Oh yeah, there’s that little interruption.

Truth be told, I’m already planning ahead, and not just for that. I’ve already anticipated that there’s going to be a short break in blogging action around the last week of June and going on for at least another week. Which only means one thing: I intend to stay as busy as possible, trying to post as much as possible here and at So Hot She Shits Fire (and whenever I can at My Sweet Meetan), while also going into final preparations for the wedding, getting the last scenes folded into Here Is The Wonderland in the immediate weeks to come, thus finishing that long-in-the-making first draft before plunging into the second, which should only take a minuscule fraction of the time it took to complete the first draft. And also upping my guitar skills.

What?

Yeah, I got a new electric guitar over the Christmas holidays. I don’t think I will be discussing it much here – this blog is meant for serious music discussion, and personal ramblings about trying to re-master the pentatonic scale or getting a better handle on sweep picking don’t really belong here, so there may be a little place somewhere where I’ll let those out of my system. (Updates about my personal life don’t belong here either, of course. I might refer to them in vague here or in “conversation” at SHSSF, but that’s another story, and I already have places for that.)

This, in a nutshell, is as personal as I intend to get, and I’m keeping it in topic: 2010 is going to see a lot more activity here. Beyond that, I’m not hard to find, as the list of “personal” links that has always existed here and at this blog’s predecessor will attest. With one of the series that I hinted at back in November (the Best Albums of 2009 series) out of the way, the other one will be starting next week to formally kick off blogging activity here at TGML for 2010. For now, I’m going to spend the rest of the weekend decompressing from New Year’s Eve/Day.

Other than that (and my wedding), I don’t know what’s going to take place in 2010. Hell, I didn’t know when 2009 started that Morning Musume were getting ready to announce their American debut and that Ron Asheton was going to be transferred from the Stooges to Rock N’Roll Heaven’s Helluva Band either.

Stay tuned. Things are only going to get insane here. But in a good way, of course.

Now I get to explain myself again…

1. Reina Tanaka – Yeah, was there ever any other doubt? This hasn’t changed. Not just my favorite MoMusu, not just my favorite H!Per, but my favorite J-idol, period. Beautiful voice, beautiful face, nice rack, nice butt… fuggedaboutit.

2. Koharu Kusumi – My geinou adopted daughter, and the young woman responsible for three of the most twisted albums in the Hello! Project canon to date, was #3 on last year’s MoMusu poll. Curiously, she was listed twice on Paul’s new poll as both a MoMusu and 1/3 of MilkyWay, so for shits and giggles I went with her MilkyWay outfit, since her tenure voicing Kirarin Revolution is coming to an end (along with the series itself) soon – and also because I seem to be cuing up “Anataboshi” quite a bit lately.

3. Mari Yaguchi - It’s about fucking time Mari hit the studio for the first time in four years and recorded something. My copy of the new single came in today, although I’ve been spinning a leak on my iPod since I caught wind of it (my impatience strikes again, buffered by my conscience saying that since I already bought the record, it’s OK.)

4. Hitomi Yoshizawa and 5. Rika Ishikawa - Placed here mainly because the HANGRY&ANGRY EP has been a frequent visitor to my iPod and CD player. Not to mention I liked Ongaku Gatas and Viyuden. And no, I’m not putting Yossy in this spot just because Reina placed 4th in Vee’s own survey last week.

6. Miyabi Natsuyaki – 1/7 of Berryz Koubou, 1/3 of Buono! and Aa! Responsible via her shirt on the Yuke Yuke Monkey Dance single for the name of this blog. H!Per most likely to make like Mike Watt or Jah Wobble. Shares a birthday with Elvis Costello. 

7. Airi Suzuki - 1/7 of C-ute, 1/3 of Buono! and Aa! H!Per most likely to make like Johnny Ramone or Ron Asheton. Responsible for those great high notes in “Maasara Blue Jeans”. 

8. Yuki Maeda - I’m probably going to be one of the few people voting for the Elder Club’s resident enka singer, but I don’t give a fuck. Yuki set off my interest in enka music long before a fellow Pennsylvanian flew to Japan and gave the genre a kick in the ass. Here’s hoping her future singing career brings her a longevity that equals, if not rivals, Sayuri Ishikawa’s and Yuriko Futaba’s. 

9. Kaori Iida - We still love you, Johnson. Please make another solo album soon. 

10. Nozomi Tsuji - Ah, Nono, if only things were different (read: If only Naoki Yamazaki wasn’t such a stick-in-the-mud prude)… Someone at UFW should dust off the master recording of W3: Faithful and, if not give it a legit release right away, at least force one by leaking the goddamn thing online. 

After watching Gen. Powell give his endorsement, I grabbed my laptop and started hitting up my usual news and political haunts to see the initial reactions, then started going to my usual other haunts to see what else was going on, to discover this statement from Tsunku:

I have important news to share.

All members of H!P Elder Club, namely Morning Musume OG (Nakazawa Yuko, Iida Kaori, Abe Natsumi, Yasuda Kei, Yaguchi Mari, Ishikawa Rika, Yoshizawa Hitomi, Tsuji Nozomi, Konno Asami, Ogawa Makoto, Fujimoto Miki), Inaba Atsuko, Satoda Mai(Country Musume), Melon Kinenbi, Maeda Yuki, Matsuura Aya, Miyoshi Erika, Okada Yui and Ongaku Gatas, will be graduating from Hello!Project on 31.3.2009.

Most of these girls have already graduated from Morning Musume and other groups. They have been appearing on stage since their teenage years.

After the 10th year anniversary had passed, they have realized that it is necessary to smash through the stereotypes they have built by now, and find courage to begin a new trip towards their future careers.

Personally, I have big expectations to see their future efforts, and I would like to announce my support for these girls.

I also hope you will keep supporting both current Hello!Project members and the members who are going to graduate.

(Translation from Hello! Online, grammar-nazied here by yours truly)

While there is some initial shock at reading of what seems like a mass purge, with the shock and bits of sadness comes the realization that this had to happen.

Most of these artists haven’t done much on the recording side of things in at least a year, so their forthcoming departures from the unit aren’t too surprising. Yuko Nakazawa hasn’t done a single since last year’s “Danna Sama” or released an album since 2004’s Dai 2 Shou ~Tsuyogari~. Natsumi Abe, although as of this writing has another single due to come out on December 12th, hasn’t released a single in over a year, and her last non-single-length release was the 25 ~Vingt-Cinq~ EP back in March of 2007.

Much of the list hasn’t had much activity in recent years, at least not when it comes to studio recordings. Kaori Iida and Nozomi Tsuji haven’t done any recording in years – Kaori was strangely silent as a recording artist after releasing two post-Morning Musume albums in 2004, save for the MoMusu 10nen unit. Nono hasn’t been near a studio since W3:Faithful and its advance single were first sent to the mastering studio, only for the entire master tape to end up going the way of The Beach Boys’ original version of SMiLE. Their recent transition into motherhood and wedlock is barely a factor in their studio inactivity given that both became Morning MILFs only last year.

The presence of Yuki Maeda on the list sucks. I liked all of her singles (they frequently come up in rotation on an enka playlist I have in iTunes) and would have liked to see at least two full length albums or at least a singles collection from her by now. I hope she’ll have a long post-H!P career as an enka singer that can match Sayuri Ishikawa’s and Yuriko Futaba’s.

Melon Kinenbi’s inclusion on the list is also a shame, given that they’re the only Hello! Project unit that has never had a personnel change in its entire existence. So much for that distinction (unless they are able to keep the band name for a post-H!P career).

The presence of much of Ongaku Gatas on the list is a major shock – especially since Hitomi Yoshizawa and Rika Ishikawa are going to be part of the HANGRY&ANGRY project (unless that’s part of a transition for them already). It seems like yesterday that Asami Konno, after graduating from Hello! Project entirely in 2006, suddenly returned first in a cameo appearance at the graduation of Country Musume’s Asami Kimura and Minua Saitou, and then returned to H!P to participate in Gatas Brilliantes and Ongaku Gatas. I also wonder how Mai Satoda feels about this, given that Ongaku Gatas gave her a seemingly permanent home for her talents after the implosion of Country Musume.

I am of mixed feelings on Miki Fujimoto’s presence on the list. I liked her post-MoMusu solo single (I think I was one of the few, if not the only one, who wrote about it in the IW blogosphere) but its likely she seems more happy as an actress now. We’ll see.

I don’t think anyone expected Rika’s bandmates in the recently disbanded Viyuden, Erika Miyoshi and Yui Okada, to get the axe so soon after the band broke up. What the fuck, UFA, Erika and Yui were just two pairs of tits to you after Viyuden’s last tour ended?

At least all of the above were to see the inside of a recording studio. Mari Yaguchi should have also had a couple of solo albums out by now, but she has become more of a TV personality and has only done one recording (an appearance on the B-side of Berryz Koubou’s first 7nin single) since her sudden departure from Morning Musume in 2005. Kei Yasuda should have also been more active as a singer (her only post-MoMusu appearances as a singer on records were on the last Folk Songs album, and on “ALL FOR ONE & ONE FOR ALL” with H!P All Stars), but at least she’s been touring as part of Natsumi Abe’s live band in recent years as a saxophonist and keyboardist (those MoMusu OG bonds must run deep!). Makoto Ogawa didn’t even get to do anything ouside of a HaroMoni@ cameo since her return from college!

Aya Matsuura’s inclusion on the list is and isn’t surprising. While she has continued to record, in recent months (and years) she has been open about her desire to go in a different direction musically – as if her live-in-studio set Naked Songs, last year’s Double Rainbow and her recent solo singles from that period were not already an indication.

No doubt, many of these Elder Club members will continue to have careers after their departure from Hello! Project. Graduating from H!P does not necessarily mean a departure from Up-Front Works itself (keep Tsunku’s statement about smashing stereotypes in mind), since there are a slew of UFW artists that have never been part of Hello! Project. Some are already active, so I’m sure we will still hear from them. I look forward to seeing how they fare from April of 2009, although I have to admit that in a couple of cases I shouldn’t exactly hold my breath waiting for new music from a few of them. I’m sure Hello! Online will continue to follow news about these artists as they have already done with Ai Kago and Maki Goto’s post-H!P careers. And if this purge means a greater quality focus on Morning Musume, Berryz Koubou and C-ute in the immediate and distant future, so be it.

(AUTHOR’S NOTE: Apologies to Metallica for the paraphrase of their 1993 live album’s title… maybe. I’m still waiting for one from Metallica for the aptly-named Load and Re-Load albums, unless Death Magnetic is supposed to be one.)

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?

I booted up my iTunes and sorted everything by date added, then combed through some rips of old records I did and older CDs that I’d added (for the first time, or added back). OK, research tells me that the last CD I bought was Slipknot’s new album – and then Hawthorne Heights and Black Stone Cherry before that.

Then I took a break from that, decided to fire up the turntable and pull out a few records that I felt like listening to.

While looking for the 4LP heavy-vinyl edition of Radiohead’s Best of album, I came across Metallica’s Death Magnetic. Yeah, I did buy it – on double vinyl. (No, I wasn’t going to spend over $100 on what is nothing more than five 45RPM singles in a fancy black box – nor did I like the idea of getting up and flipping sides for every song.)

That’s when I realized that a lot of the new non-J-Pop albums I’d bought this past year weren’t on CD. Elvis Costello’s Momofuku? Double 180-gram vinyl. Conor Oberst’s solo album? Vinyl. Nine Inch Nails’ The Slip when the opportunity came to buy a physical edition? Vinyl. Coldplay’s Viva la Vida or Death to All our Friends? Vinyl. New Alkaline Trio vinyl? Vinyl. Tokyo Police Club’s Elephant Shell? Vinyl. Against Me’s New Wave? 180-gram clear yellow vinyl (talk about pleasing both pro-analog audiophiles AND collectors!). Even some new reissues and compilations haven’t escaped the opportunity to pick the vinyl option – Morrissey’s Greatest Hits, the remastered third U2 album War, another Coldplay album (X&Y – a Vee recommendation, BTW), Mission of Burma’s Ace of Hearts-era releases… you get the picture.

Yep, my buying habits have taken that odd turn where my owning a nice Numark TTUSB turntable has led me to looking to see if forthcoming new releases will be coming out in vinyl editions. Hank Williams III’s follow-up to Straight to Hell is going to come out on double vinyl with a bonus CD next week. AC/DC’s offering their forthcoming new album in double vinyl as well (but I doubt I shall be buying that one, given that the only way American fans will be able to buy the album without pre-ordering it is to go to Wal-Mart). Given that I own a turntable that can plug into my computer with a USB cable, the lack of a bonus CD or a download code is no barrier to my putting the album on the iPod. Dir en grey’s forthcoming new album [UROBROS]? Already pre-ordered the double vinyl from the label.

My turntable has also become quite the bewildering force to my fiancée Tara, who has already patiently seen me pour through the record bins at record stores all over Eastern Pennsylvania and in the Times Square Virgin Megastore looking for vinyl both new and old. On one recent visit to my favorite record store, Tara watched as I paid $20 for a stack of old vinyl records and said to me, “You do realize that it’s 2008, right?” Tara either sees all records as “old” or as a pointless option in the age of CD’s and mp3s. Given the proliferation of new vinyl releases with either download codes or bonus CDs enclosed, that’s really a moot point.

At this point, it should be apparent (and probably be pointed out if it isn’t) that I’m not a format nazi when it comes to buying music. Obviously I’ve bought CDs this year when no vinyl existed, happily used the enclosed bonus CD in certain releases to save me the time of digitizing the album for my iPod, and done my fair share of legal downloads (Ever since Amazonmp3.com started having daily cheap-album specials, I’ve been checking there every day to see what they’re offering.) But it does beg the question: if Morning Musume’s, Kuu-chin’s, Puffy’s, or any other J-Pop artist that I follow were to start putting out heavy vinyl releases, would I buy them?

Yes… but the idea of MoMusu on vinyl is another column, and besides, this one’s finished.

ARTIST: Sayuri Ishikawa
SINGLE: “Dan Ryu” c/w “Aki Shinshin”
STYLE: Enka
LABEL: Nippon Columbia
SOURCE: retail single, AK-92
YEAR: 1977
DOWNLOAD: Full single (ZIP file, 256kbps mp3)

This next single that we are featuring here at the Vinyl Pagoda Project – and the first since our migration from Stuck In A Pagoda to The Groove Music Life – is a prime example of the kind of good stuff I was hoping to obtain when I got hold of that first fifty-single stack.

Dubbed “one of the truly great Enka vocalists” by the English-language enka site Barbara’s Enka Site (OK, there’s only a couple of enka pages out there in English that I know of, bear with me!), Sayuri Ishikawa is a very well established name in the enka world, having recently celebrated her 35th anniversary in show business. According to that same site, Ishikawa is adored not only by her audience but by fellow vocalists in her genre. At 50 years of age (she passed that milestone on January 30th of this year), she still looks as beautiful – maybe even more so – as she did when she recorded our featured single.

Today (September 2, 2008) as I write this, one of Ishikawa’s most recent zenkyokushu (“complete song best”) compilations (specifically, this one released in October of 2006 by Teichiku) arrived at my PO Box today, thanks to CDJapan. Having listened to the whole thing – which includes our featured single’s A-side – I can safely say that I came away from my first listen to sixteen of her hits a very big fan of Sayuri Ishikawa. Her voice reminds me very much of Barbara Streisand’s – Sayuri possesses a lot of that same passionate and pitch-perfect quality.

Sayuri debuted in 1974 on the Nippon Columbia label with a single called “Kakurenbo” (“Hide and Seek” – no connection whatsoever to the Whiteberry song of the same name from 17 years later) at age 16, looking more like a typical teenage kayokyoku singer rather than the enka sensation she would soon grow up to be:

“Dan Ryu” (“Warm Current”) is her 17th single, featuring a soaring, unforgettable melody with an almost happy, optimistic feeling. The picture sleeve still had her in Western-style clothing (she wouldn’t don a kimono on one of her picture sleeves until 20 singles later, on her 1986 release “Futari Kasa”), but the music is still pure enka.

“Dan Ryu” is only the tip of a very big and beautiful iceberg where Ishikawa’s discography is concerned – she has done over 100 singles to date (Her 102nd single, “Choito”, comes out on October 22) and more notably, she seems to have retained the master rights to her Columbia and Pony Canyon recordings (“Dan Ryu” appears on the aforementioned 2007 Nen Zenkyokushu CD on Teichiku) – another indication of the high regard she is held in.

Here’s a clip of Ishikawa-san doing “Dan Ryu” live in 1991, still sounding as good as she did back then. Unfortunately, the clip I really wanted to use, a 1987 performance where Sayuri seemed to delight in moving around while she was singing – something most enka singers don’t do by tradition, as they’re usually expected to stand still – is no longer on YouTube. Fortunately, we can embed our own video here at TGML (complete with our own logo), so we can provide you with this fine performance where Ishikawa-sama gets a much deserved mega-ovation from the audience.

I only got one Sayuri Ishikawa single in that 50-single stack, but I’ll be adding a lot more of her music to my library in the future. I’ve already pre-ordered “Choito” and I’m sure more additions will occur before and after that release date.

The scan of the picture sleeve is courtesy of Sayuri Ishikawa’s Official Site..
Please read the disclaimer if downloading the mp3 files.

ARTIST: Tetsuya Ryu
SINGLE: “Okuhida Bojyo” c/w “Se Se Rago No Yado”
STYLE: Enka
LABEL: Trio
SOURCE: retail single, 3B-177
YEAR: 1980
DOWNLOAD: Full single (ZIP file, 256kbps mp3)

From what I have been able to gather – which unfortunately isn’t much – Tetsuya Ryu wrote the song “Okuhida Bojyo” (“Longing For Okuhida”) on his own (lyrics and music) and found himself having what is apparently his only hit single, selling over 130,000 copies. In a culture (the Japanese pop world) where the stars are supposed to look as good as they sound, Tetsuya Ryu looks like the Japanese edition of Joe Average: the kind of person that works his butt off as a salaryman during the week and then goes out on the weekends to grab the mic at his favorite karaoke house and belt out a few tunes. In short, a seemingly unlikely pop star.

A gentleman named Mushishinaide (who runs his own quite interesting J-blog) hipped me to a little more information about Tetsuya Ryu when the original version of this entry was posted at Stuck In A Pagoda 2.0: Ryu was doing a 15-day singing residency at the onsen/hot spa town of Okuhida when he first wrote the song; in that same year, he released it on a self-promoted limited vinyl run of 2000 copies. The version heard here would make this the second version of the song to be recorded and released.

Both “Okuhida Bojyo” and its B-side, “Su Su Ragi No Yado” (“Inn Of Babble”, or perhaps “Inn of the Brook” according to Mushishinade – maybe even “Babbling Brook” if one wants to do a less literal translation of the title), are typical, pretty, male-led enka ballads, heavy on the emotional vocal. In 1980, the year this song came out, he was named Best New Artist on Besuto hitto kay?sai, earning him some Japanese TV appearances like this one:

The song seems to show up only on compilations, but of late there are three other CD singles that this gentleman has released in recent years on independent labels, including a remake of “Okuhida Bojyo”. Apparently this remake appears on the soundtrack to the film The Cats Of Mirikitani, which aired recently on PBS.

While Ryu hasn’t been able to duplicate the success of his 28-year-old hit, it’s apparently still a karaoke favorite in Japan:

If anyone knows anything else about this guy, I’d like to know.

The scan of the picture sleeve is courtesy of Snow Records Japan..
Please read the disclaimer if downloading the mp3 files.