Live Report 3/29/08, Urawa Narciss: LAVERITE, Byakura, AibeLL, OZxBONE, Diablo, Velllapis, Cloche, Saimon

I was the first Laverite member to arrive at Narciss, and all of Byakura was already there. We made the requisite greetings, and then an expression of recognition crossed their faces. "Jimi! Isn't it a little early; what are you doing he--...Ohhhh," they said. That was a really good feeling; they were glad to see me and Omi talked to me a lot about band stuff.

We were scheduled to go in the dreaded position of last; this is not a preferred position because your time in the lobby with the fans is limited or nil, and before your set you have to bring all your crap down from the dressing room to the basement. Also, the rehearsal order is the reverse of the performance order, so our rehearsal was first.

Ryota was running a little late--the roads were really congested. At first I thought that he had overslept or something, as the previous day he had been to the X Japan concert.

(As a quick aside, here are his impressions: While it was certainly a moving experience for him to see X finally, and how emotional it was to see Hide's clips, he couldn't help but feel that no one other than Sugizo was at the top of their game. Ultimately, his reaction was "bored": the 2-hour delay, plus some less-than-good performances, as well as Yoshiki's ostentatious
pretend-time, led him to think that they are perhaps far more than past their prime.)

So Ryota shows up and we all have the meeting: there are eight bands so we're on a tight schedule. We jump into our rehearsal and the PA guy was someone I've always known to be trustworthy, and indeed up until now this was our best pre-live rehearsal. I marked down my levels and we departed the stage; Byakura went up for their rehearsal.

It was only, like, 12:30 by the time we finished our rehearsal. The house opened at 4, and we weren't scheduled to go on until 8:35. We were sooooo bored. Our staff girl fixed some of the worse parts of Yue and my costumes, we went and grabbed food, and apparently I didn't grab enough because I steadily felt worse and worse as the night went on. With 8 bands and about half of all the members being smokers, there was just so much smoke that my head started to hurt.

Finally 8:15 rolls around and we bring our stuff down to the basement and backstage area... and the 6th band is still going.

Diablo came off-stage finally, and Byakura went up. As Diablo was packing up, their vocalist and bassist struck up conversations with us. Really great guys; easy to talk to. There's a cute girl in the band, too, and I ended up finding some equipment they were having a hard time tracking down. I handed her the case, and she took it but neither of us let go; she smiled at me, and, finally realizing I wasn't Japanese, said "Thank you" in nervous English. "You're welcome," I said, equally nervous. "You're good at English," she said. "It's my strong point, yes," I replied. Finally I let go of the case, and the rest of the band called out for her to bring the stuff to the van. She looked back at me.

(*^_^*)

Maybe it was the fact that there was so much pressure from going after Byakura, or the fact that it was already past 9, or whatever, but I was strangely nervous. We went up on stage, the curtain opened, and I could barely hear myself. This occupied most of my thoughts for the first song and a half. I had put all my levels at what I'd written down, so I didn't know what the deal was. Whenever I had a spare moment I bumped my levels up a little bit. I don't know what the deal was. There weren't that many people there for us at all, but people seemed fairly into it. We siphoned off a few Byakura fans that I recognized, which was nice.

Ryota did a great job; Yue was having a lot of fun and our big ol' jump during "Criticism" went of fine, but I don't know... something about me was off. We got off stage, changed, and got our gear in order.

There's a dance club on the second floor of the same building as Narciss, and there was some sort of dance battle going on. There were tons of people in the garage area practicing, as well as in the surrounding area near the convenience stores. All of a sudden, my choreographer showed up! I didn't expect to see him out there so we chatted for a little bit; that was kinda nice. Still, as he went off to dance battle or whatever, I went back and nursed my headache.

Thinking a bit of demachi might do us some good, the three of us went out to meet the fans. Almost immediately, Ryota's fans took him aside to give him presents and chat him up, and a couple of girls took Yue aside. I kind of just stood there for awhile, unsure of what to do. Thankfully, and bless his heart, Omi of Byakura was also alone and approached me to talk a little bit more.

When it came time for us to make our payments to the office, we found that fewer people had come than we'd expected and we had to pay more than I'd have liked. Also, usually I like the advice the staff always gives us at the post-live pow-wows, but I hate to say this one may have cramped my style.
I wear my bass high, because I like to be able to play my parts proficiently and be a good player, first and foremost. In this genre there is a direct relation between bass height and talent. This is fact and it is backed up by me and my observations, gosh darn it. I was told I'd look "cooler" if I wore it lower. I understand where they're coming from but I like being able to play my parts well. At the time, I was thinking "hell no," but for now I'll lower it just a tad and see how that goes. I'm not pleased about that, though.

Diablo's vocalist invited us to open for him at their shusai event, which I thought was freakin' awesome of him, even if we can't do it because we don't have a car.

Now I could barely function I was feeling so sick. Ryota had his little group of fans and I think Yue went home with someone, so I came back home and just craaaaaashed. It wasn't a bad live by any means, but I was feeling too ill not to ignore the little frustrating meaningless things and focus on the fun.

You'll notice I finally got my hair to do something relatively non-boring! My hair refuses to stand up.

Next one is on 4/19, with WHITEBLACK, and I promise I'll stay healthier and in much better spirits. :)

I hang out with Swedish metal dudes

So for the past few weeks, Samuel Persson, guitarist of Ghamorean, has been chillin' in our building, and we've been talkin' and hangin' out and mostly drinking. He left this morning, but last night he finally showed me his band.

"The Imperial Eye"

This isn't music I normally actively listen to, but if it's good enough I can appreciate it. They sound pro and they've got a slick video and at any rate they're better than Laverite. :)

When not being shirtless and scary, he's really chill and funny and good-looking and... you know what, screw the Swedes, those cool jerks!

Taiban news

Those of you who've followed my live jaunts will realize how nifty it is that I will soon be sharing a stage with a band (Byakura). It's also cool because they're releasing two singles on Sequence Records in May and June, and it's nice to see progress.

Add another one to that list: on our 5/31 live we're playing with Vagu Project, which I'm super excited about. Looks like they're finally looking for a live drummer and guitarist too; those of you who can read Japanese check out the amusing section about that.

That day, we're also playing with Mamono. I'm scared.

Updates and Wishes

Last week in the studio we had our first 'band fight', which struck me as kinda cute in a milestoney kind of way. It was incredibly innocuous, but given how our rehearsals have either been cold and robotic or only slightly silly it was fairly 'exciting'. Mostly it was the other two passively-aggressively disagreeing on the vocal performance of a particular song that it important to its writer (with an emphasis on the 'passive' part), and I played peacemaker because I am oblivious. It was over quick and they made up and the rest of the rehearsal went swimmingly.


I have received exactly 3 messages at my fanmail address. The first as from the aforementioned staff girl asking to swap cell phone contact information; the second was from one of the students I taught when I went up to that high school in Ibaraki, and the third was from an American internet buddy. I'm grateful for all the sentiments therein, don't get me wrong, but I'm sort of inwardly smiling that my status as Laverite's least popular member is evidenced by the hit count on my personal Laverite HP, mixi stuff, fanmails, the conspicuous white void on questionnaires when it come to the personal message to Jimi section, etc. To most people this might be a bit discouraging, but for me it's actually pretty cool for the time being: while not exactly invisible, I feel much more comfortable simply being able to watch and learn--to be an apprentice in this scene, if you will.


More studio time today: I think work on the next single a little bit, work up the set list for next Saturday (which is our show with Aibell, Cloche, Diablo, Saimon, Velllapis, OZxBONE, and Byakura), and figure out what that 2am phone call was all about. (There may be a Hillary joke in there somewhere.)

Live Report 3/5/08, Urawa Nariss: LAVERITE, Mei, Antikythera, Phantom Avenger

Phantom Avenger were really young dudes, Denial were tightly-controlled, well-played 7-string heaviness, and Mei was Osaka-funny, with the singer going out into the crowd to have a smoke during a prolonged instrumental section. Antikythera I didn't see, because WE WERE NEXT.


For free lives at Narciss, order is decided by a combination of rock-paper-scissors and drawing straws. Among us, Yue lost so he had to be our representative. Each of the other bands' representatives got around and decided the order to draw the straws with janken as well. Yue won this time, so he got to pick first, and he picked number 2. As long as it wasn't number 1, we were happy.

We pulled in twenty or so people who came just to see us; of those, six were my crew. There were three people from my house (two who had also come to my first live), two girls I used to go to lives with whom I hadn't seen in quite awhile... also, Inertia came but I was such a jerk and forgot to put her name on our final yoyaku list!! >_< Yami Yume also dropped by after a long hard day of actual work and ended up missing our set for reasons outside anyone's control, but still I was very glad to meet someone new and thankful that she and of course everyone else took the time to come out to see me.

As for the show itself, we were so much better than the first show. Ryota moved a lot more, Yue's personality started to show, and I was groovin' as usual. We had three full rows of people in the very front (not counting the people standing in the back who were also doing the hand motions that are a sure sign that they're enjoying us), and they were going pretty wild, especially for Ryota.

Tonight, Ryota got a new nickname: Ryoko-tan, which is of course a play on Shoko Nakagawa's nickname, 'Shoko-tan'. Ryota's a fan of hers so he rather likes it. He is far and away the most popular out of us three: even on several of the questionnaires, there would be no messages written in the spaces for Yue and me, but lots written only for Ryota. To be perfectly honest, I rather like it this way. Yue can chat people up very well so he plays mock-wounded that Ryota gets so much attention, and I'm still too busy standing wide-eyed at our table, absorbing all the craziness.

My favorite questionnaire of the night was Inertia's, by far; she said she enjoyed the set as a whole (god bless her) and that of course there's room for improvement and listed some great things we could work on. The other guys were pleased that we got something like that: too often those that write questionnaires for us are die-hards so I feel as though I am being given little indication of what we're doing right or wrong. I mean, I like all the fluffy nice messages, too, but y'know, I like to know how to suck less. :)

Ryota's a huge Lareine fan, as is Inertia, and after we got offstage, Ryota looks at me and says, "That girl! On your side! Who is she? Is she a friend of yours?!"
Me: "Calm down, man; yeah, she is. Why?"
Ryota: "I've seen her at Lareine events and stuff! I wanna talk to her!"

So I introduced them and then Ryota totally clammed up because he's ridiculously shy but was clearly happy to be talking to someone that shared his interests (he wrote about it on his blog too).


The whole evening had a very good feeling. After we cleaned up, changed, and packed up, we went down to the office to take care of money stuff. Free lives are really pricey for the bands, but lots of people come and apparently they're highly desired, so they can be difficult to book. The Narciss staff was really impressed at the fact that we had the most fans come out that night, surprised at their reaction, and surprised that they were all so pretty. They also said that LAVERITE fans have the best manners. :)

And then they finally noticed that maybe I'm not Japanese, and Yue told them that I'd done some modeling (an over-exaggeration if I've ever heard one), and they looked at me and just said "ah, yappari". Whaddya mean?! >_>;;

Our fans are an attractive bunch, though! Although our fans are Ryota's fans, mostly. He's our draw. That's fine by me! I kind of like being in the background right now... I still need to observe, and learn, and listen. I'll be making minor adjustments to my costume in the coming weeks, and I've GOT to do something non-crappy with my hair, and work on makeup, and basically suck less as a whole.


Next live is 3/29... EIGHT bands, with Byakura and us being definitely the biggest reasons to come. ;)

Laverite origins, part 4

I woke up extra early since I'd slept for 11 hours, got my shopping done, then got ready and headed off to Narciss by noon.

Most of the members of most of the other bands were trickling in, and we all sort of claimed a spot in the place to set all our gear for the moment. Narciss's wonderful staff made sure all bands were present, handed out forms for us to fill out, and then we had a little meeting about logistics, schedule of rehearsal, schedule of actual bands, what rooms to use, etc etc.

There were two forms: one was for the passes (pictured top) which Yue filled out (above), and we had to provide both our stage name and real name, which must be funny for all those big artists who have gone to such efforts to keep their real name unknown. The other one was stage and lighting direction for the set list: we had to write who was going to need to use what equipment, whether we were using some pre-programmed tracks or not, how many mics, what kind of style each song is, and how we wanted lighting to be directed. Ryota filled that out in nearly no time at all; his vision is pretty clear.

This is where Narciss put our flier. That's Byakura's flier, on the door. I feel lonely way up there, and not too happy about being caddy-cornered next to a band called "It".


The rehearsal schedule is the real schedule backwards, so we went up for a short rehearsal right after the Luna Sea cover band. Narciss's staff is insanely helpful and friendly and many of them remembered me from many a free live and they were very pleased that I was now here in my capacity as a performer. I was slightly worried as to how other bands would react to us, but saw some bobbin' heads and some tappin' toes and I got lots of comments on my playing as I came off the stage. Nice blokes.

Here's Ryota's rack system. From the top down: 19-inch Chameleon LED light, Rexer wireless system, KORG digital tuner, Digitech pre-amp, Marshall power amp. Mayu of Lareine used the same pre and power amps, and hide and Kaoru used the same power amp. Me, I just use the house bass rig and my wireless.

And then it was up to the dressing room with the rest of the bands, and a looooooooot of time to kill. We went to the Lawson and bought food and came back to eat and hang out but mostly it was just a lot of being nervous and doing our makeup poorly for some reason.

We also played with this for awhile:

And I never lost once!

We were really, really nervous, Ryota most of all. He didn't move around much, but I tried to. I tried not to affect any unnatural VK posing but instead acted as much like myself on stage as possible. I'm kinda smiley, but they're gonna have to deal with that!

We had three girls down in front doing all the requisite headbanging and saku-ing and whatever that thing is that they do when there's a guitar solo. Not too many for a regular live but for a first live, with 15 people coming for us, I wasn't too disappointed. I was really just happy to be on stage again after two years (almost SIX years, if you don't count that show two years ago).

I was a little bit bummed because it was becoming increasingly apparent that none of my friends were coming. But as the curtain went back, I saw four of my housemates against the right wall toward the front, and I was really moved by that. These are people that I'm sure couldn't care two shakes about VK and probably actively dislike it but they still came out anyway. (My French housemate had no clue what was going on but liked the makeup of the crowd, by which I mean almost completely chicks.)

I did a big ol' jump during the last song and I'm surprised I didn't fall flat on my butt because of those boots.


After the set we came back into the main area to man our table, take anquettes, and hand out CDs and tickets for the free show. It was hard for me to take people coming up to me and thanking me and saying "great job" and writing nice things on the questionnaires. Some people worry that that's the kind of thing that'll go to a person's head, but for me it has almost the opposite effect, especially in the moment. Some of the girls look so nervous; frightened, even, to approach you. You can see them shaking and their eyes wandering and their mouths twisting in needless inklings of lack of self-confidence, but you smile at them because you want them to go home thinking they enjoyed themselves, and finally they approach and make the most beautiful small talk because they're too scared to say anything of substance, and I adore it. It's charming. And I've been in that position, so I want to reward that kind of bravery with my attention.

Also one girl bought us donuts!!

Over donuts the three of us talked about the live, what went well, what coulda gone better... Ryota the perfectionist initially wasn't pleased, but Yue insisted that there was nothing bad about it, and I'm a disgusting optimist so I was just all overwhelmed and smiles. Still, the first live was out of the way and now suddenly I felt like I wasn't just messing around anymore. That's why I waited until after the live to announce Laverite here, because it didn't feel complete without a legitimate performance under our belt.

I'm really looking forward to the free live; I like the set list a whole lot and there should be lots of people coming. I think I'll be more nervous for that one.


Finally, I just want to thank you all for the wonderful comments and well-wishes. I was telling Go that it's a loyalty that I've done nothing to deserve and I really appreciate it. Whether we rock or whether we suck you guys and gals are just plain nice and supportive. You make ignoring awful comments so easy! XD

I'll try to respond to some of the questions raised in earlier comments here:

We're a three-piece right now. We're going for that 'one guitarist' thing to begin with, and then drummers (e.g., good drummers who can follow a click track and aren't already in a band) are extremely difficult to come by. Heck, they're lucky they even found me. We'd like for a drummer to come along (me most of all, perhaps), but for the moment this will do, or else we'd never get around to actually performing.

We have just over a dozen or so songs in the repertoir right now, many of them from our previous bands. I'll be contributing a couple soon as well.

I forgot to mention how much money has gone into this, per person: approx. 2000 yen per rehearsal, 10000yen for the costume matrials, 7000 for the photo shoot, 3000 for website registration, I forget how much to print up 100 CDs, 5000 for fliers and photo printing, and then just under 10000 per live. It's adding up but this experience has been worth it so far.

One of you asked about a band "concept"; I personally don't pay things like this too much mind but because it has something to do with Aestheticism I'm quite pleased by the providence of it all. All of Mr. Volt's training and my studies that started in December of '06 have culminated in my chance joining of this band. I hope he's proud. :-P


Thank you all again very much!

Laverite origins, part 3

Once I got back from the States, we outlined a schedule: get our costumes fitted, get the photoshoot done, and get ready for the lives.

I forgot to mention that before I left for the states, we had been kicking around designs for costumes. I had a design sketched out, culled from elements of stuff I searched for frantically among the pages of VK mags on the racks of the bookstore on the corner, and a base color of green (since Yue was going with blue and Ryota with red).

The morning of the first day of my Honda commercial shoot, we met up in Shinjuku and went to the fabric shop where our costume staff gal worked.

She was going to make our costumes for free; she's a design student so it serves as good practice for her.

My design and color ended up changing completely as we discussed things; I went from green to black and white and gold. That's okay; they all know better than I do, for the time being. I forked over the money for the base materials and then I headed off to hang out with a robot and some kids.

So finally in January we went and met up with the Costume Girl and we got our fittings and last-minute adjustments done. It was this day that Ryota, Yue and I seemed to loosen up a little bit more around each other. Ryota really, really likes the Resident Evil series and had recently been talking non-stop about the 4th one. At one point he said, "Jimi, look!" and enclosed himself in that closet. Yue and I were a little confused, but I went over and opened the door, and he began to lumber after me making zombie noises. I pretended to shoot him down and made to stomp on his head (the only effective zombie killer!) and by this point he was just cracking up. I was cracking up because this seemed so unlike him.

Yue went down to the closest convenience store and bought a bunch of food for our dinner and pretty much refused to take repayment. Nice guy.

I like the costume for now but I'll be taking a more active role in my own designs from now own.

We met up for the photoshoot at a studio near Shinjuku, a fairly normal portrait studio but they also have specialized in visual bands as far back as '93. The genial older guy that was shooting us showed off his impressive collection of work; old fliers for Rentrer en Soi, Fatima (with Daisuke still in the band!), Yuki's old band way before Jinkaku Radio, and L'arc's first guitarist's next band. Also Exist Trace's first flier, when Miko was not yet the flower she is now. He also had the issue of Cure that Ryota was in back in October of '06 with his last band, RevieR.

We took loads and loads of shots. For the member shots we had to come up with thirty to forty unique poses. Yue and particularly Ryota had a difficult time coming up with something comfortable; I have experience in this kind of thing so I was finished very quickly.

Ryota really likes old Japanese music, not limited only to enka but also some older folk tunes and stuff, so the fact that photographer had the radio tuned to a station playing tunes like that seemed to have a calming effect on him.

We finished the shoots and changed out of costume as the photographer printed up the sample page. We had to pick shots for the website (group shots and profile shots), for the picture sets we'd be selling, for the flier--it was pretty intense. Oftentimes a group shot Yue would like I wouldn't like my positioning in, or if I liked one Ryota would express disapproval of his eyes, or things like that. Good thing there are only three of us for now, right?

Still, we settled on some good shots. We forked over the money for the shots and headed off: the next day, our site went public over here, linked through mixi and visunavi and the like.

By this time all our live dates were pretty much settled. All that was left was some more rehearsals, printing up the fliers, and then the first live itself.

On Valentine's Day, Ryota and I took the fliers and headed into Tokyo to distribute them.

First we hit Narciss...

Then all the way down to Meguro for Third Stage, and Rokumeikan...

In Harajuku we ran into Ryota's old boss and an old bandmate as well before we hit up the Closet Child there.

In Shinjuku, we went to Like an Edison...


Club Indies...


And the Closet Child there. We also went to the Closet Child in Ikebukuro.


This is the whiteboard in my apartment on which I wrote information about or first live for anyone wanting to come, not really thinking anyone would:

The last thing left to do was one more rehearsal on Saturday, and then the live the next day.

After the rehearsal on Saturday I started getting really nervous. I developed a headache and my stomach was acting up. I had originally planned to do some necessary shopping when I returned from rehearsal but I was feeling so awful that I ended up going to sleep at only eight in the evening. Still, it was nice to get enough sleep for the day ahead...

Laverite origins, part 2

I wasn't about to go traipsing around Tokyo gathering ads and getting low returns again, so I planted my fat butt in front of my compy and started scouring the internet for listings there. I got what was somewhat of a repeat performance: few responses, those that did seemed hesitant about hooking up with a foreigner, etc. Also, almost every single posting mentioned that they were "serious" about wanting to become major. (Obviously! Those who aren't don't have the forethought to search very hard!)

One band got back to me five minutes after I sent the email. A few emails back and forth about basic information and then we started talking on the phone. It was Ryota, asking me questions to get a feel if I'd be all right. Not once did he bring up my foreignness, and he never had trouble understanding my Japanese, nor I his. "We don't have a drummer right now--is that okay?" "I want this to be a one-guitar band--is that okay?" I pretty much said yes to everything, as nothing really raised a red flag and I just wanted to be playing music with people. He asked to see a picture of me. We figured out a time and a place to meet up and that was that.


I got to the place and Yue found me and introduced himself. I suppose I'm not that hard to spot. He was very polite and soon enough Ryota showed up; we took our seats in Denny's and sat around snacking and mostly drinking an endless amount of tea.

The conversation revolved around our respective musical histories at first; achievements, affirming each other's tastes, whatever; I was being honest but I was also trying to win them over. I had been mulling over, in my head, a big speech about how I had a good long visa and I was going to be here for the long haul, depending on how well music worked for me, and etc etc, and basically it was going to act as the climactic, swelling moment in a scene from a movie where a guy has to scrape just to get anywhere--

"You're in," they said.

"...wait, what? But my speech!"

Yes, just like that, they wanted me. They were pleased with what I had said about my own experiences, although they hadn't heard me play a single note yet. Sometimes you can just tell from the way someone carries themselves or how they talk, I find. Ryota handed me an MD player and some headphones and had me listen to a few tracks. The ones I heard I either liked or felt had good potential. Either way it certainly wasn't music I was averse too, having previously been a huge fan of Malice Mizer-ish stuff years back. And, stylistically, I didn't mind momentarily looking towards older, lighter VK if it meant avoiding the slew of drop-D Japanese nu-metal copies of any band that happens to make it to the cover of a vk mag.

Ryota slid a minidisc across the table. 3 songs; learn 'em, he said. We then just started shootin' the breeze about any ol' thing. I remember actually getting a phone call about a photoshoot in the middle of everything; I didn't end up getting that job but they were impressed by the mere fact that people call me and offer me jobs like that. But like I've said before, it's really more of a curiosity than it is "cool". :-P

Then we went to the Lawson close by and Ryota made copies of his hand-written band score musical notation for me. We parted ways, and Ryota told me to contact him when I'd learned the 3 songs and then we could go into the studio.

The 3 songs on the disk were "Sephirot" and "Kamen Butoukai" (the first two in our first setlist) and then another one. The next day I called Ryota and told him I'd learned the songs, then we made a date for the studio. I had followed the notation closely enough but also added in my own pieces of flair.

In the studio, Ryota really dug some of my changes but didn't like some other ones, which I totally respect: he had a vision for the songs but wasn't about to let a cool bit from an outside source slip through his fingers. And some of my changes didn't fly because they didn't work rhythmically or some other such thing and he was right. Luckily my changes get approved of more often than not.

Ryota gave me another MD with 11 other songs on it. I learned those in a handful of days and we went back into the studio and polished them up.

Rehearsals are fairly serious business for us, which to me is so refreshing because while certainly every practice needs its bit of fun or humor injected into it, I've never been a part of a band that didn't seem to horse around too much. That, I think, is one pitfall in doing a band with your friends. I didn't start of as friends with these guys, so the dynamic was great.

Then it was time for me to go back to America for two weeks. The only band-related thing I did there was buy that wireless thing (it works beautifully, by the way!!) and bring back some costume pieces and boots and bass strings.

Once I got back, then things really started picking up.

Laverite origins, part 1

I had everything lined up to start modeling and music. I did not go into modeling based on any false notion that I am what people traditionally think of when they hear the word "model", but simply that I have been a performer for years and don't care how small of a role I play so long as I get work and have interesting experiences doing it. I mean, I'm not getting any sexy glamor catwalk work, but that's not what I set out to do: I'm sitting at a counter eating a burger as a robot leads children onward; I'm running away from hippo monsters as the Power Rangers save the day; I'm holding a plastic board that will get turned into some futuristic communications device in post-production.


But jobs were slow to come and rejection was disproportionately high. I can take rejection, but this is no way to fill up my time. I began the search for a band.


I went all over whatever rehearsal studios and music shops I knew in Tokyo. Almost all of them have folders of members wanted ads, and I collected a bunch that sounded interesting, both VK and non, and headed home to call or email them.

My spiel described my musical experience, what I could do, what I liked, and then the fact that I was a foreigner but I had a visa and I was in this for the long haul. Most never replied to me; a few that did expressed reservations about my foreigner-ness which was really just a lame, weasel-y way to say "no thanks".

I went with a melodic, pretty proggy metal band that called me back. They were called Willpower. My main two influences have been Yes and Dream Theater, and the guitarist told me that they were big fans of DT too. We made a date I could come check 'em out at the studio and jam a little bit. They welcomed the 'foreigner' angle, too.

Their rehearsal space was out in Ikebukuro, easy enough to find, and they were all very glad to meet me. They played a few of their originals for me and I was really impressed; they were so solid as musicians, and the singer was talented as well. The bassist was great, too, but he was quitting at the end of October, which is why I was there. Then it was my turn to play with 'em; we ran through some DT numbers (Pull Me Under, of course, but also Under a Glass Moon and Strange Deja Vu) and a few Yes riffs (because not everyone was that familiar with Yes), and then they threw out some other song titles and band names that I was increasingly unfamiliar with, but by that time it was sort of time to pack up anyway so I didn't have to pretend to slough through some Deep Purple song when what I know of Deep Purple is limited to their name.

Nonetheless, they seemed impressed with me, and we talked logistics and stuff. They told me they were going to go discuss things one more time and they'd get back to me. I wasn't 100% in, but things looked hopeful, and they invited me to come see their last live on 10/31.

The day before, they told me that the live had been canceled, and details to come later. Okay...

About a week after that, I get word that the band had broken up. (Mr. Volt told me, "the irony of a band called 'Willpower' breaking up is not lost on me.") I'm sure there were other complicated internal issues that led to the decision, but at the moment, briefly, it felt like they would have rather quit than continue on with me.

But that taught me that I should stick with what I know. It's clear that my repertoire is somehow both too eclectic and too shallow to hang with certain musicians, so what was left was to seek out the comfort of a scene I already knew...

Live Report 2/17/08, Urawa Narciss: LAVERITE, Larme D'ange, OZxBONE, CKroll, Despair

It has been a long time since I'd been to Narciss, although this wasn't exactly in the same capacity.

First band up was OZxBONE, traditional thrash metal but silly. Their guitarist is a ridiculously nice guy who I got to talk to a little bit.

The second band was Despair and they were high school kids or something and I didn't even watch their rehearsal.

Larme D'ange is from Osaka and really talented. Friends of mine who came to the show said that this band had the best vocalist of the evening. Another of my friends was blown away by their guitarist Hiiragi. The other guitarist seems to be going to America all the time so it was a bummer to miss him as I would have liked to have talked a little bit. I only watched a little bit of their rehearsal, though. Still, backstage they were very polite to me.

CKroll went after them and I only watched a little of their rehearsal too. The blue dude is a nice guy in person; greets you with a loud voice and a smile.


The last band of the evening was a Luna Sea cover band with a cute chick drummer. They didn't do the covers poorly, but they didn't do them super awesomely or anything. They were an above-average cover band; what I mean by that is that when they play the songs they sound fairly faithful to the original and you're glad you heard a good song. I tend to like cover bands that do weird, gimmicky stuff with the material: Richard Cheese is one, but more recently The Dan Band has totally wowed me.


The fifth band was--

--okay, I have a confession.

I've been lying to you for a few months.

Well, not really lying, per se, more like withholding information, and from the looks of things, withholding it poorly.

The fifth band of the evening was LAVERITE.

They're pretty good. I mean, it was their first live. The guitarist, Ryota, is very talented, though, with a strong ear for a pleasant guitar solo; sometimes with a focus on technical flair and mostly with an emphasis on melody. They seemed pretty nervous, though; Ryota didn't move all that much and Yue, the vocalist, did his best to make up for it and largely succeeded. Helping them out on bass is Jimi, and he had a good amount of energy and is one damn fine bassist but it was pretty obvious that he hasn't played live in a few years.

The samples on the site aren't that hot, and Jimi's bass tracks aren't even on there as the recordings were made before he joined but the CD was printed up after he joined. And they aren't the two songs he would have picked from their repertoire. Still, they did a respectable job. They had 20 or so people come to see them and while there were only 3 or so people at the very front, people seemed to be enjoying themselves. The anquette box was filled, and while no photos were sold, they seem excited about their next free live at Narciss on 3/5. Personally, I'll be attending every single Laverite live from here on out.

Here they are on visunavi too. :)

Tomorrow I'll start telling a more detailed story of Laverite.

Elec's Musical History

Like I wrote in an earlier entry, I come from a musical family. On my mom's side, my grandparents both play many instruments between them: piano, guitar, harp, steel guitar, harmonica, and the both of them often perform duets on the marimba and it's one of the cutest things on earth. Momma-bear is a graduate from the Conservatory of Music at University of the Pacific, in piano, and she has also been choral teacher, vocal coach, piano teacher, and many other things at all levels of education. She started me off on piano at an earlier age. She often reminds me that I once, in a six-year-old fit of frustration, told her that I'd never become a musician, to spite her. She laughs now.

Poppa-bear, on the other hand, was in a band with my uncle in the late '70s and also ran a music/instrument shop with him. Two young dudes running a business: I have no acquaintances who can make the same claim. He also built the bass in the above picture by himself from scratch and he still plays it to this day and it sounds beautiful. (Keep in mind that Brian May also built his Red Special from scratch!)
He started teaching me both guitar and bass when I was around twelve years old, and for years and years I would often help accompany my parents on guitar, bass, or drums when my mom's vocal performance group had a holiday gig or session or other commitment.

In Junior High I was in the school band, and one of my first tastes of non-school-related music was when some friends during the lunch hour and started discussing our love for progressive rock without realize that we were talking about a genre. I was heavily into Yes and we were all into a little bit of ELP, King Crimson, Rush, and Jethro Tull; the others threw in some other things like Led Zeppelin and we would just start talking about the riffs and then setting up instruments and hacking some of them out. We ended up working together a really heavy version of the "Rumble" from West Side Story.


Prog took to the sidelines as I, a young male in school band growing up in California in the late 1990's, discovered a way that even band geeks could suddenly seem cool: ska. I could make a joke about the embarrassment of this confession but honestly it was a really positive thing for me overall, and it was in this vein that I formed my first band, Sevensealed.


Sevensealed started off as a ska band but we quickly weaned ourselves of horns and any other signs of ska and morphed into a punk band. We weren't amazing, but we were better than a lot of local bands and certainly the only ones under 18, so we got called on to play a lot of the local scene. We all had talent, individually, but somehow it failed to add up to something solid. I place the blame solidly upon my own shoulders.

I was the lead singer and rhythm guitarist. Upon forming Sevensealed my guitar skill seemed to stagnate; or, rather, it ossified as the music we wrote didn't really help us grow as musicians. I tried to write intelligent lyrics and succeeded only when I wasn't expressly proud of the results. I was a terrible frontman but I was still the most charismatic of the group. I had a bad habit of wanting to explain the lyrical content of the songs before we played them which killed any and all momentum of a set. We did get better as we went along and I think if a few things had gone differently we could have had one more good year in us and been really good.

The others were clearly more talented; Scott Lord, the bassist, is now in LA having studied at the Musician's Institute, and now loans out his considerable talents, touring with bands or artists who require someone amazing like him. Gary, his brother, I don't think plays anymore but was doing extremely well in real estate in the Bay Area. And I'm sure Terry the drummer is off doing something cool. He ensured I got something good out of the whole thing, though: I started learning drums at this point.

In 2001, with Gary out of high school and Terry at a different high school, we decided to break up the band, which bummed out quite a few people and secretly made me feel kinda cool, but Scott and I still played together in a small jazz combo. We won lots of awards, and I even took home some awards for my piano playing. This was hard for me to take because it was clear to me and no one else that I was in fact a weak link in the combo. I may be an above average pianist, but jazz, no matter how much I adored it and the guys I played with, it was much too big a Goliath for me.


That same year, I formed another band with a popular vocalist at school; the band was called "Fragile" and we wrote simple, good rock tunes. What I remember best about that band was that the singer really helped me learn when to keep things simple, catchy, and accessible and when I could make things smarter, more inscrutable, more complex. We'd also cover, like, Boston, or Fuel (the band, not the Metallica song) for some reason. We played a few gigs and then sort of faded away.

The next year was one of huge experimentation as I threw together a little gothy outfit called Flight of the Mechanics, which I still think is an awesome name, and now years later that I know about Flight of the Conchords, I love them but I get a little sad! Anyway, FotM was kinda late Smashing Pumpkins-y and kinda Radiohead-ish, only with better, and therefore probably boring, vocals. The bassist wasn't so hot and the drummer had tempo issues so we played a few times and then I laid the project to rest.

The other big experimentation was with hip-hop, as two other guys and I got together to program some beats and write some rap. This was all done without irony and with the purest of intentions; we simply wanted to make something positive and engaging without being preachy and something dance-able without the lyrical content in mainstream rap that made it nearly impossible for us to digest. We called ourselves Corporate America because, despite our pure intentions, we were flippin' idiots.

Now, if we had known about indie rap we could have easily found something we could have enjoyed, and either incorporated what they had done right or mercifully dropped the project altogether, but our ignorance may well have acted as a creativity enhancer, as we simply didn't realize that there already existed the kind of thing we wanted to do. We had no pretensions that we were doing something "new" or anything; we just wanted to make something that we wanted to listen to. I started playing with words and rhythms, trying to avoid what I saw as stereotypical delivery, and I started listening to a bit of older hip-hop, in particular Digable Planets and such. Nowadays, of course, I sit back and let people who know what the heck they're doing provide all my rap entertainment, but at the time it was just three guys having fun with sounds and words. We performed a few times to good reception but I think I must have seen the light or I had a falling out with the other guys very slowly and that fizzled out too.

And then after high school, I completely turned my attention to my studies, only briefly flirting with the idea of a band once freshman year. I was in a play, our student director who I was sorta/kinda seeing? said she knew a guy looking for a bassist. I met with him, they seemed a bit heavy for my tastes at the time, but I thought I'd give it a shot--I was all set to join and then I realized that he was the boyfriend of the student director. I did not join the band and didn't try again until my senior year.

That was when I took a music history class and the professor wanted to do an experiment by throwing together a band of students and then having them perform songs written by other students, usually non-musicians, in various styles. I decided to audition, and even though I play all the standard rock band instruments, I thought I'd audition on bass, as that is my strength.

The Professor had brought in a friend of his to help advise and coach the final band: Rob Sabino, a keyboardist from the Bronx, childhood friend and former bandmate of Ace Frehley (Frehley's Comet in 1985), also formerly of Chic, and played on David Bowie's "Let's Dance" album and Madonna's "Like a Virgin" album. Among a bajillion others, as you can see.

I had everyone beat easily until this one guy showed up and blew me away. (He played in a group called The Parlour Dames, which he would later ask me to join, but as I was moving to Japan in 6 months it might have been too much trouble. I grudgingly declined.) I knew then and there that I wouldn't be in the project. That bassist that would beat me was, unfortunately for my disappointment, a really great guy and we hit it off. I sat at the piano and he and I noodled around with various songs. Sabino noticed me, came over, started jamming on the keyboards with me, and he asked me if I'd like to be the keyboardist. Such an endorsement restored my confidence in my piano playing.

The band, called "Rockward" (very apt), was huge, and there were so many personalities in it... also, with two weeks before performance, the professor told me I had to arrange horn parts for all six of our pieces. I said no, prof. said yes. I called Rob, who called the professor, and we reached an agreement that I'd write and arrange horn parts for three of the songs. I sort of resented that, but so it goes.

The set was pretty cool; four original songs solicited from students, and two covers, all pretty unrecognizable by the end. There was "Foster Mom Blues" (imagine Johnny Cash's "Walk the Line" if it were taken at a shuffle and add some sax solos), "Empty Bottle Blooze" (imagine wanting to make out with and possibly get to 3rd base with a song, and then a harmonica comes in), "Sharp" (dual lead guitar/keyboard lines make it kinda metal but then it turns into a solid rocker with this part in the middle with a zillion chord changes that sounds inexplicably like Elton John), and some lame song with a million unfunny references to our university that we ended up somehow making not-lame by the end. The two covers were Heart's "Barracuda" which we did fairly straight, and Stone Temple Pilot's "Plush", which thanks to us now had ragtime piano and muted horns. And it worked well, if I do say so myself.



And now I'm in Japan. I was looking for a band for awhile, mostly because I realized that the world of a beginning model who still wants a roof over his head and food in his stomach still needs a part-time job and there's too much waiting involved. Most bands didn't ever get back to me, and those that did either expressed reservations about my Japanese (obviously not a problem and I have a piece of paper to prove it!) or the simple fact that I'm a foreigner. Black:List sent me a very, very polite email on my phone saying that they were going to go about the new member search in their own fashion. At least they got back to me, though.

I found a melodic hard rock band called WILLPOWER who welcomed the fact that I wasn't Japanese; they were into your standard metal staples and then some prog and Deep Purple and stuff. We got along great, they were extremely talented, and jamming with them felt great, but just before I was set to join a few weeks later, they decided to kaisan instead.


That's been my musical journey up until now; for several reasons I was suddenly struck by a lot of the memories and wanted to write about it. I'm leaving out quite a few little projects and filling in I did as favors, but I think I've gotten almost everything important. I wish I had more to show for it!

Music in the Family (Elixer, Rose Rossi)

I have a bit to live up to...

Jeff is a musician; a great guitarist with his band Article of Faith. I actually really recommend the "Joy Noel" Christmas medley. On his personal myspace, you can hear the song "US and Russia", which in 1982 was entered into the American Songwriting Contest and won in the hard-rock category. And actually, John Elefante (singer of Kansas) said he listened to this song a lot!

(Elixer; my dad is on the mic on the far right)

Jeff's been in a lot of bands in the Bay Area over the years--The Clean, Dress for Success, etc-- but my personal favorite would have to have been Elixer, because my dad was the bassist. They played a LOT; parties and dances as well. They were sorta jazzy, sorta proggy, but to play live a lot they were a live band doing Top 40 hits, which I think is pretty cool. And when bands were on their way out and disco was on its way up, well, Elixer had invested in great sound and lights and they would simply rent out their services that way (they never physically played disco, thank God).

You can check out 4 of their tunes here, and by clicking on the "music page" link you can read a tiny bit more about the songs.

Check 'em out:

I think they're all pretty cool. I'm hoping it's because they're actually decent tunes and not solely because of the novelty of it coming from my family.



Talking about Elixer was just convenient because the focus of this post is really a cousin, Rose Rossi, and her new album.

Hello to You album cover

You can listen to six of the songs over at her MySpace page.
"Hello to You" shares the same general opening chord progressions as Coldplay's "Trouble" and Elton John's "I Want Love", although played on guitars which evoke the sound atmosphere various Beatles' post-Beatles careers more than it evokes the Coldplay song, actually (and it's sort of got that "Free as a Bird" tempo to it). It's a chord progression I'd always wanted to fit in somewhere myself, so I'm jealous!

And there the song's similarities with these other artists ends, but it leaves me extremely happy that someone modern can remind me so vaguely of that music era now past. (Secretly, despite my prog and VK leanings, I've always wanted to play that sort of 70's male soft rock.)

Rose's voice is sweet and highly nuanced, and her personality is so much warmer to me than those to whom she will inevitably invite comparisons: Tori, Alanis, Fiona.



"Fade" is 80's-licious and reminds me of the styles of so many mashed into one. I want to stress that it is not some overwraught pastiche of how we as a pop-culture ironically view the 80's, but rather a lovingly-crafted (and video) that don't feel like a mockery but like they could have actually been produced during the time, and I think it's subtle and ultimately tasteful. My grandmother says she really likes the lyrics "I don't care for your heart / but I'll take a piece of your mind".
And the other four tunes are nice and worth a listen.

This isn't the type of music I usually deal with so my lexicon in the review might seem off, but in the end I want to show that I really like this material. (And no, she did not put me up to this!)

There are some other interesting video clips here, too.

My 2nd TV appearance: Honda CM

The shot itself lasts maybe 2 seconds. I got paid too much for that. :-P

But y'know, it was kind of a long shoot, and there were other factors that made the time tough, but they gave me a bonus for my troubles. And, this isn't really "work", so no complaints here!

My housemates all emailed me in force to let me know they saw me.

Watch it!


.

New wireless toy

This is the XDS95 digital wireless from X2 Digital Wireless Systems, which I bought today with grandma's Christmas money, for only $300--quite a bargain, especially with the original price approaching $600 or so, and with a particular acquaintance back home in Japan having paid ¥80,000 for his (just over $700).

I went into this seriously skeptical about the concept of wireless, and in fact almost a little perturbed that I had been asked to purchase one. Digital wireless is a relatively newer concept for guitars, and it's not that I'm skeptical of new technologies, but since I lack so much knowledge of audio equipment (I consider it a failing as a musician) I would rather have been guided by hands with experience. In fact, I really wasn't all that comfortable with the idea of wireless to begin with, but hey.

I was all set to buy a particular Shure wireless model--not digital--but a couple of the guys behind the counter, having overheard my conversation with the clerk, quickly jumped in to tell me how much they loved how idiot-proof this digital one was. Which is good, because I too am an idiot!

I got home and set it up and it was the easiest thing in the world. It's very small and therefore easy to transport, the sound doesn't drop out at all, and there are no interference concerns. The input jack screws into the unit so there's no way the cord will fall out accidentally. The unit itself is tiny so if I wanted to put it on an effector board I could. Internal antennae, no knobs; I really did have a perfectly beautiful sound. I went all around my house playing and nothing was lost. I went into the backyard, I went into the front yard, I had half a mind to walk down the street but by that point I was satisfied.

I can't wait to try this thing out in a live setting.

:-*

Brian Posehn interviews Dethklok

Posehn, a fellow Northern-Californian, sits down with Brendon Small in character as Nathan Explosion and Skwisgaar Skwigelf. What follows is brilliance.

Brian Posehn interviews Dethklok (The Onion AV Club)

BP: Where's the most brutal place you've been?

NE: San Jose, maybe. There's just, like, Applebee's and, you know, Starbucks and strip malls.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BP: What was the last book you read?

NE: Does blabbermouth.net count as a book?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BP: Who would win in a one-armed knife fight: Bruce Dickinson or Dio? The singer from Arch Enemy or the singer from Krokus? Pickles or Rick Allen from Def Leppard?

NE: Dio is more wiry and very quick, so maybe he would win. But then again, Bruce Dickinson was a master fencer. But then again, I'm pretty sure Dio is a wizard. But he wouldn't be able to use his wizarding powers in a knife fight, would he? Dickinson would win. Or Dio. It would be a tie. Angela from Arch Enemy would win easily. She's hot and tough. She would even kill me in a knife fight. And if Pickles is sober, he'd win, but if he's been drinking, he'd be knifed and bleed vodka and it would be like an open bar.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The parts about the mosh pit and then the tail end of the interview are also stellar. I wish the show itself were funnier, because the fact that Small wrote all the songs and did all the guitars and vocals is seriously mind-blowing.


Also I keep wanting to talk about "The Office" every week but that would be unadulterated gushing. :-*

Soundwave mp3 Player

I am a Transformers lover, ignorant about most modern technology, and a sucker for gimmicky things that play to my emotions. I want one so bad.

http://blog.primediary.com/2007/08/hands-on-with-transformers-mp3-player.html
http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/15/soundwave-transformer-gets-mp3-player-upgrade/
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/07/23/transformer_mp3/

Japan Times: 'Heavy-metal suicide'

J Times has a cool interview with Marty Friedman, by Japanese subculture specialist (read: proudly self-proclaimed otaku) Patrick Macias. I am totally not at all familiar with Megadeth's body of work, but I am familiar with Marty's presence on Japanese television, so here we go...

He arrives in the plush lounge of the Tokyo Park Hyatt dressed in leather pants, his face framed by a mane of curly hair and with myriad silver "rock star" accessories draped around his neck.

Friedman is the ex-lead guitarist of Megadeth, the all-American thrash-metal band that has sold more than 20 million records. Metal cliches being what they are, you'd half expect him to say "Duuuuuuuuude" and throw up a "devil horns" hand sign as a greeting. Instead, his first words are an extremely polite "Hajimemashite, Marty desu." ("Nice to meet you, I'm Marty.")

Friedman's obsession with Japan runs so deep that he is determined to do the interview in Japanese, even though it's neither his first language, nor mine (I am, however, an old Megadeth fan from their best-selling "Rust in Peace" days, the album that introduced the band to a worldwide audience).

Friedman, a native of Washington, D.C., is used to communicating in Japanese these days; he routinely pops up as a guest on TV shows dispensing humorous and insightful rapid-fire Japanese quips, and he even pens columns about music for a variety of magazines, including the monthly tabloid Cyzo, in his adopted tongue.

"I never really studied Japanese properly," Friedman admits. "I'd just pick things up one phrase at a time while doing my normal music activities in Japan."

In the wake of the global thrash-metal boom that "Rust in Peace" helped beget in 1990, Japan became a regular stop on Megadeth's world tours. "During our visits to Japan in the '90s, I just decided, 'I'm going to do all my Japanese press in Japanese without a translator from now on,' " says Friedman. "I could barely string a sentence together, and my grammar was terrible, but putting myself in the situation of having to communicate in Japanese forced me to improve quickly."

This is the key right here, and actually, having been a teacher in Japan, I wish Japanese people understood that you have to try, try, try, talk, make mistakes, or you're going to study English for 15 years and never be able to communicate, much as everyone laments to me. Same with people who sit there and say "one day I'll learn Japanese", shut up and do it!

All manner of strange things lure foreigners to Japan: jobs, monster movies, anime, nightlife and women, to name a few. But for Friedman, the siren's call came in the form of J-pop and J-rock music. He says, "Toward the middle of my time in Megadeth, like around the mid- to late-'90s, I started really getting into Japanese music. At first it was B'z, Zard, Hitomi, Glay and Ayumi Hamasaki. Every time we'd come to Japan for a tour, I'd go back home with a suitcase full of CDs and listen to them constantly."

You wouldn't normally expect a heavy metal riffmaster to fall for the slick, commercialized sound of J-pop. But for Friedman, Japan offered a picture of musical diversity that he wasn't finding back in the United States.

"I found that you can listen to a J-pop artist in Japan and they might have one really heartfelt ballad and then a death-metal track and then a disco track or a ska sound, but it's all the same artist on the same album, and with good songwriting all the way through. This made me think, 'I wish I had that kind of freedom in the States,' because if you're a metal musician in the U.S., you can't really step outside of that image very much. I love metal, but there are a lot of other things that I like, too, and I found that Japanese artists have way more freedom in that sense."

This is the key here; while I think that while mainstream jmusic's biggest weakness is consistency, it can make up for it in the diversity that Marty mentions.

After Friedman left Megadeth in 2000, he set his eyes on relocating to Japan, which he did four years ago. But making do in the country without the support of a touring machine presented new problems.

"I was worried at first, because when you come to Japan on tour, the record company staff and promoter's staff are always around, treating you like a god, but the second you leave they completely forget about you so they can prepare for their next international artist. So when I started living here four years ago, I knew it would be very different to not have every whim catered to like I was used to."

The worries proved unfounded, as Friedman soon found himself embraced by the Japanese entertainment industry. "Almost as soon as I got here, I met (pop/rock singer) Aikawa Nanase, of whom I had been a fan for years, and we just hit it off right away. She asked me to join her band and it was like a dream come true. . . . Now every day I'm either shooting a TV show, doing radio, recording, doing interviews, preparing for a concert or doing a concert."

Japanese television is notorious for its use of "gaijin tarento" (non-Japanese media personalities), throwing foreigners in front of a camera to provide amusement and literal "color" for the viewing audience. Friedman's previous career set him apart from the pack, but he's quick to admit that doing TV in Japan is a Faustian bargain of sorts.

"I have this personal policy that I'll do anything to get my music to people who normally wouldn't hear it. I've done over 100 TV shows this past year, of all varieties and styles. I did a cooking show with Kurihara Harumi (Japan's Martha Stewart) earlier this year. That's like heavy-metal suicide. I'm sure some of my hardcore Megadeth fans will want to shoot me for that, but I've got my musical goals and I'll do whatever it takes to get closer to those goals.

I can imaging him saying this with a slight roll-eyes. I'm glad he is as diverse a person as the music he enjoys. It's, you know, pleasant, that a metal guy can get along with literally everyone, which is why he is able to make so many appearances and I don't get tired of him.

"As a result of TV appearances appealing to a wide variety of people with a wide variety of musical tastes, not only rock, my latest solo album, 'Loudspeaker,' charted high in Japan. If people call that selling out, then that is fine by me."

If the worldwide demand for heavy-metal music has dimmed since Megadeth's million-selling heyday in the '90s, the genre has, like Spinal Tap in the movie of the same name, managed to find a comfortable niche in Japan. Friedman's recent eminence in the media has coincided with a Japanese air-guitar craze and the rise of all-metal music festivals such as Loud Park.

"In the States, you either love heavy metal or hate it," says Friedman. "The mainstream pretty much avoids it. The sound of distorted guitars turns some people off. But here in Japan, everyone is kind of used to it. In the enka music that older people listen to, there are distorted guitars and twin lead guitar solos, just like Iron Maiden use. But people's grandparents here sing along to it! And there's some metal that goes out to the mainstream, but in small doses. Japanese bands like Orange Range, Asian Kung-Fu Generation or even Glay have riffs that are straightup metal, but they don't overdo it. They take metal but homogenize it in a way that mainstream people can dig it. They take the lameness out of it."

Now that Friedman is firmly entrenched in the Japanese music scene, he's able to explore the kind of music he was never able to make with Megadeth. But it may not be quite what his fans are expecting.

"I just finished a single with a J-pop singer named Kotoko. I wrote the song 'Kirei Na Senritsu' [Beautiful Melody) and it debuted on the charts at No. 18; it's my first top-20 single anywhere. As a song, it couldn't be farther from what my fans think my music is. It's not metal at all, but it's exactly what I myself would go out and buy. It's a very sweet ballad and very, very suited to a female J-pop singer. I'm really proud of it."

Friedman may be a world-class guitar virtuoso, but he doesn't hesitate to show admiration for the likes of Aya Matsuura and Morning Musume — cute girl idol singers who many music lovers are quick to write off as talentless.

"You always think that, until you go behind the scenes into that world and see what's actually there," says Friedman. "There are hundreds of people with talent in specified areas making that final product so incredibly bitchin' that you want to spend your money on it. The top makeup people and the top photographers and the top stylists are all in complete harmony in making that one person look great. Then they have the 20 best songwriters in Japan competing to write the song. Then once the song is decided on, you have the top players put together to play it. And the idol herself may not be able to sing all that well — many Japanese female singers have a voice that seems out of tune half the time — but it's cute because she's out of tune. That adds to her charm as well as her charisma."

Japanese record companies such as Sony Music Entertainment and Avex are increasingly eager to introduce acts on their rosters to the foreign market, but Friedman thinks there are some major cultural barriers to cross before his favorite J-pop acts can scale the charts abroad.

"Here is a point that the West might never get about idol singers: in Japanese they call it 'heta-uma.' It's bad but good at the same time. I love heta-uma when it's done right. Instead of honing their craft to become great operatic singers, it's about having their own personality and having their own voice. They don't have to be the next Mariah Carey.

I actually had a talk with an agent about this very concept; it was fascinating. I still place more emphasis on technical virtuosity but he has a point when he goes on to talk about personality and charisma, which over here seems to be much more of the focus over skill, for better or worse.

"Also, if someone is too good, it kind of makes them seem distant from their audience, which is not a good thing in Japan. If you are at a U2 concert, it's not like you are in the same room with Bono: he's on Mars and you are in the audience. But in Japan, it doesn't matter how big you get, the artists are trying to close the gap between the stage and the audience."

Still, Friedman admits that there is a tradeoff in how musicians are treated in each country. "For better or worse, I think the artist has more power in America," he says. "The press in Japan is generated by the artist's own staff and they can make or break people easily. They could easily make up a scandal and take someone down."

Japan has its perils, but it's also a place where a foreign artist into both pop and heavy metal can prosper, or even become a media star. No wonder Friedman is glad to be where he is.

"I love America and I'm a huge fan of it, but every time I go back, I get bummed out on it as a country. And when I'm in Japan, I'm happy, so it's real simple to say where I'd rather be. I think TV in America is too negative and mean-spirited, and it's also very jimi (dull). In Japan it's very upbeat and colorful and the music is happy.

"The music in America is depressing now. I don't like it when rich people make angry music. It's not convincing to me. One thing that bummed me out about Megadeth was that we were acting like we were angry all the time, and I'm not that good of an actor. I've found that in Japan you can play hard, heavy and aggressive music and it can still be uplifting."

This has been my philosophy since high school, if you leave out the references to countries. I'm glad I'm not the only one who believes it, and glad I'm clearly not the first to have thought of it.


Thanks Mr. Volt for the link!