Tag: music

Japanese invasion

ORLANDO

It’s difficult to describe just how weird this band is, but let’s give it a try: Three young Japanese women dressed in matching black frilly party dresses, doing choreographed dance moves and singing — in Japanese — in front of a hard metal band, all of whom are dressed in ankle-length white robes and wearing white face paint. Someone described the resulting sound as Elmo fronting Metallica, but that doesn’t quite capture the weirdness of Babymetal. When the band broke into a couple bars of “Sweet Home Alabama,” maximum weirdness was achieved. Oh yeah, the Red Hot Chili Peppers were there, too.

JACKSONVILLE

Light shows aside, did the Chilis get as weird as they used to back in their punk-funk heyday? Nah. These are older, gentler Chili Peppers, distinguished elder statemen of rock, men who cordially invited former drummer Jack Irons to kick off the night with a 20-minute solo set. The group that really brought the battiness was opening act Babymetal, a Japanese pop-metal phenomenon combining an assembly-line girl group with white-robed thrash metal demons. Technically engrossing, in terms of both metal musicianship and ritualistic choreographic discipline, it was exactly the sort of fantastical freak show that might’ve accompanied the Chilis on some sweaty Lollapalooza back in the day. The heck if they didn’t have the arena lit up and singing on their anthemic Karate.

CHARLOTTE

On the subject of opening acts, Irons’s solo drumming didn’t leave much of an impression on me… but Babymetal? I don’t think I’ll ever forget them. You should do your own poking around about this Japanese girl group/(very) heavy metal band, but let’s just say it’s like Dr. Frankenstein stitched together parts of Britney Spears, Megadeth, Nintendo’s stupidest games, “The Ghost in the Shell” and “Saturday Night Live.” I scratched my head, a lot. I laughed, a lot. But I couldn’t take my eyes off of them, and on the drive home after the show, it was Babymetal I was listening to on Spotify, not the Chili Peppers. Mostly, I think, because I needed to make sure I hadn’t dreamed the whole thing.


MIAMI


You think it can’t get any crazier? Babymetal picked up four new additions: Nate-METAL, J-METAL, Flea-METAL and Chad-METAL.




AKASAKA – TOKYO – NAGOYA – OSAKA

J-pop metal group BABYMETAL have parlayed their meteoric rise into tour dates alongside Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, and Red Hot Chili Peppers. Now, they’ve announced plans for their very own Five Fox Festival set to take place in Japan over nine days this summer. In an interesting twist that could only come from BABYMETAL, there are strict conditions required to attend each of these dates. Specifically, the festival is broken down into categories by age group, gender, and dress code. For example, one date is reserved exclusively for males, another for females, and another for teenagers. Even more randomly is the day when only elementary school children and people over the age of 60 (um, what?) will be granted admittance. 


I have to admit, this is the most tempted I have been to return to Nagoya in decades.

How did I miss that?

So, I was watching Red Night from the Babymetal concert at the Tokyo Dome when suddenly they broke into an excellent song that I’d never heard before. It turns out that Syncopation is only on the Japanese version of Metal Resistance. The guitars are great and the drumming is out-of-control, even for Babymetal.

And it is good. I don’t know that I’d be willing to give up From Dusk Till Dawn for it, but it is really good. Also, I found that I liked Yava! rather better after seeing it live. But while Red Night was excellent, kicking off with Road of Resistance and peaking with Karate, I think I would rather have gone to Black Night, as that’s when they featured Megitsune, No Rain No Rainbow, Twilight of the Metal Gods, and, appropriately enough, Onedari Daisuken.

BLACK BABYMETAL!

I don’t think anyone has ever been as deliriously happy on stage as Moa. She’s beaming pretty much the entire show on both nights. And Su has developed into a bona fide rock star. It’s also kind of awesome to see 55,000 Japanese erupt in exactly the same way everyone did in the small club in which we saw them.

Soiya soiya soiya soiya! One, two, one, two, three, let’s go!

Now THAT is a concert

The best live performance I ever saw was Ministry at the 1992 Lollapalooza in Chicago. But even in a small club, Babymetal came suprisingly close. I tend to imagine that these two nights at the Tokyo Dome may well have been even more spectacular.

You almost feel sorry for the two little girls. As if it’s not enough that Yui and Moa have to sing and dance and play guitar, now the Fox God has got them doing 60 meter windsprints. Between flamethrowers. Except, of course, the fact that I’m not sure anyone has ever looked as if they’ve been having more fun on stage than the two of them at the end.

The dead end of rap

I was talking to a young girl who intensely dislikes rap the other day. When I asked her why she disliked it, she said, “it’s so boring”. And, despite being a fan of Public Enemy since the “Sophisticated Bitch” and “98 Oldsmobile” days, and having been one of the very few non-Africans at the PE/NWA concert at First Avenue in 1988, I had to admit that she is absolutely right. Rap simply hasn’t gone anywhere musically since NWA’s innovation of posing as modern gangsters and dropping f-bombs every fourth word; how can anyone who has ever heard Chuck D bear to listen to Jay-Z ruining yet another lovely song with his inept, droning monologues?

Seriously, is there a bigger pop music abomination than the massive steaming dump that Jay-Z inexplicably slathers all over Alphaville’s “Forever Young”?

But when I got to thinking about it, I realized that this musical dead end was inevitable. It was always going to be the case. Most of the early “rap is crap” critics were committing a category error when they complained about “rap music”. Their instincts were right, but their sneering arguments were mostly off base and therefore unconvincing. The fact is that rap is not, technically speaking, music at all. To call it music is akin to describing “scatting” or “falsetto” or “rhythm” or “electric guitar” as music. It is, rather, a non-melodic vocal styling; it is an element of music, or if you prefer, a musical tool, rather than a form of music in itself.

And while that vocal styling can be utilized in a broad variety of music, from metal to ambient, it is not music in itself. What is often known as “rap music” is a degraded, primitive form of music created mostly by non-musicians, which is necessarily going to be either sample-based (Public Enemy), childishly simple (Dr. Dre), or an additional vocal track added to existing music (Puff Daddy, Jay-Z).

In other words, “rap music” was never anything more than a proto-SJW seize-and-ruin operation and an exercise in branding. That’s why it hasn’t gone anywhere. It can’t go anywhere because there is no actual vehicle to do so.

This isn’t to say that rap hasn’t contributed anything to actual forms of music as a vocal styling. Dave Draiman does not rap, but his staccato delivery and multi-syllabic lyrics made Disturbed a better, more interesting metal band. I also suspect that the move from one bass drum to two, such as one sees in bands like Disturbed and Babymetal, represents a real advance in rock drumming that stems in part from the influence of faster, more complicated vocal stylings.

And who hasn’t enjoyed Beck or twentyonepilots making use of the various possibilities presented by it? But as a musical form in itself, it simply does not exist.

Almost indescribably good

People occasionally ask me why I am such a Babymetal enthusiast. All I have to say is that they are, quite literally, one of the very best bands in the world, from technical and songwriting perspectives, even if one ignores the awesome Japanese theatrical elements. They’re uniformly excellent.

One thing I like about twentyone pilots is the way they can move effortlessly between musical lanes. What most people don’t realize is that Babymetal’s range is even greater. It’s not just the signature combination of J-Pop and power metal of Doki Doki Morning, or even the big chord, big chorus metal of Karate, that is chiefly of note in this regard, but the fact that Babymetal has the ability to do everything from X-metal-tribute power ballads to metal-infused Deep Forest. This is what you can do when you assemble exceptional talent under a unique vision; I view it in some ways as a conceptual model for Castalia House.

Consider the heavily emotional No Rain, No Rainbow, which features a guitar solo that reminds me more than a little of my favorite anthem, My Chemical Romance’s Welcome to the Black Parade. Su-metal is absolutely no joke as a vocalist, and I love the fitting, if uncharacteristic, restraint of the Kami band here.


English speakers will probably not understand why Su-metal is on the edge of crying at the end, so a translation might help.

Even the despair becomes the light.
Though an endless rain continues to fall.
Even the despair becomes the light.
A sad rain throws a rainbow far far away.


We shall never meet again,
But I want not to forget you forever.
If the dream continues, I wish I’ll never wake up from it.


An endless rain fills my heart forever.

However, my favorite Babymetal song is one of the less well-known songs from Metal Resistance, From Dusk Till Dawn. Some compare it to Enigma on steroids, but I think Deep Forest is the more accurate comparison. It really shows off Koba-metal’s skill as a producer.

And if you don’t believe these guys can do anything they want musically, and do it better than most, have a listen to the Kari band, which is the fusion jazz project of three of the Kami band members.

RIP George Michael

It is being reported that George Michael died peacefully at home today. He was 53.


The star, who launched his career with Wham in the 1980s and later continued his success as a solo performer, is said to have “passed away peacefully at home”.


Thames Valley Police said South Central Ambulance Service attended a property in Goring in Oxfordshire at 13:42 GMT.


Police say there were no suspicious circumstances.

A proper Minnesotan

I always enjoy these old stories about Prince.

A member of Prince’s band, Morris Hayes, recalls one instance in which the singer, clad in a turtleneck sweater and fuzzy boots, walked in to a hardware store to the shock of locals in Minnesota.

‘People are looking like, “Oh my God, Prince is in the hardware store!”,’ Hayes said.

Hayes then recalled how Prince had walked into the Ace store even though the car they drove was still in the parking lot with the keys in the ignition.

‘I’m [saying to him], “What did you do with the car?”’

‘He says, “It’s out there—it’s just running”.’

‘I said, “Prince, you can’t leave the car running—somebody could just steal the car”.’

‘He said, “This is Chanhassen—nobody’s gonna steal the car”.’

‘So we get out to the car and sure enough it’s out there, just running, smoke coming out of the tailpipe.’

‘And he’s like, “I told you”.’

A couple of observations. First, notice that no one at the hardware store spoke to him, they just looked. No one ever pestered Prince in Minnesota, you just don’t bother someone because he happens to be famous, which was one thing he really liked about living there. If Prince wanted to talk to you, he’d send someone over to let you know.

Second, based on the way Hayes describes things, it was probably winter. Winter is REALLY REALLY cold there. So, it’s pretty common to leave the car running if you’re not going to be in the store for that long. It’s kind of weird when it’s really cold, because the smoke actually drops to the ground when it comes out of the tailpipe.

And third, he was right, at least back in the day. No one was ever going to steal your car when you left it running. People did it all the time back then. It would be nice to think that they still do.

You don’t need to die

Paisley Park opened to the public:

The complex opens one week before a memorial tribute concert in St. Paul, which is adjacent to Minneapolis. The public opening of the studio complex is a milestone for music lovers and historians. The complex opened in 1987, and was a fully functional recording studio used by a number of artists during its peak in the 1990s, including the Stone Temple Pilots, REM and Madonna.

Among the various acts that recorded there was Psykosonik. We recorded and mixed Unlearn there, although I spent almost no time in the studio since my only meaningful input on that CD was lyrical. Dan and Paul were going in a mellower, more ambient direction, and both Mike and I were not interested in it. We both left the band at the same time, after the CD was recorded, but before it was released, to focus on computer games.

However, I thought that one song off Unlearn, “Need to Die”, would be of interest in light of yesterday’s post about the way in which the choice to confront one’s fears or run from them as a young man tends to play a significant role in an individual’s life. Keep in mind that the song was written 22 years before “The Broken Freaks of Fandom”.



Caught in the mist like a rain shower
Life’s got you between your eyes
And wishful thinking don’t make it go away
That’s no surprise, yeah
There’s no surprise
Of living a lie
There’s no surprise


Face your fears alone now
And make them fly
When your dreams come home now
You don’t need to die


Been holding back on your inside
Looks like you hide it well
But laughing faces can’t cover all your pain,
That keeps you in Hell
That keeps you in Hell
If only for a day
That keeps you in Hell
If only for a day


Face your fears alone now
And make them fly
When your dreams come home now
You don’t need to die

Just here to pay my respects

Some of you might call him Harambee, you know what I’m saying?
It don’t make no difference, if he was alive, he wouldn’t want us fighting.
Over the pronunciation of his name.
So let’s just, be humble, yeah.