ohtani's jacket

I forgot to mention the most effed up song of '79 -- Gacy's Place by The Mentally Ill. There's no way in hell I'm linking to it, but if you wanna hear something extreme look for it.

Another great Japanese band, the short-lived New Wave/Post Punk band, Rosa Luxemburg: They produced two great albums then broke up over creative differences. The lead singer and bassist formed Bo Gumbos, who also rocked: Speaking of rocking, lately I have been getting in Panta & HAL. Panta was the force behind the radical punk group, Zunou Keisatsu. When they broke up, he moved towards a more New Wave sound, but it was just as great:

1970 cont. I can't understand the backlash against disco. Disco, funk, I don't care what it is so long as I can dance to it. The three monster funk tunes of '79, IMO: That skinny little dude from Minnesota: Rick James bustin' out: How was Boogie Wonderland not on the list?! Wrestling fans will appreciate this one: Finally, cool off with some Teddy; You couldn't cool off with that, could you?

1979 1979 happens to be the year I was born, so I have a special interest in it. The best song from 1979 is Neil Young & Crazy Horse's Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black). That distortion was heavier than anybody else in '79. Motorhead had a couple of good songs this year (Overkill & Bomber), and there were some other solid NWOBHM releases from the likes of Trespass and Witchfynde, but I think the best metal song from '79 is this version of Captured City by Praying Mantis: One of my favorite genres (in its many forms) is power pop, and I think the Undertones were doing the catchiest power pop around this time. Folks may have been over punk in '79, but I'm not: This is a glorious piece of punk pop: I tend to lean toward a lot of the early stuff from bands that became bigger in the 80s: Kurt Cobain helped make this group famous. They're really, really good: I don't even know how you begin to explain this, but it's out there: New Zealand New Wave. Better than a lot of the rest of the NW from this year, in my ever so humble Kiwi opinion. Apparently, this song is about a blow up doll/ One of the cooler post-punk tracks of the year: Living in Japan, having this released in the year I was born, of course I've gotta include it: Bela Lugosi's Dead. Why isn't Joe Jackson in the book, or Nick Lowe? The Romantics are pretty damn good too. Look, a drummer who's the lead singer: This slow jam is big in Australia and New Zealand but perhaps nowhere else in the world: Lastly, a beautiful country song from an interesting character: I will talk about funk and disco in a separate post, but I can't believe they overlooked Supertramp. Give me Supertramp over endless ABBA tunes.

Man, Phoenix is pushing hard for a playoff spot.

Jagatara were a unique rock band that blended elements of funk, punk and reggae. They broke up in 1990 after band leader, Edo Akemi, died from accidental drowning in the bathtub. Here's a live TV appearance where GISM run in and start a fight. Downtown Boogie Woogie Band, known as DTBWB to their fan, and later Downtown FIghting Boogie Woogie Band, or DTFBWB, damn sure knew how to boogie. Show-Ya were an all-girl metal band who tried desperately hard to crack the US market as a female version of Loudness or Vow Wow, but could never seem to impress the right people. It's often said their pop sensibilities held them back. You can hear that on their biggest hit, Genkai Lovers: Sheena and the Rokkets emerged from Fukuoka's Mentai Rock scene (named after mentaiko, a popular dish in Hakata.) They considered themselves a punk band, but once they began working with Haruomi Hosono, he pushed them in more of a new wave direction. This is one of their early hits. Great song:

This article gives too much credit to Japan having a strategy in the first place. Japan's approach to coronavirus has been the same as it's approach to Fukushima. I'm sure Koike is frustrated, but there's so much bureaucracy in the Japanese political system and so much time wasted in "discussions." It seems they won't risk adversely affecting the economy unless the death toll begins to spike.

Does anyone know the name of the blond-haired woman Shocker and Emilio Charles fight over in their 2001 feud?

I'm trying to remember which cartoons I wanted the toys for: A couple of UK favourites:

I'll also add some punk, post-punk, no wave, whatever you want to call it: Friction was formed by two Japanese musicians who had spent some time in New York playing in the no wave scene there. They released their first album in 1980 produced by Ryuichi Sakamoto of Yellow Magic Orchestra fame. IMO, it's one of the best Japanese records I've heard. I'm not sure if this single captures the full sound, but check it out: The Stalin was a punk band started by Michiro Endo, who was famous for creating as much mayhem as he could on stage. The Stalin grew more hardcore as they progressed, though guitarist Tam left at the end of '83 to form Gauze, who are usually credited as Japan's first official hardcore punk band. The Stalin starred in Sogo Ishii's landmark film, Burst City, and became recognized as the leaders of the Japanese punk rock generation. Inu were a new wave/punk rock band from Osaka that split after one acclaimed album (and several badly recorded live albums), but their lead singer Ko Machida has legendary status in Japan, not only for his music but for his poetry and novels. They didn't really do singles, so here is their one and only album:

@JijiHere are a few male pop artists you may or may not have heard of:, Motoharu Sano is one of my favourite City Pop acts. Like a lot of the City Pop artists, he was a talented singer-song writer, and his records are full of experimentation and excellent musicianship. Yasuyuki Okamura tried to emulate Prince and other American R&B singers with his delivery. This song doesn't quite capture it, but his music is hard to find on YT: Yutaka Ozaki was famous for his sweat-drenched, emotionally anguished live performances. He died tragically young at the age of 26 under suspicious circumstances. This is one of my favorite songs of all-time, Japanese or otherwise:

Oh man, I hadn't thought of that cartoon in decades. Here's another one I watched each afternoon -- Ssseeeet!!

Her Wiki page says she went to a Christian girls school and was a Keio University graduate, so she must have been an ojou-sama. I believe Mari Sugi and Mariya Takeuchi also graduated from Keio. She was part of the light music club, which I guess is where her career began. She did eventually marry. She was a Barbie collector and wrote a manual about vintage Barbie dolls, and it looks like she wrote a novel. Grindcore vs. City Pop! I'm digging it.

Man, I forgot how into some of these shows I was:

No guts, no glory. No pain, no gain.

Probably my favorite Japanese band of all, RC Succession began as an acoustic trio that covered R&B songs. They eventually developed into a strong live band and by the late 70s took on a more electric sound and a glam rock image centered around charismatic frontman, Kiyoshiro Imawano. In 1988, they famously recorded a covers album with anti-nuclear lyrics that EMI Toshiba refused to release being a subsidiary of the same Toshiba Corporation that builds nuclear reactors. They released the album on another label and it shot to number one on the Japanese charts. Here they are with Ameagari no Yozora ni -- in my opinion, the greatest Japanese rock song of all time: A small sample of some of their other songs: And their cover of Summer Time Blues w/ anti nuclear message: Imawano sadly died of cancer in 2009. 40,000 people attended his funeral.

I forgot to mention that Seikima-II once had a guitarist named Giantonio Babayashi and that the lead singer, Demon Kogure, is a sumo critic and commentator, occasionally appearing on the broadcasts in full make-up.

A few more metal bands: Loudness were pioneers of Japanese heavy metal and the most successful of the bands overseas. They became the first Japanese metal band to tour the States and the first to sign with a major American label. In the States, they worked with producer Max Norman, who had produced Ozzy Osbourne records like Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman. Their first American release, Thunder in the East, cracked the Billboard Top 100, which no Japanese band had ever achieved. The single "Crazy Night" earned heavy rotation on MTV and became their signature tune: Earthshaker were an early band on the scene that were more interested in melodic hard rock/heavy metal, and quickly went in a pop direction, but released a couple of decent LPs in the early 80s. 44Magnum were another pioneering metal band that ended up moving in a different direction, but their earlier stuff had a real Scorpions and NWOBHM feel, which is totally up in my alley: Sabbrabells were a different beast completely. They are sometimes called the Mercyful Fate of Japan because of their obsession with the occult Also unique were Seikima-II. They started as a speed metal act and grew more progressive as they went along. This is a late 90s version of their tune End of the Century. Finally, there's Anthem. These guys were rock solid. They never changed their sound and their discography is the most solid of all these bands. Killer riffs.

Ikeshita is one of my favorites. She only wrestled for 6 years, but she had a hell of a run.

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.