Category: Music

Downright bodacious

I watched the first episode of Mouretsu Pirates twice in two days. The last series I did that for was Madoka a year ago. Pirates has a lot in its favor, including:

Space pirates.

Tatsuo Sato.

A meganekko with a hime haircut and a sailor suit.

A bunny, a ducky and a pink bobblehead pig.

An absence of in-your-face fanservice. ((No surprise, given that Sato’s Shingu featured an outstanding example of anti-fanservice.))

There are a few negatives, e.g., green lipstick, skinny ties and really bad haircuts.

The positives greatly outweigh the negatives, and Mouretsu Pirates looks like, at the very least, a fun show. With Sato at the helm, there’s a good chance that the series will be a satisfyingly complex story and not just an excuse to put pirate hats on pretty girls.

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A bit of music:

It’s not just for humans.

If French is the language of love, what is German the language of?

(The latter via John C. Wright.)

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2011 is over. Good riddance. It was a thoroughly crummy year for me, ((2011 was a good year for volcanoes.)) and I am not going to compile any retrospective posts. If you want to know about the year in anime, see Ubu’s recaps here and here.

Parachutes and bumbershoots

Here’s some music that caught my ear recently.

Kinoco Hotel has the ’60’s psychedelic sound down cold, straight from the garage.

If Chabrier and Satie formed a string band, they might sound a little like Shugo Tokumaru.

Here’s a piano arrangement of the above tune.

Pop music with a high-gloss finish: Tokyo Incidents, featuring Shiina Ringo.

I’ve also been listening to some “Tokyo virginity pop,” as Urbangarde labels their music. Imagine Hatsune Miku as a real singer in an avante garde-ish band. I don’t like any of their videos — the visuals range from pretentious and silly to pretentious and distasteful (I wonder what percentage of their operating budget goes toward fake blood) — so I’ll just refer you to their website. There are links to videos there; the music sounds better if don’t actually watch the videos but only listen.

I’ll close with another Tokumaru tune.

The triumph of dullness

Here’s a list.

Who’s missing? Here’s a name: Yes. Here are some other names: King Crimson, John Mayall, the Pogues, Deep Purple, Fairport Convention, ELP, Joe Satriani and Weird Al. I can add many more, and so can you. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame claims that “… musical excellence shall be the essential qualification of induction,” but are the Sex Pistols really better musicians than the band that recorded Fragile? In my lexicon, “critic” is a synonym for “idiot.” It’s nice that someone remembers the Small Faces, but induction into the R&RHoF is as meaningless an honor as the Nobel Peace Prize.

Not entirely unrelated: Twelve extremely disappointing facts about popular music.

(Via Professor Mondo.)

Bonus stupidity: Pearl Harbor? It was all America’s fault.

Miscellaneous notes

I discovered this downtown this past weekend. I’m not sure what it is, but because it is big, prominent and ugly, it’s probably art.

Some perhaps not-unrelated art news.

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Chinese science education might not be quite as rigorous as thought.

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… Studio 4C has taught me that, if it’s pretty enough, I won’t mind if it’s nonsense

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Election notes:

I like his attitude.

End post-mortem discrimination.

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For guitar aficionados, a proposition from a thread on Roy Buchanan and Danny Gatton:

Roy’s playing: like a funeral. Danny’s playing: like a carnival.

If Buchanan’s playing is funereal, it’s one hell of a service.

Bonus video: a twelve-year-old Joe Bonamassa plays Gatton’s telecaster.

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The idea of a maid café is a bit creepy, but this one might be worth visiting for its name.

(Via dotclue.)

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A couple of notes for volcano watchers:

There’s a natural jacuzzi near El Hierro in the Canary Islands.

Nyamuragira in the Congo is putting on a nice display of lava fountains.

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Altogether ookie

Some favorite spooky, creepy anime-related tunes and videos for the Halloween weekend.

Ghost Hound was a major disappointment, but the opening song, Mayumi Kojima’s “Poltergeist,” is terrific.

Here is Susumu Hirasawa’s “Parade” from Paprika, illustrated with scenes from the movie.

(Although Hirasawa may be best-known to anime fans for his soundtracks to Satoshi Kon’s work, he’s had a long and interesting career stretching back to the ’70’s. Of particular note is his influential synth-rock band P-Model. Look for the first album, In a Model Room (good luck finding it), and see where Hiroyuki Hayashi really got his ideas. (There’s also a K-On connection, which you can discover for yourself.))

Here’s the cheerful, upbeat ending song to the heartwarming series Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei (So Long, Mr. Despair).

The opening of Hakaba Kitaro (Graveyard Kitaro) was storyboarded by the spasmodically brilliant Kenji Nakamura in Shigeru Mizuki’s style.

Here’s something you might remember from years gone by.

Let’s end with a tender lullaby by Hirasawa from Paranoia Agent. ((If you want something a little livelier, try the opening.))

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Bonus link: Jack Chick meets H.P. Lovecraft.

Trivia and silliness

Life continues insane. Banging my head against the wall hasn’t done much good, so I’m seeing how well tearing my hair out works. Here is some frivolity to amuse you while I try to figure out how I ever got marooned on this ridiculous planet.

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Ubu speculates on sequels to various anime series:

Grenadier: In which Rushuna has to go into the hospital for back surgery.

In the sequel to Divergence Eve, it’s the entire female cast.

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I found it here.

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Professor Mondo has posted a couple of tunes from his band’s forthcoming EP. You can listen to them here. If you like ’60’s garage rock, you might find them quite listenable. I particularly recommend “Garden Girl” if you have a taste for cheesy Vox organ.

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A couple of major events come up next month.

• Warren Harding, thinking outside of his wooden box, is campaigning for President in the 2011 elections, cleverly cutting his opponents off a year early.

• You’ve heard of Plan Nine from Outer Space, Manos: The Hands of Fate and Robot Monster, of course, but how about King Kung Fu? It’s allegedly as bad as any of them, and it was made right here in Wichita. One of my acquaintances in the SCA had a role in the movie. He refuses to discuss it. ((Another SCA friend was in Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. You can identify her by the paper bag over her head.)) It will be shown on the big screen, quite possibly for the last time ever, a week from tomorrow. I probably should attend this historic event, but I’m pretty sure I have something else I need to do then.

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“Truly, you are a frequent flyer!”

(Via the Anchoress.)

Winfield notes

Guitarist Akihiro Tanaka and flutist Toshio Kishimoto
Guitarist Akihiro Tanaka and flutist Toshio Kishimoto

When the international market for anime collapses, Japan can export fingerpickers. Akihiro Tanaka took second place in the International Fingerstyle Championship at the Walnut Valley Festival two years ago, first place last year, and was a featured performer this year. Meanwhile, Tomoake Kawabata placed second in this year’s contest Thursday.

Tomoaki Kawabata
Tomoaki Kawabata

Continue reading “Winfield notes”

In the pink

This has been a brutal year (-17°F in February, 110°+ repeatedly this summer) and it shows in gardens. Yews and arbor vitae are badly damaged if not dead, hostas are shriveled and sugar maples have few intact leaves left for their fall display. However, the naked ladies, a.k.a. Lycoris sqamigera, spent the worst of the heat undeground and look just dandy right now.

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I’m going to be away from the computer for a few days. While I’m gone, you can study the saxophone solo in “Tank!”

Name that tune

Steven wonders if the background music in this scene from Dog Days is Mozart, perhaps from one of his opera overtures. I don’t recognize it, but my knowledge of Mozart and opera is not encyclopedic. Can you identify it?

[audio:http://shuffly.net/audio/Dog Days mystery tune.mp3]

One of the companies that worked on Dog Days is called “Studio Arkansas.” I wonder if they actually are from there.

Update: If the player above doesn’t work for you, try this.

Mystery tune

The Sultan of Schmaltz, and the essence of jazz

Pat Metheny on the Emperor of Elevator Music. (Via the professor.)

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Probably apocryphal, but worth reading anyway: Yogi Berra explains jazz.

Interviewer: “What do expect is in store for the future of jazz guitar?”
Yogi: “I’m thinkin’ there’ll be a group of guys who’ve never met talkin’ about it all the time..”
Interviewer: Can you explain jazz?
Yogi: I can’t, but I will. 90% of all jazz is half improvisation. The other half is the part people play while others are playing something they never played with anyone who played that part. So if you play the wrong part, it’s right. If you play the right part, it might be right if you play it wrong enough. But if you play it too right, it’s wrong.
Interviewer: I don’t understand.
Yogi: Anyone who understands jazz knows that you can’t understand it. It’s too complicated. That’s what’s so simple about it.
Interviewer: Do you understand it?
Yogi: No. That’s why I can explain it. If I understood it, I wouldn’t know anything about it.
Interviewer: Are there any great jazz players alive today?
Yogi: No. All the great jazz players alive today are dead. Except for the ones that are still alive. But so many of them are dead, that the ones that are still alive are dying to be like the ones that are dead. Some would kill for it.
Interviewer: What is syncopation?
Yogi: That’s when the note that you should hear now happens either before or after you hear it. In jazz, you don’t hear notes when they happen because that would be some other type of music. Other types of music can be jazz, but only if they’re the same as something different from those other kinds.
Interviewer: Now I really don’t understand.
Yogi: I haven’t taught you enough for you to not understand jazz that well.

A post including the word “paradox” and a mention of G.K. Chesterton, but not in the same paragraph

Very miscellaneous links and curiosities.

Quote of the week:

Lutherans are not Baptists. Catholics are not evangelicals. Methodists are not Presbyterians. Presbyterians are not Anglicans. No one is an Episcopalian.

From the same authority, an appreciation of Joseph Levitch.

Paging AC/DC.

A paradox of quantum etymology.

Expected real-life Batman generation rate.

The inverse law of sanity.

Schopenhauer in the key of E minor: Heavy metal keeps us sane. (Yeah, right. Oh, and G.K. Chesterton was a proto-metalhead.)

Tasted like chicken.

Is the heat wearing you out? There’s plenty of snow at Lassen Volcanic National Park.

Minimalist Marvel posters.

When it comes to Wonder Woman redesigns, skirts beat pants. Colleen Doran did some “high fantasy” concept drawings of WW, which you can see here, here and here.

Want your very own action figure, just like Danny Choo?

Who needs real musicians anymore? Who needs real singers? All you need are a computer, some good instrument sample sets and a troupe of Vocaloids. Here’s a lively twelve-minute musical vaguely based on Lewis Carroll. (I note with annoyance that the Cheshire Nekomimi doesn’t have a grin.)

Some of the above via The Rat, Jonathan Tappan, Project Rooftop and Vocaloidism.

Fashion history

While digitizing historical documents this past weekend, I discovered that “lolita” fashion predates Mana and Baby the Stars Shine Bright by several decades. Here is a primitive example from 1968:

Spoiler

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For the curious, here are a couple of the artifacts I digitized. The first is from 1968, the second from 1970.

[audio:http://tancos.net/audio/03 Flower Punk.mp3]

[audio:http://tancos.net/audio/13 Oh No_The Orange County Lumber Truck.mp3]

Post script: It took me 45 minutes to publish this little post. This would be unacceptable behavior for a free web host, and it’s inexcusable for one I pay. If you are looking for a company to host your website, do not pick AN Hosting.

Nostalgic for the ’60’s?

Neither am I.

I spent part of the weekend digitizing ancient vinyl, including some Significant Historical Documents. Here’s one from 1968:

[audio:http://tancos.net/audio/01 Who Needs the Peace Corps_.mp3]

Here’s a tune for my brother:

[audio:http://tancos.net/audio/Evelyn a Modified Dog.mp3]