Dick and the Back Beats are quite a bit of fun, being a German band playing Rockabilly versions of classic 1980s New Wave songs. The first track is Just Can’t Get Enough from 2011, the second is Just The Way You Are which arrived by way of Filtr Germany. There are several more excellent songs out there, but I could not vet their legitimacy so I can not post them here.
The German band Guano Apes got together in 1994 and they have been creating solid rock music ever since, with the occasional break. The first track is Close To The Sun from their new album Offline, the second is 2014’s Fake, released on the same album. The final song is Sandra Nasic singing Fever, possibly from a solo project. I love that one of their several Best Of albums has the title Planet of the Apes. The band broke up in 2005, but when they got back together in 2009 they were reborn, releasing more music each year than ever before, lots of it climbing the charts, some of it making it to number 1.
Another quality artist Live on KEXP in Seattle, Lady Lamb is a good vocalist/song writer with a couple of good musicians backing her up. They bring an energy to the stage that you don’t see very often these days, so take a listen and see if you don’t find something worth checking out and following.
There are some real interesting bands out of Japan; Hitorie is one of them! The first track is Talkie Dance from their 2nd mini-album released this July, the second is 2013’s Rula Rula from their first full album, and the third is Senseless Wonder from 2014.
The Baseballs are a German Rockabilly band that got together in 2007 and have been cruising Europe ever since, with the occasional expedition to Australia and other interesting places. The first track here is 2014’s Goodbye Peggy Sue, from their recent album Game Day!. The second song is On My Way from the same source, and the third is Hello, the 2011 classic which evokes Dwayne Eddie, Jan and Dean, and The Beach Boys. This is only a small selection of the quality music created by this band band, if you like these there are many more songs to check out and enjoy.
Another great rock band from Japan are the Ulfuls, and they recently posted a new song, Sporty Party, that I really like. See all the athletic gear folks are wearing in this video? They recorded this as the ASICS “training ware” campaign song, which lead me to believe it might be a commercial. When I did a bit of research, it turned out the campaign was to enter a contest in which you had to answer questions on a survey. They will pull the names of 20 folks who entered and give them each a pair of premium Ulfuls live tour tickets, with a choice of venue of either Tokyo or Osaka. The contest started yesterday and runs until September 18th, so if you live near Japan or are traveling there soon and want to enter the contest go to the Sporty Party Campaign web site and fill out your entry. The tour will be recorded as part of their “Ulfuls tour 2015 Bontsubiatsuatsu (Live House ed)” release coming out later this year. The song Sporty Party will be on their new album Bonn Zwi Wai Wai being released on September 9th.
Previous Ulfuls posts: Ulfuls with Muppets, Ulfuls