J-Rock Gigs Coming to Liverpool

Since getting into J-Pop/J-Rock a few years agothere has always been some part of me that wished for one of these artists/bands to come over and play a few shows in the UK (and yeah hopefully in Liverpool) and to be fair there have been a few (most recently Dir En Grey played at the O2 Academy as part of the Kerrang Relentless Tour) but I was either out of funds or just wasn't into the music at the time.

SO it is nice to know that as part of the Liverpool Sound City event in May, there are several J-Pop/J-Rock acts performing in various venues across Liverpool beginning from the 20th of May to the 23rd of May.

From the information I've been able to gather so far, these are the bands performing during that period:

20th May: Remain On perform at Bumper

20th May: Tokyo Pinsalocks are at Magnet

21st May: Skunkrice are performing at Korova

22nd May: 100% Genki Tour featuring 80kidz, DE DE MOUSE, Riddim Saunter and Tucker is at Chameleon Bar

23rd May: Natccu is playing at Bumper

Should be a few good nights of different music and most of them are cheap gigs (the 100% Genki Tour is a free entry event and Bumper tends to be free entry as well even when bands are performing), it'd be interesting to see whether any of these acts will be selling any CD's and whether there will be decent sized crowds there.

Flight 666: Maiden Voyage On The Big Screen

UK Metallers Iron Maiden are perhaps one of the best bands, when it comes to live performances clocking in around 2,000 gigs since the 1980's. Flight 666 follows the band consisting of Bruce Dickinson (Vocals) Dave Murray, Adrian Smith, Janick Gers (Guitars) Steve Harris (Bass) and Nicko McBrain (Drums) on the first leg of their most recent tour called Somewhere Back in Time World Tour.

Unlike most rock band documentaries, this isn't a case of a camera crew following the band on the road, Flight 666 takes you on a journey from England to Canada via India, Australia, Japan, USA, Mexico and South America on board a customised Boeing 757 sporting the band's mascot Eddie on the tail section and piloted by Dickinson himself.

The documentary team led by Sam Dunn are treated in a comically cruel way, after all the band aren't used to having "outsiders" following them around, and because of this there is little interaction between Dunn and the band which overall makes for a more natural film experience, though there is some interaction between them.

The film breaks the stereotype of a heavy metal band, instead of the sex, drugs and rock n roll lifestyle so often portrayed, Iron Maiden seem to thrive on pizza, golf and rock and roll, it shows the band as regular guys, although it is interesting to see the band's fans view them as gods. The filmmakers talk to a few of the fans at all the major stops on the tour and it is interesting to hear how they got into the band, (including cameo's from Rage Against The Machine's Tom Morello, and Metallica's Lars Ulrich) and there is a meeting with a reverend who had over 100 tattoo's of the band.


The film is filled with extracts from live performances which look fantastic, from the set design to the crew's miming of the songs backstage while the band plays them, the live songs sound really good, probably the best Maiden can perform them without the polish and the gleam of the studio.


The only real problem with the film is that it seems a bit too optimistic, theres a scene where fans in Columbia are waiting to get in and from the narration and the way its been filmed it appears as though something bad is going to happen, fortunatly nothing does (or at least it isn't shown) and it feels as though something has been built up for nothing. There are a few problems shown, like the bands problems with jet lag and a near injury for Nicko, but other than that Flight 666 shows an almost positive look at the life of a touring band who have been touring for years.

25 Years of Turtle Power

2009 see's the 25th anniversary of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (or for those who remember the censored cartoon of the 90's Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles) although a quick look on IMDB will show that the cartoon didn't start til 1987, that's because TMNT began life as a black and white comic book created by Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman back in 1984.

The comic was meant to be a one off with only 3,000 copies of the magazine sized comic printed, but it turned out to be a hit spawning two cartoon series, three live action films a live action show and a animated movie as well as four volumes of comics (TMNT is still published today although is on hiatus however another book Tales of the TMNT is published on a monthly basis).

Unfortunately for those latecomers (such as myself) it is quite difficult to get hold of collected editions of the original comic series, although the official TMNT website has posted the first 15 issues on their website (as well as a few one shots), I've already read the first issue and you can tell it was meant to be a one shot. (the comics are in the comic book section near the bottom of the page).

Unlike the colour coordinated Turtles of the films and TV shows, these Turtles were garbed in red masks but they were still recognisable by their weapons, Leonardo with his katannas, Donatello with his Bo Staff, Raphael with his Sais and Michaelangelo with his Nunchucks.


Like many who grew up on a stable diet of 80's and 90's cartoons, Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles (as the UK titled it) was one of the few cartoons that provided countless entertainment, some of the episodes made it to VHS (I own at least one copy The Invasion of the Punk Frogs who were more surfer types than punks) however the show has yet to make it to UK shores on DVD (Series 7 is being released on four DVDs in the US next month) however TMNT fans can find copies of the complete Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation series on DVD (the live action show which followed on from the movies and featured the female Turtle Venus and a guest appearance by the Power Rangers) and of course the TMNT movies are on DVD. But as 2009 has seen 25 years of Turtle Power that could change which would be totally awesome dudes.


Cowabunga.

Review: Dragonball Evolution

Dragonball Evolution is the latest in a line of comic to live action films (in this case Japanese comic or manga to live action) to hit the big screen, it was originally going to be released last year during the summer however with bigger films out this film would have been underwhelmed by green Goliath's, iron men and a guy running around dressed like a bat.

The film is based on Akira Toriyama's Dragonball series which is celebrating it's 25th anniversary this year, follows high school student Son Goku (Justin Chatwin) as he trys to collect the 7 mystical Dragonballs before the Demon King Piccolo (played by a rather green looking James Marsters) aided by tech whiz Bulma (Emmy Rossum) and martial arts master Muten/Master Roshi (played by Chow Yun Fat).

Dragonball Evolution is a very short film with a run time of less than 90 minutes and suffers because of it, there feels like there were a lot of things cut from the film especially the final battle which is a bit of a let down. The film does have some rather cool action sequences such as Goku's training session with his grandfather and the battle deep underground against Piccolo's 'children'. But with a short run time there's hardly enough face time with the villain Piccolo, to get the reason why he wants to use the Dragonballs. Other things like the tournament which was a major part of the Dragonball world gets less than 5 minutes screen time and thus hardly seems worth it until you realise why it was included later on.

Most of the characters translate well in a live action scenario, but do have a few changes which woks well for example Bulma is looking for the Dragonballs to help power the world in the film while in the manga and the anime she is searching for the Dragonballs so that she can get a boyfriend. However Muten Roshi's character has been slightly toned down although he still hasone or two moments of being a bit of a dirty old man.

Dragonball Evolution is a fun film with some great physical comedic moments especially Goku's unique way of tackling the bullies in his school. While not strictly a faithful adaption of Toriyama's manga (but then what comic book film is) there are enough small moments from the manga that are translated on screen to keep diehard fans happy including a small reference to another anime Shadow Skill at the end of the film, theres also an extra scene after the main end credits which alludes to a sequel.

My top 5 J-Pop videos

5. TWO-MIX: White Reflection

I like this because its animation and it feels like its a condensed anime episode or an OVA (Original Video Animation)


4. Ayumi Hamasaki: Rule

Combining sexy with martial arts inside a dojo, I like how the martial arts has been choreographed to seem very fluid and like dancing.

Ayumi Hamasaki Rule PV - The funniest home videos are here


3. HIGH and MIGHTY COLOR: HOT LIMIT

I love this homage to T.M. Revolution's video for this song from the orange starto the 'behind the scenes' look. Coincidently Takanori from T.M. Revolution is the director for this video.


2. T.M. Revolution: Ignited

It looks more like something from a video game level than a music video. I love the sense of confinement and the action within the video.


1. Nami Tamaki: Believe

So my favourite J-Pop video is this, mainly because of the way it looks from the posing from a silver haired Tamaki to the dancing which looks very technical. I do prefer the second version of this video which is just the dancing in one take and would make OKGo shake in their running machines.

version 2

The World Tour playlist 3/4/09

1. See Saw- Anna Ni Isshodatta No Ni (Japan)
   
   
2. Mai Yamane- Blue (Japan)
   
   
3. Buena Vista Social Club- De Camino A La Vereda (Live) (Cuba)
   
   
4. Pendulum- Violet Hill (Australia)
   
   
5. Arisaka Mika- Life Goes on (Japan)
   
   
6. Ayumi Hamasaki- Rule (Japan)
   
   
7. Origa- Rise (Russia though the track was produced in Japan)
   
   
8. Carsick Cars- Zhong Nan Hai (Chinese)
   
   
9. The Asteroids Galaxy Tour- Around the Bend (Denmark)
   
   
10. M.I.A- Paper Planes (DFA Remix) (Sri Lanka/UK)
    
    
11. HIGH and MIGHTY COLOUR- HOT LIMIT (Japan)
    
    
12. BoA featuring Sean Garret- I Did It For Love (Korea though this is from BoA's English album)
    

The World Tour

The folks at KCC Live have been kind enough to let me have a specialist show based on World Music.

The show's called Beard's World Tour and is on every Friday at 3pm til 4pm on KCC Live and i promise it won't be full to the brim of J-Pop and J-Rock, tomorrow's show has a live Cuban track, Chinese Rock and a track from Slumdog Millionaire plus one or two songs from down under.

I will be posting the tracklist here afterwards as well as countries of origin.