BiSH (ビッシュ) is a punk band without musical instruments. They recently released a new digital single ‘STORY OF DUTY’ that ties-in with the globally popular FPS game ‘Call of Duty: Mobile’. This song was written by Aina The End and is available on all major streaming service such as Spotify and iTunes.
Continue reading “Call of Duty Mobile gets BiSH’d! and where to find the Music Video”
“This year’s Pop Conference is an exploration and celebration of youth across generations, locations, and disparate contexts; listening with intensity to what is behind the urgent call we’ve heard from multiple artists to remain ‘forever young,’” said MoPOP Manager of Public Engagement Robert Rutherford.
Conversation – September 10 at 3:00 p.m. PT
Event Runs September 9-10, 16-17, and 23-24
Complete program details can be found at www.MoPOP.org/PopCon
To kick off “Forever Young: Popular Music and Youth Across the Ages”—this year’s special virtual version of Museum of Pop Culture’s Pop Conference 2020, spanning three consecutive weeks—MoPOP today announced that the Conference keynote conversation would feature seven-time GRAMMY® Award-winning singer/songwriter Alanis Morissette. MoPOP’s annual Pop Conference, first held in 2002, mixes together ambitious music discourse of every kind to bring academics, critics, musicians, and dedicated fans into a collective conversation. This year’s conference was delayed this past spring due to the on-going global health crisis, but returns this month as a purely digital format. Continue reading “[Seattle, WA] Pop Con 2020’s Special Keynote feat. Alanis Morisette!”
Be prepared to rock out with Japanese Rock Band BRATS to debut at Anime Los Angeles 2020! (January 9-12, 2020). They will perform at the Ontario Convention Center on Friday, January 10, 2020, and hold a fan Q&A on Saturday, January 11. They are appearing by arrangement with Resonance Media.
Formed by sisters Rei Kuromiya (vocals) and Aya Kuromiya (bass) – this all female act created the opening theme “Ainikoiyo” for the anime series To Be Hero and performed “Nounai Shoukyo Game” for the Japanese film Slavemen.
Continue reading “Punk Rock sensation BRATS at Anime Los Angeles 2020!”
The narrative in We Are Little Zombies is dreamlike. Despite a long run time, the latter half made more sense to me than the opening act.
We Are Little Zombies is a misleading title. While the situation borders on black comedy, perhaps the terror lays in what four 10-year-old tweens are facing: isolation. When they have to face grief at the loss of their parents, just how they react is a complex mix of juxtapositions worth studying. Writer/director Makoto Nagahisa tosses a lot of imagery at viewers. It’s like watching FLCL for the first time.
Hikari (Keita Ninomiya), Ikuko (Sena Nakajima), Ishi (Satoshi Mizuno) and Takemura (Mondo Okumura) can give Wednesday Addams a run for her money. They have no hope for their immediate future. When nobody seems to want them, relatives included (they are suspiciously missing in this narrative) all they have are each other. They met at the crematorium and after a lengthy backstory told in flashbacks, they decide to form a band. Their idea to express their life through music–which I have to label bubblegum punk.
Continue reading “[Fantasia 2019] We Are Little Zombies, A Movie Review”
By Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)
Originally published in 2015 on Vivascene
This interview I conducted has since disappeared.
Revised edition June 2019
Ask any musician, and you will hear that breaking into the music scene is tough. To get the recognition that matters is even harder. Seattle-based band, Tennis Pro, found that they had to take their act to another country because in the good ol’ United States of America, their local music scene was quite stagnant.
“I think that Seattle, after the 90’s explosion [with grunge music], has struggled to find its identity musically,” said drummer Sean Lowry. In his opinion, the city had fallen into a melancholy folk-rock wasteland.
Continue reading “[From the Archives] From Baseline to Big in Japan – Tennis Pro, The Interview”
By Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)
Music and All Hallow’s Eve—throughout the years, many bands have offered hits like the Monster Mash or solo acts, featuring Thriller. They are goofy fun. With rock musicals, they go the extra mile and tell a story. I made a list years ago of productions that one can see theatrically, but I got to wondering: what about those albums that do not have a stage show attached to it?
Listeners can listen to one track or hear the entire album to understand each song in a greater context. This list I offer is certainly worth cranking up the All Hallow’s Eve season, especially for those in the mood for something slightly different from the mainstream. In no particular order:
Heavy Metal dominates this list for good reason. It’s the perfect musical genre to tell recount tales of the occult, especially with the type of sonic melodies heard. It’s not to say other genres or the music of Mozart can not do the same; the composition of how the notes are organized, the way the lyrics are presented and how it works in harmony (or disharmony) says everything.
When the story focuses in on a man feeling betrayed, that is the making for a decent plot. He’s turned his back on Faith, and the elemental forces of hate use him to destroy the world. In the case of Amadeus (the movie deserving honourable mention in this list), Antonio Salieri did everything he could to torment his foe but ended up haunted by his deeds instead.
Continue reading “Supernatural Sounds to Rock Out To for Halloween”
