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.

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

#10) MILDRED AND THE MICE “I Like My Mice (Dead)” (Third Man)
Officially supposed to be a socially awkward goth chick from a small town in Kentucky, but more rumored to be the wife of Jack White playing a rather eccentric character, with a few Raconeturs/Dead Weather members posing as Mildred’s “band”. Either way, this is demented two-chord garage punk that makes The Cramps look like the Carpenters.

#9) BIF NAKED “I Won’t Cry (Fuck You 2)” (Her Royal Majesty)
Bif’s big comeback single after her cancer-forced layoff… and boy, did she come back swinging! Never before did a standard 50’s doo-wop chord sequence sound so menacing.

#8) WE ARE THE FALLEN “Bury Me Alive” (self-released)
Mistake this for Evanescence, and you wouldn’t be far off, as three-fifths of this group were the creative hub of Ev. Throw in a more fuller-bodied-voice compared to Amy Lee (courtesy of American Idle alumni Carly Smithson), and you’ll wonder why The Open Door didn’t sound like this. The band had planned to slip out leaked tracks every month or so, but fate – and a contract with Universal Music – intervened. Now this is just a teaser for next spring’s LP.

#7) CARL SAGAN “A Glorious Dawn” (Third Man)
This song – comprising of AutoTuned monologues from the late scientist/TV personality’s Cosmos mini-series – started off as an experimental pro-science viral video with a free download available to those who wanted it. Then Jack White heard and saw the video, wanted to put it out on his own label, and the rest is history – just like the Voyager Golden Record whose design is reproduced on the back of the one-sided single.

#6) AYUMI HAMASAKI “Sunrise/Sunset ~Love Is All~” (Avex)
Two ways (uptempo and ballad) of saying the same thing, and both done very well.

#5) KODA KUMI “3 Splash” [EP] (Rhythm Zone/Avex)
Three sides of Kuu-chin in one handy single: Upbeat pop-rocker (“Lick me”), heavy techno in the vein of “Taboo” (“Ecstasy”), and a solid foray into funk-rock (“Hashire!”) – and all with PVs to go with it. Sold.

#4) MORNING MUSUME “Kimagure Princess” (Zetima)
The opening high-register vocals notwithstanding, after three rather emo singles a more upbeat number was the perfect track to close out both one of Morning Musume’s most triumphant years as well as Koharu Kusumi’s tenure in the band.

#3) AKB48 “Namida Surprise” (King)
In my opinion, the best of AKB48’s four single releases this year. It was definitely the most memorable, both for the title track and for the solo cut by Team K member Erena Ono, “First Kiss”.

#2) MORNING MUSUME “Shouganai Yume Oibito” (Zetima [Japan]/JapanFiles [US])
Referring to this particular period of Morning Musume’s singles as their “emo” period should not be interpreted as a putdown, because it isn’t. The fact that this single took Morning Musume back to the #1 spot on the singles chart in Japan shows that they were on the right track at the time; it’s definitely the standout of the three “emo” singles.

#1) BUONO! “My Boy” (Pony Canyon)
The guitar riffs in this song alone are insane – putting the sweet voices of Airi, Miyabi and Momoko makes it sound even more insane thanks to the seeming clash of elements, but it works, big time.