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”:
Read the rest of this entry »

Matador Records co-owner and indie-label industry veteran Gerald Cosloy’s house in Austin, Texas burned down to the ground the other day, leaving Cosloy and his two housemates without a place to live for the time being. With typical humor, he joked to Pitchfork by way of his sports blog that “This was a hell of a way of getting out of hoovering the living room.”

Such as Cosloy’s status amongst his industry peers is, he recieved “from friends and strangers alike” plenty of “support, a place to stay, something to eat, etc.”.

And one backhanded e-mail tribute, reportedly from Victory Records founder, professional loudmouth, and alleged till-tapper Tony Brummel:

The response, referring to an post Cosloy had made a couple of years earlier on Matador Records’ blog mocking Victory Records for getting sued by Hawthorne Heights mere months after the band gave Victory their highest-charting album, led Cosloy to note, “I’ve got to admit, I had previously underestimated Brummel. Not only would I have bet real money he couldn’t spell karma if you spotted him the K-A-R, but he’s even capable of attaching a .gif all by himself. But here’s the serious conclusion you can take away from this ill-advised attempt at a rejoinder ; Brummel considers my watching my home and possessions turned to ashes karmic payback for….criticism of his record label? An innocent pet burning to death is acceptable payback for mocking his dopey-as-fuck records, ads and business practices?”

Then again, this is coming from Tony Brummel, who made a career out of saying that his bands weren’t recouping their expenses to justify not paying them their royalties, even though these bands were recording for Victory on budgets closer to Double Nickels on the Dime (or at least Daydream Nation) than Chinese Democracy.

I e-mailed Mr. Brummel regarding his taunting of Mr. Cosloy and how he should know what karma feels like, what with Hawthorne Heights, Atreyu, Thursday, and Taking Back Sunday all walking out of Victory’s front door with their middle fingers behind their backs. True to his nature, he did the only thing he could do in this case: He lied through his teeth:

“Those bands wanted to go to major labels, they did not “leave”, they were sold. They also (all) sold more records at Victory.

For the record- I have a number of Matador’s releases.

I do not know the Matador guys and have never said anything about them. Several years ago Gerard started bad mouthing me. I never made an issue of it.

Now, he has made a message that is sent to him public after his immature and inaccurate ramblings. If you support that type of thing- good luck in life. My friends and family know who I am.”

Oh, really, Tony?

Atreyu left Victory for Hollywood/Universal and achieved mainstream success, including two hit singles, with their first album for the label, Lead Sails Paper Anchor. Atreyu didn’t sell more copies of their Victory back catalog until Victory rushed out a Best of Atreyu album in the wake of “Becoming the Bull”.

With the exception of Thursday, who had to have their Victory contract bought out by Island, none of the other bands were “sold”. Hawthorne Heights, in one of Brummel’s biggest embarassments, sued Brummel and Victory; the guy had to bend over and let the band leave after one last studio album; they have since signed to Wind-Up.

As for Brummel owning a number of Matador releases, I have no way of really verifying this, but I can’t picture the guy who claimed to Guitar World that he listened to nothing but his label’s releases on his iPod when he worked out putting Sonic Youth or Yo La Tengo on his stereo.

While he says he didn’t make an issue out of Mr. Cosloy’s mockery (don’t you love, by the way, how Tony refers to Mr. Cosloy by his first name even though he says in a previous paragaph that he doesn’t know anyone there?), he did make one out of a lenghty, truth-filled screed entitled The Horror, written by his openly disgusted ex-A&R man Ramsey Dean. He has repeatedly sued or threatened to sue sites that post the article in order to supress the information, but the article continues to exist.

Keep it up with the bullshit, though,  Tony. Maybe when Victory finally implodes, he can take  over Jason Lee’s role in a revival of My Name Is Earl.

Quite personally, he’s lucky that Bayside, Silverstein, and Aiden are still on the roster. Otherwise, his label would really be fucked without a kiss.

Raybeez from WarZone must be rolling in his grave right now.

Some time ago, another blog covered by IW (I tried to find the link through IW itself but couldn’t locate it – if anyone knows what entry I’m talking about, let me know and I’ll replace this part of the text with that link) asked about the buying habits of fellow bloggers. Given that over a year ago I wrote an entry on Stuck In A Pagoda v2.0 that pretty much lambasted people who rely primarily on pirated mp3’s for their music, and that I practice what I preach, I started to calculate how my buying habits went for new music this past year.

Obviously, my intake of Japanese CD’s has continued at a steady rate this year – loyal grabbings of Morning Musume/Hello! Project releases, Koda Kumi’s most recent album and singles, EPs by The Husky and SCANDAL, the best-of anthology from The Possible, Mai Kuraki’s newest effort, and some initial forays into the world of AKB48 (which is going to be an article in and of itself soon) all come to mind. My interest in enka has also taken a turn towards mostly digital works (both CD and legal downloads – another reason to keep the account balance up on my Japanese iTunes account), which is a good thing.

Then I tried to think back to what non-Japanese CDs I’d bought this year. That was harder, as I tried to recall what was the last non-J-Pop CD I bought.

I kept trying to think it was Metallica’s Death Magnetic, given their having Rick Rubin replace Bob Rock and do some music that harkened, if not to their Ride The Lightning/Master of Puppets days, then at least to …And Justice for All. And kept thinking that I was wrong. It’s on my iPod – that much is sure as I went right to AmazonMP3.com for that one. Why am I thinking that the last American CD I bought was Hawthorne Heights’ new release?
Read the rest of this entry »