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Post by tangerinesun on May 20, 2015 3:38:19 GMT -5
Swag lords, please accept this invitation to brag about and to parade your priceless possessions. Personally, I just need a place to share my nifty new acquisitions. First up: three articles from the somewhat incredible Love Panic Records. I recommend you check 'em out on Facebook. 
Love Panic of Houston, TX is literally doing it for love. Proceeds, if any, pretty much go to the artist. As explained by spokesperson Betty Boot: Business wise, we're not making money.
We have regular daytime jobs, and LPR is more like helping friends/bands .
Do you have a cassette player?
We focus on releasing music in cassette tapes.
You probably will know that publishing on compact cassette is an indie thing as much as ever, since (1) it's cheap for short-run manufacturing, and (2) it puts a tiny obstacle in the way of the casual copyist. You have to have some decent audio gear and a little know-how before you can flood the galaxy with high-quality free rips of their material. Anyway, for terribly reasonable money, LPR sent me a legit Japanese copy of Nice to Eat You!!! by jungles!!! on Red Bacteria Vacuum's own GUZGUZ label, in a flashy pink cardboard sleeve. As you see, I also sprang for the LPR artist sampler on CD: 
22 tracks, with focus on Japan, the US, and... Poland. Lastly, because it's who they are, LPR kicked in the first demo release from garage-rockers Atomic Stooges at no cost. On Musicassette. Which is great, but now I need a tape player, and the old dual-dubbing Akai with Dolby B and C is gone where the woodbine twineth. It could cost me $400 to play this free tape. Can you spell "hardened capstan?" How about "incorrect head azimuth"? Bonus Bonus: I now know what "325" is code for — Mitsuko, rendered as "MI, two, GO" I guess. It's less of a stretch if you say it with an extreme JP accent.  |
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Post by sasquatch on May 21, 2015 19:19:06 GMT -5
OMG! You've got the Jungles!!! album! What is it like? I know it's awesome but just how awesome? I've only heard one track off it.
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Post by tangerinesun on May 22, 2015 2:13:59 GMT -5
I know it's awesome but just how awesome? Well… geez, it’s pretty effin' wonderful! And short, half an hour. How to put this? It gives me a special, comfortable feeling:  After the lovely and faintly preachy Hey! Peeps, it’s back to wailing, chanting, brick-throwing Oi! and party rock. But it’s them, so there’s the occasional funk or disco beat, busy keyboard synth, chiming lead line, breathy chorus, stormy bass… diamond belt-sander lead vocal… English that could use a good English translation… Not that Ikumi needed any help — but with a pair of six-strings, the girls have a guitar grind like their grandmothers L7. You couldn’t fit a toothpick into some of those mixes. It’s appropriately produced, I think, if thick. There’s a passage of actual… tentative guitar shredding? Jasmine gives those baskets a POUNDING. I was pondering how this is not just riff-rock, and I think the answer is (1) chord voicing, (2) beautiful harmonies, (3) just sounds so great, (4) drive, emotion, execution, and (5) don’t make me explain. The favorite track of the moment is “Darkness Sunday” but maybe only because I heard it the latest. A quite different (better?) version appears on the LPR band sampler together with a more open and cutting “Rock ’n’ Roll Party”. Ikumi’s roaring is so satisfying. I adore this band very much. As this is the swag thread, have another pic. ID the members from their cartoons (surprisingly easy)!  |
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Post by sasquatch on May 22, 2015 4:39:46 GMT -5
Arigato! You lucky, lucky man!
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Post by mikado-AKA-Shoknifeman on May 23, 2015 20:29:04 GMT -5
ANOTHER Rits-san, look alike... is she also the bass player?  imgurl |
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Post by tangerinesun on May 24, 2015 3:31:32 GMT -5
Heavy thatch = plays the bass? Life should be so simple! Clockwise from 9 o’clock:
Mitsuko (“325”) — Second guitar, chorus, rock party commando
Jasmine — Drums, chorus, friendly & funny, authentic cat-face (check out her smile)
Yagoroumaru — Bass, chorus, sunny disposition, best name in showbiz
Ikumi — First guitar, lead vocal, original RBV member, world-class extravert
That settles it, band needs a thread.
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Post by mikado-AKA-Shoknifeman on May 24, 2015 11:08:43 GMT -5
Heavy thatch = plays the bass? Life should be so simple! Clockwise from 9 o’clock: Mitsuko (“325”) — Second guitar, chorus, rock party commando Jasmine — Drums, chorus, friendly & funny, authentic cat-face (check out her smile) Yagoroumaru — Bass, chorus, sunny disposition, best name in showbiz Ikumi — First guitar, lead vocal, original RBV member, world-class extravert That settles it, band needs a thread. Ok, this time the Rits look alike isn't a bass player, but, wow, only one letter's difference in their names?! (I have to find this scientist making Rits clones and have one made for me!  ) |
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Post by mikado-AKA-Shoknifeman on May 24, 2015 11:14:15 GMT -5
That settles it, band needs a thread. < Be my guest, you know where to put it Come to think of it, the younger Rits played the guitar, so, Mitsuko must be a clone of the younger Ritsuko |
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Post by tangerinesun on May 25, 2015 0:01:21 GMT -5
That settles it, band needs a thread. < Be my guest, you know where to put it Come to think of it, the younger Rits played the guitar, so, Mitsuko must be a clone of the younger Ritsuko Um... here?  shonenknife.proboards.com/post/10977/threadI don't think the Ritsuko of Denki Candy is really a match for Mitsuko, though. Instead of that beaming smile, you get something more like howling at the moon. As Izumi put it, "...also 325 plays loud guitar." |
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Post by tangerinesun on May 31, 2015 2:49:40 GMT -5
Next up in the Swag Parade... but is it really a parade if only one person marches, hmm? ... What it's like to do business with Sister Records / Benten Label
I made a micro-pilgrimage to try out a ramen house near my workplace. I wasn't filled with naive hope. It was lunchtime and I wasn't filled with anything. So, there's its glowing sign in the darkest alleyway of an urban shopping mall. Door's open. Counter's abandoned. There are no sounds coming from the kitchen. Odor of hot pork fat. A couple of patrons (?) are situated at tables, eyes blank. A handwritten sign directs me to write my name in the register. And... then what? Step into The Twilight Zone. If I sign in, they'll take my soul. I booked it right out of there. Benten Online is a bit like that. The web store is all baited and ready to spring, but once your payment's processed the indeterminacy begins. Will there be product? Let's give it a couple of weeks and see. Critically, I was hitting them up right after the crush of Japan Nite 2015. There were bodies to bury, wounds to close, spoils to divide. Who has time for trips to the kitchen warehouse? After a bit of nagging in email, Audrey K herself deals with my order. Next it arrives by SAL air freight... in a box from the grocer's, originally for Oshidori Milk Cakes.  Well, this is actually a little bit awesome. Sister Records really is just like your sister. When they send you a package, they use a box from the kitchen recycling. And whatever's lying around on the table, they sweep into the box before they tape it shut:  But my order was in there as well. Joy! What if the CDs have been in the bottom of a desk drawer since 2010? They're in my desk drawer now. I thanked Audrey most sincerely!  |
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Post by tangerinesun on Oct 11, 2015 1:37:00 GMT -5
Well, this thread is not doing much business, but it's my method of Show and Tell. 
It's a phoenix... or a roc... or a crested winged dolphin. Ok then, dolphin.So here we have another small load from BenTen/Sister Records online. This time it got handled the regular way, arriving with no incident in a manila bubble mailer postmarked with a pink phoenix or something. Sellers are amazingly liberal with the duty-free gift samples, once you've paid your subscription fees!  Foremost is the Benten Label edition of the very first Jinny Oops! mini-album, in a quick and dirty sleeve with the original ghastly 70s idea of 60s throwback typography, and the high-contrast photo converted art, plus cuts from a royalty-free illustration catalog. This they must have gotten by telling the printer to just have the prep department do something. It was necessary to get it together to bring on their first Japan tour. Take heed. "Eat Your Brain" is a flat-out wonderful little record. Hitomi Futenma says she named it in the hope that the songs would be earworms, and boy are they. Horns, horns, horns, with a rock band on top turned up to 11. From a girl gang in a big hurry to rule Earth. Subtle as a hammer. So ends 3 months of casting about to find somebody with product and the ability to sell. In the middle, two volumes from Candy Eyeslugger, Candy Pops #1 and Candy Pops #2. This takes us back to 1997, but Benten is selling back catalog, not new work. CE is or was a self-produced a capella girl group taking after Anglo-American pop harmonies 1940–1960-ish. They have that mutual misperception thing working for them. American pop is exotic to them, and them doing it is exotic to me, so there is just a little tinge of the funhouse mirror that makes it better. In the back row, Yellow Banana from Beijing's own Hang On The Box. This was their first album release as far as I know. HOTB are really conscious of being Chinese and also doing actual punk rock, not Malcolm McLaren punk and not Ramones punk either. Oi! Oi! Oi! Oi! This is mostly some foul-mouthed young guttersnipes with education and big chips on their shoulders, yelling at people they're mad at, calling them every kind of name and definitively flipping them off. So, pretty glorious. Lo-Fi to No-Fi sound, four chords is one too many, no real discipline, spilling over with great ideas and self-assertion. When they get into a quieter mood, they sound a lot like the Velvet Underground as done by Mazzy Star. I know — Mazzy Star. It's the lonesome cowboy guitar; close, soft vocals; and free use of tremolo, wah, and reverb, I guess. Anyway, really enjoying myself with these. |
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Post by mikado-AKA-Shoknifeman on Oct 11, 2015 1:56:32 GMT -5
That settles it, band needs a thread. < Be my guest, you know where to put it Come to think of it, the younger Rits played the guitar, so, Mitsuko must be a clone of the younger Ritsuko Um... here? shonenknife.proboards.com/post/10977/threadI don't think the Ritsuko of Denki Candy is really a match for Mitsuko, though. Instead of that beaming smile, you get something more like howling at the moon. As Izumi put it, "...also 325 plays loud guitar." I was thinking more of the Ritsuko of Keihan Girl. |
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Post by tangerinesun on Mar 6, 2016 21:28:48 GMT -5
Let's give this another spin. Rainy weekend, I live too close to Rasputin Records, and they're having a clearance on used CDs. You don't expect to find Boredoms in a rock record bin under "B". This was their one and only US release, on Warner's Reprise label. Since Warner Japan was pushing them, somebody must have decided that American support was called for.  Fluorescent inks. It sounds like it looks. The funkiest-ever party in an insane asylum.Pop Tatari is about as much of a rock record as something like Freak Out! from Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, which it resembles. Warner/Reprise had Zappa for awhile, too. Not a coincidence. A whole lot of songwriting ideas that are more or less expectable in themselves got performed in a pseudo-crazy way. Boredoms make no attempt to be nice, the album opens with a 1,000Hz test tone. It's a joke, and a warning I guess, that this is going to be seriously not-serious. There are very pretty moments, though. You get to share the funky nightmares of gifted musicians who are trying to amuse and one-up each other. Eventually you settle into it. As one commentator put it — taken all together, the results are oddly soothing. A minute ago, I was listening to EYE beatbox like a cat getting ready to throw a hairball. Now it's everybody doing soul shouts and screams... and coyote yipping. I'd say 40-50% of the sounds on this album are made with just people's mouths and hands. The rest of it is every last item in the arsenal. It's incredibly free, fun, and abnormal.  The package art is like the CD. It's whatever the hell someone felt like in the moment, cleaned up and produced.Stagger Thorax put the whole thing on YouTube for your enjoyment. If you listen, give yourself time to acclimate. |
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Post by tangerinesun on Mar 6, 2016 22:18:14 GMT -5
So, there's also this little score in the Pizzicato Five department. A small eye-opener as well, especially for me who doesn't know the material too well.  Made in USA, not 1st edition b/c I'm cheap; Pizzicato Five R.I.P. – Big Hits and Jet Lags 1998–2001; Sister Freedom TapesPizzicato Five Made in USA is the slice and dice re-versioning of funk/soul/french pop that I know to expect, although it's pleasantly surprising that there's not one dud on the whole record. Everything is super-crisp and distinct, almost but not quite harsh-sounding on this CD. The backing tracks drive pretty hard. Swinging, no loafing. On top of that, Miss Maki's blithe languor, for the kind of tension that makes you listen up. “This Year's Girl #2” is a Proustian Q&A with Maki about her personal details, over a funk drum loop. Proof that she passes the "can you be interesting reading from the phonebook?" test. The other two CDs are more of a surprise. Sister Freedom Tapes announces itself with heavy alt-rock guitar and drums, on “Airplane ‘96”. It sounds like they borrowed Puffy's band from the studio next door. There's a lot of straight rock slamming between and on top of the passages of French pop, soul, folky acoustic finger-picking, and string quartet with Indian tabla and sitar. No one can ever stop robbing the Beatles.  The R.I.P. greatest hits comp got the lavish packing. Last owner paid $3 and no one even peeked in the booklet till now.Pizzicato Five R.I.P. opens like a puzzle box, flap after flap after printed flap. There's a little bit of gallows cheerfulness about all things ending, have a nice life. They packaged it on the outside like an engraved invitation to a society funeral. Slight confusion there, between R.I.P and R.S.V.P. All very ‘80s–‘90s, with the relentless emphasis on television screens. You remember television, I bet. The happy surprise was, how much this is a singles compilation. So the mixes are not the same as some I had already heard. They're much more ready for your car radio. Things like drums and especially Maki's voice are prominent, and it's interestingly hot. The shibuya-kei thing of Japanese delicacy and precision with recycled ‘60s American soul and French artifice, all made just a little strange in the studio Cuisinart, is very engaging. I just heard them sample Blood, Sweat & Tears. |
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Post by mikado-AKA-Shoknifeman on Mar 7, 2016 21:48:14 GMT -5
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