Yankee-Hotel-Latecomer

Whattup yo! This post is about something I recently came upon, or I should say, was introduced to. My friend Paul played some snippets for me from the album "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" by Wilco, and I was blown away! This album actually came out in 2002, while I was in the midst of my residency, and I didn't pay much mind to it since it was constantly placed under the heading of the much-hyped "alt-country". I try not to jump on bandwagons or follow behind trends, so I pretty much ignored all the fanfare. "Alt-country" is pretty much a hipster-doofus term for music that has a decidedly "country" perspective, but the band members wear cool indie T-shirts. Anywho, I downloaded the entire album from iTunes and now I'm hooked. Wilco has a style that echoes both Beck and Radiohead, while being completely original. What really grabbed me was the first track, "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart". There is a breakdown in the intro that totally reminds of the breakdown in the Beatles "A Day In The Life", my all-time favourite Beatles track. In the latter, Beatles' producer George Martin introduced the ringing alarm clock that rounds out the cacophonous symphonic meltdown and ties it into the "Woke up, fell out of bed..." bridge. There are hints of that beautiful chaos in the "Break Your Heart" intro. The rest of the album follows suit and is totally captivating in its folky-slacker-psychedelic bliss.

Sooooo... check it out! And by the way, check out my newly added links list over to the left side of your screen. These are some of my frequently visited sites. I'll add more later...

Enjoy, and don't believe the hype!

NerdFest 2006

Hello all! As promised, here's a review of the Belle & Sebastian show on Sunday, 04 June 2006. My friend Paul and I attended the Sunday show since the Saturday show was sold out (to my dismay). The concert was like an early-bird special -- it started at 6pm promptly (in Japanese fashion) and was finished around 8pm. Probably a good thing, given that it was Sunday night. It was held at the Shinagawa Prince Hotel Stellar Ballroom - not a huge venue, but large enough for this show. We arrived at Shinagawa around 5:10pm and found a nearby Italian restaurant to have a quick dinner. I've heard that the Prince Hotel chain is going bankrupt so it makes me wonder how many more shows will be held at this location.

The performance was excellent. There were NINE (!) members total in this incarnation of Belle & Sebastian (I hear that there are always members leaving and joining the band). Their sound was very true to the albums - they sounded great. A very talented group of people. They were very hip, in a geeky, awkward, Weezer-kind of way. They're from Scotland, so it was a hoot to hear the accents during the between-song banter. Their set mostly came from "If You're Feeling Sinister", "Dear Catastrophe Waitress", and "The Life Pursuit" (the most recent album). They did not play any cover songs, but they did have an audience member come onstage to sing 'Happy Birthday' to one of their sound engineers. The girl they invited on stage was Japanese and claimed to have a band of her own, though you wouldn't know it from how shyly she behaved about singing. She gave a very breathy, Marilyn Monroe-esque rendition. The band gave one encore. I was only disappointed that they didn't perform "Act of the Apostle", "Dear Catastrophe Waitress", and "Wandering Along" (from the "Storytelling" EP).

This concert truly was NerdFest 2006. The crowd was mostly Japanese art school kids and a smathering of ultra-cool Eurotrash expats and English teachers. The audience was almost eerily quiet. Between songs, the only sounds were one or two comments by rambuncious gaijin. Other than that, you could literally hear a pin drop! I could actually hear the sound of the air conditioner running! I have never seen a more uncomfortable, unrelaxed looking audience. Nobody could seem to get into the mood of it! They looked as if they were hostages, forced into the room at gunpoint. I think a fart in church would have had a more receptive audience!

That's all for now! Stay tuned for more interesting nonsense later!

Ragin' with Ben Harper

Hey kids -- Friday night Paul and I went to see the Ben Harper show at the Yokohama Blitz. It was an incredible show for an artist I know little about. After seeing the show, though, I'll definitely be paying alot more attention to his stuff. It's a great mix of acoustic folk, hard rock, and psychedelia. I'm always curious to see the bizarre cross-section of people that show up for concerts, and this show did not disappoint. In attendance were groups of Japanese hippies, stoners, and surfers, as well as a multitude of foreigners, including military (yours truly), baka-gaijin (crazy whities and ex-pats), and various other flower children and friends of the earth. Talk at you soon with coverage on the upcoming Belle & Sebastian show...

Dr. Slovin -- Diagnosis: Funkin' GoNuts

Pinocchio Boy -- Can his nose possibly get any larger??