Sizing up national tour ‘Japan Nite 2008’
In what promises to be one of the most intriguing J-pop incursions in recent years, “Japan Nite 2008” blows through America in March. This tour is cool in that its backers, SXSW Music Asia and Benten Tokyo, make it easy on the groups with a lightning 10-day, eight-stop tour in major U.S. cities. This minimizes exhaustion and maximizes fun.
Dates follow:
*** March 14 (Friday) AUSTIN, Texas @Elysium
*** March 16 (Sunday) NEW YORK @Knitting Factory
*** March 17 (Monday) BOSTON @ TT The Bears
*** March 18 (Tuesday) CHICAGO @ Empty Bottle
*** March 19 (Wednesday) DENVER @ TBA
*** March 20 (Thursday) SEATTLE @ Hi Dive
( Note: Ketchup Mania is not performing in Seattle)
*** March 21 (Friday) S.F. @ Independent
*** March 23 (Sunday) L.A. @ Knitting Factory
Bands include:
*** Avengers in Sci-Fi*** Detroit 7
*** Ketchup Mania
*** Quartz-Head 02
*** Petty Booka (warning: Bluegrass girls)
*** Sodopp, an all-girl garage rock trio
*** The Emeralds
*** Scandal, compared to Morning Musume
*** The Beaches
Band profiles here:
http://sxsw-asia.com/JapanNite2008/index.html
Full details here:
http://www.zbsatozofjmusic.com/2008/02/japan-nite-2008.html
Highlights: Avengers is very interesting and features mainly instrumental tracks, and Quartz-Head is along the same lines, only jazz-oriented. Not much could be scraped up on The Beaches , but five of these bands – Detroit 7, Ketchup Mania, Petty Booka, Sodopp and Scandal– have female lede singers and they’re all screamers, except for Booka, which appears to be a traditional Don Ho-style, acoustic-ukelele ensemble. Count 'em: Five lede singers are girls. That's all the excuse I need to get my tickets lined up.
Ketchup Mania will not be a quiet act, and has caught on recently in Japan. Sodopp's lone single on the Internet, "Pop Rider" (2006), is beautifully simple. It might sound childish at first, but it grows on you fast! Check it at: http://www.myspace.com/sodopp.
Scandal, with its 19-year-old lede singer and 16-year-old drummer along with two 17-year-olds – should probably still be attending high school in Japan rather than touring. But that’s another story.
Overall, pretty nice set of head-bangers, if they all show up. Ketchup Mania is not included in the Seattle stop (March 20), and on the San Francisco ticket, only six of the nine bands – The Beaches, Petty Booka, Detroit 7, Ketchup Mania , The Emeralds and Scandal– are listed. The fact that the San Francisco show is on a Friday night bodes very well for this tour. That means I get to go!
Scandal the headliner? Check out their Web site (http://www.scandal-4.com) and accordant MySpace page and find out why that might be so. And, “Oh, are YOU the Play-boy?”
Tour organizers picked these bands by auditioning more than 100 groups in Japan, I'm told. You're getting the best of the garage set, for sure, and hopefully not just a cluster of musicians playing to U.S. tastes.
Bottom line? This is a rare shot to see and hear a lot of J-pop/J-rock (even J-country, for that matter) for very little cash. And with all these tour stops there's bound to be a venue within driving distance for almost anybody in the country. What are you waiting for? Get your tickets and stop complaining about the lack of J-music in America because here ... it ... is!
The Emeralds are described as a "Samurai rock-n-roll trio" because of songs like this:
This is Radicalipton signing off -- for now.
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Comments
Hey, did you see you made IW? Your historical posts of early Momusu really woke everyone up, including me! See you around 7 at The Independent, 3/21. I'll have my black Nike reverse-tam on (and Kagome on my shoulder!). Give me a private e-mail and I'll forward you my latest cell number. Congrats, and great blogging my friend!
http://www.bloggerparty.com/blog/radreview
Are you a Texan, Rockin' Sake?
http://www.bloggerparty.com/blog/radreview
Is Austin really that far away? I've been in Austin a couple times for conferences, and it seems like a rockin' place. Some of my in-laws, including five (count 'em, five) nieces live in Ft. Worth, so I try to stay as far away from them as I can. I'm in California's Central Valley, er, I mean, North Mexico!
Hey Rad! Now that Japan Nite is getting closer... I've been really enjoying the three tracks I've heard from SCANDAL and was wondering... if they are selling their CD's there, is there any chance you could (as a fellow SCANDAL enthusiast) get me a copy also of any/all of their CD's they might have there? Any demos or singles or whatever CD's they might have there up for sale. I'd consider buying them myself but they are only sold at several Tower Records shops in Japan and you can't order stuff from outside of Japan from there, to my knowledge. If you could, I would of course send you the amount it cost, the postage you need and surely a couple of bucks for your trouble too through PayPal or so.
Of course I won't be offended if you'd rather not, I realize you barely even know me and I'm just a random, weird Finnish person asking this out of the blue. ;) So don't hesitate to say if you don't want to, it's not a problem at all.
@Henkka: Scandal's CD technically isn't supposed to be released yet, but I will definitely pick up a few spares if they are on sale there. I only hope Scandal shows up; they're down to anchor the show.
One strange thing I noticed some of the other tour stops are doing is that they're making each band play up to a full HOUR each! Sheesh, in Boston the show goes 6 hours and the best groups aren't up until past midnight. I hope the San Francisco stop isn't like that, but the starting time is LATE: 9 p.m.! That's well past Scandal's bedtime I'm sure.
Anyway, thanx for touching base!