The SXSW music fest is one of the world’s largest; our city, with its hundreds of music venues, turns into a giant mega-venue for something like 1500 bands (that was the ‘08 number). You plan your day around some bigger acts, and then wander in and out of bars to various other things with a hundred gazillion of your closest friends from all over the world. By the way, Australia, you’ve disappointed me. I expect Australians to be fitter and more tan. But then again, musicians don’t tend to be the outdoorsy types.

While wandering through the increasingly trash-covered streets, mai waifu spied a flyer announcing THE GEEKS from AKIHABARA TOKYO. This was, needless to say, both intriguing and slightly frightening. So when midnight rolled around, we made our way to the Irish pub, which if you ask me is the perfect setting in which to see a Japanese band.

It was kind of intimate, considering no one had heard of them, but the crowd all had big grins on their faces as the four young rockers blasted through some pop-punk cover tunes (Green Day’s “Basket Case” when we walked in). After that, they threw out a bunch of original songs, still pop-punk but with a little more complexity and “pop.”

I gotta say, these guys rocked the house. They jumped around, they posed for cameras, they stood on railings, and taught all the Americans how to say “saiko” and do their hand gesture (one part devil horns, one part middle finger, and one part… the shocker?).  Whether they were actual geeks, or actually from Akihabara, or whether 10% of Americans got that joke, it doesn’t really matter. They were tight as hell, polished in sound and fashionable looks but with just enough sweaty punk edge. Check out their site at geeks.co.jp or their myspace.

Hopefully tonight I can manage to see Peelander-Z, who are always entertaining.

When I first started my music series, I didn’t get a whole ton of response. In fact, the response was pretty much a record low for the blog. But I suppose it was my fault.

The mission statement for this series, written in Esperanto but roughly translating to introduce weaboos to music they wouldn’t normally listen to and almost certainly still won’t is admittedly a bold first step on the bright and shining road to failure. Starting the series with icons of Japanese salaryman-hardcore Gauze didn’t help my case.

would you buy a car from these guys?

But recent forays into the last.fm accounts of fellow anibloggers (like OGT, Martin, and TheBigN) has made me want to revive a little J-music blogging. Reason being, I can scrobble all day long with nothing but Japanese tunes and never intersect with any other anibloggers. I admit, there’s not a lot of actual J-Pop in my collection and I don’t expect everyone to just jump on board with “uber cult band” G.I.S.M. (see above lols) and other classic but probably fringe Japanese bands, but there’s gotta be something amidst gigabytes of mp3s and hundreds of slices of vinyl that you people will not only try but love. So the mission will continue. Also, I could use an excuse to rattle on about Merzbow or Susumu Hirasawa.

I won’t go too wild on tj_han’s point that “even non-anime viewers think they are trash,” because I think it’d read better without that “non.” Music probably has to be better than the average anisong for other people to pick up on it. I say this as someone who listens to a lot of Japanese tunes but very little anime tuneage. But I probably shouldn’t say it, I tend to get branded a musical elitist when I talk about music of any kind. Let’s just say Ali Project caters to a pretty specialized fanbase.

Whether tj_han is right or not is irrelevant, it’s an opinion thing, but the fact that Ali Project’s songs sound very similar seems pretty obvious in ways I’m surprised lelangir played down. I guess at least that specialized fanbase knows what they’re gonna get.

For extra lulz watch Geass on Adult Swim when they compress the credits into about 20 seconds using computerized speed-up of the Ali Project tune. If Brzezinski is still looking for his sonic weapon, that’ll do it.

Anyway, long story short Ali Project remind me too much of going to the goth club in the 90s when Darkwave was super big before all the goths discovered their nuevo-EBM and retro-synthpop. And I don’t need that.

I hope I didn’t lose all of you to this new column by first off calling everyone a weaboo, and secondly featuring a raucous early hardcore band for my first installment. But I just wanted to show everyone that this is SERIOUS BUSINESS. There are way bigger anime nerds out there, but by the time I die I will be Music Nerd Ichiban! So… Shoukichi Kina.

Born June 10, 1948 and still going strong today, Shoukichi Kina (or, I suppose, more properly Kina Shoukichi) is a shamisen player, singer, and songwriter from Okinawa. As with many aspects of Okinawan culture, the music can be far different from the traditional tunes of the rest of Japan. Not to mention, Okinawa has spent most of its postwar life occupied by an American military force it doesn’t agree with. Combine these factors with the charged energy of the 1960s, when the entire world seemed to become aware of counter-opinions, and you get Kina-san’s band Champloose — the politically charged group of folk-rockers known as “Okinawa’s only garage rock band.”

Now, being led by a shamisen player, you won’t find a trace of American-style garage rock in here — in fact, it’s very much a pleasant folk-rock sound, but the punk energy and raw rocking feel make it a truly unique experience.

The Facts

• Genre: Folk/Pop
• Location: Okinawa
• Active: 1967-current
• Album to get: Peppermint Tea House (Luaka Bop)

The tunes

The songs are really what make Kina a legend. He wrote one of his best known songs, “Hasai Oji-san” (in which an upstart youth gets schooled by an elder in the ways of getting women) when he was only 16 and locked up on pot charges. Here’s one of Champloose’s classic singles, Shimaguwa Song.

Kina kept trucking through the 1970s and 80s, and by far his best-known (and possibly best) recording hit in 1989. It’s called Blood Line, and it’s probably best known to Westerners because of the inclusion of guitarist Ry Cooder. One of my favorite tunes off here is this combo, “Mimichiri Bozu/Danju Kariyushi” (”Ear Cutting Samurai Monks/ What a Wonderful Day”).

Get together, y’all

There are a few threads that run throughout his music. One is of course, the shamisen, his instrument of choice. Another is the chorus of squeaky-voiced girls who trade vocals with him. Along with his amazing gift for melody, they add a lot to the main trait of his tunes: A sense of overwhelming joy and love. He’s often compared to Bob Marley, probably because the two were friends later in Marley’s life, but also because of the power of each’s music to inspire people. Rather than force politics angrily into his music, Kina choose instead to fill listeners’ hearts with a sense of togetherness and happiness.

The rock continues

Kina is now a member of Japan’s House of Councillors, and it’s been a while since he released a record of all-new material.

Fortunately, it’s very easy to come across a best-of compilation on this side of the Pacific, thanks to Talking Heads’ David Byrne, whose record label Luaka Bop released the mouthful Asia Classics 2: Peppermint Tea House — The Best of Shoukichi Kina. It’s available in stores and as downloads from Emusic, Amazon (higher quality cheaper, and DRM-free) and music overlord iTunes. Note: That’s not an affiliate link, just convenience. I urge everyone to try this stuff out; I feel like such a cheeseball that it makes me so happy, but that’s its power.

There’s a lot more to read at Champloose’s official site, that is if you can read Japanese.

Like most anime lovers, I’m gay for Japanese things in general. But me, I’m a huge music nerd above all else. Even above cartoons. Yeah. I love all kinds of music, from Napalm Death to Neil Diamond (for real — irony is a crutch for those too weak to admit they actually like something cheesy). But aside from J-pop and those weird-ass Visual Kei bands, what kinds of Japanese music do us weaboos normally listen to? I aim to expose everyone to something a little different, so here begins a series that I hope to include bands and artists as varied as Zeni Geva, Merzbow, Shoukichi Kina, Boris, Yellow Magic Orchestra, and of course Guitar Wolf. But let’s start with the first band to truly be included in one of my favorite genres, Japanese hardcore: Gauze.

The Facts

• Genre: Hardcore
• Location: Tokyo
• Active: 1981-current
• Album to get: Equalizing Distort, 1981

In the beginning, there was the Stalin. Japan’s first punk band. Formed in 1980, they had a more traditional punk sound, but by the time their first album was released, they’d grabbed the guitarist from a band called Typhus. Typhus had a sound more obviously influenced by the faster, louder hardcore bands, especially of the metallic UK variety. But even more importantly, another Typhus member whose name escapes me formed Gauze in 1981.

The birth of J-Core

It’s a weird phenomenon, but for some reason a huge number of hardcore bands outside of the US and UK rely solely on the UK’s Discharge for their inspiration, hence the genre “D-Beat.” Sweden is most famous for it, though Japan has been big on the Brits’ sound for a long time, too. But the real sound of Japan was born with Gauze — a sound far faster and nastier than Discharge’s, faster than most bands’ in fact. Gauze’s aim early on was to play incredibly fast, but also to sound like they were playing even faster than they actually were.

Gauze are still around these days, still rocking like they always did in spite of the fact that they are like ancient masters who’ve left an indelible impression on their country’s music scene. It’s hard to listen to a Japanese hardcore band and not hear Gauze’s influence somewhere. Gauze are also one of the few J-Core bands to get enough momentum behind them to play the US a few times.

Here’s some scans from a ‘97 interview with Gauze in Maximum R’N'R and I imagine the story’s not a whole lot different from how it was then.

The Tunes

As with any music though, it’s better to hear than to hear about.

Here’s the tune “Crash The Pose.”

Gauze back in the day performing “Distort Japan”