The first band is Folca with a track from their 2nd mini-album Curtain Call. That just came out in September, and they are touring Japan in support of it now. Then we have Triceratops with their song Going To The Moon. They are a 3 piece band heavily influenced by British Invasion bands like the Beatles and Stones, hence the nice harmony work and quality guitar riffs. They have put out a dozen albums in the last 15 years and are still going strong, with their latest release being a live tour recording they put out in August. The third band is Supercar with a live version of their song Lucky. They played good basic rock from 1995 to 2005, releasing 5 studio albums and a handful of project recordings.
I don’t even know how to categorize this, but Amanda Palmer has proposed a bartering system to bring us back to how we used to share music, hundreds of years ago. It makes sense for some artists, and it works best if you use the latest social media technology. This is part of the amazing and ever growing collection of information available to all for free from TED, an excellent repository of open source information that we all can utilize to help create a much more interesting world to live in. OK, there might be a music video after that, possibly.
The first song is called Forever by Touming Magazine, and it is quite a treat to listen to. The video has its own story to tell. The second tune is Easy, the title track from the album of the same name by Upset Underworld. These don’t really count as J-Rock, since both bands are actually from Taiwan, but if you are looking at them from New York or London they look like they at least might be in the same neighborhood. The third track, from We Save Strawberries is J-Rock, though.
There are some amazing Anime Cosplay Music Videos being made, here are a few more you might enjoy. The first is Cosplay Fever: It’s My Life, compiled in Camden, London and shot at the MCM Expo in the UK in October 2011. The next is Cosplay Fever: Raise Your Glass from the London Film & Comic Con, July 2011. The final entry for this set is Cosplay Fever: Let Me Entertain You, recorded at AyaCon in August 2011. Be sure to visit Cosplay Fever on Facebook, where they have a lot more wonderful things to check out. Yes, these videos may be a bit old, but the spirit lives on!
Gravity is the Sci-Fi film of choice this week, but there are several other options. Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith is hitting theaters for an extremely short lived run, but this time it will be in IMAX 3D. This is not a trend that will end anytime soon; all the company owning the movie has to pay for is the 3D and/or IMAX upgrade processing, and they get a product they can stick in theaters and on 3D Blue Ray that they already know people will pay for, based on sales the first time around. I think my favorite to get this treatment so far was the original 1939 The Wizard Of Oz, which was quite amazing to see on the big screen. I am not a horror fan, so I would have forgotten Dracula 3D right away if it weren’t for Rutger Hauer being in the movie. Finally, Metallica: Through the Never is a truly surreal experience with a world-class selection of camera work. It is basically a concert interspersed with an epic journey undertaken by a roadie through a Mad Max-like environment.
This is your Traditional Irish music, played by a band composed of Japanese Death Metal musicians with a Zydeco drummer. If they actually lived in the UK, they would have had a flat next door to the Pogues. That is the shortest way I could get across the idea of what their music is like, but you won’t really know until you listen to them yourself. And maybe not even then. The first track is Drunken Pirates, the second is Polka/Ill Weeds Grow Apace, and we finish with Rascal Trail.