[myself, aka me]

How do you like Robots and X japan? You need blue blood. Influenced many a musician so they say. It must be popular since the guitar book is still in print from 1989 and still available in 1-2 days. (amazon.jp).

I remember when I came back from Japan with about that many CDs. I didn't know where to start. I wanted to just rip one a day to give it a good listen but I was impatient, hehe.

And for karaoke hilarity try zinging I Love You by　尾崎豊 (ozaki yutaka). I did pretty well until I forgot the tune. The words are the easy part

 

[Inkmo]

SM:
Oh man! I'm not sure. It sounded too clean to be live. It was the first ROVO thing I found. It is one 43 minute long track, so I think it might be sort of a side thing. Oh heck, this would seem to be it!. I was going to suggest you try amazon.co.jp, but I went and looked for myself first.

how is it? It starts off with bongos for starters... Breaks into some guitar oriented jams towards the end. Seriously reminds me of some cowboy bebop music inbetween. I would recommend it if you already like their stuff (though I think I like Imago a bit more)

AKA Me: I am liking Robots and XJapan fairly well. Robots is some fun guitar oriented material, but it feels like it was recorded pretty hot in some spots to me. (you get this feeling too?) I don't have the greatest disposition towards power rock love songs, but I catch myself singing Forever Love to myself quite often nowadays. Sadly, my chances to karaoke or grab ahold of Blue Blood have run thin. I'm getting on the airplane for Texas tomorrow afternoon.

Hey, I just realized that the forum has a language filter in place;　and it filtered out して (shi*te) in romanji. I think this is the most real example of the thing being a nuisance. How will I express karaoke to you guys that can't read Japanese characters?

 

[wualta]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Inkmo Oh, yeah! I mentioned Shonen Knife to a Japanese friend and she was all like "Obachan!"

Hee hee! They certainly are, especially by now. But why not? That's part of the charm. The whole idea of Jpop for Americans is humor by displacement. A friend sent me a VCD full of videos by Luna Sea. Talk about a Perspective Vortex..

Be sure to let us in on the wonders of the ATH-2s when you get your tootsies firmly planted back in TX. Bon voyage, little Inkmo-- eat all the peanuts on the plane.

 

[-ries]

You probably already know about this, but I really enjoy the traditional Emperial Court Music(Gagaku.) The time signatures on these are just unreal, for me.

 

[gratefulshrink]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bwu along slightly different lines, japan has some of the absolute best avant-noise groups out there these days... boredoms, rovo, and melt banana have already been mentioned the ruins (and anything yoshida tatsuya is involved in... koenjihyakkei, korekyojin, etc) bondage fruit tipographica mono (more post-rockish) and one of my favorite avant-jazz composer/pianists, satoko fujii, has a ton of great stuff out there. her husband, trumpeter natsuki tamura, also has a strong discography. lots of their stuff is impossible to find in the US but probably readily available in japan...

Some furhter suggestions, along more psychedelic lines:

Taj Mahal Travellers -- early 70's ethnic drone/raga music (http://www.soundohm.com/taj-jp.htm)

Les Rallizes Denudes -- 60's through 80's VU-inspired fuzz rock (http://noise.as/main/rallizes)

Ghost -- psychedelic folk music (http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p...1:kk5gtq0znu4p)

Acid Mothers Temple -- speed freak music, and so much more (http://www.acidmothers.com/Cgi-bin/index_pre/index.html)

 

[razer]

Just to name a few singers/groups that i listen to....
LaRc~En~Ciel ( my favourite Jap Rock band )

Glay

Hyde ( lead singer of Larc~en~ciel, has a really nice and special voice )

Do As Infinity ( Sort of a Rock pop band. One girl and a guy. They wrote lotsa
songs for ayumi hamasaki )

Dreams Come True ( really famous band in japan, they recently performed in the LIVE8 concert in Japan )

Misia ( Really nice erm pop or R & B.... Try Mars and Roses, its my favourite album to date )

Sowelu ( typical J pop? )

Utada Hikaru ( My favourite Queen of pop. Her collaboration with Rodney Jerkins from Dark Child entertainment was a really good one! )

Emi Fujita ( English singer but her pronunciation's not too accurate )

Mika Nakashima ( Kinda like R & B and Pop )

BoA ( typical J pop )

Ayumi Hamasaki ( typical J pop )

Hitomi ( typical J pop )

Lisa Ono ( Bossa Nova singer)

Ken Hirai ( His rendition of Norah Jone's Dont Know Why is not bad! Like his smooth voice)

Soul'D Out Crew ( Jap Hip Hop and Rap band.)

Chemistry ( Really smooth voice from these two guys.)

Tacky and Tsubasa ( typical J pop boy band?)

V6 ( typical J pop boy band)

Arashi (typical J pop boy band)

SPEED ( Its a J pop girls band thats disbanded already but i really like thier song WHITE LOVE )