Corporate Rock Music is Terribly Boring - Fuji Rock is For Old People - Had Kenny Rogers Been Born 20 Years Later, He'd Be a Rock Musician and Probably Appearing at Fuji Rock

Rock music, for the most part, is totally and completely boring. No wonder many young people under 35 don't listen to it. Today's corporate Rock music is for old people.

Average Fuji Rock fan

I just saw the news release for this year's artist line up at Japan's famous summer festival, Fuji Rock. May I say, "Boring!" No. Make that BORING! B-O-R-I-N-G! There's not one new and exciting artist on the top lineup at all... Here's the announced line up for Fuji Rock 2012 so far:


Beady Eye (Oasis retreads - Oasis were OK 20 years ago)
Elvis Costello and the Attractions (Loved Elvis... in 1979!)
Stone Roses (Loved them in the 80s & early 90s - but that's more than 20 years ago)
Radiohead (Ditto to above)
Jack White (White Stripes, Dead Weather, ho hum... At least Dead Weather has been in the last decade)
The Specials (Loved them - When I was a university student)
Buddy Guy (Buddy Guy? Wait! What?) 


I said there were no cool new artists on the bill, but I take that back. Galactic is playing. Galactic is cool. Galactic is relatively new and doing something fresh with music.

Galactic - Heart of Steel

But that's about it; Galactic. 


Look, I like(d?) rock music as much as the next guy but this playing old artists all the time is just killing rock music (it's already dead?) I certainly loved Elvis Costello and the Attractions. I went to see them in 79 (or was it 80?) in Santa Barbara. The Specials, Stone Roses? Sure. A long time ago. I even saw Buddy Guy play at a 300 person venue in Shibuya called Club Quattro in the late 80s...


I know that Fuji needs to draw an audience and I know that older people are the ones that have the most money, but Jeez Louise, how about at least trying to propagate new artists and new music for the future? There's tons of good new artists... How about playing one or two of them? 


I liked these other artists that Fuji has lined up. I've played them all on the radio - a lot. Still do sometimes. But there's no way I am going to pay $1000 USD to spend a weekend with my girlfriend at Fuji Rock watching artists that should be playing in cozy 500 seater venues in downtown Tokyo. Especially since the sound at outdoor festivals is terrible and seeing any band at Fuji Rock is about as fun as lining up at Disneyland for an hour and a half just to ride Dumbo for two minutes. 


No thanks.


With a boring line up of old artists that they have set up for this year's Fuji Rock, I'm surprised The Who aren't playing. At least with the Who, you know you'll be getting a tired band on stage that hasn't written any new songs in 35 years. No surprises there...

♫ People try to put us down... 

Talking about our ge...ge...geriatrics ♫

I'll make a prediction here: 


No more Fuji Rock in 15 years. They can't survive. At this rate their average audience will be on Social Security by then.


With this type of line up, the Fuji Rock fan appeal is, let me put this nicely (or as Spinal Tap's Ian Faith would say) "the band's appeal is not waining... it's becoming 'more selective.'" 


Yeah, more selective to people over 45-years-old... Or is that exaggerating? OK. More selective for people over 55!


I'm not a particularly big fan of Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Kelly Clarkson or Adele (actually Adele is okay) but at least these artists appeal to people under 30. The Fuji Rock lineup? What? Is this designed for the geriatric crowd? 


Maybe this year's Fuji Rock can get sponsorships from companies that make and sell products that do things like lower cholesterol levels or other companies that sell adult diapers or medicine for constipation.


Oh, did I mention that Fuji Rock's lineup this year is boring?


I also have Kenny Rogers's name in the title of this article. Most people know who Kenny Rogers is. Kenny Rogers is a very famous country music artist in the USA. He might even be the most famous country music artist in history. He has had more than 120 hit singles in his career. What Michael Jackson was to Pop Music, Kenny Rogers was to country music.


But one thing many people don't know was that, at the start of his career, Kenny Rogers was the lead vocalist for a late sixties psychedelic rock band named the First Edition. In fact, the First Edition was a famous group that had several smash hits - on the pop/rock and country music charts in the sixties psychedelic era! 

Kenny Rogers' band, the First Edition was formed in 1967 and broke up in 1976. It was then that Kenny Rogers made an important career decision: He dropped pop and rock music for a career in country music because of his age. He thought that rock music was music for young people (it was) and at his age, if he was going to continue in music, he'd have to go the route of country music that found it acceptable to have older artists. Rock was a young person's arena. Country and Western had many popular artists who were in their late sixties, like Ernest Tubb, and some, like Earl Scruggs, who is in his eighties and still performing country music today!  


Too bad for Japan's rock music fans that Kenny Rogers quit pop and rock music for a career in country. Now, at his ripe old age of 74 years old, Kenny would fit quite well on the main stage of Fuji Rock....


In fact, Kenny wouldn't even be the oldest one to perform on stage if he were invited to Fuji Rock this year. That would be reserved for Buddy Guy, who is two years older than Kenny Rogers.


Fuji Rock? My what a cool and cutting edge lineup up... If you were born in the 1950s. Pretty soon they'll be having to give senior citizen's discounts for Fuji Rock.


Don't forget to get in line for that... Oh and don't forget, senior citizens get a 20% discount.

The McDonald's Effect: Why Music, Literature, Cinema and the Arts Have Become Mediocre - Just Like Processed Cheese

I call it the McDonald's effect. The McDonald's effect is the action and mind-set of making things into a mass production type of set-up; into a boring, "this one same as the last one," process oriented system. Great if you run a factory in China. If you are trying to do anything unique and creative with your life and business, you'd better stop this.

The "process oriented system" reminds me of an old TV commercial I saw once. The owner of a hamburger stand was always thinking of ways to cut corners. He cut corners and cut corners... Finally, he came to the idea of using reusable plastic pickles because "nobody ate the pickles anyway."


Genius idea... If you are running a mass production, everything is the same as the last one, type of setup like McDonald's.


Pardon me, but I hate McDonald's (except the coffee) and think the food there tastes terrible.


I think that just about everything today, when it comes to music, literature, cinema or the arts seems to me to have become mediocre or is moving quickly in the direction of the McDonald's effect. In fact, when it comes to these "arts" it is much like what is happening to business; things are moving more and more away from individualism and creativity and more and more towards production. Everything seems to be getting cheaper and cheaper and more and more like McDonald's food. 


Everything in big business and big, corporate "art" seems to be moving from a "results oriented" base to a "process oriented" base. 


Results oriented means just that: the end product and how the end product is made is what is important. Sometimes it is very slow but the end product is intended to be unique or of very high quality.


Processed oriented means that making the largest amount of the end product at the cheapest price possible is important. Processed orientated businesses are like factories stamping things out of molds. They reward cutting corners and costs and quality to the minimum.


What I mean to say is that, it seems to me, there is nothing at all recently that is capturing the hearts and imaginations of the young people of the world. How can it? When everything becomes like McDonald's food, what's to capture hearts and minds?


Or is it just the way I perceive it as being? Read on and see if you agree with me...


The Harry Potter movies were fun in 2001... At least the first ones were. Now it's been ten years and, well, Harry at 18 years old is not nearly as cute as Harry at 8. Oh? The books? Oh those... Well, compared to say, Dickens or Tolkien, JK Rowling is 'pablum.'


The Star Wars movies were great, as far as comic books go, in the late 1970s.


Movies in the golden days of the 1930s and 40s up until the 60s were great. Today? Comic books from the sixties are turned into Hollywood "Hits."


Besides cinema, what else has become like chewing cardboard? 


Michael Jackson, probably the last of his kind, electrified the entire world with Billie Jean in 1982 and then self-destructed in 1993 with a rumored 16 million dollar out-of-court settlement for child molestation and entry into drug rehab... The he overdosed... That's been happening a lot recently.


And speaking of music and self-destruction, the other day the Grammy Awards were held. How many other people besides me view the entire charade as fake and plastic? Even when it comes to memorializing the deaths of former great performers, these types of ceremonies trivialize and cheapen things. Or, as my friend described the Grammy Awards, "...They turned everything into processed cheese." 


Today's movies, music, literature and arts all seem like they are rarely good. I think as a whole we are in a cultural funk. 


Though, do not misunderstand, there are individuals who I think are very good. And that is the key here: the individuals.


I remember when I was a child in the sixties, whenever a new major motion picture was released or a new album by a big star, like, say the Beatles or the Rolling Stones, it was a big deal. Today? "What release?" And, "are those guys still together?"


I work with many people in TV and radio and can tell you that I can count on two fingers the people who I know who do world-class work or even try to. The rest of the 99.8%? Why bother? They are all in the wrong business. They should all be working for banks and punching time clocks. 


I can't tell you why cinema or literature or music have become so much like processed cheese. I have a guess. But I can tell you why one part of the arts has gone to hell in a hand basket. I can tell you why the broadcast arts are so poor today. 


Some people will tell you that TV and radio broadcasting are so bad because of lack of money. But I think that is just an excuse. That is using the "which came first? The chicken or the egg?" Problem as an excuse for making a poor product that no one wants to buy.


Why don't the TV and radio stations have any money? Because they have no sponsors. Why don't they have any sponsors? Because they've lost all their listeners and viewers. Why don't they have any listeners and viewers? Because the programming is boring. Why is the programming boring? Ah! They'll tell you because they have no money.


See? It's an excuse. Here's the real answer:


1) The programming is boring because 99% of the people do a half-assed job.


2) 99% of the stations have been cutting corners for so long that when competition came up (like the Internet) they were caught off-guard. 


You really have to wonder how it is that some guy, somewhere, alone in his house could come up with better and more interesting content than a TV or radio station with hundreds of millions of dollars of staff and equipment could... But he did, they did, she did and the results are here for everyone to see. This is where the results oriented individual comes in: His primary purpose is not a processed oriented result. It is a results oriented outcome. He wants quality.


Let me give you an example that I am very familiar with. It is about the FM radio business... As far as #1 (above) is concerned, take the case of radio Deejays; 99.7% of them are lazy and do the minimum they need to do to get by. They make no effort to learn about new music; they don't go out; they don't read (or if they do read, they read music magazines! Ha!) They think it is not their duty to learn about new music and to bring it to the masses, so they don't. Most Deejays don't even go to stores or search the Internet for new music to play. They are puppets who are told what to play. Or, even worse, they are stuck in the past and continually play what they liked in high school!


Fools! Can you imagine, say, a fashion magazine constantly running articles and ads from the sixties? Sure, retro fashion might be cool, but at least it is updated. Old music is just that: Old music. It has its place but it will rarely capture the imagination of the youth.


In Japan, these Deejays learn new music from Billboard Hit CD compilations from the USA! Billboard? Billboard is a magazine that list things like the Top 40. If it is in Billboard, it is already old.


When Rock radio was new and exciting in the 1950s and 1960s, Deejays found new music and played it. Deejays were personalities. Today? Nope. Like I said puppets; people with no faces and no names.


Don't believe me? Quick! Give me the name of one radio program! Can't do it? That's OK. Most people can't.


It is pretty obvious by the state of radio today if this situation that has been going on for the last twenty years has been good for the health of the industry or not. I use the example of radio, but this has been going on in TV, cinema, literature and the arts now for decades...


The arts are like a once popular mom and pop hamburger shop. 


When the mom and pop hamburger shop was first started, it was delicious and very popular. All the kids and people loved it. It was always crowded. But as time went on corners were cut and costs lowered in order to increase the profit line. That made for smaller and smaller burgers and french fries. It made for Cokes with more and more ice in the cup. Along with the smaller burgers, cheaper and cheaper ingredients were used. The good taste began to disappear...


One day, the owners of the burger shop started noticing that their fan and customer base started shrinking. What did they do? Well, they began cutting more and more corners. Instead of coming up with creative solutions, they fell back into old fashioned thinking and continued to do the only thing they knew how to do: Make smaller and smaller burgers and cut more and more corners.


Soon, one day, they were barely holding on. They had 1/20th the customers that they enjoyed just ten short years ago. If it weren't for government or outside help, they'd surely be bankrupt.


Their answer to the problem? Cut more corners and make smaller portions. And the cycle continues today. 

Now you know why so many things have become so mediocre. It is obvious why, isn't it? Cutting corners and doing a half-assed job. But every once in a while someone like a Bukowski comes along... Someone with no money who is results oriented and art hiccups... For a moment at least...


Entertainment people can blame a loss of revenue all they want, but the cutting of corners and laziness began when the revenue was still good and they were king.


And that brings us back to the McDonald's Effect. Are you in a creative or sales oriented business? In today's economy, we're all in sales; and, if so, are you cutting corners and, when you stop to think about it, are you slipping into a process oriented behavior? If you are, you need to get out of that rut.


If you are doing any sort of creative or sales type of work, then you need to get out of the "punching the time card" type of mentality. You need to start working on results and not processes... Processes are for McDonald's or convenience store owners. 


Unless you already own a McDonald's, then you'd better stop thinking how you can create plastic reuseable pickles.  

Somebody Kill Me! They Now Have AKB48 Dolls for Sale! All 90 of the Girls are Now Dolls!

Argggghhhh! I've died and gone to pop schlock musick hell! The worst music unit, AKB48, since the last one Japan came out with, whoever that was, has now been made into dolls! You know, like Barbie Dolls? I know my friend Ryu Oni over at Monkeyman in Japan will just be dying to get his hands on these!

Someone get me a barf bag!


CS Net Reports: 

What if the vice president of your university were a genius producer who had put together an insanely successful pop group of 90 singers and then approved the creation of identical doll versions of them? (I'd have him killed! - Mike)

Weird? Not for Kyoto University of Art and Design and Yasushi Akimoto, the Steve Jobs of otaku (supergeeks) in Japan. The school just hosted a hit exhibition of dolls based on the gals in the band he produces, AKB48.

At 90 members, AKB48 is the Guinness-certified world's largest pop band. Its members are all females in their teens and early twenties, and all its bubble-gum singles top the charts on the day of their release. (Oh, goody! - Mike)

The music is, shall we say, an aquired taste (Read: it sucks); it sounds like arcade game tunes drenched in a massive one-part vocal harmony. Yet intense otaku fandom has lifted the hydra-headed, miniskirted band to the highest levels of Japanese acceptability. It's even acting as Japan's unofficial representative in China. (War with China, again? - Mike)

I give the new AKB48 dolls "Two thumbs up!"

Yeah, so that I can gouge out my fricking eyes!

What makes this particularly disgusting is that girl's do not like AKB48, just geeky fat nerds in Japan. I'll bet they'll all be undressing the dolls with one hand and playing with their pud (pardon my French) in the other. 

Hell, if the cops are going to be busting people for weird and lurid behavior at SM clubs, why aren't the police stopping this? 


The AKB48 police? Oh, now, I might have just given these people another idea to make money!

Things to Be Thankful For - Giving Up Gracefully the Treasures of Youth & Sixties & Seventies Rock'n'Roll

"Be alive while you are alive" ~ Unknown


"I was wise enough to see that one can't experience one's 
grandfather's revolution. Rip it up!" ~ Jp Valentine

There are a very many things that we need to be thankful for and I wanted to share just one of mine with you and hope that, after this, you'll take a few moment's time to close your eyes, relax and reflect on yours too. 

The one I want to tell you something that I have discovered the importance of nearly 35 years after it happened! All until this time, I was thankful that I was there and got to see it, but I never fully grasped how I was able to be a part of a bigger picture; a bigger "scene." Now that I have, I realize that God (Vishnu, Siva, Buddha, the Great Electrode, Bob, what-have-you) gave me such a wonderful present that I shall always cherish.


Usually, when you read these sorts of posts and articles about what we should be thankful for, you are given a litany of the usual things and those are things to be thankful for today: Family, a home, food, health... Of course, those are things to be greatly thankful for and to never forget. But, may I ask that you indulge yourself and take a time trip and be thankful for something you probably don't really think about all that much? And, perhaps, feel a little guilty about today if you stop, reflect and say, "Thank you for that wonderful time!"


I'm talking about being thankful for the past. The past that's never coming again. I'm talking about being thankful for the treasures of youth we received. And, I'm talking about giving up gracefully those treasures of youth so that we do not cling to to them like a drowning man clings to straw, but that we surrender them to the next generation with class befitting our age and experience. 


I'm talking about our youth. Those wonderful dates, places you visited, things you experienced that only young people can do. I want you to take this morning and reflect for a few moments on your favorite of those experiences; experiences that probably you, and only you, of all those around you know about.


This morning, when I woke up, I thought about my life and how lucky I am; how lucky I was. I enjoyed things that few people could have and, I'm sure, that you can say the same thing about yourself.  Everyone has enjoyed something special in their time in this cosmos that has happened especially for them that no one else can, or will, ever experience again.


For me, there are so many. But, like I said, I'd like for you today to think about and focus on one. 


Here's my "one" that I stumbled upon that I rediscovered yesterday and it was something that happened about 35 years ago! While I enjoyed it at the time, I didn't realize that it was so unique. Let me reminisce and tell you about it.


I wrote yesterday about a producer friend I have who lives in Hollywood. His name is Jp Valentine. Jp and I have become good friends, I like to think, yet we have never even met. We have corresponded greatly and he sent me a gift the other day that really has stopped me and made me pause and think.

The present he sent me was a book entitled, "Riot on Sunset Strip - Rock'n'Roll's Last Stand in Hollywood." It is a wonderful book filled with photos and accounts of the Golden Time between 1965 and 1966 for Rock'n'Roll music and the Sunset Strip that occurred for a few shorts months.


Here's a VERY short synopsis of the book:


For a brief period between 1965 and 1966, Rock’n’Roll music, heavily influenced by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones as well as American acts such as the Byrds, the Doors, Love, Buffalo Springfield, the Mamas & the Papas and more, displaced cinema as the center of action in Hollywood. The scene appeared out of nowhere, lasted a few exiting and incredible few months and then just vanished just as suddenly as it appeared. The mix of London and Los Angeles gave rise to an eruption of local music and culture at that time. From this cultural explosion, Rock’n’Roll combined and quickly permeated television, animation, cinema and popular culture around the western world.  

Map of the Sunset Strip from "Riot on Sunset Strip - Rock'n'Roll's Last Stand in Hollywood."

Here is a snippet of a review of the book that I took from Amazon:


I loved this book because of the way it put me right on the Sunset Strip in the mid 60s, making me feel like I was sitting at Canter's Deli with Gene Clark and then dancing to The Byrds at Ciro's later that same evening. I also love the argument it makes about San Francisco's elitist attitude about its own 60s bands, versus those of L.A. Ask me to choose between The Grateful Dead and Love, between Moby Grape and The Byrds, between any SF garage band and The Seeds or The Music Machine, and I'm going with the Hollywood "cream puff" act every time. The book also makes you feel the tragedy of the collapse of the Sunset Strip nightclub scene, after the police effectively shut it down because some influential people in town didn't like the idea of the Strip being a place for teenagers to hang out and dance to groovy music. You get to know what a magical time and place the Strip was in 65-66, and it makes you want to be there.  

Wow! That sounds like a cool place! I love that sort of thing. Jp tells me these sorts of cultural booms happened in London, Paris, Berlin and America in the 1920s, as well as a few other places and times that I was too dumb to take note of. He also tells me that, besides 1965 ~ 1966 on the Sunset Strip, that it happened again, albeit very briefly, on that very same Sunset Strip in 1977.


The weird thing is that I was there in 1977 and saw it and was a part of it! I never realized that that time had its roots in a sixties rock movement in Hollywood. 


I knew it was fun and have always been thankful for being there and seeing it and being a part of it, while it was going on, but never realized how it fit in with the evolution of pop music culture in America until I read page 25 of "Riot on Sunset Strip - Rock'n'Roll's Last Stand in Hollywood." On page 25, it talks about the sudden disappearance of the Hollywood Rock music scene in 1966. It says, 

"Not even the smallest portion of the (Sunset) Strip would seem vital again until the emergence of the punk rock scene in the late 1970s..." 

That really astounds me. I never realized how the seventies punk boom fit into the overall history of Hollywood and Los Angeles. The seventies punk boom in Los Angeles, also, seems to me was there one day and then gone the next.

The Deadboys were one of the best live acts I have ever seen

I wrote to Jp:

"In my youth, I lived all over the USA moving almost yearly and changing elementary and Jr. high schools annually. It always made me a sort of outcast with few friends. I stayed in Calif. through high school but still was considered sort of "backwards" by my peers (even the slang and lingo and how kids talked was different from the Mid West - where I just came from - to California)." 

"When the punk boom happened, I used to drive my car, by myself, to Los Angeles and go see punk bands. I saw the Deadboys play, I think it was 5 nights in a row and Sham 69 play 7 nights in a row at (I think it was the Whiskey - can't remember). I liked it so much that I drove all the way from Venture to Los Angeles (about 1.5 hours) every night to see these shows! I loved it. I loved Hollywood. Guess what? I thought that the night club scene was the way it always was and always has been... Now I read that part in the book, "Riot on Sunset Strip..." and it really surprises me that it is not. I got lucky... I stepped into a Time Warp! I honestly didn't know. I thought it was business as as usual... Thank you, Jp. for allowing me to know this and thank you God for allowing me to be there."

Wow! That was a wonderful time. That was my time....


But now, we're back to today... I'm back to this blog post. It's a Saturday morning here in Japan and my family is sleeping and I am sitting here reminiscing about the past, a past they know nothing about.


It is a guilty pleasure of mine to enjoy those memories that only I know about and only I can recall...


Thanks for listening to mine. Now, it's your turn. Whether you want to write it down or not, why don't you take some time today or in the morning tomorrow to sit down and think back? Think way back to something you haven't thought of in years... Maybe it was that time with friends? Or that time with mom and dad when you were a child? Or maybe it was that time on that date with that someone you'll never forget?


Think back. Remember it. It is a present. Enjoy it.


Enjoy the wonderful memories and, while still cherishing them, gracefully give up the treasures of youth... 


Be thankful for them. Enjoy them. You have many more wonderful memories coming.  


Thank you to Jp Valentine

Music (Almost) Ruined My Life: Don't Let it Ruin Yours! Creative Work Can Be a Curse - Choose Your Career Carefully

Here I go quoting Confucius two days in a row: "Choose a job that you love and you will never have to work a day in your life."


Diana Ross also said something along the lines of, "You had better like the songs you sing, because you're going to be singing them for the rest of your life."

Know it. Learn it. Live it.

This post is about choosing your job, using music as an example. I use music because that is what I know best. It could also apply to food, design, cinema, or any of the so-called "Creative Arts." To paraphrase Diana; "You had better like the career you choose, because you're going to be doing it the rest of your life." 


Choose your career carefully. If I had know then, what I know today, I would have never chosen to work in music... Here's why...

These guys changed my life...

I've worked in music, in one capacity or another, since 1978. While I will say that, when I first started, I think I loved music, now I can definitively say that I don't really like music. I don't want to sugar-coat this. It's the truth. I can't really say that I hate music. But, perhaps like an old marriage that has grown cold tired and loveless (and sexless), I have no interest in music at all any more. The fire that was once there has grown cold and lifeless...There rarely comes along something that really piques my interest and makes me take notice. I blame the industry (but what person wants to blame themselves?)


I think the last well known things that really caught my eye were, Fatboy Slim, Suede, Sex Pistols and Punk, and David Bowie (in that reverse chronological order). Music today, like cinema today, is boring as hell.

He was the first to change my life...

All my life I've had a few very unusual talents. One is that, even though I can never remember anyone's name, I always remember their telephone number - or just about any number. I can remember numbers that are over eight digits long no problem in the world. I've been able to do that since I was a young boy. I can even remember, to this day, our family telephone number when I was 8 and living in Minnesota! I can also remember the lyrics of songs even if I have only heard them in passing on the radio a few times and even if I don't like them. I've also been able to do that since the mid-sixties when garage music was Top 40...


"You're pushing to hard, pushing to hard, pushing to hard on me.... Too hard..." Oh, trivia...


Seriously folks, I've always hated sobbing piano corporate trash like Billy Joel (showing my age here) but can still remember all the lyrics to a song like, say, "Uptown Girl" of which I've only been exposed to a few times and hated with a passion from the first time. Today, I can't say that I hate Lady Gaga (can't name a single song she has done), Madonna, Justin Beiber, whatever, and so on... (insert your favorite pop star's name here).... Because I've gotten to the point where I just don't care about them at all.


Most artists, if they have a clue, will want people to either love or hate them. People like me who don't care at all are their demise.

I cannot try go to sleep with any music on at all. I won't sleep. If music is on, as I try to sleep, the lyrics will pop into my head and I won't be able to sleep. Even songs I hate, I remember the lyrics. It is a serious ailment for which modern science has no cure, or even a name for. 


So, whenever I go to a restaurant or hear music, awake or when trying to sleep, I play a sort of "Name that Tune" in my head (Really, I can get most of them in 4 or 5 notes without a hint). It's maddening. So, if I try to sleep and music is on, my mind clicks into "Name that Tune" mode.. Then, if there is a song I don't know - well, forget sleeping for another hour or two. (And trust that I have a massive library of data stored in the noggin; from the 1940's until late 1990's.) 


I met a girl once who had a similar illness when it came to classical music. Since she studied classical piano since she was a 5-year-old girl and then practiced everyday, a few hours a day, and even went to a university and graduated with a degree in classical piano (?) If she hears classical music while trying to sleep, she sees the sheet music rolling past her head and will not be able to sleep.... 


Later on, that girl and I got married. She is my current wife. We don't listen to music at home unless we are having a party and guests are over.


Music has been a friend and a curse to both of us all our lives. 

Rodney Bingenheimer is a real DJ. Probably the last of a dying breed.

Rodney is real. I am a cheap Japanese copy.

I suppose I'd better give a short rundown on my "music history." I played in a 70s Los Angeles punk band. We were one-hit wonders. Supposedly, we sold a lot of records. Rodney Bingenheimer at world-famous KROQ in Los Angeles once told me that our song was the most requested song in the history of his radio program and that show has been on since 1974 or so. The band was shitty. But it was fun... Well, sorta...


If you've ever played in a band that had even minimal success then you know that playing in a band can be fun. It can be LOTS of fun... If you tour you know that touring can be fun but it, seems to me, usually is not. My band wasn't fun to be around because they were always fighting like poncy hairdressers.


After the band relieved itself, and the listening public, from its misery by breaking up, I carried records and cleaned toilets for people at a radio station. Later, in Japan, I began doing my own radio programs in 1986 or 87. My first radio show in Japan was for a station in Osaka... The station's name was Radio Kansai, can't remember the name of the show.

Typical radio Deejay with a face (and body) perfect for radio

Let me break here tell you about the "magical dream" - before the days of the Internet - that working at a radio station was. Back before 1990, radio was king. If you wanted to hear new music, the only place was radio. I had been a fan of radio since I was a little boy. My parents would have to drive to a place for my mother's work. The lady who owned the place was named Mrs. Snap. My parents would try to goad me into the 1 hour car ride to Mrs. Snap's office . I'd never want to go (even though she was a nice lady), but if they let me sit in front and zap the am radio tuner, I'd eagerly go. 


My brothers were such uncool turds that, even at the height of the sixties Brit Invasion, they didn't care. I loved it. I loved the music. I loved the radio. (In the sixties, punk was Top 40 - like the above mentioned Seeds song, "Pushin' Too Hard.")


Anyway, most people who love music want to be musicians. But few of us have any talent to speak of. Let's face it, I had none. None! Nein! Zip! Nada! Zero!... So, after my punk band, I fancied going into radio. In those days, before one joins a radio station, like little children at Christmas with images of toys dancing in their heads, newbies at radio think they will be hanging out with rock stars and getting hundreds of the new albums by the hottest artists all for free...


Well, the hanging out with rock stars part isn't true at all. Rock stars might come to the station but they'll rarely remember your face, name, who you are, or even that they were on your very same show just last year! And the stacks of free records and CDs you'll get? Sure. You'll get them. But they'll all be crap that you don't want. You'll just have bags of junk to carry home and have more sh*t to throw away on trash day!


Seriously, if you receive 100 albums from record labels, then out of that 100, only 1 might be good. That is unless, of course, you think Lady Gaga and Justin Beiber are good. Almost everything you get is corporate rock trash. Good new artists rarely have the money or the label backing to put out sample recordings to stations. And, in the 25 years of being the DJ, producer, song selector of some of the highest rated (alternative) music radio shows in Tokyo, I can honestly say that I have only met three promoters who did their jobs properly.


Think about it; I make a show that plays underground and alternative music only and some dumb promoter is putting Justin Beiber's newest CD in my mailbox and asking me to play it on my show? Gee. Thanks for taking the time to listen to my program. I'll make sure I play your songs after they fish the CD out of the river when I throw it out the window!!!!


Arrrggghhhhh!!!!!


Oh? Where was I? Oh yeah, I was complaining about how much radio and the music industry sucks and how, using this example, you need to choose your career carefully.


Let me also interject that the music business (and radio too) has a lot of low class, dishonest people in them. It's been my experience that these dishonest types are usually gone within 3 ~ 6 years, but, through some miracle, some of the really sneaky and dishonest ones hold on. I think it's because they've made a deal with the devil... Rock and roll and all that, ya know.

I've met lots of people who signed contracts with this dude. What for?

To be a musician or DeeJay on radio!? What? Are these people stupid?

I blew it in radio. Besides the above, how was I to know, in the mid eighties that the Internet was going to come along and ruin everything? I couldn't. I started a TV and radio production company in 1992 that focused on the niche market of alternative music (no one was doing that in Japan) and so the die was cast.


Today, the internet is king and no one listens to radio anymore and no one watches music TV. Why bother? You can just go to Youtube and see what you want, when you want it without having to sit through 20 minutes of crap you don't like.


Now? I never listen to music and, if I do, it is only for work. Like I said, I rarely hear things that I like (the things I do like, I play) and, when not at work, I enjoy silence.


We have no TV at my home and we have no large stereo. We have a small CD player that we use for background music when guests come over so it is turned on, perhaps, three or four times a year. At my house, silence is golden.


People ask me, "Mike! What kind of music do you like?" I usually answer, "I am a fair person. I hold all Pop music in equal disdain." If I do listen to "music for pleasure," I listen to the birds singing in the garden, the crash of the ocean waves, or, in the car, Mozart.

Real music: Mozart, birds singing, Pianistar Hiroshi (click the link, you gotta watch this guy! He's amazing!)

Some lovers of music might say that this is tragic and a waste. Perhaps. But I like to think of it more akin to what a professional chef would do at a famous French restaurant. I fact, one I know told me the following and it reminded me of how I am. He said,


"Mike, I enjoy my work. I cannot say I love cooking. I enjoy my work. When I am at home, my wife wants me to cook, but I cannot stand to cook when I am at home. When I am at home, I don't want to eat anything... It's much too much trouble..."


He then added;


"Mike, I like McDonald's hamburgers. I am amazed at how fast they can turn them out and they are all exactly the same."


Get it? He likes McDonald's hamburgers. Why? Not because of the taste but because, as a professional chef, he is fascinated by how they can churn out these products and each and every one is exactly the same as the others. This is a goal of all professional chefs at fine restaurants.


Maybe he does like the taste. But I don't think that's what intrigues him; he likes the technique. He doesn't really "taste" the product. If he really tasted McDonald's hamburgers, he certainly wouldn't like them (But, then again, who knows? Some people might like eating chemicals and salt). 

McDonald's vs. Lobster? Hmmmm.... Tough choice, eh?

It's the same with me. I don't really "taste" the music anymore. I judge it by a certain level of quality, melody, and, I think, "Can I use this for my show or not?" That's it.


If this is tragic, then so be it. 


It think it is what it is and it is the fact that I enjoy my job. I cannot honestly say that I love music.


Had I known then what I know today, I would have chosen a different career.

Music isn't a hugely profitable career. There's not much upside. And there are a lot of dishonest sneaky people. Even though I cannot complain and can say that I don't really feel that I've ever worked "hard," (hard work is chopping down trees or working in construction, etc.) I could have made twice as much money in a different career had I made that decision long ago.

As it is, I am fading out music now. I started to do so at age 52. It's not too late.

But there is a lesson here for everyone: If people read this and can really understand what this is all about then, it's not sad, it is actually what makes a professional. Passion is always important, but having a detached, discerning eye is of utmost importance to the successful business man or woman. 


Have a discerning eye. Use good judgement. Choose your career well. 

Pianistar Hiroshi - Bohemian Rhapsody

Watch this. This is awesome!

NOTE: You can see a weekly Top 5 of music videos that I like here at George Williams's site (www.georgewilliams.jp). George and I pick these songs every week: http://www.georgewilliams.jp/wp/category/ranking/ 




Thanks to Allison Sayne

Old Fashioned Things Are Almost Always Better

I think there's been an ever accelerating trend all over the western world (and Japan) to get back to "old-fashioned ways." I think evidence of this can be seen nearly everywhere you look: The trend towards healthier lifestyles, more natural foods, the return of the popularity of canning foods or making your own jams and jellies at home, the popularity of retro fashions, designs, music and films....


It seems there is a hunger for the more "down to earth" ways of the past. Perhaps this is due to a bad economy or just due to a feeling that we've been heading down the wrong road through all these years of mass consumerism.　

A photo from a Yakitori in Asakusa circa 1969

I even think that this desire to return to the old ways is a catalyst for many of the political and social protest movements like Occupy Wall Street or even the wonderful popularity on the Ron Paul movement in the US election; People think things now aren't as good as they used to be. They want to get back to better times.


Recently, I've noticed this movement in Japan too. Did you know that some products that were very popular 40 or 50 years ago, yet near their death-beds in the late 80's and 90's in Japan have had a massive return in popularity over these last 5 years or so? Yes. It's true.  

One of the items that used to have a very uncool image amongst the young people 30 years ago was Hoppy. Back in the fifties and sixties, a cold glass of beer was a luxury for most Japanese businessmen. The solution? Hoppy. Hoppy is a non-alcoholic beer-tasting drink that, when added with Sho-chu (cheap) Korean liquor tastes like beer and gets the job done quite well, thank you. Hoppy was hugely successful before and during the days of Japan's Economic Miracle. It was still popular until about 1979 or so...


In the late seventies and early 80s, a new drink came on the market that just destroyed the competition and that was called "Lemon Sour" or "Chu-hi."  Lemon Sour is lemon juice and carbonated water with sho-chu. It is quite easy to drink, cheap and didn't have an old fashioned image like Hoppy, so all the young people started drinking that. I used to drink those too.


In those days, of the early 80s, Hoppy was considered a stale old drink from stinky old men, that is, up until about 5 years ago. That's when the old man who ran the company that makes Hoppy retired and put his daughter in charge of the company as president. She is one smart woman and she set out to revitalize the company and the image of the drink. And what a job she's done! Hoppy sales have exploded in Japan and is now being drank by younger people. Why? Well Lemon Sour and Chu-Hi actually are high calorie drinks with lots of sugar in them. Hoppy is very low calorie and almost no sugar. So, since Hoppy is very low calorie (lower than Lemon Sour or beer) and so is Sho-chu, so you can drink Hoppy and be feeling great at a few dollars cheaper per glass and at a fraction of the calories of beer or Chu-hi. 

The new president of Hoppy turned the company around and became a star of the business world

On a diet yet you want to drink but still want to look better? Hoppy it is! 


This "healthier" image has done wonders for the company and the drink. In fact, it is my personal drink of choice now as Hoppy is very low on purine so it is best for drinkers who might suffer from gout or other drink related illnesses.

These sorts of old style drinking places are everywhere and resurgent in Japan.

I've marked where it says, "Hoppy" so you can try it next time.

Another thing that has enjoyed a resurgence in popularity is... Hi-Lite tobacco. Now, in this day and age, a resurgence in popularity in tobacco seems and impossibility, but with the Japanese government continually raising the taxes on cigarettes, many of the western brands, like Marlboro or Lucky Strike have gotten very expensive in Japan. It seems to me that I have witnessed, over these last two years, a high resurgence of younger guys smoking Hi-Lite cigarettes.

Hi-Lite has a similar story to tell as Hoppy does: After the war, premium cigarettes were prohibitively expensive. Then people smoked cheaper brands. And the most popular of the cheapest brands (and strongest nicotine and tar - 14mgs!) was Hi-Lite. Hi-Lite was by far the best bang for the buck. Hi-Lite's package design hasn't changed in years and is very uncool. It's so uncool that it today fits in well, design wise, with the retro boom happening in Japan.

If I were this guy, I'd be drinking Hoppy and smoking cigarettes too... Maybe things weren't so bad for "ojisan" after all...

Another thing that has found a return to popularity and success in Japan is the kid's drink Ramune. Ramune was one of Japan's first "soda-pop" drinks. When the british brought over lemonade before 1870's, the Japanese thought they were saying, not "Lemonade" but "Ra-mo-ne." Some enterprising Japanese businessmen then decided to make Ramune and it first went on sale in 1870. Over the years, there have even been wasabi and curry-taste tasting Ramune....

Today there's all sorts of flavors of Ramune that kids like. My son loves it.

Ramune has been around all these years, and always available at festivals and matsuri season in Japan, but only in the last 5 or 6 years or so, has Ramune really gotten popular again. You might recognize Ramune by the unique shape of the bottle and, when you open it, a glass marble drops down inside the bottle too (never could figure out the reason for that). Ramune is even being sold in restaurants and grocery stores nowadays. I even saw it in a convenience store the other day! 

Besides these three small examples, I see a resurgence of retro style and of people wanting things to get back to the way they were before. I see parents of small children wanting their kids to go do more traditional Japanese things and to enjoy the things those parents enjoyed when they were kids.


It was a time when things were simpler than now and life seemed just a little bit better.

Oh, how I wish we could get back to the way (some) things used to be: Friendlier neighborhoods, less crime, lower taxes, less stress... Maybe our grandparents did suffer through a lot, but I think they can also be envied for living something that us folks today only dream about.


What sorts of "getting back to better times" type of things do you see where you live? Let me know.

Asakusa Jinta is a band that relies heavily on retro sounds and images of the Showa period (1926 ~ 1989). This sort of concept would have died a quick death up until just a few years ago but is very popular today.

Thanks to marketing expert and promoter Asami Shishido