ohtani's jacket

Today's artist is early heavy metal band, Bow Wow. As you probably know, in the 60s and 70s, Japan absorbed all of the music trends from the West, and by the end of the 70s, Japan was a common fixture on most bands' world tours. Bow Wow began as a hard rock act and eventually morphed into a Scorpions or NWOBHM style band. I'll leave it to the metal heads to determine their worth, but I was always fond of early pre-thrash metal. They eventually hired a new vocalist, changed their name to Vow Wow and moved to England where they worked with ex-White Snake bassist, Neil Murray. They charted in the UK but never really broke through. They tried to crack the American market in 1990 but by that time hair metal was dead and labels weren't kind to hard rock acts. If there's anything worth spotlighting about Bow Wow, it's the work of guitarist Kyoji Yamamoto, who remains underrated in metal circles. Early Bow Wow: A track from their most acclaimed album: A look at them live:

The bubble is weird. It looks like they're playing inside a video game.

Rocco had been suffering from dementia for a while, but it's still sad. I love Rocco's Joint Promotions stuff from the 70s and early 80s. His feud with Marty Jones is legendary and should be required viewing by everyone. When people say Dynamite Kid vs. Sayama was the start of juniors wrestling, they're wrong. It began with Jones and Rocco.

Next up is Boowy, who started as a punk band and found enormous success as a New Wave/Pop Rock act in the mid 80s. They're often credited with the 90s band explosion in Japan, which led to musical instrument sales hitting an all-time high during the 1990s, and some consider them the first visual kei band. They broke up prematurely in 1988. To give you an idea of their popularity, for their farewell concerts at the Tokyo Dome, they sold out all 95,000 tickets in 10 minutes. The lead singer, Kyosuke Himuro, became a big solo star after they broke up. My favorite song of theirs with dirty English lyrics:

Hachimitsupai, or Honey Pie, started life as the backing band for Morio Agata, who was a progressive folk artist. They released one LP that was heavily influenced by The Band: When they broke up due to creative differences, Keiichi Suzuki and some of the other members formed Moonriders, one of my favorite Japanese bands. The premise behind Moonriders is that all of the members are songwriters and producers and are constantly incorporating new sounds and technology. Their early stuff borrowed elements of New Wave, Zolo, Art Pop and Synthpop.

I will include some links for New Zealand and Aussie bands: Debut single from the Go-Betweens. Fun song about actress Lee Remick. Spit Enz The Numbers (who changed their name to The Riptides) Pub rock classic.

1978 So the 1910s-70s only produced half of the songs you should listen to before you die, and the 80s-10s produced the other half? I dunno about that. The 70s did have more songs than any other decade, I suppose. In '78, we're getting into the beginnings of post punk and new wave. I was surprised that Psycho Killer wasn't included. It looks like they included a Talking Heads song in the next group of songs, but I would consider Psycho Killer to be one of the definitive tracks in rock history. I was also surprised by no September from Earth, Wind and Fire. How can you go your entire life without hearing that song? I kind of expected something from The Cars as well -- maybe Just What I Needed -- but I think they might be coming up soon. No Cheap Trick? Surrender's not bad. I thought they would go with Joe Jackson's Is She Really Going Out With Him? too. That's a pretty great pop tune. I thought they might include Judas Priest too, but instead we got Van Halen. I won't include links anymore, but here are songs I like from '78: City Slang, Sonic's Rendezvous Band (perfect song for the book, IMO) Dot Dash, Wire (they keep overlooking this band) Down In the Tube Station at Midnight, The Jam Aloha Steve And Danno, Radio Birdman Adult Books, X Where Were You? The Mekons Street Where Nobody Lives, Pagans Better Off Dead, Wipers It's the New Thing, The Fall Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick, Ian Dury & The Blockheads You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory, Johnny Thunders We Got the Neutron Bomb, The Weirdos American Squirm, Nick Lowe What Do You Want Me To Do, The Pointed Sticks Don't Ask Me Questions, Graham Parker Bombers, Tubeway Army Slash Your Face, The Dogs Judy Says (Knock You in the Head), The Vibrators Bored, Destroy All Monsters Kill City, Iggy Pop & James Williamson Kerouac, Willie Alexander and the Boom Boom Band Rocket to Nowhere, Mike Rep & the Quotas Horizontal Action, Psycho Surgeons I Want To Be An Anglepoise Lamp, The Soft Boys Ghosts of Princes in Towers, Rich Kids Picture My Face, Teenage Head She Don't Know Why I'm Here , The Last Funky But Chic, David Johansen Disco had almost killed funk, but there were still some good acts like Heatwave, Instant Funk, The Bar-Keys, Slave, The Brothers Johnson, Brick, Con Funk Shun, Brass Construction, Hi-Tension, and Lakeside. There were a couple of new guys on the scene too by the name of Prince and Rick James. I like a good disco tune too. I Love the Nightlife, Boogie Oogie Woogie, Spank and I Love the Nightlife are all monster disco tracks. Leroy Huston's Never Know What You Can Do (Give It A Try) is another smoking tune.

It's harder to win an MVP than a Finals MVP, but it's hard reaching the NBA Finals if you're Harden.

You don't like Nobody's Heroes?

Jigging while gigging.

Welcome back. I'd forgotten how good that Jacksons track is, especially that chorus. One Nation Under a Groove... Y'know, at Japanese weddings they never dance, but I wasn't having any of that. At the second party, I had everyone up and dancing to this. Elvis Costello has a string of really great albums at the beginning of his career (the first three are the most highly regarded, the rest are perhaps for aficionados.) (I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea is one of his meaner tunes. He was also capable of heartfelt ballads like this:

Danny Lynch was a British heavyweight infamous for jigging.

Japan had an underground folk movement in the late 60s to early 70s. Japanese musicians, influenced by the likes of Bob Dylan, used the imported folk sound to explore their own identity in post-war Japan (something that should be familiar to fans of Japanese pro-wrestling.) While the music sounded like American folk rock, lyrically there was a strong effort to forge a new type of Japanese rock (again, much like Japanese pro-wrestling.) Some people are turned off by Japanese folk rock because they can't understand the lyrics. But hey, the Japanese musicians couldn't understand what the hell Dylan was saying either. Here are a few of the artists who stand out to me: Nobuyasu Okabayashi was known as the "God of Folk" due to his early protest songs. They called him the Japanese Bob Dylan. Like Dylan, he refused to be pigeonholed as an artist and changed styles several times, as well as going into exile on more than occasion. He had a beautiful voice: His second album adopted more of a rock sound. He was backed on his recordings and live shows by an unknown band named Valentine Blue who changed their name to Happy End (kind of like the Hawks becoming The Band after backing Dylan.) This is one of their heavier rock tracks: Kan Mikami is one of my absolute favorites. He had a sound that was a mix of folk, blues and enka, and an angry, tortured singing style: Maki Asakawa also had a smokey, bluesy sound: Not much subtlety in this band's name, nor their sound, The Dylan II: This is a folk acid. A song about the songwriter fixing some curry rice for himself while the TV carries a news report about the novelist Yukio Mishima's failed coup and ritual suicide. Masato Minami was Japan's original hippy -- long hair, beard, bandanna, drugs...This one has some English. I believe it's Hosono on bass and Mizutani on guitar, which is exciting:

RIP Zoltan Boscik, a World of Sport wrestler who really grew on me over the years.

Gedo were a hard rock trio led by androgynous guitarist and vocalist, Hideto Kano. They had a large biker following that followed them from show to show. Zunou Keisatsu (Brain Police) were a radical protest group that took their name from an early Mothers of Invention song, Who Are the Brain Police? They emerged from the political and cultural turmoil of late 60s Japan and were infamous for their extreme left-wing political views. No one would touch their debut album so they released it on their own label. The album is famous for having the identikit photo of the criminal behind Japan's version of The Great Train Robbery (a case that has never been solved, incidentally.) A number of their songs were banned due to their incendiary lyrics. Personally, I like their bongo and guitar driven sound.

Some experts have speculated that people getting coronavirus a second or third time may be from the initial infection and that their illness is being drawn out.

Yeah, it was launched ahead of the one night show GAEA was supposed to have in April.

Is that an official GAEA channel? I just released they have the entire Satomura vs. Aja 12/01 match from the hard cam. The TV version was clipped in half.

Murahachibu were a glam rock band from Kyoto that became a cult favorite in the underground music scene. Regarded as precursors of Japanese punk, they were famous for their aggressive lyrics and their provocative front man, Chabou. The name of the band means "shunning" or "ostracism" in Japanese, a name they chose after NHK gave them a lifetime ban. They never recorded a studio album. Their only release was a live album, which is generally regarded as one of Japan's best rock albums. Fans who crave more have long sought underground tapes and bootleg live recordings. There used to be more of their stuff on YouTube, but I guess someone was naughty.

That reminds me of Dave "Evad" Sullivan.

Apparently, Rude and Flair didn't get along at all -- https://411mania.com/wrestling/eric-bischoff-rick-rude-ric-flair-issues-slamboree-1994/

We would have got that Rude vs. Vader program they were setting up.

Up next is Carol. Carol formed in 1972. Their gimmick was to copy the Hamburg era Beatles -- meaning leather jackets, Regent hairstyles and plenty of rock and roll: It might not seem like it, but this was pretty cutting edge at the time. Rock and roll was a subculture in Japan at the time. The rock bands that did exist were trying to imitate British and American hard rock and prog acts and along comes this act playing simple songs with catchy melodies. And instead of having a "hippie dropout" image like a lot of the art rock bands, they were blue collar and rebellious. More importantly, they just plain rocked: They were only together for three years, but the bassist and lead vocalist, Eikichi Yazawa, went on to become a huge rock star in Japan. He was the first solo Japanese rock artist to play at Budokan and holds the record for the most appearances there. His solo stuff generally follows the trends in music at the time, and is less interesting to me than his early days, but he is hugely popular in Japan.

I know a guy who has a Street match from the 60s. Not sure if he was doing the glam rock act yet.

@Matt D I'm glad you guys liked Noced so much. There's plenty more to come.