jrocknyc: 2011.07

20110714

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Feel free to enjoy this blog's archive (using the dropdown menu at right) or use the search box up top to reminisce. ^_^

20110713

Jyou/Miko Fanservice Desu!

Smooch!

More here.

thx reitsu!

After yeeeears of having a simple, blank, iconless desktop, I tried Rainmeter & the Omnimo (aka "Windows 8") theme. [link]

Spent a day configuring it, decided I didn't like it (you can't have IE ~and~ FF ~and~ CR!?), and went with Win7's GIANT ICONS instead.

(Psst! Click on your desktop and hold CTRL while scrolling with your mouse wheel! Neat!)

Left screen is 1920x1200, right screen 990x1440, and if you don't have a monitor in portrait orientation, may I highly recommend trying it, especially if you READ or WRITE anything regularly?

20110712

book review roundup - non-fiction edition

Ice T - This autobio was interesting because I knew nothing about him or the scene he developed in, but he takes an awful lot of credit for being the first to do X or Y in a jealous sort of way. And given how proudly he quotes his lyrics, which he seems to think are pretty poetic, you feel kinda bad for him, like he's a mentally retarded kid having trouble using a pencil. Because his lyrics are embarrassingly underwhelming. :/

Shania Twain - I only read the Mutt Lange chapters, in which she is so eager to clarify that SHE DIDN'T KNOW HE WAS THE MOST SUCCESSFUL RECORD PRODUCER IN ROCK EVER that it becomes apparent that she did know. Also, she married the husband of the (unattractive) woman Mutt cheated on her with, only a year after the affair came to light! The impression I got was of a woman who uses sex and love as a weapon for revenge and power. :/

WAR - Sebastian Junger's masterpiece is a brutal, honest look at life for an Army platoon in the Korengal Valley, surrounded by enemies, tasked with making friends of the locals, attacked daily, fighting in flip-flops and shorts... the companion film, Restrepo, is also worth checking out.

Oh and lots of cool vocab, which is the second best part about soldiering. :)

Why Shit Happens -- Explains stuff. Like glass is NOT a liquid -- old window panes are thicker on the bottom because hundreds of years ago they were made in a spinning-umbrella sort of way, and usually (but not always!) installed with the thicker base at the bottom for stability

A lot of the stuff was obvious, or at least familiar (you'll know of the phenomenon but maybe not the why behind it)... so it's an interesting book but not a fascinating one. And the presentation feels padded. So, eh. :/

Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman! - Seriouly, there's more pickup artist advice in here than science --and there's a lot of science! Fantastic book about being really smart in the mid-20th century, hanging out with Nobel laureates and Vegas showgirls, fighting stupid bureaucracy in ways big and small, and travelling around the world (Brazil, Japan, various American Universities of Note...).

My only complaint stems from the fact that he worked on The Bomb (several good chapters about life at Los Alamos, btw)... and then visited Tokyo less than two decades later later, and he loved it there, but he didn't draw any conclusions or express any regrets or make any salient observations from his unique A-bombering perspective at all! :)

If Dir en grey Were in L.A. in the '80s (Who's Bored? Go's Bored!)

This sight will probably only be familiar to those of you who bought cassette tapes in the mid-to-late eighties, or had older siblings who did... at The Nice Price!

review: matenrou opera | "helios" (2011)

matenrou opera

helios

2011

Firsto major single desu!

"Helios" is the epic one, "Adult Children" is the aggressive one, "Kizuna" is a piano ballad one, and "Magnolia" is the playfulone. And the first line in "Magnolia"'s bridge mimics a Mucc song (but which one!?).

Oh! There's also a "Helios (Buy Another Track Again Separately Version)" that's two minutes longer than the original... needlessly, mostly.

Matenrou Opera are:

Ayame Humasake (k), Yo Mtv Raps (b), Sono Mama (v), Yu Have Something on Your Face (d), and Skunk Anzi (g).

I kinda like the title track -- it possesses a cool marchy-march intro, and Sono's sonorous voice occupies just the right slot overtop of the riffing. And in the ballad, Sono really belts it out toward the end, and there's an organicness that other recent MatOp tracks tend to shun in favor of grandeur..

I'm not favoriting any of these songs, except maybe "Helios" (Titan -- not God -- of the Sun, see wiki) so they'll probably get dusty pretty quicklike.

rating: :/

20110711

review: nogod | "kamikaze" pv (2011)

Oh man! That background was designed to DESTROY VIDEO CODECS! Kinetic TO THE MAX!

Great intro and verse, BRILLIANT bridge (1:20-1:40) that really captures some magic. (And I know it says "High High High High in the background but I hear "Hai Hai Hai Hai!")

And then buzzkill, the same damn chorus they use in every other song they've ever written.

But it gets better Dan Savage, the solo is mindblowing and Toothy Bassist acknowledges us all @ 3:05!

Fuckin' A, cool song (mostly) for a great PV.

rating: :)

20110710

review: sugizo | "the edge" & "miranda" (2011)

sugizo

the edge & miranda

2011

Two new digital singles from the inimitable Sugizo, one perfectly suited for the Cowboys and Aliens end credits -- a mix swirling modern atmospherics and a simple, not-quite-jangly-or-twangy guitar line, laid overtop of a cruising techno* beat. I dig.

(I was gonna say it's a little like L'Arc's "Get Out From the Shell" in flavor, til I checked and found my memory of "Shell" was wrong... but there is a slightly similar L'Arc song I think... right?)

The other song, "Miranda", has a brisker techno beat, but with ~violin~, and feels vampires-dancing-at-nightish. (Speaking of which, have you guys seen We Are the Night yet?)

But "Miranda" doesn't hold my attention, and feels repetitive (like most dancey-dance tracks do to me, with their unchanging digital beats)... It features "Mazda", whoever that is.

So, one sorta cool song and one so-so one from the Sugi-Woogie Bugle Boy of Company Sea...

rating: :/

*If it's not techno but something else (house, electronica, etc) please educate me, my non-rock vocabulary sucks.

Japan upsets Germany

USATODAY:

In Germany's first loss in the tournament in a dozen years, Japan absorbed relentless pressure during regulation time.

Standout midfielder Homare Sawa still had the alacrity in the 108th minute to spot a deep run from the substitute, serve her perfectly and see Maruyama slip it around goalie Nadine Angerer to stun the 26,067-sellout crowd and an expectant nation.

Germany threw everything forward in the final dozen minutes, but it didn't matter. As throughout the tension-filled match, the ball never fell kindly to the hosts in the goalmouth. Instead, Japan was through to its first World Cup semifinal.

That's some sleek sportswritin' right there.

20110707

We Went to the Beach and Now We're Back

This vacation video will have to do til I compile all the footage and edit a more in-depth one... :)

A fine long, long weekend outside the city, happy birthday America, burn in hell Casey Kidkiller, etc etc etc.

Blogger totally changed up their publishing so I'm worried this will post weirdly and fuck up the Disqus comments...

I've got new Sugizo, MatOp and L'Arc to review too... plus Sucker Punch (2011) and Portal 2 (2011)...

20110704

[blast from the past] review: dir en grey | "missa" (1997)

Thursday, May 1, 2003
A Brief History of Deg
Part One: Missa

Still playing:
dir en grey
missa

Seemed like, having already discussed Kisou and Gauze and Macabre (which is pronounced ma-ka-bu-ra over here by the by), I should now work my way backwards and mine Deg's indies roots for more jems to praise.

So, Missa:

Dir en grey

Missa

Released 7.25.97

AMCM-4315

Missa is not Dir en grey's strongest disc by any stretch of the imagination. (And anyone who says it is is one of those nutcase "indies only!" snobs.)

Garden is beautiful (though the live version on the Osaka-jo Live DVD [AMBM-8002] is more emotive and cleaner production-wise). It's got a nice dynamic too it, going from sad to angry.

And Byou Shin is good (though again, the new Byou Shin, available on Six Ugly [SFCD-0015] is a significant improvement). It's one of those VK-required rush-the-stage kind of songs that gets everyone pumped up and bruised, and everyone yelling that famous chorus "to slay!" at the sky whenever Deg does it live. If you don't find yourself headbanging to it -- at least a little bit -- you suck!!!

Kiri to Mayu *is* Sangeki no Yoru (which appears on the ~If Trans~ VHS). Another great Deg riffer. (Kinda cool video too, low budget though it may be.) And interestingly, "Kirito mayu" is slang for being a prissy stuck-up jerk, named in honor of the lead singer of Pierrot, who is, in fact, a prissy, stuck-up jerk. Haha, just kidding. (Kiri to mayu actually means "pork and beans.") ;)

The other three tracks are just your typical average visual kei romps -- acceptable but not fantastic. Aoi Tsuki is vaguely cool but more because i got used to it from listening incessantly to the Osaka-jo live than anything else. [S] isn't horrible. Erode isn't horrible. But i wouldn't call either one "good" either. Just "nice try but not quite, guys."

So there's a few catchy riffs, a few notable vocal lines, but mostly Missa is only worth purchasing once you've already bought everything else Dir en grey has done. I listen to it once or twice a year, and that's more than enough for me.

Missa was re-released and is a cinch to find at any VK shop worth its salt. The packaging is relatively attractive for an indies release, with a few not-really-noteworthy photos of Kyo, Kaoru, Die, Toshiya, and Shinya scattered throughout the booklet and back panel. Plus lyrics for all the songs, very handy.

So in summary, this mini-album captures Deg at a young, formative stage, back when visual kei was a more straightforward affair. And as long as you don't expect too much from Missa, you won't be disappointed.

~
rating: :)