19 April 2011

THE SPIDERS ALBUM No.1
















Thanks to Brian ( Fever B ) for this great review. This LP is the best thing I've heard in a long time.

Philips 1966

My favourite ever Japanese band is Carol. This is true.Their first album Louisiana,from the amazing cover art to every single tracks attempt to recreate the Star Clubs famed Silver Beatles is a masterpiece ...but the first Japanese band I ever fell in love with was the Spiders! At a flea market in Santa Cruz, Ca. I found a guy selling records five for a dollar and one of those records i bought (and i bought about fifty ) was Big Lizard Stomp! It's a 90s compilation of Japanese bands from 66-69 and on this comp the Spiders tracks were real stand outs for me with both covers, Johnny B. Goode and Boom Boom sounding almost like 70s punk!... Not to get side tracked but i always thought of Godzilla the "big lizard" as being a metaphor for nuclear bombs but maybe it has as much or more to do with earthquakes and tsunamis!!! If you're a child(or a writer) feeling the ground shake, maybe it's better to think of Godzilla off in the distance somewhere fighting Mothera? I dunno. Maybe it just made those movies even scarier for Japanese kids in the end having the ground shake all the time and wondering if he/she/it is real and maybe thats why later on Godzilla was turned into a good guy and then even later into kind of a joke!
Ok! Enough wondering about what goes on in the mind of Mr. Tanaka. Back to the Spiders! Generally speaking GS (group sound)bands have 7 or 8 members including two lead singers and at least two guitarists so they can cover a wide range of rock an roll styles and the Spiders were no different in this regard. They were a seven piece like other GS bands ,but other GS bands were also generally cover bands and the Spiders on this Lp play mostly originals as far as I can tell setting them apart from most other GS bands of the day... at least for Lp "No.1" anyway, I think. I'm not going to pretend to know anything more about the Spiders than what i can see and hear and read on the record that is written in english. I am not japanese and I am not going to pretend to be. I do know from japanese friends that there's a lot of lore surrounding all of the GS bands like there is about the "big lizard" and I am sure the Spiders are no exception. I will say though from what my ears tell me about what is real about the Spiders is that Furi Furi '66 has a drum beat like no other rock and roll song of this period as well as the in the song Mr. Monkey and the drumming in general on this record truly sets this band apart from any other group in the world in 1966 in my opinion! I've heard comparisons made to the Monks probably mostly because of the odd beats and I think that's fair but they are not by any means a Monks cover band! Their sound is their own and it's a great one!!! like the Japanese people that i have met, they are creative and fun and though ive never met them i am sure they are really cool..

Furi Furi 66

here's the whole LP

01 April 2011

LITTLE GANG - I Love You b/w Osana Tomodachi












RCA Victor, 1975, Japan

Thanks so much to Atsushi of Pop n Roll records for tearing himself away from Ebay long enough to write this review. The Vance or Towers thing at the end blew my mind!!! If you haven't already bought the Choosers 45 on Pop n Roll you really should!!

I LOVE YOU


I like the Japanese group called the Good-Bye. They were so famous like Jonas Bros in 80s.
But they have some good poppy songs because the guitarist "Yatchin" was into the Beatles.
Some people says the Good-Bye is better than the Badge. Sometimes I agree with it.

Before the Good-Bye, Yatchin joined Little Gang as vocal when he was 12 years old.
His voice was real Little Gang and their sounds totally wanted to be like
Finger 5 for hits.

I heard that Little Gang's first single "I Love You" sold about 100,000 copies, but I'm not sure if it's true or not because this single is not so easy to find in recent years.I love this song a lot. It remains me James Boys, Cafe Con Leche and so on.

Little Gang have one more single and LP too. I can't find them in store. It seems hard to get.
I'm interested in who cares about this kind of stuff. I need the records.

One more thing about the Good-Bye, they ripped off Vance or Towers' song "Education Blues".

I can't believe they know Vance or Towers. No way.
I guess they only know the movie called "Carrie" and listen to the song.

Vance or Towers - Education Blues



The Good-Bye - Namida no Teenage Blues



I really have no information about this story, I just noticed it when I was listening to Vance or Towers LP. But LP version is slightly different from Carrie version especially main chorus part, so I thought it's just similar sound at first.
After that I heard Carrie version and now I'm sure they ripped it off. Good choice