the UK, all sorts of stuff. He goes to buy anouther round and BAM the lights go down, the crowd runs up (but the crush was milder than expected), and out comes Despairs Ray, LOUDLY. It was probably the loudest show I'd been to in Japan, almost mildly painful. Wished I'd remembered earplugs.

Hizumi wore a long, tight, unzipped coat, exposing his chest and abs all night; the other guys in Despairs wore stuff that they always seem to wear. [shrugs]

Hizumi was strikingly more mature in his stage performance, confidently looking out at the crowd, engaging us all, front and back, left and right, moving with practiced grace and efficiency. The other guys were how they always are, Karyu doing his possessed-mannequin bend-at-the-waist headbanging, spinning and snarling; Zero standing still like those motion-sensor machine guns from Half-Life 2 were positioned all around him... he occaissionally bobbed his head, I think, though. And Tsukasa snapped cymbal hits outta the air with quick agile flicks of the wrist and put some muscle into those tom-tom beatings. But really, from where I stood, and not to insult the other performers, but it was The Hizumi Show. Which was satisfying, but at no time did I feel the frenzy that used to shoot through me at DR's old gigs. I was also pretty far back (near the bar), and yanno, you see a dozen Despairs Ray shows, you start to get a little bored. The lights were pretty, but nothing noteworthy for Japan, since every light show is pretty, even at smaller clubs. The guitar and bass werw a little muddied together in the mix, but that's what happens when your bassist and guitarist play the same notes on the same beats 90% of the time. Others seemed to enjoy the show though.

One detail of lives that i had forgotten about was the sensual scent of shampoo and sweat that arises from the froth of headbanging fangirls. Half the crowd was heavily into Despairs, but the rest were saving their energy for Kagerou. I also bumpedinto this girl I keep seeing at Despairs Ray shows for like three or more years now and she goes "Ah! Gordon!" but I totally forgot her name like a million years ago so again I had to be like, "Ah! Hey! Hello!" I hate being so bad with names.

During the set break, me and Erik and Kendra and Miyu and Megan hung out and talked about upcoming shows (two words: Danger Gang) and about going to school in Japan and Kendra (dressed as burlap-sack-era Hizumi, btw -- is that Garnet era?) FORCED me to introduce myself to this guy in leather pants and a purple fur jacket with Billy Idol hair, who turned out to be named a nice enough bloke named Neal, from New Zealand, here for a couple weeks following the Expo that just ended in Aichi. He saw Eve of Destiny (he's a goth & Malice Mizer fan) in New Zealand when they played for just 23 people! Poor Kozi! Poor Haruhiko! Also gave me a CD of his friends band, N.U.T.E.). Thanks Neal!

We also discussed Hizumi joking about their new American tour. "We're above hurricanes, so we'll be okay," he joked. (They've got a shitload of tour dates announced all over the U.S., check out their site!)

And then Kagerou came on stage, and we only knew because the TV monitors in the lobby showed the curtain rising and then the band playing -- we couldn't hear a thing through the walls! I wish I had that sorta soundproofing in my old dorm room... one of my neighbors liked country music.

Anyway, some of us dashed in quicker than others, and some of us dashed out equally quickly. I managed to withstand about five full minutes of the Kagerou-beast. They did that Anoko Anoka Anoko Anoko song, which I kinda like, and then the next song was some twang-rape monsterpiece that forced me to flee SCREAMING with my hands over my ears.
Kazu was dressed like Liberace's son and preening about like Prince Charming, Yuana was prancing around like a prat -- channeling the physical embodiment of the mentally handicapped -- and his "playing" was so random/bad I find it necessary to make up new words to describe it! We'll call it "Helalaphhfft" as in, "A horse once sat on my head and I found myself face-to-face with its large, bleeding rectum, and I screamed "Help!" but he panic-shat at that very moment, filling my mouth with wet, lumpy manure, so the only sound I made was "Helalaphhfft!"

Kagerou's drummer (Shizumi, right?) was fine except for the near-constant roll-eyes/open-mouth face he made. And Daisuke on the vox was cool, but when your band has no real guitarist and an annoying rhythm section, it's hard to, you know, be not shitty. However, the vast majority of the crowd was even more into Kagerou than Despairs Ray, jumping, raising their arms in the air, screaming... ugh!

So some of us hung out in the lobby for an hour, and then went home, and downloaded the repack of Lost and enjoyed it at least as much (but in a wholly different way) as the concert. :)

What a Jerk Off!

Tuesday, October 4, 2005

BLABBERMOUTH.NET:

ContactMusic.com is reporting that STATUS QUO guitarist Rick Parfitt misses the days when the entire band use to masturbate together on one big bed — as it formed a special camaraderie between the rockers.

Parfitt insists collective episodes of self-pleasuring was de rigeur in the 1970s, although he admits such antics would be frowned upon by todays' clean-cut chart-toppers.

He recalls, 'We'd project pornos onto the side of a white building. And we'd just lie there on the bed, collectively wanking.

'It didn't help when you were in your vinegar strokes if someone told you a joke.

'But that's part of being mates in a rock band. Well, it was in those days. I don't know if people do it now. It might be a bit uncool.'"

A) UGH! The Seventies. [shakes head]
B) What in the name of unholy Satan is a "vinegar stroke"?!

AND they play Telecasters!

Harvey Danger - Why We're Releasing Our New Album for Free on the Internet

Harvey Danger:

We’re not a bunch of fake Marxists. We’re just trying to be smart capitalists so we can sustain our lives as musicians. This is an experiment. We’ll let you know how it goes.

Meanwhile, please enjoy the record. Everything else is secondary.

Wow, a band I've heard of, releasing the album online via bittorrent, for free. (They've also got it in stores for consumers who have yet to resolve their addiction to physical media prodcts.)

Pretty soon all albums will basically become advertisements for concerts and merchandise. Hell, most are now, just unofficially!

Kagerou + Despairs Ray

Monday, October 3, 2005

Anyone want a ticket for Kagerou + Despairs Ray, Club Citta Kawasaki, 10/6 (Thursday), doors@6pm/start@7pm? \4,200! Email jrocknyc@gmail. (We can meet in Shinjuku or Harajuku on Wednesday to exchange the ticket and money.)

My DAP

Sunday, October 2, 2005

Countdown (2005)
Hyde
Good typical solid rockin' hyde-type stuff, but he's too well established to be doing anything amazing now. He has a niche that he fills expertly, and that's it. :\

Two Sides of If (2005)
Vivian Campbell
The worst blues-rock album I've ever heard. I'm no blues-rock afficiando in the first place (although Gary Moore has that one cool disc from 1990, Still Got the Blues), but hearing this I would immediately wanna write off the entire genre. :(

Roadrunner United - The All-Star Sessions (2005)
V.A.
Has my boy Heafy from Trivium on a few tracks, but from the songs I managed to listen to, they all felt like throwaways or b-sides. Pass. :(

Sleeping Under Sun (2005)
Luvie
Unexceptional, mediocre, mid-tempo'd VK, deleting now... :(

Fortunately I still had David Buss' Murderer Next Door and Jared Diamond's Collapse. Audiobooks r0x0r.

WD32000JD + Maids + Rock + Cops

Went to Akiba gain today and got an all-black WD32000JD (SATA/7200rpm/8mb/8.9ms) that Tom's Hardware and PC World both seemed to approve of. And less than 50yen per gigabyte!

As I left the store and started for the station, I heard music, and followed it. Akiba's main avenue was closed off to cars and flooded with pedestrians, and a band had set up in front of one of the video game stores and was jammin'. And between me and the band were several hundred otaku with cameras and keitai -- ignoring the band totally and drooling over four chipper chicks in maid costumes passing out flyers...

Then the maids started to move towards the band and WORLDS COLLIDED!!!

My DAP - Me So Happy!

Saturday, October 1, 2005

the murderer next door: how the mind was designed to kill (2005)
david buss
Finally bought this audiobook and it is SO FUCKING AWESOME MY HEAD WOULD EXPLODE IF I EVEN BEGAN TO EXPLAIN WHAT IT WAS TALKING ABOUT.

But two brief snippets:

First, he discusses how mothers, very early in a pregnancy, might spontaneously abort if their bodies sense the fetus to be genetically damaged or otherwise not viable. (Apparently, if your period is abnormally late, this is very often the situation.)

So the fetus -- or rather evolution -- has come up with a solution to survive; releasing a chemical (HGC? HCG maybe?) into the mother's blood, which tricks the mother's body into thinking the baby is healthy. He refers to THE WOMB as OUR FIRST BATTLEFIELD. He is so politically incorrect -- not purposely, but just because the TRUTH is not politically correct in the first place -- that he makes Bill fucking Maher (who i sorta dig) look like Tipper fucking Gore!

He also mentioned how the Iceman (Otzi, from the Alps, 5000 years ago, remember?) died: he was shot with an arrow and died clutching a dagger -- with blood from at least two other people on him. Dude! Otzi was an ass-kicker!

Listening to Buss is like the blissfully exact opposite of listening to creationists -- I love this book. If given the choice to spend an evening with this book or with Misaki Itoh, it would depend on whether or not Misaki swallows. I am telling you, this book is GOD!

right here right now (1993)
van halen
Not as good as my memory of their "Live Without a Net" concert, but I like the m.c. in the middle of Panama where Sammy talks about "Last night I was worrying about this show tonight. Meanwhile these guys (Eddie etc) were having a party with like fifteen girls in their room! And I was in my room watching TV! I was worryin' about tonight last night,and last night I should've been worryin' about last night!" Deep.

crash / danger gang theme (2005)
danger gang
Female VK, lots of balls. Not great music but definitely good enough to make me wanna see them live, and soon.

String Quartet Tribute to Guns n' Roses (2004)
VA
Last night I typed in "tribute" over at Demonoid and Oink's and a few other places and ended up discovering a whole bunch of string quartet / piano / blugrass / etc tribute albums that normally I wouldn't've been very interested in (I have a few already -- Iron Maiden, Metallica, Luna Sea, L'Arc, X Japan) but while they sound cool they're not prime listening type o' things.

But I tell ya, this GNR tribute disc fucking r0x0rz. The hidden complexity of the originals and the skill and wisdom of the perfomers combine into pure magic. Sweet Child o' Mine and Mr. Brownstone are extremely, extremely good -- so good, this disc will be on my top ten albums of the year, even tho it came out last fucking year.

A fine, fine day for Go's ears, today wuz. ^_^

Monday, October 31, 2005

Friday, October 28, 2005

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Monday, October 24, 2005

Sunday, October 23, 2005

Saturday, October 22, 2005

Friday, October 21, 2005

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Monday, October 17, 2005

Saturday, October 15, 2005

Friday, October 14, 2005

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Monday, October 10, 2005

Sunday, October 9, 2005

Saturday, October 8, 2005

Friday, October 7, 2005

Tuesday, October 4, 2005

Monday, October 3, 2005

Sunday, October 2, 2005

Saturday, October 1, 2005

Shoutbox

Twitter

Twitter

Label Cloud

Search

Subscribe

About

Recent Comments

CD Japan

Blogroll

Go Recommends!

Followers

Traffic

Links

Blog Archive

Hitcounter

. . .