Beard's Asian Tour 23/4/10

Nami Tamaki- Reason (Japan)
Carsick Cars- Volunteer (China)
Baechigi- 140 (Korea)
Trilogy of Tracks: Cover songs from English speaking artists
MYMP- Nothings Gonna Stop Us (Starship) (The Philippines)
Riddim Saunter- I Love Every Little Thing About You (Stevie Wonder) (Japan)
Polysics- My Way (Frank Sinatra) (Japan)
Artist Spotlight: Dirt Star
Dirt Star- The Things You Do (China)
BoA ft The TRAX- Rock With You (Korea)
T.M. Revolution- Kagerou (Japan)
Prozack- Listen To My Story (Korea)
Leon LAi- Later It Is Bigger The Chance (China)
Natccu- Calender (Japan)
New Pants- You're My Superstar (China)
My Aunt Mary- Blue Tin Scooter (Korea)

Five For Friday 18

5. MC Mong- Circus


4. Tucker- Swan Lake

3. Gackt- Todokanai Ai to Shitteita noni Osaekirezuni Ai

2. BoA ft The TRAX- Rock With You

1. The TRAX- Blaze Away

Beard's Asian Tour 14/4/10

Misono- Lovely Cats Eye (Japan)

Chihiro Onitsuka- Beautiful Fighter (Japan)

Epik High- Fan (Korea)

Trilogy of Tracks: Visual Kei

X-Japan- Endless Rain (Japan)

Luna Sea- Rosier (Japan)

Malice Mizer- Beast of Blood (Japan)

Artist Spotlight: Dirt Star

Dirt Star- A Love Song For Doraemon (China)

MC Sniper- So Sniper... (Korea)

An Cafe- Ryusei Rocket (Japan)

Vanilla Unity- Hero (Korea)

Tucker- Black Pit Breaks (Japan)

Joyside- Neptune's Child (China)

Beard's Asian Tour Playlist- 7/4/10

Mad Capsule Markets- Good Girl ~Dedicated To A Bride 20 Years After (Live) (Japan)
Nell- Memories Of Walking Time (Korea)
G-Dragon- A Boy (Korea)
HIGH and MIGHTY COLOR- Amazing (Japan)
Brown Eyed Girls-Abracadabra (Korea)
Artist Spotlight- Dirt Star
Dirt Star- Hole In The Universe (China)
Gackt- Metamorphoze (Japan)
Untouchable ft Hwa-young- Driving Me Crazy (Korea)
The TRAX- Paradox (Korea)
Job 2 Do- Do Der Tam (Thailand)
T.M. Revolution-Zips (UNDER:COVER mix) (Japan)
Hikaru Utada- Boulevard of Broken Dreams (Japan)
PB33- Dance With Me (China)

World Tour Playlist 31/3/10

Men Without Hats- Safety Dance (Canada)
Eiffel 65- Blue (Da Ba De) (Italy)
John Desire- HOT LIMIT (Italy)
Rednex- Cotton Eyed Joe (Sweden)
Ome Henk- Neem Een Ander In De Maling (The Netherlands)
Artist Spotlight: Daft Punk
Daft Punk- Technologic (France)
Children of Bodom- Oops I Did It Again (Finland)
Hurra Torpedo- All The Things He Said (Norway)
Trilogy of Tracks: Comedy Songs
"Weird Al" Yankovic- Hardware Store (USA)
Tubaina- Deus E O Diabo Em Sorocaba (Brazil)
Flight Of The Conchords- Robots (New Zealand)
Polysics- Catch On Everywhere (Japan)
The Cartoons- Witch Doctor (Denmark)

Next week I'm changing the show to Beard's Asian Tour playing music from Asian countries such as China, Korea, Thailand and Japan.

Kick-Ass Film Review

The film Kick-Ass is based on the Icon series of the same name created by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr about Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) becoming the world's first costumed crime fighter (I loathe to use the term superhero because that implies he gets powers) Dave as Kick-Ass becomes an internet phenomenon inspiring copy cats such as Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), the homicidal Hit-Girl (Chloë Grace Moretz) and her father Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and it isn't too long before they're noticed and targeted by mob boss Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong) who's business is being interrupted by this wave of vigilantism.

The movie is an almost faithful if not toned down version of the comic, Aaron Johnson does a great job as Dave/Kick-Ass, making Dave come off as goofy and awkward without stepping into Peter Parker territory while making Kick-Ass even goofier after all this is a fanboy dressing up as a costumed crime fighter. However when the other costumed characters get involved, Kick-Ass becomes a sidekick to these characters, he becomes goofier when he teams up with Red Mist with Red Mist being the more heroic of the duo.

Likewise when Hit-Girl and Big Daddy hit the scene in a brutally violent way infront of a scared Kick-Ass, he acts as the largely ignored moral compass to the father-daughter team, and is even belittled by both of them, which is funny especially coming from the 11 year old Hit-Girl.

Hit-Girl is definetly the scene stealer in this film, her fight scenes are unbelievably crazy and violent, though her language is certainly colourful. Big Daddy on the other hand is intense until he starts to talk, in. An imitation. Of. William Shatner's. Broken sentence. Speech pattern, though Nic Cage pulls off the part of doting father well, even when he's shooting his bulletproof protected daughter.

There are a few comic motif's used in the film such as the comic book style captions, Kick-Ass also features art from original series artist John Romita Jr who's artwork translate's well on screen even when it is rendered as 3D art when telling Big Daddy and Hit-Girl's origin story. Romita's gritty and line heavy art is a perfect to the film's gritty and mostly realistic examination into what would happen if someone put on a costume and fought crime. The film's final battle between the costume vigilantes and the mob veers into pure comic book fantasy without being to absurd and works well as a Deus Ex Machina.

As I mentioned, Kick-Ass is somewhat faithful to the original source material there are some parts of the film that really work well in the movie compared to the comic, mostly because it has been changed, such as Dave's love life which, while clicéd plays out somewhat more logically. D'Amico's mob crew also get fleshed out a bit in the film compared to the comic no longer feeling as two dimensional as they were drawn. Lizewski's posing in the mirror is also a welcome addition to the film bringing some lighthearted and comedic moments such as Kick-Ass's search for a cat called Mr Bitey.

Kick-Ass brilliantly balances the violence with comedy very well, all the costumed characters have their own unique fighting style. The violence is gritty and very much grounded in the real world though the finale does feel like a 180 degree departure from the overall tone of the film however it is a great ending to the film.

Artist Spotlight: March- Daft Punk

Welcome to my Artist Spotlight, every month on my World Tour show (Wednesday's 3-4pm KCC Live) I select an musician or band and play tracks from their discography, and on this blog I'll be writing about the artist or band in question. This month's Artist Spotlight is Daft Punk from France.

The dance duo consisting of Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel Du Homem-Christo originally started their musical career in the band Darlin' back in 1992 with Laurent Mazzalai who went on to join Phoenix a French indie band. A journalist from Melody Maker referred to Darlin's album as 'a bunch of daft punk' which is how the duo go their name and in 1993 Daft Punk was born but it wouldn't be until 94 before the released their first song The New Wave which eventually became Alive on their debut album Homework released in 1997 which also featured the hit single Around The World.

With the duo's second album Discovery the duo came up with the idea of making an animated musical to accompany the album with the albums music forming the soundtrack to the animated film that the duo collaborating with Visual Supervisor Leiji Matsumoto made. Interstella 5555 The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem told the story of four blue-skinned musicians from an alien planet being kidnapped by a record producer who then alters them to look human reprogramming their minds in the process and becoming Crescendolls a new music sensation on earth. The film was segmented into music videos for single such as One More Time, Digital Love and Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger. Along with the release of Interstella 5555 The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem Daft Punk also released Daft Club, a collection of their music remixed by the likes of Basement Jaxx, The Neptunes and even Daft Punk themselves.

They released their third album Human After All in 2005 with hits including Robot Rock and Technologic, they also directed a film which was originally supposed to be the music video for Human After All but they decided to turn it into a feature length film following two robots as they go on a journey.

Currently Daft Punk are working on the music score for Tron Legacy and are rumoured to make a cameo appearance in the film. They also appear in the game DJ Hero.