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[slink]

OK, so the more I listen to these guys the more I grow to love this album (Sabrina Heaven) like you wouldn't believe.
Everyone knows by now how drawn I am to Japanese culture, but it's not just that.
They mix up straight rock with incredibly proficient jazz stylings, and even Ska (Yusuke guesting a few times for Skapara - the Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra).
See http://ftp://209.242.56.133/thee%20michelle%20gun%20elephant%20-%20gypsy%20sunday.mp3
for possibly their best track.
And check out http:///www.projectj.net/tmge.html for more info (from a guy who listens to far too much shitty Jpop in my opinion).

Definitely worth checking out at least the mp3 by, and if you like that worth trying to import the album.

Oh yes, and trivia for all you Radiohead fans - TMGE's first album was produced by Chris Brown, in London.
And anyway, any band with album titles such as - Chicken Zombies and Rodeo Tandem Beat Specter.

[St_Zartan]

...and even Ska (Yusuke guesting a few times for Skapara - the Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra).

That alone was enough to get me to fire up the old download manager and check out the track - it's been a couple of years, but I had forgotten how dearly I had loved the energy and enthusiasm of the Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra. If you (non-specific plural) haven't played Incredible Crisis for the PlayStation, and you like games like Wario Ware, Inc, and you like super-upbeat, bizarrely appropriate game soundtracks, and you don't in any way value the health of your thumbs, please do so.  It can be obtained very cheaply. I have a very happy memory of being completely lost - stymied by a seemingly infinite number of detours - in Alberquerque in the middle of the night, girlfriend asleep in the passenger seat, blaring that Ska Paradise and trying to figure out which way to Vegas without getting, you know, shot.

It's no mistake that a lot of really good sounds, conventional made fresh again, come out of Japan. In all my favorite examples (e.g. Guitar Wolf muthafucka) there seems to be a sense of fun and personal involvement - let's make music - whereas everyone who's anyone in Western Music Culture Scene has got the last four editions of the Trouser Press guide memorized and can find a precedent and / or rip-off in even feral children. DURRR IT SOUNDS LIKE KIM WILDE FILTERED THROUGH EARLY TELEVISION AS IMAGINED BY THE RHYTHM SECTION OF EIGHT-EYED SPY

B-B-BUT EIGHT-EYED SPY HAD NO RHYTHM

*BLAM*

[andalucia]

Guitar Wolf muthafucka

Word.
Up.

[pmcd9]

Damn good.

~Paul

[slink]

It's no mistake that a lot of really good sounds, conventional made fresh again, come out of Japan.

Glad to see I'm not the only one who feels this.
I think it's because one of the things I think a lot of great music needs, and a lot of the reworking older ideas again, is that background jazz influence, which too much western music lacks.
And it's hardly surprising, given quite how big jazz is in Japan, that a lot of bands harking from there have jazz influences, if they haven't even played in jazz bands before.
But thusly I don't think it's just that I'm drawn to Japanese culture that I enjoy some Japanese bands more than most western ones (the works of Yoko Kanno and The Back Horn being a couple of other examples). And the western bands that I like are those that have similar aspects of jazz in them (the desert stuff for one, and of course all the jazz I listen to).
Anyway I'm going to stop analysing and go back to enjoying this album far too much (it just gets better every time).

Oh, and I with Andalucia on your mention of Guitar Wolf. Good stuff.
I'm trying to remember what the other band that I saw mention of along with Guitar Wolf and The Makors was that I thought looked rather interesting. Damn...