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.

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

so much (world) music the world has to offer, If only we would/could listen to it all

Music is very much like a prescription drug for me, I need to hear something with a beat at least once a day otherwise the day feels empty somehow, although there are times when I feel that music gets a bit samey. Broadening my tastes to other genres is pretty easy having presented shows where there is a good mix of different genres helps immensely but there comes a time (for me at least) when the music scene which populates the UK market becomes slightly stale with its overpopulation of similar acts and manufactured pop acts.

It’d make a change for something outside the ordinary to enter the play lists of big name ‘chart’ radio stations to reach the ears of the listeners but instead end up on stations with a smaller demographic of listeners or as featured artists on the likes of Later with Jools Holland. However with the internet and a wider selection of digital television and radio channels the music's there, if you’re willing to find it.

I’m slowly becoming more and more comfortable listening to music from other countries, despite the difficulties understanding the language, but music is better when you have to work out the message and the meaning behind it, and when faced with a foreign language it adds a hint of mystery to the song, often having to sense the feel of the song from the tone and the tempo of the track.

At the moment my preferred world music of choice is J-Pop and J-Rock thanks to the amount of actual J-Pop songs that get used as intro or ending songs for Anime series and films. The only problem is getting to listen to the full version of songs.

Websites such as Last Fm and YouTube make it easier to look for songs from different countries, however while there are some CD’s available to buy from music stores like iTunes or HMV I have yet to find a J-Pop CD which is less than £30 often only being just a full album and in some cases a DVD is featured. Even artists like Hikaru Utada who record albums in English barely get an eye bat or even a CD in the shop and yet Russian group t.A.T.u can bring out an English version of their first album and get in the charts (ok admittedly the video for their song All The Things She Said did have them snogging each other which probably boosted sales somewhat) perhaps this may change after all Dragonball Evolution which is out in April has a J-Pop song as its main theme is Ayumi Hamasaki's Rule.

Well one can dream for now until then I'm going to try and find more world music to listen to.