ひとりの夜もそばにいようぜ　君と僕の歌を歌う

So.

I was doing a preliminary browsing through the world WIDE web for Japanese music sites... preferable one where I can check out good music (samples) of J-music of my preference, a.k.a. the Lunkhead gang.

It's almost nearly impossible to find a site that would be dedicated to bands that play Lunkhead type of music.

Firstly: categorization. Secondly: Language barrier.


ONE:
So how DO YOU classify Lunkhead type of bands? Like つばき (Tsubaki), Art-School, or even like Number Girl, Base Ball Bear, Band Apart, 8mm Parebellum Bullet, Polysics, etc etc? Do you call them J-rock? Indie Rock? Pop Rock? Soft Rock? Something rock?

If you searched for J-rock... Good luck... J VISUAL KEI rock bands would most probably pop up because that's the most popular kind of J-rock that is exported to the English speaking sphere.
Once in awhile (thanks to anime) more famous (anime-related) ROCK ROCK bands like Ajikan or the Pillows or Orange Range (they ain't just rock no?), and gang would pop up...
But for bands like Tsubaki? Lunkhead? Grapevine? Much less... and when do bands like that blur into the boundaries of like Syrup16g or The Michelle Gun Elephant or like really truly ROCK indie bands? or the the more hardcore ones....

Then, if you take the less "rock" or "mainstream" way and searched J-Indie Rock.... Good luck... The bands that are classify under J-Indie are TRULY INDIE bands. Most of the people who do post up J-indie band reviews in English are foreigners with great command of the Japanese language living in Japan... So these guys REALLY dig deep into the indie roots of J-music...





And while i may loosely group bands like Lunkhead and Tsubaki and Art-School and the likes together with 8mm Parebellum or Base Ball Bear or Boom Boom Satellites and the likes... all their sounds are QUITE DIFFERENT YO~!!!! I mean... it's not just ONE type of "J-rock" that is hard(er) to find, you know!! There are ALOT!!

Thus leaves me to...... what do I search for???


I guess... the problem (which is also related to factor TWO) is that I'm not in Japan or the scene enough to know what the Japanese fans themselves label the type of music I am looking for.


I remember 7 years ago when I first blurred from the boundary of melodic punk into then-unclassified/unknown-outside-of-America emo and screamo music like Finch, The Used, Taking Back Sunday, Thursday, Saves the Day and the likes... It was almost impossible to find the songs online... Not just coz well, the scene was maturing at that time in America and virtually unknown anywhere other so much so that I just didn't know what to search for. (By the way, I found out about most of the "emo"/"scremo"/"indie" bands back then in 2000 stuck in malaysia was through Randy's thank you liner notes, and also through Dive Thru's webradio).
I remember playing Blink-182's song Emo (from Dude Ranch album) and I remember I liked that type of song alot and I remembered from an interview that Mark said they named the song Emo coz he thought the song sounded like Emo music... So that's when i searched for EMO online... and that was probably the first time I ever heard of emo.

But when I went to America, it was soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much easier to check out bands with similliar sounds! Coz they were all in the same scene anyway. All you had to do was just go for shows (or in Japanese terminology LIVE, in Malaysian terminology CONCERT, in British terminology GIGS) and you'll get to know more bands and other people who know even more bands.

BUT WELLLLLLLLLLLLLLL therein lies the problem ain't it? I ain't in JAPAN! Duh... and it's probably one of the MAIN REASON why i want to live there for like a year or something. So I could go for shows and check out BANDS!!!!!!! yessss~ it would be perfect following Lunkhead around for abit and checking out bands every week! hahahahaha!!!

It's just that having gone for only 5 shows in Japan in total, I already got to meet really cool and awesome people who are so into the music that I am into, also... and they introduce me to other great bands that I am not able to get to know about on my own because of the lack of language!!


BUT...

All that said... I KNOW the information is out there without me needing to be in Japan... I know there is a mine of bands like Lunkhead I could check out and get to know about... BUT it's not just that I don't know what to call their type of music or what their scene labels themselves as, it's ALSO coz I just don't know Japanese well enough to access that kind of information. BBS boards are everywhere, blogs are everywhere, websites are everywhere... Even if there's no main English based website that would introduce these bands, there is a healthy group of hardcore Japanese fans who are in that scene... It's just that... I don't have the language to get to them...

And it's not just japanese pages but also CHINESE pages you know? Coz i look at these Chinese forums on Japanese music or manga or anime, they're like crazy!! and AGAIN, I just... don't know and can't get to the information that I want coz, I just don't have the language!




*sigh*

somehow, i want to believe there MUST BE damn lot of Art-School and Tsubaki English speaking fans out there!!!! Lunkhead too! Not as obessed (as moi hahahah) but I am sure there ARE QUITE A NUMBER OF CRAZY! ENGLISH FANS out there too!! Coz i see their albums put on sites like jpopsuki and stuff, so there must be, you know!

But it's just that.... I don't know how to search for them either... =_=

I mean seriously.... the more i try to search for something like Lunkhead, I really come across REALLY indie bands instead... or like bands like what? Acidman?

Tragedy in all.... how do i get to know their music? How do i find that particular type when... I don't even know what it's called? In ANY language!


I guess the only way is................... Last.fm!

hahahahaha...

well, yeah... actually... SERIOUSLY.


However, success..... I did get to download, apparently, ex-Number Girl guitarist's band Toodle's album Dawn Praise the World.




I should check out AT LEAST one new band a month, don't you think? I've been stuck in Lunkhead for the past 1 1/2 years, it can't be healthy..... And the only "new" band I "discovered" in that period was Tsubaki and that was because....... LIKE I SAID!! I WENT TO LUNKHEAD LIVE. I discovered Tsubaki through a CONCERT!

ain't that the best method?!

TOTALLY!!

That and having awesome crazy music fans like Luis Mendoza, Michelle Brown, Michelle Knox, Fuji and the likes...

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa... i wish i could communicate with Tsuyoshi's HARDCORE LUNKHEAD FAN friend..... waaa!



Sigh......... now what? Soul Seek? Liner notes? shows? magazines?

There are always ways of digging, of course, but just how far can I persevere digging before I give up?!


Anyway I just KUDOS! and KAWTOW! to ALL THOSE who have like 50 million song files from every band imaginable on their Soul Seek folders. How the hell do you amass such fortune of song collection of such VARIED and UNKNOWN bands is BEYOND my comprehension!!! I can merely sigh in envy of your musical prowness! (and wait in line with wide-eyes to download your enviable collection!) *kudos!*

(oh yoshitaro.... wuts on YOUR ipod???............ Mr. Children probably hehe............... and....................... your girlfriend's band! *sniff**sigh**cry**ouch*)