ohtani's jacket

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.

Next we have Sadistic Mika Band. This was a group started by the husband and wife team of guitarist Kazuhiko Kato and singer Mika Fukui. Kato spent some time in England in 1972 and was impressed by the emerging glam rock scene. He decided he wanted to start a Japanese glam rock band of his own and Sadistic Mika Band was born. They were one of the few Japanese bands to do well overseas during this time. They became the first Japanese band to tour the UK when they opened for Roxy Music in 1975. Their second and third albums were produced by Chris Thomas, who was famous at the time for producing The Beatles and Pink Floyd. Their second album, Kurofune, is one of my favorite Japanese albums. Here's a track off that album: Thomas and Mika ended up having an affair, Kato and Mika got divorced, and that was the end of Sadistic "Mika" Band. They went through another couple of incarnations, but with different vocalists. The drummer, Yukihiro Takahashi, went on to form Yellow Magic Orchestra with Haruomi Hosono and Ryuichi Sakamoto, and the guitarist, Masayoshi Takanaka, went on to become to a successful guitarist working in the genres of City Pop, Jazz Fusion and Jazz Rock. Here's the man in action:

No worries. I thought it might have been a release I didn't know about.

Check out Kandori vs. Devil Masami.

Eiichi Ohtaki and Haruomi Hosono weren't just pioneering musicians, they were also successful producers. One of the first albums Ohtaki produced was for a group called Sugar Babe. Sugar Babe was a pop act featuring Tatsuro Yamashita and vocalist Taeko Ohnuki. In 1975, they released their albums, Songs, which became hugely influential in the Japanese music scene. They didn't have immediate success, however. The dominant style of music in Japan at the time was hard rock, and Sugar Babe's pop sound was unpopular with critics and festival goers alike. They broke up after three years together, but City Pop eventually grew in popularity and ushered in what became known as Japan's "new music" era. Here's a single from that album: After Sugar Babe broke up, Yamashita and Ohnuki launched solo careers. Yamashita released a string of excellent LPs in the late 70s and early 80s and became known as The King of City Pop. City Pop had a soft, easy listening edge to it, but it also took the upbeat grooves from funk and disco and was able to switch effortlessly between upbeat and mellow styles. It's best appreciated by listening to the LPs, but despite how good his records were, Yamashita didn't become big until this hit from 1980: Here's one of Ohuki's early solo efforts:

After Happy End broke up, they continued to work together and contribute to each other's solo albums and projects. The drummer and lyricist, Takashi Matsumoto, went on to become one of the most successful lyricists in Japanese music history, winning numerous awards and penning more than a hundred top 10 hits. The multi-talented Haruomi Hosono went on to shape the sound of Japanese pop for decades to come, inspiring both City Pop and Shibuya-Kei, while also pioneering electronic genres with his work with Yellow Magic Orchestra. His immediate work following Happy End's break-up was a style called Exotica, which basically drew on the music of the South Seas and turned it into pop tunes. Here's an example: And his electronic work: Eiichi Ohtaki was arguably the most successful of the members. He mostly worked in the City Pop genre, which is a loosely defined genre that basically refers to urban sounding pop music. His 1981 album, A Long Vacation, was a huge commercial and critical success, and is regarded as one of the greatest Japanese records of all-time, Here's some footage of him singing the lead single from that album: Shigeru Suzuki wasn't as successful as Hosono or Ohtaki, and eventually became a prolific session musician, but he did release some cool solo stuff in the 70s:

I started exploring Japanese music a few years ago having wrongfully assumed that it was bad. I started with Happy End, who were pretty much the Japanese equivalent of The Beatles. They were the first act to sing their songs in Japanese. Up until then, Japanese rock was mostly covers of Western songs or sung in English. They were only together for a few years from '69-72, but each of the members went on to become important figures in the Japanese music industry. Their album, Kazemachi Roman, is often regarded as the greatest Japanese rock album of all-time. Some of you may be familiar with this song from Lost in Translation: