Sometime in November, Marxy of Néojaponisme and Patrick Macias — author of such books as Cruising the Anime City: An Otaku Guide to Neo Tokyo and Japanese Schoolgirl Inferno: Tokyo Teen Fashion Subculture Handbook — met in Inokashira Park and recorded a very long podcast about Harajuku and the past, present, and future of Japanese fashion. The result spans over an hour and twenty minutes, and yes, we edited out a lot of the boring parts. Hear Marxy talk about the minutiae of his first visits to A Bathing Ape in 1998. Hear P. Macias talk about the high-pressure sales staff at Shibuya 109-2. Good news: it ends on an optimistic note.

Intro song: “1996″ by Cornelius
Ending song: “Volunteer Ape Man (Disco)” by Cornelius

Download: Harajuku Requiem: Marxy x Patrick Macias on Tokyo Fashion Past and Present
General Néojaponisme Podcast RSS Feed: .rss

Tobias Harris of Observing Japan and I hit Showa Era-themed izakaya Hanbey for some Hoppy and discussion on Japan’s status as a liberal democracy. Ironically, Japan’s best change of becoming a liberal democracy is the removal of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

In little under one hour, our conversation tackles the upcoming election, the Democratic Party of Japan’s (DPJ) agenda, and whether Japan will become more liberal and more democratic in the future. (This podcast was recorded on July 23.)

Download: Politics at Hanbey: Marxy x Tobias Harris on Japan as a Liberal Democracy (mp3 no longer available)
General Néojaponisme Podcast RSS Feed: .rss

According to Japanamerica author Roland Kelts, Patrick Macias is “an American otaku and blogger extraordinaire.” More accurately, he is the author of multiple books in both English and Japanese and currently the Editor-in-Chief of Otaku USA. Mr. Macias was in Tokyo a few weeks back, and we met over a discount tonkatsu lunch to talk about the state of Japanese recession and the current yankii cultural takeover. Luckily, a recording device captured our dialogue (and my total inability to enunciate words or complete sentences).

So please enjoy the hour-long mp3!

Download: The Tonkatsu Tapes: Marxy vs. Patrick Macias on Japanese Recessionary Culture
General Néojaponisme Podcast RSS Feed: .rss

Volume Two in this podcast series devoted to digging up punk and punk-derived music from Japan. This episode hops all over the nation and is a bit more stylistically eclectic in scope than Volume One. Bands from Hokkaido (Tranquilizer), Sendai (G-Spot), and Toyama (Z, Chaos C.H.) are represented, as well as the usual glut of folks from Tokyo and Osaka.

Abraham Cross, Slaver, and Disclose all feature straight-ahead, speedy numbers that are sure to make folks bop along. The standout oddball track is Ghoul’s gem “Jerusalem”, culled from an old Pusmort compilation (Pushead‘s old label which did a lot to bring Japanese hardcore and metal fare to U.S. collectors). It features a weird snoozer of a piano concerto which drops into a sludgy HC/metal number, followed up by questionable mega-riffage that brings to mind early D.C. bands like Kingface (not that Kingface was questionable, mind you…). It’s just a weird song– epic for its time.

Best song name probably goes to The Execute for “Inside of Human Outside of Human,” though Chaos C.H.’s “Boycott the Suck History” gives it a run for its money.

In all, Volume Two features 22 tracks and runs for 36 minutes and 27 seconds.

File: m4a
Feed: .rss feed for iTunes etc.

Volume One available here.

Track List:

1. Gastunk “Devil”
2. Lip Cream “Lonely Rock”
3. Lip Cream “No No Mercy”
4. G-Spot “Law Killer”
5. Sha-London “AntiAntiAnti”
6. Ghoul “Jerusalem”
7. S.O.B. “Slap in the Face”
8. Expose “Blue Accident”
9. The Execute “Inside of Human Outside of Human”
10. Slaver “Fried Chicken”
11. Idora “Helter Skelter”
12. D.O.N.D.O.N. “The End”
13. Chaos C.H. “Boycott the Suck History”
14. Final Count “Wild and Woolly”
15. Tranquilizer “Never Go To war”
16. Abraham Cross “Bad Circulate”
17. Iconoclast “Warlike Nation”
18. Disclose “Children Not Knowing Peace”
19. C.F.D.L. “45 Revolution
20. Disclose “Battlefield”
21. Anti Authoritize “Greed & Deceit & the Past Meaning”
22. Iconoclast “Peace and Blind”

For reference, Patrick has the nice, bold voice, while Marxy has the high-pitched nasal voice and talks while he eats.

(The photo in the graphic above was taken in a Nara gift shop last year.)

Download: Néojaponisme Podcast on Cool Japan
General Néojaponisme Podcast RSS Feed: .rss

As a skater/punk kid in the upstate New York countryside during the ’80s, a big factor in educating my would-be musical taste was reading Thrasher when I could get my hands on a copy. (Note that this was in the last few years that Thrasher still devoted a lot of time to punk.)

There were a number of articles on Japanese thrash and hardcore bands, stuff that would only make it into the hands of affluent record collectors in NYC, not the hayseed outskirts of Albany. I was consuming a steady diet of early thrash, speed metal, crossover, and punk and hardcore cassettes.

Somewhere along the way, a friend gave me a cassette that had a few Lipcream songs on it, and this was the proof in the pudding — the ferocity of those songs outmatched a lot of American bands. They were stripped-down, forceful, and grinding. No solos, no over-the-top glammy vocals, just hardcore-by-the-numbers, but played with speed and acumen that really stood out.

Fast forward 20 years and the wonder that is the internet has unearthed a ton of rips of vinyl from those golden years where I missed out on everything. I’ve been listening to a lot of them lately and have compiled what will potentially be the first in a series of podcasts that capture the essence of Japanese crust-oriented punk, hardcore, d-beat, thrash, and assorted metal micro-genres.

Volume One is fairly pan-Japanese in scope.Iconoclast hail from Kanazawa, Hakuchi from Niigata, D.O.N.D.O.N., Lipcream, and Disprove from Tokyo, Effigy from Takamatsu, and Gudon from Hiroshima. This volume is fairly Gudon-heavy, as I just really like their music — aggressive, fast, growling hardcore played with nerd-like technical ability and recorded with detailed production.

File: mp3
Feed: .rss feed for iTunes etc.

Track List:

1. Gudon “Hikashibou (Stoic Violence)” (from the “Hikashibou” EP, 1986)

2. Lipcream “Top Fight” (from the Anglican Scrape Fight compilation 7″ flexi)

3. Iconoclast “Silence equals death” (from the “Who Does the Freedom and Equality Exist For?” 7″ EP, 1985)

4. Hakuchi “The tragedy to be expected” (from the “Gods Disturb” 7″, 1993)

5. Damnable Excite Zombies “Sect (Suck your soul)” (from the “Suck Your Soul 7″, 1992)

6. Bastard “Slick plot” from the “Controlled in the Frame” 7″ EP, 1989)

7. Disclose “Just Another Warsystem” (from the Disclose/World Burns to Death split 7″, 2004)

8. Disprove “Deep mist” (from self-titled 7″)

9. D.O.N.D.O.N. “Nuclear Reek” (from the “Commercialism” 7″, 1990)

10. Warhead Junk “Troops to Murder” (from the Warhead Junk/Gudon “Bloodsucking Freaks” split 7″, 1991)

11. Iconoclast “Warlike Nation” (from the Meaningful Consolidation” 2×7″ EP)

12. Mink Oil “Youth of Height” (from the “Smashing Odds Ness!!” 8″ compilation, 1988)

13. Gudon “Burst your Head” (from the “Hikashibou” EP, 1986)

14. Gudon “Egger” (from the “Howling Communication” EP, 1987)

15. Effigy “Mortalwar” (from the Effigy/Aparat split 7″, 2000)

16. Effigy “From Hell (Summer Devils)” (from the “From Hell” 7″ single, 2001)

17. Gudon “Power of Dusk” (from the “Howling Communication” EP, 1987)

Soundmark vocals by Sam Farfsing and Snowy D. Bear. There is a surprise bonus track in here, as well. First person to correctly identify it wins this. (Hint: It contains Cookie Monster versus Skexi vocal stylings.)

In a few days, Néojaponisme will publish an interview with one of our musical heroes — Emori Takeaki (江森丈晃) of the bands Citrus and Yoga’n'ants.

Citrus was a legendary and mysterious indie-pop band on the Oyamada Keigo (aka Cornelius) imprint Trattoria Records. Yoga’n'ants is Emori’s latest project, which just last year released the rough-edged French-vocal jazz-pop record Bethlehem, We Are On Our Own.

Most Néojaponisme readers may not have heard these two cult-favorite musical units, so we decided to first release a music-and-chatter podcast as an introduction to Emori and the enigmas of his existence. We called up the biggest Citrus fan ever — Trevor of the Queens, NY indie record label Music Related (home to artists such as “Marxy”) — and chatted with him about the topic for exactly 34 minutes (including musical interludes). Hear us indulge in serious music nerd discussion and misstate Citrus song and album titles in hundreds of different ways!

Links:
Yoga’n'ants MySpace
Tone Twilight (Emori’s record label and design office)

Download: Néojaponisme Podcast on Citrus and Emori Takeaki
General Néojaponisme Podcast RSS Feed: .rss

Songs included (in order):

1. Citrus “Blue Mercedes (Simply Eternal Reality)” from the EP Wispy, No Mercy (2000)
2. Citrus “Colo Colo Meets the Stripes” from the compilation Bend It! JAPAN ’98 (1998)
3. Citrus “No Milk” from the seven-inch Citrus EP (1994)
4. Citrus “My Room is Burning” from the EP Citrus Plant for Little Kids (1994)
5. Citrus “Cymbal Hit! (Like my feelin’’)” from the EP BOAT,DRIVE IN (1996)
6. Yukari Rotten “C.L.I.J.S.T.E.R.S (Te Killed The Drums & Stick Version)” from the CD single C.L.I.J.S.T.E.R.S. (2004)
7. Citrus “Young Fidelity” from the EP Wispy, No Mercy (2000)
8. Sonic Coaster Pop “Sunny Side up!” from the mini-album future electro star
9. Plus-Tech Squeeze Box “Early Riser” from the album Fakevox (2000)
10. Yoga’n'ants “Pas Touche!” from the album Bethlehem, We Are On Our Own (2007)
11. Citrus “Tuesday Sunday Lazy Jazz feat. Inazzma*k” from the EP Splash! (1999)
12. Citrus “Colo Colo Meets NANAppella” from the seven-inch Colo Colo Meets the Stripes (1998)
13. Citrus “Tuesday Sunday Lazy Jazz” from the EP Splash! (1999)

(Art above from the Boat, Drive In CD insert.)

Part Three in our “Martians Go Home” revival: Flipper’s Guitar introduce us to their favorite psychedelic pop and motoneta (songs that provide the original sample source material for newer songs.)

Download: Martians Go Home 7.9.91 – Psychedelic Sound and Motoneta
Martians Go Home RSS Feed: .rss
General Néojaponisme Podcast RSS Feed: .rss

Part Two in our “Martians Go Home” revival: Flipper’s Guitar take on oshare club jazz and bossa nova.

Download: Martians Go Home 6.4.91 – Oshare
Martians Go Home RSS Feed: .rss
General Néojaponisme Podcast RSS Feed: .rss

English / 日本語

Download: Martians Go Home 5.28.91 – Funk-a-latina
Martians Go Home RSS Feed: .rss
General Néojaponisme Podcast RSS Feed: .rss