Got
an email from Fuss last night -- from Takashi... the basic gist was
that it's cool, no worries, we understand, and Slipknot's playing
soon if you wanna go see 'em. So that's cool; losing a band is a bummer,
but losing new friends would've been even worse (I wasn't sure if
he'd be pissed off or what... I did kinda quit last-minute).
I
also emailed Junzo, from Bishop, expressing by dual feelings -- I
want to join, but the techno sound they're developing is what'll help
make them famous, I think, and for that, computer drums are fine.
But we should still sit down and talk, at least to hang out once more.
Hey,
a photo from the July 18 Pierrot Budokan show!
The
Asahi Evening News comments on the fact that Pierrot, like a
lot of visual bands, are moving away from Western-style glam, and
are gradually becoming more Japanese in their style.
I
watched (mostly in fast-forward) the Hide A Story / His Invincible
Deluge Evidence DVD this morning. Sung was right, it does kinda
suck... the "studio live" videos aren't live, they're just
lip-synchs for Pop Jam or some other pre-recorded music show. I feel
bad for the poor schmucks who might've paid $50 or $60 for the real
DVD! Ugh!
The
making-of's of the music videos were kind of interesting, though,
and having the actual videos is cool (even though I'd seen them already
and kinda skipped through them too... there's only so much Hide one
can take in a day!) And the Pink Spider video takes him to L.A., where
for a few minutes you can follow him as he shops around a Tower Records.
(He gets Scott Weiland's solo album and a Marilyn Manson video, and
complains about the Grease Soundtrack.) There's also one brief
shot of Hide with his hair down -- I'd never seen him like that before!
It's always fancied up or under a hat!
A
nice surprise was the inclusion of Toshi and Yoshiki's performance
of Forever Love at his funeral... but Toshi's singing is flawed, and
the whole scene is depressing; Heath and Pata are present as well,
though they don't play, and you can tell Pata is way bummed, his head
hung low the entire time.
I'm
trying to remember what else I did that I've forgotten to share...
lots of boring stuff, basically. I finally got a power converter in
Akihabara, which amps up the 110 watts (or amps? or hertz?!) that
are standard in Japan to 120, the U.S. standard, and my PC is running
much more reliably; the hard drive, especially -- which is no longer
too hot too touch after five minutes of use (I probably sucked five
years of life outta the thing in the last month!) But now all's well.
The 300 watt converter was $40, a 600 watt one would've been double.
Since my PC's only operating at 250 (and only then if both my DVD
and CD-R are running at the same time as I'm playing a graphic-intensive
video game!) I got the 300 watter, and have had no problems for the
week I've owned it. Except that I can't be plugged in to the same
socket as the air conditioner anymore! When the AC kicks in, the PC
resets, just for a second. I assume the AC overdraws just a bit too
much when it first starts up.
Oh,
and I listened to Takashi's CD-R of Anthem -- they were cool, very
80s L.A. metal, a genre I haven't listened to for a long time!
I
also found myself -desperately- missing New York the other day. I
was talking about the trains with someone, and how in NY at night
they can be slow and late, and I was remembering... I think it was
the Halloween karaoke party, when me, Sung, Seigen, Min, Tenk, Iori,
Inertia, and... was that everybody? Were standing around at 3am at
the NYU station after the karaoke, waiting for the train and just
hanging out, in various states of make-up'd and costumed-ness, and
how fun that night was, even if the train felt like it took hours
to arrive at the station... And just gradually saying bye to each
person as they got of at their stop... .<sniff sniff>
Okay,
what other news? I'm meeting up with Kaz this weekend -- he's the
english speakin' metal drummer. So I better repractice War Ensemble,
Holy Wars, and, um... Puppets! Right!
I've
also got a shit-load of stuff I have to mail out... videos CDs, books...
ugh! The post office isn't so bad, but sometimes, when you're putting
a bunch of cool stuff in a box and then giving it to a complete stranger
who may or may not understand you, you get a little nervous. Be careful,
I want to say, it's a L'Arc video that they don't make anymore!!!
But I cannot! Eeg!
Dinner
at Nagamo's
Today's
dish: teppanyaki!
Teppan means grill, yaki means meat, or something like
that... note the ~grill~ with all the ~meat~! And Kayo's mom there,
smiling as usual, and Kayo, fresh from ...kickboxing?!
Hey!
I just saw the video for the first single of Tetsu's (L'Arc) new solo
album. What a piece of crap! The song's light and forgetable, with
no interesting mood or riffs or nuthin'... there's barely a distorted
guitar, it's all jangly happy sell-out pop. The video itself looks
like something from a Sesame Street episode, all bright primary colors
until the bikini clad girls walk by... and even they couldn't save
the vid. Oh well, another lame solo album from a former great in the
J-rock world, how surprising. It's amazing how none of these guys
do anything like what got them famous in the first place... something
moodier, more aggressive, catchier, whatever. Damn.
Oh,
and while I'm on the subject let me tell ya about the new fashion
trend: kimonos! It's hanabi (hana=flower, bi=fire...
hanabi=fireworks) season now, and a few nights a week you can
see a handful of pretty young things in kimono, and their Da Pump-esque
boyfriends, heading to a festival on the train. Kinda cool.
Oy,
almost forgot... shit, i forgot what i was gonna type. Oh, right --
Pork Beans! They've like, vanished off the face of the earth! Emails
unanswered, nothing at the website... chalk up another band dead I
guess.
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