Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
This world premiere performance as part of Sydney Opera House Graphic (“a weekend of storytelling, animation & music”) features Tekkonkinkreet screened with live music performed by London-based British electronic duo Plaid, who composed the original score to the film, accompanied by Sydney’s eclectic string quartet FourPlay and Australia’s premiere percussion group Synergy. The Sydney fu&#)ng Opera House. How cool is that?! Sydney Opera House, Opera Theater Sun 21 August, 11 AM Further details here. Posted by Mike (skirting the razor-thin boundary between news and shameless self-promotion). Reports from the event forthcoming!
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[youtube]SGGYBbVxmmw[/youtube] Goh Nakamura is a singer / songwriter hailing out of Saratoga, California. Most know him as a “folk-ish” musician, but little know his past as a shredding guitar player. He attended the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston straight from high school and learned with some of the best in the country. Goh Nakamura on guitar. The idea for this short film came from knowing that Goh can play intense solos, but most of you will never see him perform them. The video was shot at Hakone Gardens, the first and oldest Asian and Japanese Estate in the West, and not far from Goh Nakamura’s residence.
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I don’t get out much, but when I do, it counts. On Saturday night, Asobi Seksu came back to town. You might recall the interview I did a while back… After catching the band at a larger venue like The Troubadour, I was excited to see them at a dive such as The Satellite (ex-Spaceland). On one hand, the vibe was a lot less formal and way more casual, which I prefer. On the other, the sound totally sucked when the first song kicked in! I’m no audiophile and usually don’t even notice stuff like that, but a bitchin’ song like Trails absolutely requires the soaring vocals to balance out the grinding guitars. Fortunately, the mix got worked out sooner than later, and the band ripped through another mind-bending set of their ultra heavy, super dreamy psychedelic rock. They seemed to throw in some more really old stuff during this visit, which was very cool. Next up was Prince, who was finishing up his “21 Night Stand” of Los Angeles, and this was actually the third show of his visit that I attended. There are only a handful of cases in which I binged on music like this. After being blown away by the Repeater tour when I was in college, every time Fugazi played multiple nights in L.A. I’d attend them all because they’d tweak songs in each performance, creating massively different sets. In total contrast, The Ramones would play the same songs the same way every time, but they did it perfectly and I wouldn’t miss a show of theirs for three years or so after high school. And when the reunited Descendents played a string of shows at the Whisky, I had to catch three of the nights because I didn’t know if I’d ever see them again. Prince… Well, this will require a separate post. Let’s just say no one has mastered or mixed funk, R&B, soul, jazz, and psychedelic rock like the Purple Yoda. And like The Ramones, he has created his own style of music. Like The Descendents, he has spawned, inspired, and even produced an entire scene of related bands. And like Fugazi, he plays each concert differently. Also like Fugazi, he clamped down on ticket prices during this stint… Twice I got killer seats for only 25 bucks including service charges! The three-day, three-show weekend ended in Westwood. When I went to college, I used to skateboard to Rhino Records all the time. I bought a ton of vinyl there, and saw a ton of cool musicians and bands there, too. Once I introduced myself to Mike Watt and then totally fanned out while he was perusing at the wall of used cassettes. Then he asked me to follow him to his van, where he handed me a fIREHOSE 7″ single and signed it for me. They also had free in-stores often, and it’s the first place where I saw Peg-Boy as well as The Hard-Ons. (Of course you rock out to...
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The two new releases by Boris, Heavy Rocks and Attention Please, are amazing pieces of work that reinforce how much the Tokyo trio can totally rip as well as well as how they refuse to be chained down to one genre or style of music. Psychedelic shredders, droning sludge, and even some ambient noise are present–and how–but what about straight-up pop? Hell, yes. (Longer reviews are here.) I hit up the drummer/vocalist Atsuo with some questions about the band’s latest earth-shakers as well as Japan’s recent activity, receiving big help from Nao with translation. MW: Were you envisioning two albums from the start, or were you simply out of your minds recording? Can you talk about your intentions going into the studio and what you emerged with? A: While supporting Smile on tour in many countries starting in 2008, we took time to keep recording and finished what we called New Album [totally different from the current Japanese release] in May 2009. It began with the idea of making music to be put on hold so we wouldn’t have so much pressure performing as Boris, and could work with free minds. Meanwhile, from 2008 to 2010, the circumstances surrounding music changed. It became something that is viewed as merely data, our music was illegally shared, and new songs got leaked before their official release. So we didn’t know what to do with New Album and literally gave up on releasing it, in the end. Then we made more songs, split up the original New Album, and, heading into the next ones, could see two directions. One was typically heavy; the other featured our guitarist Wata’s voice on all the songs. Then we had two albums: Heavy Rocks and Attention Please. MW: There is a number of friends who appear on Heavy Rocks. In addition to Michio Kurihara, there’s Ian Astbury (The Cult), Aaron Turner (ISIS), Faith Coloccia (MAMIFFER)… How do you work them into your sound? For example, are they in the studio working out their contribution or do you envision their part beforehand? A: When we collaborate, we basically give guest players as few directions as possible so that each person’s world can flow naturally. Words can be an obstacle. We like to see and hear what happens and how the songs grow. We listen to the songs, which tell us their directions. MW: There are parts of Attention Please that seem like they’ll be hard to pull of live–or at least will require some new gear on the road. Do you think about stuff like that when you write songs or do songs just happen and you figure them out? A: Playing live is totally different from recording, where we are lead by the music. Our live set is meant not to recreate the sounds we recorded, although we do think about how to translate it. MW: The terrible earthquake struck not too long after the albums were finished. Do you think you could have made the same albums afterward? Has the experience changed your...
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[youtube]Q44Elu6QmME[/youtube] Andrea, yes, that’s her name is a rapper. I’m not the giant hip hop expert, but I do like the usage of technology. Her music video incorporates QR codes that actually work. I tried a couple with iPhone and yes, it works straight off the screen. I did hit pause to get a good scan, but sure enough I got some “extras.” It’s a matter of time, before QR codes are everywhere, I think?! Weren’t people saying this ages ago? It’s still not here, but it’s throughout Shin-B’s music video, which alleges itself as being the first which is great. I don’t know why I haven’t caught word of this video in more places!
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