…to Elvis Costello, who turns 57…

…and a special Happy 60th Birthday to the Metal God, Rob Halford of Judas Priest, seen here with the Metal Son of God, aka The Man Who Should Be Idol (that’s right, I’m still not letting that one go, folks…):

With that bit of good news, I have but one question: When the fuck are Morning Musume going to come back to the States, sign with a real American indie label, and tour the country?!? Please note: I intend to keep asking that question until they do so…

Surely, Western fans of Japanese music have to be looking at JapanFiles like this right about now:

JapanFiles had been distributing much of the Up-Front Works catalog both digitally and as select physical CD releases since November of 2008, starting with the debut EP of ex-MoMusu members Hitomi Yoshizawa and Rika Ishikawa’s J-Rock/goth/electropop duo Hangry and Angry. Morning Musume got three releases – their past two studio albums Platinum 9 Disc and 10 MY ME and their summer 2009 single “Shouganai Yume Oibito” – the single release tying in their their overdue debut American performance promoted by Anime Expo in Los Angeles – out of the deal, and a few other select artists were getting physical CDs pressed in the US as well.

Unfortunately, JapanFiles did a lot of ball-dropping and other mucked plays in their otherwise sincere efforts to make J-music more easily available. Distribution – a big key in that availability – was the biggest factor. Not counting the label’s own site, JapanFiles’s physical CD releases were available only at Hot Topic here in the States. No other retail store in the country – unless they made a few special orders right through the website – carried the releases in store, and none of the other online retailers one would go through to buy a CD had any of JapanFiles’s licensed titles in stock.

Some of the same titles were also coming up as downloads on the US iTunes store, but JapanFiles in general was basically claiming that their own website was the exclusive, go-to place for getting their digital releases.

Which brings up the big kvetch: The artists and their fans deserve better service than that.

Devoted fans might know to go direct to someone like JapanFiles for their downloads, just like they know they could order just about any Japanese CD release from CDJapan, YesAsia, or the Japanese sites of Amazon and HMV – but when it comes to expanding that audience, JapanFiles didn’t even seem to bother. JapanFiles basically suffered from a strain of the same tunnel-vision-like affliction that proved fatal to Tofu Records, who had gone through the whole rigmarole of boasting easier availability of Japanese recordings – Puffy AmiYumi being the biggest act on their roster – but had idiotically focused distribution and product placement (no one outside of the anime department at Suncoast Video seemed to carry Tofu titles; Puffy’s only release through Tofu, Splurge, was nowhere to be found when this writer was at Virgin Mega’s Times Square store in 2006, although their previous Bar-None and Epic releases and the import edition of Splurge were.)

I’ve said this before in past columns, and this bears repeating. “Making Japanese releases more available in the US and elsewhere” is not supposed to mean “Let’s just press a small bunch of CDs and only sell them where the nerds will find them.” Here’s where it really should mean, using the Up-Front roster as examples:

Step One: Get Morning Musume and their stablemates signed to a REAL label – preferably a large independent label like Merge or Matador, or a major label devoted to making career artists, like Octone or Wind-Up. Labels like these will have the promotional clout and the distribution reach that acts like Morning Musume deserve, and they won’t just throw them against the wall like most major labels seem to do in the hope that they’ll stick. They’ll also have a bigger target audience than the JapanFiles/Tofu “let’s target the wota” approach. Someone that already listens to Morning Musume doesn’t listen to most Top 40 pop artists (save for acts like Lady Gaga) – more than likely, they’re listening to alternative and indie rock acts like… well, what a coincidence, the ones signed to labels like (surprise, motherfuckers!) Merge, Matador, Octone, and Wind-Up.

Remember how I said a few paragraphs ago that the artists and fans that JapanFiles seems to be kicking to the curb deserve better? That “better” means making the releases widely available. Widely available means record stores everywhere – chains like FYE, independent record stores (they’re still around) like my beloved Gallery of Sound, big-box stores like Best Buy and Target, online shops like Amazon and CD Universe. Widely available also means digital downloads available in all of the major outlets we know of – not just iTunes but AmazonMP3 (which seems to be seeing iTunes’s taillights at this point insofar as competitive pricing and selection), Rhapsody, eMusic, Napster, and so forth.

Just ask Dir en grey. After a good, yet short-lived, association with Warcon here in the States, they found a more receptive American label home with The End Records, a label devoted to the kind of hard rock DEG writes and records that is well aware that their general target audience already has a large slew of fans who were buying their imports (and the Warcon US rereleases) as well as fans who might have heard of them and wanted to know what the fuss was about – and they’ve been on a serious roll ever since.

Just ask Shonen Knife, who has the most devoted American label in their career – seemingly, EVER – with GooGoo Dolls bassist Robby Takac’s indie label Good Charamel Records, who have already released their three most recent albums here in the States and has regularly brought the band on tour here twice in the space of two years.

Music fans are a somewhat peculiar bunch. We tend to like options. A lot of options. And not just CD, mp3 or vinyl, but where we can get those.

Music fans also like to browse. A devoted Morning Musume fan already knows when they’re going to put records out, and where to get them. A more casual music fan that likes to roam the racks of their favorite store or stalk the appropriate areas of their iTunes Store app for something different to jam to isn’t going to know Morning Musume can be easily had (without breaking copyright laws) unless they have a friend or relative that is already a devoted fan.

Labels like JapanFiles and Tofu are always going to shoot themselves in the foot – or elsewhere – if they keep operating in such a manner.

…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…

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”:

Two webhosts (only one of which I recommend, Bluehost)
Four laptops (Don’t get me started…)
Two iPods (and I’m planning on finally upgrading soon… I have more music on my hard drive than can fit on my present 60GB model!)
Morning Musume and AKB48 both making their American concert debuts (come back here, both, er, ALL of you!!)
Thirteen Morning Musume singles
Eight personnel changes in Morning Musume
Two personnel changes in C-ute
No personnel changes in Berryz Koubou
More personnel changes in AKB48 than anyone can keep up with… (and don’t even get any serious AKB fan started on those team reassignments!)
Six and a half Morning Musume albums (the “half album” being the 7.5 Fuyu Fuyu EP)
Twelve Berryz Koubou singles (double the amount from two years ago!)
Three and a half Berryz Koubou studio albums (the “half album” being their misnumbered (3) Natsu Natsu Mini Berryz)
Eleven C-ute singles (all of their major-label releases)
Four and a half C-ute albums (I still consider ? mini ~Ikiru to Iu Chikara~ to be an EP)
Four Koda Kumi studio albums (I lost track of compilations and singles!)
Two Ayumi Hamasaki albums (Go ahead and yell at me, Vee…)
One and a half Maki Goto albums (That first one for Avex is pretty much an EP…)
One and a half SCANDAL albums (Again, the half-album is an EP…)
Three post-Whiteberry EPs from bands led by Yuki Maeda (One Yukki, two The Husky)
Seven Stooges albums (two of those being the remastered editions of their Elektra albums, another being a 180-gram pressing of Raw Power, and counting the forthcoming deluxe reissue of the original Bowie mix of Raw Power)
The entire Koharu Kusumi solo discography
The entire Buono! discography to date
The entire AKB48 singles discography to date
Five New York Dolls albums (three of those being vinyl editions of all three studio albums)
Seven Puffy AmiYumi albums
Five Mission of Burma albums (three of them being the new vinyl reissues on Matador)
Two Panic! At The Disco albums
Two Meat Puppets albums
Four Hank III albums (counting the Assjack album and his forthcoming The Rebel Within, of course)
Two copies of Flyleaf’s first album (one autographed)
Three autographed Sick Puppies CDs
One guitar autographed by Iggy Pop and the Asheton Brothers
One Asheton brother being transferred from the Stooges to Rock N’ Roll Heaven’s Helluva Band (I’m sure Ron is trading Mike Watt stories with D. Boon!)
James Williamson rejoining the Stooges
The Stooges finally making the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame (Next targets: The New York Dolls, Black Flag, and The Minutemen… and that’s a fucking vow and a promise from me!)
Lux Interior being transferred from the Cramps to Rock N’ Roll Heaven’s Helluva Band
A Sex Pistols reunion
A Public Image Ltd. reunion
Malcolm McLaren, the former Sex Pistols “mis-manager” dying of cancer… followed by Johnny Rotten NOT singing “Celebration” or “Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead” (good on ya, Johnny…)
Seven books autographed by Henry Rollins
One book autographed by Sen. Arlen Specter
Three e-mails from Henry Rollins
Two e-mails from Jello Biafra
Three day trips to New York where I spent over $700 combined in one store (Virgin Megastore) alone
Four visits to Apple Stores where I spent $0 (and wish I had been able to spend several times what I spent at Virgin)
Five day trips to Philadelphia
Two day trips to Syracuse, NY
One Stooges concert
One Bon Jovi concert (goddamn motherfucking fuck!)
Two Flyleaf concerts
Two Evanescence concerts
Two Sick Puppies concerts
Two 3 Doors Down concerts (Which makes four times I’ve seen my fiancee’s favorite band, versus zero times I’ve seen my favorite band… that’s gotta be corrected quick-fast)
Two opening sets prior to 3DD by Hinder (Most boring band not named Nickelback or Daughtry, by a long shot)
Two Breaking Benjamin concerts (and unfortunately, although they played well as always, the sound at the second sucked! What was up with that, Ben?)
One missed Puffy AmiYumi concert (goddamn motherfucking fuck!)
One missed Morning Musume concert (yes, that concert!!)
One missed Mike Watt & The Secondmen concert (sorry, Mike… still!!!)
Four 100-count spindles of CD-R’s
Two Palm Treo 680 smartphones
Three Blackberry smartphones (no, I’m not getting an iPhone)
Four SD cards
Three phonograph needles
Morning Musume CDs finally being released in the United States (the flipside… well, I’ll get to that soon enough…)
Nine WordPress themes
Seven domain names (on top of the previously mentioned ones, there’s TGML’s URL, the one for the Meetan blog, and a second one for the Reina blog)
Two different Reina Tanaka/Robert Fripp header graphics at MotokoAoyama.com (Vee improved on the original)
Ai Kago finally making a comeback
One W album that’s gone the way of the original version of SMiLE
One Guns N’ Roses album finally being finished, handed in, and released!
Ace Frehley beating his ex-bandmates to record stores with new material… and not having to sell out to Wal-Mart to do it!
Six Mike Watt-related albums recorded during this blog’s and its predecessor’s lifetime waiting mixdown or release
Two animes with Reina Tanaka doing voice work
Two knocked-up MoMusus
Two instances where I bitched about Nozomi Tsuji getting knocked up
Three instances where I remarked about what a lucky bastard Taiyo Sugiura is
Three snarky remarks made by me about Avril Lavgine
One snarky remark made by “Reina” about Jamie Lynn Spears
One snarky remark made by me to “Reina” about Beyonce Knowles
Countless snarky remarks about American Idle
More American Idle contestants losing their recording contracts
Five Reina Tanaka photobooks
One tire
Two illnesses
Two back-to-back NaNoWriMo wins
Three book projects (two simultaneous, one on hold)
One published short story (”The Man In The Hummer” in Deliver Us From Evil, available from Jaded Silence Press)
All four versions of American Wota
One nomination at the IntlWota Awards
Two jokes stolen from Jeff Dunham
One joke stolen from Nothing Nice To Say
Three times I got under the skin of Tony Brummel at Victory Records… that I know of. (Might as well make it four: How does it feel to lose Silverstein AND Bayside on top of Hawthorne Heights and Atreyu, baldy? I hear Aiden’s next…)
Five times my partner at My Sweet Meetan, Chris (CK) went to Japan
Reina Tanaka’s 18th birthday
Reina Tanaka’s 19th birthday
Reina Tanaka’s 20th birthday
My 40th birthday… I stopped counting after that.
Mike Watt’s 50th birthday… and counting
Iggy Pop’s 60th birthday… and counting – face it, he’s one unstoppable motherfucker, for which we should all be grateful.
Several boxes of CD sleeves
Countless mouse and camera batteries
Countless VitaminWaters
Countless instances where I took to heart David Peel’s adage that “fuck” is not a dirty word
A year and a half of lost blog archives (Don’t trust your webhosting to anyone who stage-names himself “Vikki Stixx”… or for that matter your real estate matters)
Not enough trips to Starbucks or Sonic (yeah, N.E. PA got one of those last summer!)
More money spent at CDJapan than at Gallery of Sound
Not as much money spent on vinyl since 2008, at least I don’t think so… but then again I’ve still taken that option whenever offered)
Virgin Megastore going out of business in 2009
Three Record Store Days (counting the forthcoming one this Saturday, which I’ll be honoring)
And one girlfriend, since upgraded to fiancée and soon to be upgraded to wife on 6.26.10

My fandom hasn’t changed very much. Reina is still on top for me, Takitty is right behind, but for whatever reason JunJun and LinLin have moved up in the ranks. Much of this ranking of individuals from #3 on down could change from day to day, though, so this is just what I was feeling tonight.

The group fandom was less hard to figure out. Morning Musume are still my favorite band, Buono! still rock, and I still like Berryz and C-ute even though I still can’t recognize some of the members on sight (obviously picking Miyabi, Momoko and Airi out thanks to their Buono! work isn’t hard, and I can recognize Risako and Chinami, but that’s about it at the moment) and C-ute’s new album hasn’t completely grabbed me yet like 10 My Me and We Are Buono! did.

I try never to let a day go by without playing some MoMusu music, no matter how many other musical mood swings I go through from day to day and week to week (In one example, for whatever reason, I went on quite the Minutemen/fIREHOSE jag the past week, as my last.fm page will attest). But, my listening habits have always been that way and that’s not likely to change, ever.

The bottom rows of both polls stayed the way they were from how Paul organized the default selections for a good reason: Erina Mano’s music hasn’t exactly grabbed me, and I’ve never listened to Guardians 4 or S/mileage so I can’t comment on them.

Other than that, I get married in 89 days (yikes – time’s flyin’!), which means that as that day looms forward I need my favorite band and their compatriots to keep me sane. That also means I have to cram in a lot of activity on here before then… and then cram in some more after the nuptials.

Apparently willing to go a little further than her bandmates Miyabi and Momoko (who only learned a couple of riffs to “open” their Buono! performances), Massa Sudou decided to pick up an acoustic, learn some chords, and work on a very nice solo acoustic version of one of Berryz’ best singles, “Munasawagi Scarlet”.

Get this girl a nice Les Paul Custom and some Stooges and Kiss albums – it’s time she went on to the next level!

Then to Megumi Ohori of AKB48 (well, until October, anyway) and subject of our sister worship blog My Sweet Meetan, who turns 26…

…and finally to Elvis Costello, who turns 55 today.

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. 

BERRYZ KOUBOU
5 (FIVE)
(Piccolo Town/King)
Available on CD, CD/DVD, and iTunes Japan
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Five albums. That’s how long Berryz Koubou has been with us so far. OK, technically, one of those “albums”, 3 Natsu Natsu Mini Berryz, was actually a six-song mini-album, but it was numbered not much differently than a full-length release), but that makes then the only Hello! Project group other than Morning Musume to have more than four studio albums in their discography, and ties them with Aya Matsuura for number of studio releases released in their career to date – only Ayaya has been in the music business for a few years longer than Berryz, who only started making records in early 2004.

Berryz Koubou albums have been enjoyable yet imperfect affairs. Their debut long-player, 1st Cho Berryz (the only Berryz album to have the original 8-nin lineup) was a very good start, but their sophomore release, Dai 2 Seichouki didn’t have much memorable material besides its five previously released A-sides, all of which were recorded after founding member Mahia Ishimura left the group. The aforementioned 3 Natsu Natsu Mini Berryz, despite the inclusion of the band’s first mature-sounding single “Jiriri Kiteru”, is more notable for the three covers of summer-themed Hello! Project songs by various subclusters of the group (including fan favorite Risako Sugaya doing a fine solo turn on Aya Matsuura’s “Yeah! Meccha Holiday”). Last year’s 4th Ai no Nanchara Shisu was their best long-player since their debut, although I have to admit that the album’s closing two tracks, while OK, seem anti-climactic.

Thirteen months to the day their last album came out, Berryz Koubou released 5 (FIVE), and with it they manage to maintain the personal best they established on 4th Ai and then some.

Opening track “HAPPY! Stand Up” opens with a great fuzztone guitar riff that deceptively leads both band and listener into heavy disco territory. The seven Berryz seem to have matured considerably as vocalists in the past year, and the song boasts some of the best harmonies they’ve ever recorded – a far cry from the (admittedly kawaii) cheerleader/soccer chant unison vocals they employed on early releases.

The album stays in disco mode (specifically, the kind of post-Travolta disco one might have heard Larry Levin spin at the Paradise Garage) for “Kono Yuni Tomare!”, the first of five album tracks that feature subclusters of Berryz – in this case, members Momoko Tsugunaga, Chinami Tokunaga and Maasa Sudo. The song, which employs several different strains of music – a frequent creative tactic of songwriter/producer Tsunku – takes its time to build in its first verse, making the arrival of the pre-chorus and chorus a nice payoff.

“Baka Ni Shinai De” is another subcluster group track, placing Saki Shimusu, Miyabi Natsuyaki, Yurina Kumai and Risako Sugaya over Kim Wilde-esque 80’s synthesizers and sequencers, and employing an interesting change of key signatures from chorus to verse.

“Yuki Yuki Monkey Dance”, the band’s most recent single and the first of three previously issued A-sides on the album, is a song only Berryz could pull off. Musically, the track is reggaeton as played by Devo, or maybe a Devo song played in reggaeton style, depending on the listener’s viewpoint.

“Ah Merry-go-round”’s title might imply a more upbeat song. Instead, after some fake record surface noise (which would probably piss off an pro-analog audiophile were he/she to buy this album on 180-gram vinyl), Saki and Momoko get their young adult on for a beautiful ballad whose urban contemporary arrangement suggests that it could be a lost Aa! song.

“CLAP!” – sung by Chinami, Miyabi, and Yurina – recalls some of Morning Musume’s early (post-first album, pre-Aibon and Nono) album tracks with its acoustic guitar-dominated arrangement.

“REAL LOVE”, a solo feature for Risako Sugaya, brings the listener back into 80’s techno-pop territory, this time recalling early Madonna. This song, arrangement and all, could have been done by Aya Matsuura back when she was the kawaii singer of “Momoiro Katamori” and “Ne-e?” rather than her ongoing attempt to be the Japanese Norah Jones.

“Yume Wo Hitotsubu – Berryz Kamen Ending Theme” starts as a tango before shifting to a house-style bit in the chorus and back to tango. The instrumental bridge features a heavily effected 12-string electric guitar clashing with the accordion-sounding keyboard that dominates the proceedings. If any song on the album could be considered weak, this is it – but the song isn’t as weak as I may be unintentionally implying, and the bizarre shift in the song’s musical styles, as well as its placement in the album sequence, is what saves this song from being anything less than an interesting interruption in the album’s proceedings.

Berryz’ cover of “Dschinghis Khan” (the remix single with Dschinghis Khan, the band, came out this week – I know broomhead is stoked) follows, and it still sounds as good as it did when it came out earlier this year. Part of the credit for the track’s artistic success has to go to veteran H!P arranger Dance*Man, whose arrangement brings the Eurovision Song Contest chestnut squarely into the 21st century.

“Tsukiatteru No Ni Kataomoi”, the oldest of the three single A-sides heard here, is the type of pop/ska hybrid Hello! Project have employed in the past (examples: Morning Musume’s “Koko Ni Iruzee” and 11WATER’s “Be All Right”). This time around, though, the song’s pace, while still upbeat, is less frantic and punky than the aforementioned H!P classics, and digital keyboards dominate the arrangement rather than a live rhythm and horn section.

“BE” ends the album unusually for the group. The song, featuring heavy keyboard orchestration and a children’s choir, sounds more like something from a Broadway musical than anything you’d normally hear on a Hello! Project studio LP. However, it ends the album proper on a nice note.

Or at least it would, had not an unnecessary remix of 2005’s “Special Generation” been tacked onto the end of the album sequence. Why this particular song – one of Berryz’ best singles – was remixed and added, considering that it dates back from when Mahia Ishimura was still in the band, is a mystery. The only reasoning I could even guess on is that since 4th Ai had 11 tracks, someone at Up-Front Works or Piccolo Town/King decided that the number of tracks had to be even this time around. The remix is an interesting listen but quite honestly, it seems like an afterthought in the context of this album. Thankfully, it’s the only real blemish on what is definitely Berryz Koubou’s finest studio album to date.

Four and a half out of five stars.