July 27, 2004

News | "Eleki" links: Terry Terauchi | Japan

Fancy Mag has the most thorough article I've ever seen on Takeshi "Terry" Terauchi, the Japanese surf guitar god. In 1962, the Ventures toured Japan for the first time, planting the seeds of a Japanese surf genre known as "eleki". Terry Terauchi stood out from the thousands of new electric guitarists for two reasons. First, he was a monster player capable of the speed and aggressive edge of Dick Dale. Better yet, he applied surf guitar arrangements to ancient Japanese tunes usually played on the shamisen. Some of these arrangements are way out and have to be heard to be believed!

July 19, 2004

News | God save the Sultan! | Brunei

According to a newspaper account, a foreign moral scourge is infecting the youth in the Sultanate of Brunei.

Ya got trouble!
Right here in Bandar Seri Begawan City!
With a capital "T" and that rhymes with "P"
And that stands for PUNK!

Yes, you only have to change a couple of words of the the song "Trouble" (from the classic musical comedy The Music Man) to turn it into a summary of this alarming report from the Borneo Bulletin. It seems that punk and hip hop are corrupting the emerging mall rat class in upscale Brunei...

July 05, 2004

Polysics | NEU |Asian Man | Japan

buy it
Polysics knows DEVO was a punk band at its core. And while its heroes wrapped their punk sensibility in an increasingly synthetic aesthetic with each new record, Polysics is moving in the opposite trajectory, getting noisier and rawer, using drill-bit guitars to mine that hard core.