I thought I’d kick off my first blog post in a while with a smoking hot review of the Jazz concert I attended the other day. The name of the band is Olive and they are based out of Morioka and Senmaya. Yes, for those of you who read this blog on a regular basis, you’ll know that I used to live in Senmaya. I got a chance to take do a photo shoot of the concert. I was also quite impressed with what I heard.
The band is made up of Mai on drums, Emi on keyboards and vocals, and Oi on the electric stand up bass. What they lack in members, they make up for in raw ability. The band focuses on a style of acid jazz infused with pop style rolling bass lines. They performed a set of three songs; each more more upbeat and grooving than the previous. I have yet to actually get the names of the tunes they played; however, they are working on a CD for release later this year, so when I get my hands on it, you’ll be the first to know. For now I have placed the pictures I took in a flickr set. Enjoy.
If you have ever lived in a small Japanese town, you might be familiar with the chimes that go off at 7am, 12pm and 5pm. These go off everyday at the same time to remind farmers about what the current time is. When I lived in Senmaya, there was this catchy little tune that played over the town loud speaker everyday at 5pm. It sounded vaguely familiar, but I could never pin it down. That was the case until today.
After reading a random Internet post from another person in Japan, I discovered that the catchy little tune I heard day after day was actually movement two of Dvorak’s From the New World. You can listen to a free recording of it here. Aside from being a daily fixure in Japan, this tune also seems to have been an inspiration for science fiction sountracks everywhere.
Now all that remains is to hunt down where all those other catchy little jingles that play in Japan come from.
I wanted to give a shout over to Eryn at the Anime Utahime podcast. Every couple of weeks she releases a jam packed episode full of rocking anime tunes. You won’t hear a song on her show unless it comes from anime. I would consider her to be an expert in the field of anime music. In between the songs she usually has a special guest host to help describe and comment on the music.
Which brings me to my ego driven reason for this shout-out. I was a guest host on episode 15 of the show. If you love music that comes from anime you owe it to yourself to listen to this Internet radio show.
Well, I know I’m going to get flack for posting this late(it came out in early July), but I promised I would keep up with all things “Spitz.” Spitz of course being my favorite Japanese band. It seems that during my move to Hachimantai, they released a new single. It was made specifically for the Honey and Clover live action movie(a movie I still haven’t seen.) It’s called 魔法のコトバ(magic words).
I really like this song. I would have to say it’s their best tune in a while(at least since 正夢). I’d really like to see how well it goes with the movie. I thought that the Spitz soundtrack was a perfect compliment to the excellent story line in the Honey and Clover animation. If you haven’t seen Honey and Clover yet, I seriously recommend you watch it. It’s about the lives of five University students. It follows them through their trials and tribulations and focuses on the wants and desires that we yearn for but seldom get.
Here is how the chorus is laid out. I really enjoyed what little I could understand of the Japanese.
魔法のコトバ 二人だけには分かる
夢見るとか そんな暇もないこのごろ
思い出して おかしくて嬉しくて
また会えるよ 約束しなくても
Magic Words That only two can understand
Seeing Dreams These days there isn’t time
Remembering , funny, laughing
Again we can meet Even though we didn’t promise
The Big O’s Japan Slam on the tiltyhouse Network is back this week with episode number 8.
The Big O’s Japan Slam is a weekly radio show hosted by the Talented James Oikawa. It features some of the most recent and popular music out of Japan. Using the Oricon top 10 music list as a basis, James brings you the hot pop hits out of Japan. He usually raps up his show with a selection of video game music. Each episode ranges from 30 to 60 minutes, and is packed full of music.
If you are into what is new in the Japanese pop music scene, then I would recommend you check this out every week. If you wish to subscribe to the Slam, just click the tiltyhouse link on the side of my page. You get also grab a torrent for it here.
I’m not usually one for advertising on this blog, but there is a first time for everything. It’s also something that is related to Japan, so how can we lose? I wanted to put in a shout-out for The Big O’s Japan Slam on the tiltyhouse Network.
The Big O’s Japan Slam is a weekly radio show hosted by the Talented James Oikawa. It features some of the most recent and popular music out of Japan. Using the Oricon top 10 music list as a basis, James brings you the hot pop hits out of Japan. He usually raps up his show with a selection of video game music. Each episode ranges from 30 to 60 minutes, and is packed full of music.
If you are into what is new in the Japanese pop music scene, then I would recommend you check this out every week. If you wish to subscribe to the Slam, just click the tiltyhouse link on the side of my page. You get also grab a torrent for it here.
Here is some crazy Japanese trivia for you. The Shamisen is a three stringed instrument that is used widely all over Japan. The name Shamisen(三味線） literally means, “Three taste string.” Which is quite poetic if you ask me. Though I assume the strings don’t taste that all that great. If someone can prove me wrong, please email me.
What you might not know about the Shamisen is that it is derived from an earlier instrument called the Sanshin(三線） The Sanshin was used in Okinawa when it was not part of Japan. It was so popular that it made it’s way to the main Island and eventually became the Shamisen.
The funny thing about all this is that I’m not really a fan of Shamisen music. To me it sounds like a guitar that has lost it’s will to live. However, I do like to listen to the Yoshida Brothers(吉田兄弟） You see, Shamisen is usually used in conjunction with folky, traditional music. The Yoshida brothers are able to rock out their Shamisen. Someday, I hope someone will compose a Shamisen based progressive rock opera. One can dream, can’t he?
In the picture can see singer Kuwae Tomoko rocking out to the Shamisen. Many thanks to Nemo’s great uncle for the picture.
You see, I started composing a tune this morning and I got as far as the music. I composed the guitar, used a nice drum loop and had to manually add bass using a keyboard, since I don’t have a bass of my own. The only things I am missing from this tune are some solid lyrics and a chorus that I will compose when I get said lyrics. I turn to you , great Internet, for help. Let’s team up and collaborate on an open source song. With the goal of making it sound awesome. I have put it under a CC license, but if you are willing to help me finish it, we’ll share all the credit. Here is what I have so far:
Every Word
I love to compose and sing. I am a very poor lyricist, however. Thanks in advance for any help you may wish to provide.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.
UPDATE: A lovely lady named Rose has written me a set of lyrics. Now all I need is a chorus piece to add into the tunes somewhere.
–>
Living in Japan for three years has been quite the experience. There have been many wonderful and busy times, but there have also been times when I have had little or nothing to do. During these periods, I have try to get back into some of the things I love the most, and composing music just happens to be one of them. So it is with great happiness that I announce to you all my first single, “Gone Away.”
I warn you in advance that it’s in rough shape and could use some post-production work. It was composed in Garageband 2 using my guitar, me and me again. Yes, I used my voice is two different vocal tracks. I plan to produce more music like this and distributing it here. Anyways, here is the song. Enjoy.
Gone Away
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.
–>
I forgot to mention this. If you have any comments about the song, feel free to leave them in the comments section. Thanks.
He also does covers of rap and R&B songs with his own flavor of adult contemporary style. I dare you not to find at least one of his songs that is not funny. I really enjoyed his video tribute to Flickr.
read more | digg story
