Stuck In A Pagoda With Motoko Aoyama

Imagine if you will… Lester Bangs, the legendary rock critic who championed The Stooges and their other proto-punk brethren in the likes of Creem and Rolling Stone, suddenly turning around and dissing those same bands in favor of championing the acoustic soft-rockers like James Taylor that he once loathed with a passion.

While the case I am about to discuss is not as extreme as that, it is a proper parallel to the situation at hand.

The pseudonymous blogger “Radicalpatriot”, who up until recently championed Morning Musume and Hello! Project just as much as this writer did, if not more, went from visiting rakuen to see our heroines and came back from the States having decided to no longer promote the matter of bringing Morning Musume and Hello! Project to a non-Japanese audience wider than their current (and growing) cult status.

He claims in a recent board posting at American Wota (some weird internet glitch at wherever he was posting from kept him from accessing his normal posting URLs) that the live MoMusu/H!P experience was more about the fans than the singers onstage, or in his words, “The crowd is the show”. What gave him this clue, or at least what led him to such a rather ridiculous conclusion, is unclear. “The crowd” is not and never will be the show. The crowd is not why MoMusu/H!P music is finding its way to American homes – it, contrary to Rad’s sudden claim is, is all about those young ladies and their music. That’s why that crowd is there in the first place.

I don’t know whether it was some weird culture shock, or Rad’s once-well-meaning habit of hyperbole and overanalysis going more overboard than sanity should allow, but his recent statement simply smacks of betrayal, period.

If Radicalpatriot (or more appropriately at this point, Radicalquisling) wants to deal with rebellious Morning Musume fans, he needs to look no further than his home country and see the growing legion of American music fans who have chosen the high quality songs, albums, recordings, and performances of Morning Musume and other J-pop acts (not just ones from Hello! Project) as an alternative to the old-guard music industry trying to forcefeed watered down and unmemorable pop acts like Hannah Montana and whatever else is clogging 90% of your average Top 40 radio hour at any time in any part of this country.

If he’s not willing to continue to champion the cause of bringing Morning Musume and other great J-Pop to the United States on a mainstream basis, I am. It was part of my game plan for this blog for 2008 long before he went to Japan, and I’m more than determined to fire up that campaign now.

It’s on, motherfuckers. Who’s with me?

Picking up where I left off last time…

5. Radiohead – In Rainbows (Initially self-released; physical edition on TBA Records/RED Distribution) – In which a best-selling band tells Capitol/EMI to fuck off, tries out the validity of selling music as name-your-own-price stand-alone mp3s, and succeeds. Oh yeah, the album’s pretty fucking good, too. In a post-script, now that the physical release is out, I’m planning to get my own copy… of the vinyl edition. (http://www.inrainbows.com, available on CD, vinyl, and through iTunes)

4. Bright Eyes – Cassadaga and Four Winds EP (Saddle Creek (US)/Polydor (EU)) – Having tried everything from four-track basement recordings to simultaneous electronica and folk workouts, Conor Oberst proceeds to channel Electric Warrior-era T.Rex by way of Brian Wilson and succeeds quite nicely. The preceding Four Winds EP is included here because the five “B-sides” on it are just as strong as the album tracks and could have easily fit amongst the rest of the track sequence if Conor and company had so chosen to shoehorn them in. (http://www.saddle-creek.com and http://www.thisisbrighteyes.com, available on CD, 180-gram vinyl (Cassadaga is a 2LP set) with bonus mp3 download, and through iTunes)

3. Koharu Kusumi – Mitsuboshi (Zetima) – The first of two semi-pseudonymous solo albums from Morning Musume’s Miracle Beam in 2007 (her second, Kirarin Land, came out too late for this list and will be explored in more detail later in the week), Koharu (sometimes as herself, sometimes as her animated doppelganger Kirari Tsukashima) delivers a wildly varied set of pop songs. A solid debut effort even though technically, it’s not really supposed to be her first solo album… or is it? (http://www.helloproject.com, available on CD)

2. The Stooges – The Weirdness (Virgin/Caroline) – Negative reviews be damned: this was worth the 30-plus-year-wait. Anyone declaring this album to be “weak”, “modern”, or “sellout” didn’t really listen to this album and shouldn’t consider themselves to be punks or even music lovers. And yes, almost a year since this album dropped, I must admit that Steve Albini’s hands-off “production” isn’t all there sometimes (the bass is barely audible on “Passing Cloud”). Fortunately, the songwriting by Iggy and the Asheton Brothers, and the playing by the entire band (with new Stooge Mike Watt on bass, and punk rock’s answer to John Coltrane, Steve MacKay, returning to his Fun House sax position) is more than solid enough to make up for it. (http://www.myspace.com/iggyandthestooges, available on CD, double LP and on iTunes)

1. Morning Musume – Sexy 8 Beat (Zetima) - This time around, they get the top spot all to themselves and with good reason. Starting off both 2007 and their 10th Anniversary with a bang, they delivered a studio effort that is solid from beginning to end (featuring one of their best ever singles, “Egao YES Nude”, and one of their most underrated, the preceding “Aruiteru”), both this album and the Stooges’ album coming out early in 2007 made the rest of the year a veritable anti-climax musically. It’s only a matter of time before the rest of the world catches up with these young ladies. (http://www.helloproject.com, available on CD)

After many a delay (engagement announcement preparations, day job bullshit, inability to keep my hands off of my new USB turntable, and finally, the goddamned flu), I’ve finally gotten around to doing my top albums of 2007 list. Since trying to do individual reviews for the ten albums is a bit out of the question of the moment (I’ll be starting anew this week with a couple of slightly overdue reviews), I’ll use this as an excuse to reignite the Pagoda Five feature for 2008 as well.

10. Desoto Jones – Aurora (Deep Elm) An up-and-coming post-emo group led by three brothers deals with tragedy in the form of having to bury their father during the time they were recording the album. One can only hear this and wonder what kind of an album Hawthorne Heights will deliver as the follow-up to If Only You Were Lonely once they kick Tony Brummel to the curb and finish mourning their fallen comrade Casey Calvert. (http://www.deepelm.com – available on limited edition CD and through iTunes and eMusic.)

9. Northern Liberties – Ghost Mind Electricity (Badmaster) Third album from the Philadelphia trio that discovered the fine line between Joy Division and the Misfits. Recorded at the legendary Inner Ear Studio in Virginia (home of 98% of the Dischord catalog) with its equally revered owner/engineer Don Zientara, its’ the trio’s most accomplished recording yet. (http://www.northernlibertiesband.com – available on CD)

8. Paramore – Riot! (Fueled By Ramen) The trolls at PunkNews.org that complain about this album not being punk enough or being terrible don’t know what they’re talking about. “Misery Business” and “crushcrushcrush” are only the tip of the iceberg on this group’s second album. (http://www.fueledbyramen.com, available on CD, limited edition vinyl and limited edition CD/MVI combo)

7. Koda Kumi – Black Cherry (Avex Trax). A concept album? Looks like one to me, even if that wasn’t Kumi’s intention. The only difference between this and Dark Side Of The Moon is that Ms. Koda didn’t have to fly to Pompeii to make the companion movie. (http://www.rhythmzone.net/koda, available on CD)

6. Tommy Heavenly6 – HeavyStarryHeavenly (DefSTAR). A stronger effort from Tomoko Kawase’s darker alter-ego than her eponymous 2006 release, and her best solo work since Tommy Airline. Earth calling Amy Lee: You’ve been out-gothed; turn in your piano and quit ripping off Tori Amos and your ex-bandmates. (http://www.sonymusic.co.jp/Tommy/)

The top five of this list in about an hour…

5. Alvin & The Chipmunks “Christmas Don’t Be Late”. Original, OLD-SCHOOL Alvin and company. No CGI or ProTools involved.

4. Joey Ramone & Friends “Merry Christmas (I Don’t Wanna Fight Tonight)”. A live rendition from the last show Joey ever performed (12.11.01).

3. Reina Tanaka “Kira Kira Fuyu No Shiny G” . Not really a Christmas song, but it was on Morning Musume’s 7.5 Fuyu Fuyu EP that came out right beforehand, and what Tanakachiii fanatic wouldn’t want The Wonkylicious Sex Bomb under their tree?

2. PetitMoni “Pittari Shirari Xmas”. A live version. This one’s for Vee, who adores Hitomi as much as I adore Reina.

1. Spinal Tap “Christmas With The Devil”. From their appearance on Saturday Night Live… in May of 1984, complete with the interview that preceded. At least there wasn’t an 18-inch Stonehenge this time around.

And finally… one of my short stories, “The Man In The Hummer”, was accepted for publication by <"http://www.myspace.com/jadedsilencepress">Jaded Silence Press for their horror anthology Deliver Us From Evil, to be released in early 2008. More on a release date when I get it. I found out Saturday afternoon and sent them the corrected final draft yesterday. –>

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Just in time for Hell (aka Northeastern Pennsylvania) to freeze over, the sick bastards that put together compilations of hair-metal one-hit wonders have left a big piece of coal on record store shelves:

To wash the idea of aging hair-metalers and shitty weather out of everyone’s mind, here’s a song that I end up queueing on my iPod every time I have to step outside during the wintertime, H!P shuffle-group 7nin Matsuri’s “Summer Reggae Rainbow”:

Came across this clip almost at random last night while doing a little YouTube surfing; a late 2004 TV appearance by Morning Musume and W. Outside of the presence of “Namida…” and “RoboKiss” in the set list, I can’t peg the clip by anything other than its approximate time of recording and broadcast. Man, how things changed so quickly for many of the participants in this clip:

Nozomi Tsuji became a Morning MILF last month. Kaori Iida will be the next Morning MILF next month. Ai Kago, depending on who you ask, is either exploring the Kama Sutra with that creepy old guy in New York, or planning a post-H!P comeback. Or both, for all we know. Mari Yaguchi left MoMusu a few months after this clip and is way fucking overdue for her solo debut album. Rika Ishikawa left MoMusu right before Mari did to be a full-time Viyuden. Makoto Ogawa went on an educational hiatus in late 2006. Asami Konno went to be a full-time student, but came back to H!P part-time as part of Ongaku Gatas. Hitomi Yoshizawa graduated from the band (and thankfully hasn’t been as musically idle as Marippe, thanks to Ongaku Gatas). Miki Fujimoto is laying low (and getting laid), holding up future GAM and solo releases in the process. Reina Tanaka, Sayumi Michishige, Eri Kamei, and Risa Niigaki all became legal.

It’s things like this that give me more grey hairs than I should have, even at my age. No real complaints though (except for what the fuck was up with those antennae Aibon and Nono were wearing?) – it was real cool to see this clip.

We interrupt my attempts to succeed at NaNoWriMo for the second year in a row to bring you a public service announcement…

Radicalpatriot’s recent blog postings on wanting to see Morning Musume and Hello! Project on United States soil resonated with rather loud familiarity. Last year around this time, I wrote a piece where I, at length, argued for the case of bringing MoMusu and H!P to America. Unfortunately, that article, which was posted on MotokoAoyama.com v1.0 and on a slightly modified form at Ikimasshoi! during my all-too-brief tenure there, no longer exists (Ikimasshoi! did another remodeling job and bounced every non-news poster in December of 2006, not long after I posted the article there; Loyal readers of this blog already know what an arrogant hair-metal drummer and sometime web service owner did to MotokoAoyama.com v1.0, while a link to that horror story lies elsewhere on this blog for you newcomers). My belief that Morning Musume and Hello! Project would make a considerable positive impression on mainstream America still does exist.

Let’s step away from the trees and look at the whole forest, shall we?
(more…)

Today Taiwan, Tomorrow America (I hope…)

The wealth of fan tribute videos to Her Royal Hotness – the great majority of them seemingly originated here in America – never ceases to amaze me. Imagine how popular she’d be if MoMusu were actually promoted in the USA by a proper major label.

Tsunku, the man behind the mixing desk and the pen for Morning Musume and Hello! Project, has been called a lot of things. One of the most complimentary was the word “genius” when ex-Megadeth guitarist Marty Friedman mentioned him in a 2004 Guitar World piece. He’s produced every Morning Musume recording except their “demo” single “Ai No Tane”, and most of Hello! Project’s recordings over the past ten years, and I have no fault with his productions. However, I thought it would be interesting if Tsunku decided to take a temporary secondary role if the opportunity came for a superstar producer to sit behind the board for a Morning Musume session. He’d still be in the writing chair, but be more of a witness than a primary director to the session while someone with a long track record and a set of fresh ears worked with our heroines.

5. Howard Benson - For one of MoMusu’s modern guitar rock excursions, he’d be perfect. On one hand, he’s worked with Motorhead, Ice-T’s Body Count, Flyleaf, and Three Days Grace, On the other hand, he also worked with American Idle also-ran Daughtry. Umm, maybe we’d better rethink that one…

4. Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds – Responsible for some of TLC’s best tracks that didn’t have Dallas Austin’s name in the production credits. Given that he has “Red Light Special” amongst his credits, imagine what he could do with the increasingly sexual Viyuden.

3. Jeff Lynne – The man knows how to work with great vocalists, and multiple vocalists, and get great chorus vocal sounds. Anyone that could get such multiple personalities as Tom Petty, Bob Dylan and Roy Orbison on the same track (not to mention get the surviving three Beatles to cooperate with each other for “Free As A Bird” and “Real Love”) could have a field day – hell, a virtual cakewalk – with our girls. Can anyone also say Tsunku/Jeff Lynne songwriting collaboration?

2. Rick Rubin – The man’s production credits (Beastie Boys, Johnny Cash, LL Cool J, Slayer, Donovan, Linkin Park, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Neil Diamond, Dixie Chicks, The Cult, Mick Jagger, Danzig, Tom Petty, System Of A Down, Slipknot, Issac Hayes, U2, Weezer, Justin Timberlake, Bob Dylan, Shakira) and roster of his American Recordings label (most of the above plus Geto Boys, Flipper, Jesus And Mary Chain, Black Crowes, Frank Black, MC 900 Ft. Jesus, Julian Cope, Sir Mix-A-Lot, Wesley Willis) are just as wonderfully diverse musically as Morning Musume’s back catalog. They’d probably be a perfect fit. The only problem is, Rubin has been known to go in and out of many different sessions, leaving the artists and engineer to fend for themselves (a tendency that had Velvet Revolver dismiss Rubin from the helm of their second album, and had Weezer put a rather obvious co-production credit on their Rubin-helmed album), or tell artists to keep writing songs until Rubin felt they were ready (a tactic that did result in one of Neil Diamond’s better albums, 12 Songs). Methinks that neither MoMusu nor Tsunku would put up with that shit. I don’t even want to fathom the possibility of having Morning Musume live and record in same haunted Hollywood mansion that the Chili Peppers lived and recorded in for BloodSugarSexMagik…

1. Brian Eno – Some people might know the man for his ambient and instrumental albums like Music For Airports, Music For Films, and Discreet Music, his collaborations with Robert Fripp (No Pussyfooting, which was the first recorded instance of the “Frippertronics” tape-loop playback system) and David Byrne (My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts, said to be the favorite album of Public Enemy’s right hand man Hank Shocklee), or just for being the weirdo that was in Roxy Music for their first two albums. But the man knows his way around the producer’s chair (Talking Heads’ Fear Of Music and Remain In Light, David Bowie’s ‘Berlin trilogy’, and U2’s The Joshua Tree, anyone?) and around pop songs (ever hear Eno’s 1979 album Before and After Science? “Backwater” and “King’s Lead Hat” will stick to your brain just as long as “Egao YES Nude” and “Kanahshimi Twilight”!). Besides, I’d like to see Eno hand Tsunku a deck of his Oblique Strategies cards just to see what kind of songs Tsunku comes up with for an Eno-helmed MoMusu album.