Happy Birthday, first to my generation’s Elvis – Mr. Costello to you – who turns 56 today:

…and to Miyabi Natsuyaki of Buono! and Berryz Koubou – she whose T-shirt on the “Yuke! Yuke! Monkey Dance” single cover inspired this blog’s name – who turns 18 today:

Apparently, it’s also Gene Simmons’ birthday today, but given recent developments on his part, I’d rather kick his mother in the cunt instead for what she did 61 years ago…

At the time of this writing, the 11th Annual Gathering of the Juggalos, a four-day fan convention/concert festival organized by Insane Clown Posse and their long-running independent label Psychopathic Records, is taking place at Cave-In-Rock, Illinois. The festival, whose lineup includes the entire current Psychopathic label roster and a slew of other underground and classic hip-hop acts (past lineup have included everyone from Ice-T and Three 6 Mafia — both of whom have recorded with ICP in the past — to fellow indie travelers like Tech N9ne and Kottonmouth Kings) as well as everything from carnival rides to wrestling shows, has pretty much run under the radar, save for last year when Saturday Night Live saw fit to run a parody of the festival’s online “infomercial” – something that ICP leader Joseph “Violent J” Bruce found “hilarious” and took as “a humongous compliment”.

This year’s festival had many of the usual suspects plus one seeming thumb in the ointment: reality star and would-be recording artist Tila Tequila.

What the fuck? was the reaction I had when I watched this year’s GOTJ infomercial and saw that Ms. Tequila was booked as part of Friday night’s “Ladies Night” second-stage concert lineup, headlined by Lil Kim. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one thinking that, but I let it pass.

According to various reports (including the tacky gossip site TMZ.com), Ms. Tequila took the stage and in her own words (complete with spelling/grammatical errors that TMZ either missed or didn’t bother to correct), claimed “DUDES were throwing HUGE STONE ROCKS in my face, beer bottles that slit my eye open, almost burnt my hair on fire cuz they threw fire crackers on stage, and they even took the sh*t out of the port-0-potty and threw shit and piss at me when I was onstage. These people were trying to kill me.  So then after the last blow to my head with the firecracker they threw at me exploded, my bodygaurd and the other security grabbed me and ran as fast as they could to the shitty trailor.  Since their security SUCKS, the 2 thousand people ran after us, trying to kill me.  They almost got me so they finally reach the trailor, blood all over myself, cant stop bleeding, then all of a sudden, all 2 thousand people surround the trailor and busts the windows!!!  Even the guys INSIDE with me were shaking!  Their hands were shaking cuz they were so scared!  So 3 guys inside the trailor had to grab a table and push it over the broken windows and grabbed all the chairs they could find so hold the people from outside back.  It was scary as hell!”

There is one thing related to the ICP/Psychopathic audience that could be pointed at with regard to their reaction to Ms. Tequila’s presence. One of the contributors to the ICP/Psychopathic fan site Faygoluvers.net suggests that Psychopathic should “stop asking all these has-been mainstream people that we don’t want to see to perform at the Gathering. Save the thousands you pay these people and let’s go back to Underground acts preforming. I’d much rather see a Juggalo band do a 20 minute set than half the people stated to perform this year.” That having been said, it’s probably safe to say that, given that many of the acts booked to perform at GOTJ this year (and in years past) were picked for one good reason or another by Joseph Bruce and his ICP partner, Joseph “Shaggy 2 Dope” Utsler, to be part of the festival. These is also something to be said at having any mainstream acts show up to perform at the Gathering – given that at the 2002 festival, Bubba Sparxxx, notorious for his hit single “Miss New Booty”, got booed off the stage, an incident that gave rise to the term “Bubba Sparxxx Award” (as in, for least welcome performer at a Gathering) entering the Juggalo lexicon.

Other reports, however, have Ms. Tequila taunting the audience – not a very good idea for any performer to do to any audience (unless you’re Iggy Pop circa 1974 and you’re blessed with the intelligence to deliver classic comebacks like “You’re paying $10 and I’m making $10,000, so screw ya.”) and baring her breasts at the crowd, which, according to an eyewitness account given to CNN, pissed the crowd off even more.

It probably doesn’t help that Ms. Tequila has a reputation for exaggerating every incident in her personal life just to keep her name in the spotlight one way or another. At least three times, she has claimed on Twitter and elsewhere to be pregnant… and one of the alleged fathers of her mythical fetuses, says Ms. Tequila, was rapper The Game. who had no trouble denying her claims. She also went on a Twitter spree earlier this year when she bumped her head on a wall and proceeded to exaggerate the extent of her condition.

The incident at GOTJ gave her another excuse to go on a Twitter rant, threatening to sue the organizers and bankrupt ICP and their label. One wonders if she’ll leave out the fact that she tweeted her plan to bring a “TON of cool shit [to] spray at the crowd”.

Wait a second. She was going to bring stuff to “spray at the crowd.”

Um, Ms. Tequila? The last time I checked, the only act that was allowed to spray anything at an Insane Clown Posse audience is Insane Clown Posse themselves… that anything being sprayed would happen to be random varieties of the soft drink brand Faygo:

Simply put, if she did this as promised on Twitter, then an audience of ICP fans certainly got upset at the fact that an F-list internet celebrity with little or no discernible talent at anything (other than being, for lack of a shorter and kinder description, a professional attention whore) was stealing parts of J’s and Shaggy’s onstage shtick.

Also, with regard for her habit of constantly drawing attention to herself, it should be noted that Ms. Tequila herself submitted the story of the incident to TMZ earlier Saturday. All of the wounds she displays in the photos – all taken by her lonesome like the MySpace “celebrity” that she is – appear rather superficial.

When I first heard of the incident early Saturday evening, I joked on Twitter that the incident made me a bigger ICP fan. (I am an ICP fan and this incident did nothing to lessen that, especially since it isn’t their fault – they did want her to perform there and I’m sure J and Shaggy aren’t too happy with the incident either.) Given the nature of firing off the joke/tweet so quickly, I had to apologize and clarify that I wasn’t advocating violence against women at all. My reaction would have been different if it had been someone I actually liked, obviously. But from most of the reactions I’ve seen online about this incident, it’s safe to say that Tila Tequila isn’t exactly gaining a whole lot of sympathy for her plight. Tweeting your every move, no matter how exaggerated or fabricated, will certainly be a good reason why.

My clarification aside, the only other thing I should have to apologize for is that I devoted blog space to this walking mattress cover in the first place!

Being a creature of habit, especially as a newlywed, I tend to leave my BlackBerry on overnight while it charges, albeit with the ringer set to “Phone calls only” in case of any family emergencies. This is especially good, because I have a couple of close friends’ Twitter accounts as well as some music and news sites’ Twitters set to send their tweets to my text message – the better to get any breaking news. Had I failed to turn off my ringer for the evening, my wife probably would have clobbered me for the flurry of SMS messages that came up in the middle of the night, especially from Hello! Online and my blogging/writing BFF Vee.

All of which related to this big announcement from Tsunku that came up while I slept:

Big announcement from the Morning Musume camp:

About the graduation of Eri Kamei, 6th generation member:

Eri Kamei came to me several times regarding her health condition. One time, she said to me : “I would like to find the time to cure the atopic dermatitis that I’m suffering from”.

Since the time she joined the Morning Musume, it looks like she was dealing with symptoms like itching and slight skin color changes. She took medication to calm the symptoms down and she also used make-up to cover it but during live concerts, there is a lot of sweat and many outfits to put on, which made her recovery very difficult.
Some may say it is “just a skin problem” but according to doctors, an external problem like skin problem may move to an internal level. It may as well have an impact on her spirit, her mental level. Also, for her, it is a serious thing so she decided to focus on her recovery instead of letting it continue.

Eri Kamei will graduate from Morning Musume and the Hello! Project on the last day of the Morning Musume?Autumn 2010 concert tour. As for her activities after that, I intend to discuss with her after her full recovery.

About the graduation of Jun Jun and Lin Lin, 8th generation members (foreign students)

In May 2005, both of them joined the Morning Musume as foreign students and today, while being skilled singers and entertainers, they also greatly improved their Japanese proficiency and they are now grown-up women. This is why I took the decision to graduate both of them at the same time as Eri Kamei on the last day of the Morning Musume?Autumn 2010 concert tour.
After graduation, they will enter a period of preparation before focusing on their singing and entertaining career in China.

August 8th 2010
Morning Musume? Producer
Tsunku?

Followed, as always, by statements from the band members themselves:

Eri Kamei: As Tsunku? said, I will graduate on the last day of the Autumn 2010 Tour from the Morning Musume? to focus on my health. It is my decision but let me reassure you, my condition is not that serious. I just wanted to focus on my recovery for a while because lately, I was thinking a lot about how I could become a pretty woman. I took this decision with that in mind.

But I really love to do concerts so today and until the Autumn Tour, I am counting on you to sing, dance and have fun with me.

Thank you for your continued support.

Jun Jun: Since I came to Japan, I did and I learned so many things. Thank you so much.
But what really made me happy was to meet all of you, I am so thankful for this.
With this emotion in my heart, I want to make more and more happy memories with you.

Until my graduation at the end of Morning Musume? Autumn Tour, I intend to sing with all my heart.

Thank you for your support until the very last day. Thank you all.

Lin Lin: Since I first joined the Hello! Project Egg and then the Morning Musume?, I was so happy every single day. Of course, I sometimes missed my home but thanks to everyone around me and all of your support, I now feel that Japan and the Hello! Project is like my home.

During the Autumn Tour, I intend to sing with everything I got so I count on your support and I hope to see you there.

Wo Ai Ni.

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Somehow I thought that something major was going to happen in J-Pop during my two weeks of honeymoon, and just in time for the last day before I have to go back to my day job, it did.

Erena Ono, a member of AKB48′s Team K (Megumi Ohori was one of her bandmates before she was moved to SDN48) that has been on all of their major single A-sides and one of my favorite members of the group, is graduating from the band soon, reportedly to pursue first educational activities and then more entertainment work outside of the AKB universe. No date has been given for her final show, as far as I can tell.

To say that this is a major shockwave in AKB48 fandom is an understatement, given that the 4’11″, soon-to-be-17-year-old is one of the band’s most beloved veteran members. It also doesn’t seem completely surprising, since she isn’t one of the members selected to represent the group on the cover of the Kami Kyokutachi album. Given that she’s been a prominent member of the group on all of their major label A-sides, this is a damn shame.

Hopefully, Erepyon’s time out of the spotlight will be brief and we’ll still get to hear her lend her pretty voice to songs like “FIRST KISS” from the Namida Surprise EP. The OPV below, done by a fan earlier this year, should prove to be a fitting tribute to her.

Today I marry my longtime girlfriend and lover, Tara Ann Welsh. In fact, by the time this entry automatically posts, we will have already said our vows. So, there’s no other appropriate song for today than this one from my favorite band:

…except maybe for this one that could have been our first dance had Tara been more into J-Pop. Still, it’s also appropriate, so I’ll post it here (lyrics in both Japanese and English will open in a new window here):

See you all again here very soon… the honeymoon awaits. In the meantime, you can keep up with us here and here!

THE BIG CATCH-UP… In which the wearied webmaster of this here site gives some quick capsule reviews to recent albums he’s liked but hasn’t gotten around to writing about.

I usually don’t like to do capsule reviews. In my view, they tend to be written by lazy hack writers who only seem to skim through the promotional copies of CDs they obtain for review before piling them up in a box somewhere for them to sell off at a used CD store somewhere – if they bother to listen to them in the first place. But since I’ve been doing a whole lot of listening but no blog-related writing over the past few months – thanks in part to all of the preparations I’ve been going through for my wedding this Saturday – this particular format will have to do. After the honeymoon and once I’ve gotten settled in, I’ll go back to my regular reviewing style. This’ll be part one. Part two I’ll be completing and posting after the honeymoon.

AKB48 – Kami Kyokutachi (You! Be Cool/King) – While there’s a whole pile of albums out there with the AKB48 name on them, they’ve all been, with the exception of the Set List – Greatest Songs 2006-2007 compilation, basically “original cast albums” of all of the separate teams’ shows – lots of good songs and good singing, but nothing that could cohesively be called a studio album. Fortunately, although billed as a “best-of album”, Kami Kyokutachi comes off as close to a coherent studio album as the group has ever come. All of the band’s King A-sides plus their interim digital-only indie single “Baby! Baby! Baby!” get supplemented with a few random B-sides (no Undergirls/Theatre Girls material or Erena Ono’s beautiful solo cut “First Kiss” though) and some new tracks and make for the most cohesive – and long overdue – long-playing experience to be released under the AKB48. Now if they could put out a single A-side that is a hell of a lot more exciting than the last couple of singles they’ve released since the year started…
Rating: Available on CD/DVD combo and on iTunes Japan.

DEVO – Something for Everybody (Warner Bros.) – When it was first announced that Devo had gotten back together full-time, resigned to their original American record label Warner Bros., and started working on a new album, I saw a couple of skeptical tweets from people who wondered why anyone would want a new Devo album in the first place. Well, not only have Devo debunked Thomas Wolfe’s old yarn about not being able to go home again by returning to Warner Bros., they’ve also followed in the tradition of the Stooges, New York Dolls, Mission of Burma and Ace Frehley and handed in an album that was worth both the multi-decade wait (two decades, in the case of our beloved spudboys), but they’ve made their finest album since 1983’s Oh No! It’s Devo. Simply put, they’ve redeemed themselves after the debacle of their Enigma Records period and made an album that stands up as tall as their classic back catalog (most of which has been very nicely remastered and reissued by Warner Bros.). (Also, in my opinion, Warner Bros. should surprise the hell out of casual listeners and service the ballad “No Place Like Home” to radio.)
Rating: Available on CD, LP, and in three different iTunes/Amazon MP3 editions; this review is based on the highly-recommended 16-track deluxe edition.

HANK WILLIAMS III – Rebel Within (Sidewalk/Curb) – This is the last album Hank III is doing for Curb Records, and once it was announced earlier this year that he had completed the album and handed it in to the label, people wondered how much of an effort he’d put into it, given his open disgust with how the label handled his music. Given his intentions to continue as an independent artist for all future albums onward, III could not certainly squander his hard-earned fan base for the sake of kissing off his soon-to-be-former-label. Thus, Hank hands in a set of mostly country material closer to Lonesome Broke and Driftin’ than his seminal Straight to Hell, but changes gears in a few places with the title track’s touches of Assjack-style hollering in the chorus, the eerie “Karmageddon” with its lyrical allusions to the plight of Native Americans, and – the true highlight of the album – a raucous country/punk/metal hybrid in “Tore Up and Loud”, where III’s “Hellbilly” style gets kicked up several notches with personal lyrics, power-metal double-kick drumming (done by III himself – like “Punch Fight Fuck” on Damn Right Rebel Proud, anytime you hear Slayer-style drums behind country guitars, III’s sitting behind the kit), and Pantera-esque electric guitar riffing, culminating in a blatant, obvious, and long-overdue Declaration of Independence capped with a “Fuck all y’all” to the Curb Records staff. Fuck Curb, indeed – and a big “fuck, yeah” for Shelton Hank Williams.
Rating: Available on CD, LP with bonus CD, and on iTunes and AmazonMP3.

Again, part two comes after the honeymoon… see you then! Until then, one can follow our exploits via Twitter.

As some of you may know, I’m getting married on Saturday.  A lot of the prep for the ceremony and everything related to it has either been taking my time, energy, or both, and what’s been unintentionally getting kicked to the curb? This blog.And to be honest, much of what energy I have had has been devoted to ongoing work on Here Is The Wonderland and other writing projects.

However, I am not closing TGML or any of its related sites, or letting them stay static.

This week, I’ll be making a few special posts, and then when I get back from my honeymoon next week, I’ll be back at a more active schedule.

Thanks for your patience!

- CJ Marsicano

WE ARE THE FALLEN
Tear The World Down
(Universal Republic)
Rating:

To a lot of people, it probably sounded promising but likely to fail. Three former Evanescence members hook up with a former American Idle contestant and make a song that sounds almost exactly like early Ev. Great tune, many said, but a whole album of this stuff?

The reality of the situation, as reflected not only in the wake of Evanescence’s second album (2006’s The Open Door [Wind-Up]) but in the end result of We Are The Fallen’s first album, speaks volumes. Without guitarist, songwriter and Ev co-founder Ben Moody involved, The Open Door was less of a follow-up to Evanescence’s first album Fallen and more of the debut of the Amy Lee Project. Talk in the Fallen days of diva-like behavior on Lee’s part intensified in 2007 when, without warning or reason and with a co-headlining spot on that summer’s Family Values Tour looming, Lee summarily fired guitarist and founding member John LeCompt. Ev’s drummer, Rocky Gray, quit in disgust in the wake of LeCompt’s seemingly uncalled for dismissal, joining his fellow ex-Ev in a project called Machina, which self-released a CD EP several months later.

Yes, We Are The Fallen’s Tear Down The World sounds remarkably like Evanescence did on Fallen. Then again, given that four of the people primarily responsible for that album’s sound (one-time Ev keyboardist David Hodges contributes to the album as a session keyboardist) are involved and in the same studio for the first time since the sessions for Fallen ended, it’s a no-brainer. Without a note or a song wasted, Tear Down The World proceeds to be the true follow-up to Evanescence’s Fallen. Amy Lee’s imitations of Tori Amos are long gone, allowing the Moody/LeCompt/Gray triumvirate and new bassist Marty O’Brien to get down to rocking. A few faster tempos are thrown in, Moody and/or LeCompt even throw in a couple of guitar solos (the CD’s liner notes don’t identify who is lead and who is rhythm) and, capping it all off, Carly Smithson provides a much more fully-bodied voice to fit the music, making Amy Lee’s own vocals seem weak in comparison.

Simply put, this is what The Open Door should have been like.

Five out of five stars.

AYUMI HAMASAKI
Rock’n'Roll Circus
(Avex Trax)
Available on CD, CD/DVD, and limited edition collector’s set.
Rating:

Actually, I’m merely endorsing how good this album is. There’s no review I could write of this that could do as much justice as Vee’s review at her new site, Microphone Fiend. Go there. I’ll be back later with a few other reviews.

Fourth Blogging Anniversary, that is…

I almost forgot to post something today, but I have a good excuse: Today was also my fiancee’s bridal shower, and guess who had to schlep gifts back and forth in his car? Yep…

I should note that for the past few weeks I’ve been – on top of planning towards the wedding and subsequent move into mine and my wife-to-be’s new apartment – finishing up the novel (yeah, still… but then again if I didn’t have to hold a day job it would have been finished already), working on a screenplay for Script Frenzy, working on a couple of reviews for this blog (they’ll be up this week), and working on my guitar.

And last night, boy, did I work on my guitar… I got this thing (Epiphone Les Paul) a few months ago, but I never changed the strings until last night. Such was my Saturday night:

And to keep things J-pop related, here’s another part of what helped keep me sane, especially today:

Besides, I couldn’t figure how to equal or better the live MoMusu and Stooges clips from last year! But what I can do is (even though I didn’t get this finished until after midnight when the 11th became the 12th) update a list I posted two years ago on my second blogging anniversary at MotokoAoyama.com, which would make this “A List That Took Four Years To Make”:
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