YOSHIKI, Stevie Wonder, felled by a birthday party
X JAPAN new song "Scarlet Love Song" is, mu-mo in the first place to record the feat in four consecutive days Dirichato, their songwriting is YOSHIKI, Bukkake've fallen in Stevie Wonder's birthday party or it seems.
Stevie Puraibetobasudepati of the U.S. time May 29 (Sunday) night, the acquaintance had been held in Los Angeles, Yoshiki has fallen in the hall. Kano Masa ... but because of the tension that will have no reason, but it might be because of anemia caused by overwork, according to doctors.
I like the punctuated punch of the drums on "Vortex". Songwise, though, I can see how you might love the catchy heaviness, but I don't. It's been done so many times before, by so many other bands.
Same with "Uncertain Sense", although the breakdown @2:00 manages to capture some attention. "Break Me" finds a slight southern rock vibe that distinguishes it a bit, but...
I've said this a million times: they're doing everything right, they play tight, they sound great, the songs balance melody with heaviness with scientific precision... but none of it has any affect on me. I don't love it, I don't hate it, it's just there, like the tide, doing its thing.
Chrome: Chrome is now my main browser. I quit using Firefox afther five years because:
every link I clicked on seemed to produce a "Allow/Deny?" dropdown
the jrocknyc shoutbox and polls were regularly replaced by youtube videos
Firefox's awesome keyword search function is broken
Chrome's adblock settings are friendlier (their slider does all the work)
Dvorak: I've been using my Dvorak keyboard since October [link] and am now pretty speedy. I haven't typed "teh" since I started, or capped the first two letters of a name accidentally, but I do switch my Ms and Ws with frightening regularity, so I sound like that priest from A Pwincess Bwide at least twice a day. My commas and apostrophes also get switched often. And I don't use standard keyboards much anymore so my QWERTY skillz have atrophied...
I'm not sure I made the right choice switching to Dvorak, to be honest. There are many moments when the arrangement of letters lets you fly along like a Yngwie Malmsteen solo because the letter placement is so logical. I just have 25 years of typing to overcome. Ask me again in a year!
PC vs Mac: After 15 years of using PCs, I can see our home becowing more Mac-ified. The wife and kids could easily do what they do with iPads, and our clunky Win7 htpc could get replaced by an AppleTV this September, .avi-lessness be damned. I'd still keep a PC around, tho.
A groundbreaking 70-min world extending beyond madness
DIR EN GREY will release their 8th studio album “DUM SPIRO SPERO” 2 years and 9 months after “UROBOROS” which garnered overwhelming support as the strongest and the maddest record resonating across the globe. In our time when heavy rock music has become diversified, the band’s deep and extensive, unique perspective is once again borderless, uncategorized.
There are 14 tracks including “Hageshisa To, Kono Mune No Naka De Karamitsuita Shakunetsu No Yami” (featured on ‘SAW 3D’ soundtrack), “LOTUS”, “DIFFERENT SENSE” as single-cut tracks in this album.
With the combination of world-noted engineers and the individuality of a Japanese born and bred band. After all, DIR EN GREY is the only artist that can surpass themselves.
Okay. 70 minutes. 14 tracks. What's that "world-noted engineers" part? Do they have different engineers for each song? That could make for a diverse collection of tunes.
Wikipedia sez Dum spiro spero means "While I breathe, I hope". Which is kind of ~hopeful~ for a band as bleak and angsty as Dir, innit? Did any of them have babies recently or something? Will they get soft? Stay tuned... August is only three months away!
Quiet, methodical, attractive little movie, almost boring at a couple points so you gotta be in the mood. Helps if it's 3am. And that Lost/Justified/Saving Private Ryan (Oppam!) dude is in it. Made me wanna see Sunshine again too. (Yes! They are different movies!) :)
The Pixar Story 2007
Didn't really care at first, but it roped me in. The first half hour is mostly about Lasseter, and technology, then enter Steve Jobs, then you get a few minutes about the making and business of each film and it's over. Roy Disney, George Lucas, Jobs, Lasseter, and Brad Bird (my favorite) all speak. Neat. :)
Battle: Los Angeles 2011
I expected junk, but it was fun! The visuals and aliens were very District 9, in that I didn't find myself questioning their existence at all. I did not realize the aliens were not real. It was also cool seeing modern warfare that WASN'T in the Middle East. Fuckin' sick of sand war.
The situations & setups lacked some logic and some of the characters & drama were pretty artificial, and there's a few pacing/timing issues, but the shootouts were cool and that's mostly what counts with these flicks! :)
Twice while listening I checked and double-checked my soundcard settings -- ~a good sign!~
The title track (one "L"!) features some interesting twiddling -- the instruments play somewhat different stuff from the first verse to the next, which I always appreciate -- but the chorii and main theme never evolve, giving the 41/2 minute track a sense of overstaying its welcome. Production-wise, there's a lack of highs, as if someone was drinking in the studio, brushed against the 20-band EQ, and knocked some treble sliders down.
"Bye Bye" feels a tad out of control, and the syncopated disco beat don't help none. The chorus is more standard- celebratory-VK-chorus that is all fake pretending with no authenticity or truth. Very B-sidey. So why did they make a PV for it!?
And now for the surprise: "Trauma" (available only on the Type-C single) switches masterfully between catchy-heavy mid-temposity to introspective balladry, and would easily be a keeper, if only it didn't sound like it cardboard. (I'm still keeping it anyway -- under protest! -- because it's a great ~song~, but man, I hope they release a remastered version someday.)
The Type-A is "Vermilion" and "Bye Bye" with the "Vermilion" PV, the -B is "Vermilion" and "Bye Bye" with the "Bye Bye" PV. Because Avex thinks Youtube is some sort of personal lubricant device.
If this is the best they've got to offer for the next release, we're all in trouble. Generic with a capital BLEAH. Remember when they sounded UNLIKE everyone else?
If we're lucky, maybe this was just chosen by the suits as the single, and ET will continue to be adventurous on their b-sides and album tracks.
The same gene has already been linked to alcoholism and gambling addiction, as well as less destructive thrills like a love of horror films. One study linked the gene to an openness to new social situations, which in turn correlated with political liberalism.
In the new study, researchers gathered a detailed history of sexual behavior and relationships from 181 young adults. They also collected DNA samples from the volunteers' cheeks and analyzed the samples for the presence of the thrill-seeking version of DRD4.
"What we found was that individuals with a certain variant of the DRD4 gene were more likely to have a history of uncommitted sex, including one-night stands and acts of infidelity," study researcher Justin Garcia, a postdoctoral fellow at Binghamton University, State University of New York, said in a statement.
So keep your eyes open for liberal types at horror movies and horror fans at liberal political events... and then get them drunk at a casino!?
I like the song, it's happy and a little chuggy. But there's so much orchestral syrup on top that by the end (after the cool-ish breakdown) you're going to wonder if there's a classical music sampler playing in a pop-under window, because it's JUST. TOO. MUCH. SYRUP.
I mean 10% horns & strings is fine, but this is like 50%!
The PV itself is pretty weak too. I know they're too busy to want to do anything more creative than mime the song in front of a camera three times and then go home and count their money, but they could be financing artistic, clever "Keine Lust"-style videos -- or even weird Japanese art videos -- instead of slapping together throwaway shit like the vid above. Even PVs like "Dive to Blue" had ~some~ entertainment value!
C'mon L'Arc! I challenge you! Make a video people who DON'T like your music would want to watch!
I love when bands do "old songs only" / "no hit singles" nights.
So it's pretty cool that Mucc's doing it on 5/22, AND that it'll be U-streamed! [ustream] (Thx \o/!)
~
Of course, I don't know a lot of Mucc's non-hit material, and nothitg before 2001's Tzuusetsu album, which, despite having bought the CD (used) about a decade ago, I still haven't actually listened to.
So: what are you Muccxperts hoping to hear on 5/22?
Also: if I deleted everything but my Best of Mucc & Worst of Mucc discs, would I ~really~ be missing anything?
I can't decide if I should lay back and enjoy this or be angered by it. From the new Adebisi Shank album This is the Second Album of a Band Called Adebisi Shank (a title also featuring equal parts charm and aggravation)!
At first I thought we had another band joining the talented, dextrous ranks of Deluhi and Matenrou Opera. But as the songs grind on, they become more like a second-rate Versailles (who are already second-rate themselves), with distant instruments mixed to the red, fighting each other for prominence. And not a single catchy vocal line anywhere.
SiriusXM radio announced today that Yoshiki will host his first-ever radio show, "Yoshiki Radio", on SiriusXM's The Boneyard, Channel 38. The show will launch on Friday, May 27 at 8:00 p.m. ET. Beginning Sunday, June 5, "Yoshiki Radio" will air the first Sunday of every month at 9:00 p.m. ET.
"Yoshiki Radio" will offer an eclectic mix of East meets West, and will include Yoshiki's personal favorite music tracks, and music from artists that have influenced him, as well as an introduction to some of Japan's most innovative and successful artists.
The monthly show will also feature elements of Japanese pop culture that already have made their mark on American life, from sushi to Sony to Nintendo/Wii, to the global megastar Hello Kitty, to the burgeoning western popularity of Anime.
Yoshiki's band X JAPAN has been credited with pioneering "Visual Kei," a cultural movement that greatly contributed to today's worldwide Anime craze.
Ugh, the stereotypical "Japanese show".
Didn't X have a single coming out, uh two months ago?
Hellsongs Glimpse of Heaven2009 Minor Misdemeanors2010 Two "new" releases that I just found! As ye may recall, Hellsongs are a guy and a girl who sing metal hits in a folksy, kidsong style that often sheds new light on the originals.
Iron Maiden tracks such as "The Evil That Men Do" (above) often fare the best from the translation -- an indicator of Maiden's potential timelessness? -- but the big surprise is Hellsong's rendition of Pantera's "Walk", a layered evocation of the social rules of the '90s metal scene that you could play to your kindergartener and she'd totally get it. :)
Alex Skolnick Trio Veritas 2011 I'm not much of a jazz fan: besides a couple random jazz compilations, all I've got are a few Diana Krall live CDs, that Trotter Trio Star Wars thing, Grant Green's "Idle Moments" and Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue". And Alex Skolnick's four CDs...
...Because A) he's got metal cred via Testament and B) he covers some metal songs, jazz style. That's enough of an "in" to get me into the jazz originals he does: I feel like his work is informed by the grammar and vocabulary of heavy metal, a language I speak well. So it's like being an English speaker in France, with letters and roots you can recognize, versus being an English speaker in Norway, where you think you recognize the letters but it's all just a trick!
His cover of Metallica's "Fade to Black" is pretty badass, and the acoustic breakdown in "Alone in Brooklyn" is cool, and "Bollywood Jam" has some spicy flavor...
I wish the album cover was as nice as the work inside, but eeeegh THE TEXT. Here's my alternative cover (the black is now deep maroon, the white slightly yellowed, and the font Calibri). Better, innit? :)
Justice Planisphere 2008 Another band that isn't metal but has metal roots (didn't I read that their name was inspired by Metallica's fourth album?), thus providing an invitation to metalheads who mightn't've partaken otherwise.
These four songs are a bit tiresome after a while, but that robotic-fart "bass" sound is so cool and new to me that I lack the words to describe it accurately, and that's the attraction -- I'm often bored with all the double bass blast beats and palm muted steady eighths and lightning fast guitar solos high up on the neck with their hammer-ons and bends: I crave sounds that I haven't learned the words for yet. :/
~
Bonus deets: je suis digging The Pretty Reckless [youtube] verily as of late. And The Lightning Seeds' cover of "Another Girl, Another Planet" [youtube] is magical, one of those songs that feels like it was programmed into your DNA eons ago and is only now being expressed. I have no idea when I first heard it, or how it ended up on my machine, but I bumped into it yesterday and was all ~natsukashii~ 'bout the whole thing.
Despairs Ray Antique2011 Not worth the space it takes up; the remastering is easily simulated by altering your ipod's EQ slightly and at random. Decent choice of songs for newbies though, representative of each era of Karyu & Co.'s decade-long(!) career. :/
Chemical Pictures Haikei...2011 ChemPic's orbit was always in the outer reaches of my musical tastebuds, and though they had several really cool songs with Jimi, those songs are enough to last a lifetime. (It's a similar deal with Plastic Tree -- gimme "Bloom", "Sink", "Slide", and "Juujiro" off Parade and I'm satisfied.) I listened to this disc once, then deleted it. :(
Sadie Cold Blood2011 I have raved about Sadie in the past. They're like a less weird/experimental Dir en grey. But the truth is, I rarely go back to listen to their stuff after I've reviewed it, there's nothing challenging enough to encourage multiple listenings. If I deleted their whole disco, I wouldn't even notice anything was missing. (edit: i have since deleted their whole disco.) :(
Gazette Traces (Best of 2005-2009)2011 I don't need this, you guys came up with a much more thorough "best of" last year! [link!]:(
From all the hoopla I was expecting greatness, and while it's the best samurai flick I can remember seeing, it's still only pretty good.
There's two halves: the set-up and the battle.
The set-up features a lot of old ruling-class dudes in uncomfortable-looking robes deliberating a solution to the problem of Goro the High-Ranking Bad Guy, for a lot longer than seems necessary even by Japan's notorious hand-wringingly group-consensus-o-matic standards.
We also see and cringe at examples of Goro's badness (coming to a Dir en grey video near you?).
Then we get to meet our 13 assassins, hired secretly by the old guys to kill Goro. It will seem like you've got half a chance of keeping track of them all, but this is an illusion.
I swear even after watching this movie I don't recognize at least four of the samurai pictured. The dude with a penis-like shoulder is not Takuya, though it was fun to pretend he is.
The other half of the movie is prelude to the battle and THE BATTLE. It deserves all-caps, it's pretty epic.
The 13 assassins take over a whole town and booby-trap it, A-Team style, because they are outnumbered by the dozens upon dozens of troops Goro has with him. Why none of the troops ever kill Goro is something you'll spend the entirety of the film pondering, because he is clearly such an incorrigible, sadistic DICK that his killing would negate whatever violations of honor or duty the murderer would incur.
Anywho, there's some cool fights, neat tricks (not exactly twists), and it's all well done. It ends almost exactly as you would expect, and it's satisfying.
I probably could have done with making this thing more like 90 minutes instead of two hours by nixing half of everything in the setup. At the same time, it would have been nice if the characters had been slightly more distinct. (Colors? Worked for Power Rangers!)
PC vs Mac:
