MORE SENSELESS ACTS OF BLOGGERY

Well, maybe not official. But it is an Olympics playlist. It’s four hours long and designed for people who don't really watch the Olympics. Or watch with the sound off. Or whatever.

Anyway, enjoy.



There goes Tokyo,

This is dF

Shonen Knife are now in their 33rd year – or at least Naoko Yamano is. And the group are still going strong.

Their new album, Overdrive, is out now. So is the first single.

Thin Lizzy tribute, anyone?

Of course it’s from Japan.



Is it not wonderful?

That there is Babymetal – essentially a J-pop girl group who sing and dance to death-metal instead of technopop. It’s a great idea that had to happen eventually.

Novelty? Sure. But why not?

“Proper” metal fans may hate them. That just makes me like them even more. If yr pissing off the purists, yr doing something right. 

Yr Globalization M&A lede of the day:



I don’t particularly object to this. I will say it reminds me of all the anti-Japanese sentiment in the 80s when Japanese companies started dominating the automobile market and buying out American companies and baseball teams and everyone was frightened by all this “globalization” hoodoo.

I didn’t care then, and I don’t really care now. It just knocks me out to think that a product that makes a big deal of its Kentucky origins is now owned by a Japanese company.

I’m sure somewhere on the interwebs (or possibly Fox News) some people are dithering over this blatant attack on American booze sovereignty.

They should just follow Bill Murray’s advice and relax.




Relaxed,

This is dF

Remember when Special Agent Dale Cooper sold out and did coffee commercials in Japan?

Let me refresh yr memory.









It’s a four-part mystery explained and wrapped up in two minutes – half of which is spent extolling the virtues of Georgia Coffee.

Now THAT’S storytelling.

And anyway, it makes about as much sense as Twin Peaks ever did.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I was a huge fan of Twin Peaks when it aired. But it did kind of lose the plot a third of the way through Season 2. And the less said about Fire Walk With Me the better.

Still, I regard Agent Cooper as one of the greatest TV characters ever created.

FUN FACT: Georgia Coffee wasn’t happy with the results of this campaign. Consequently, plans for a second series of commercials were scrapped.

It’s true,

This is dF

I’ve had mixed feelings about Daft Punk for awhile. I enjoyed their debut, which added a welcome element of retro funk to the techno scene at the time. Then they decided what they really wanted was to play disco love songs, at which point they got a little less interesting for me. 

For their “comeback” album, they haven’t changed their musical direction so much as expanded the palette with strings, brass, live drums and plenty of guest stars. The result is a very organic sounding album.

In some ways it’s an improvement, though the extensive use of vocoders and Autotune (presumably both an extension of the disco aesthetic and the duo’s insistence in pretending to be robots) can get grating, if only because everyone does that now. But there are plenty of highlights, the centerpiece of which (for me, anyway) is their homage to Giorgio Moroder.



Meanwhile, the other big dance-album event of the year – at least in Japan – is the new album from Denki Groove, who have been around longer than Daft Punk and have been more prolific, but have more in common with Kraftwerk than Moroder.

I tend to like their singles, and their new album has its moments. But too often it seems a little average. You can dance to it, but you can’t always groove to it.

Then again, like the new Daft Punk, it could grow on me. Also, no Autotune, which is a plus.

I’d share a track from the album with you, but it’s illegal unless you live in Japan.

So here’s some cover art for you.



Get lucky,

This is dF

A pachinko parlor in Shinjuku. 



A music store and a staircase in Ginza.

 

A shrine on a side street around the corner from my hotel.





And a few more things you can see here if yr so inclined.

Not much else to report, except that music store there? I spent a lot of time in it. The same can be said for Tower Records, Kinokuniya and Yaesu Book Centre. Because, as you know, my idea of sightseeing is hitting all the bookstores and record stores in town. 

And so much for Tokyo. It was too short a stay, and I hope it’s not another eight years before I get to go back.

Sayonara,

This is dF

I am in you. 

Specifically, I am in this tiny hotel room next to the Ginza.



Please enjoy the view.



It’s been awhile. The last time I set foot in Tokyo was probably nine or ten years ago. I’ve been to Japan a few times since then, but not Tokyo.

I used to travel here pretty regularly. I had a lot of fun. Of course, my idea of “fun” is spending a few hours in Tower Records Shinjuku looking for new Japanese bands. But there was also that time we went to a nightclub in Roppongi where they had a Beatles impersonation band called The Parrots. Musically they sounded just like the real thing. The stage banter was less so, though mainly because it’s hard to imagine John Lennon speaking Japanese.

There won’t be any of that this trip, probably – I’m only here for a couple of days. But there will be a Tower Records visit. You bet.

No music no life,

This is dF

But we do like the Caramelldansen.



Wave yr hands in the air,

This is dF

I have returned from Japan.

I have photos.

They’re probably good for at least a dozen posts. One day I may actually post them all. But for now it seems like too daunting a task, for various reasons.

Anyway, suffice to say it was a very busy week – although the reason I didn’t post anything whilst I was there wasn’t because I didn’t have time so much as I didn’t have any Internet connection.

Well, not one to speak of. As it happened, my hotel had free Internet in the rooms – but only if yr laptop has an Ethernet port.

And there I was with my new Mac Air, which is Wi-Fi only.

And there I was in a hotel whose Wi-Fi options were limited to either a pay service that only worked about 40% of the time, or a free service that either gave you 10 minutes of connectivity every three hours, or unlimited access provided you (1) let them spam you for six months and (2) provided them with a proper email address (i.e. no Webmail), after which you had to check yr email to confirm that it was yr email address – which you couldn’t do because you couldn’t access the Internet to confirm the email address until you’d confirmed yr email address by checking yr email.

See what they did there?

There was also the option of the coin-operated Internets in the lobby.



Ha ha. Very funny, Hilton.

Yes. So I had very little connectivity for the whole week. Which was a fine lesson in how the Internet has permeated our lives and how challenging it is to do without it, yadda yadda yadda blah blah blah.

The lesson: from now on I’m taking my four-year-old Macbook on trips because my new laptop is too advanced for some countries. (Or at least I’ll make a point of checking hotel web sites to make sure they have Wi-Fi in the f***ing rooms first.)

Okay. Broadcasting resumes.

Online and loving it,

This is dF