Showing posts with label Japan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Japan. Show all posts

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Friday, August 10, 2012

The Age Of Gundam Is Near...


Also, is that chick super sexy or what?

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Japanese Turntable Bike

Friday, March 23, 2012

Japanese Horse Race

Friday, January 27, 2012

Friday, October 28, 2011

This Is So Confusing

Japanese pre-teens doing metal.



Thanks, Japan!

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Japanese Cotton Candy Pop

Or insulation. Depending on how you look at it, I suppose.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Big Man Japan

I just watched this last night and it blew my mind.

Do yourself a favor and check it out .



Sunday, May 22, 2011

Bo-Taoshi

If there's no NFL this fall, how about if we give this sport a try:



...from Japan, natch.

Apparently the objective is for a team to defend their pole for two (some say three) minutes. If the pole tips 30 degrees or more for three seconds the defending team loses.

Friday, March 25, 2011

Get Well Soon Japan...

The situation in Japan has really bummed me out and stolen my attention for the past coupla weeks...

Thankfully, my family and friends out there are doing fine, but there's still plenty of people in need of your help. Even if it's just a couple of dollars, donate to the Red Cross' relief efforts in Japan if you can.

Remember, if not for Japan, we wouldn't be blessed with entertainment like this...



Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Monkey MaƮtre d'

I'm all about a monkey serving me a meal, but something about a monkey serving me food in a mask and wig totally creeps me out.



Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Captain Beatfart Mix #7 -> Wasabi Gas: A Full-Bodied Blend Of Japanese Funk, Fuzz & Pop

Beatfart Japan Mix Logo

I thought I'd try something a little different with this podcast; instead of a random assortment of mind-blowing tracks, this is a mix of mind-blowing Japanese tracks from the late 60s and early 70s. For the most part they all incorporate psychedelic fuzz, funk and pop in some form or another.

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Captain Beatfart Mix #7 -> Wasabi Gas: A Full-Bodied Blend Of Japanese Funk, Fuzz & Pop by Captain Beatfart

I went into this knowing the broad strokes, but not a ton about Japanese music from this era: The Spiders were the Japanese Beatles, The Finger 5 were the Japanese Jackson 5, Shinki Chen was the Japanese Jimi Hendrix; as well as some of the prog/proto-metal bands like the Flower Travellin' Band and Blues Creation.

I made it my mission while I was visiting Japan to try to find the Japanese James Brown.

Well, I failed*.

It turns out that while funk did seep into the Japanese consciousness in scattershot forms of funkiness, it never really took off as a scene in Japan like rock and later, disco did.

Despite not finding the Japanese equivalent of JB, I stumbled into a lot of great music while I was there, ate a lot of ramen, met a lot of great people in Japan (and some not so great, like the dickhead manager at the Disk Union in the Nihonbashi area of Osaka who kicked me out the store for bringing too many records to the listening station despite the clerk letting me do so...but that's water under the bridge...) and spent way too much time and money looking for records. I meant to put this mix out in May, but I kept finding more and more great shit online and at fairs so I kept putting it off. I finally decided that I had to put it out now since I'd never stop uncovering new stuff, so here it is.

You probably won't like everything I put on here, but chances are pretty good that even the most fervent musicus nerdus among you won't know most (or any) of the music in here. There's been a ton of compilations covering Brazilian, Indian, Nigerian and even Thai music, but Japan's music scene has been largely ignored in the Western reissue scene aside from a handful GS comps (I'm not sure if this is a case of expensive licensing or apathy). I listened to literally about 8 days worth of music to boil it down to the 30 or so tracks I put in this hour long mix. I'll no doubt be sprinkling more Japanese stuff in future podcasts (specifically stuff by P-Model & The Plastics who I love but didn't really fit with the rest of this stylistically) and look forward to being able to free my mind from obsessing over this for a while.

I hope you like it...

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Feel free to spread it!

*There is a guy named Zainichi Funk who put out a record earlier this year who does a pretty faithful JB thing, but I was mostly focusing on trying to find artists from the 60s~70s rather than modern artists for this podcast. You can check out Zainichi Funk's video here.

Friday, August 13, 2010

"We're Merely Demonstrating The Efficacy Of Our Camera"







That's all...

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Broken Wear

Monday, December 21, 2009

I Should've Learned To Throw A Knuckleball (sigh)...

Eri Yoshida is 5'1" and only 17 years old

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and after becoming the first female to play (semi) professional baseball in Japan, she will be bringing her nasty 50mph knuckleball to the Yuma Scorpions in the Arizona Winter League beginning this January.

Saturday, November 21, 2009