An Eternal Thought in the Mind of Godzilla

World Contact Day

Detroit’s finest, Outrageous Cherry, generated massive amounts of psychic energy at their concert at the Hemlock Tavern in San Francisco last night, resulting in poltergeist activity, UFO sightings, and pretty girls going insane all along the dimensional bandwidth.

For a band with a sound so cosmic in scale, Outrageous Cherry themselves are all-too-human in appearance. Leader Matthew Smith, in an orange and purple striped pullover, frets over monitors and pedals, tossing out Eastern-tinged lines on his Stratocaster during the sound check. Gaunt lead guitarist Larry Ray, looking like he had a serious run-in with “LDS in the sixties,” faces  the brick wall on his left, doing a magnificent impression of someone who's not there, while simultaneously playing his soul out. Armed with only two toms for percussion, Carey Gustafson hypnotizes with a tribal stomp. She's Moe Tucker at a boxing gym. Courtney Sheedy burns cool on her bass, leaning up against the side of the stage, poking out for back up vocals. Visually, they have to be one of the weirdest looking bands out there. It shouldn’t come together as a unit, but sonically it does. Perhaps because, as any good student of Crowley could tell you, power comes from the balancing of opposites, in this case, male-female, young-old.

It’s the aural equivalent of a magik ritual held by the Archies in the auditorium of Riverdale High. The critics call it psychedelic, thus branding it “retro,” and leave it at that. But this ignores that the search for altered states of consciousness via music, goes all the way back to the roots of our mushroom chomping caveman brains. Far from being a faddish product of the sixties, psychedelica is really a search for the possibilities of the present. Smith explains that Outrageous Cherry's sound came from “experimenting with reverb, compression, using every knob I’ve got.”

But before you begin to suspect that Outrageous Cherry are a bunch of over-earnest witches and warlocks, keep in mind that their worldview was assembled from what Alan Moore calls the ‘trash strata’: Thrift store record collections, sci-fi paperbacks, and drive-in theater documentaries about “The Amazing World of Psychic Phenomena.” And yet it’s here, at the lowest level of junk culture that genuine flashes of insight can be found.

Which is why I stood in the front row singing along with every song I could.

They only played for a little over an hour, which was far too short for my level of fanaticism. I took the set list off the stage after they were done. For the sake of posterity (and Carl Horn), here it is…

The Astral Transit Authority
You’re Not a Nice Girl
Pretty Girls Go Insane
Georgie Don’t You Know
Saturday Afternoon
Supernatural Equinox
Unless
Our Love Will Change the World
Girl, You Have Magic Inside You
Nice to Be Here (AKA Spectral Sunrise)
What Have You Invented Today
Desperate XS
If You Want Me
A Song For Someone Sometimes
See You Next Time

Afterwards, mutual friend Ian Robertson gave me an introduction to Matthew Smith, who formed Outrageous Cherry in 1992. He explained that, after a series of records, "we found the sound with (1999’s) Out There in the Dark. Then it became a matter of how to expand on it." The mind-blowing double LP that followed, The Book of Spectral Projections, was “the fastest thing I’d ever done. The songs were writing themselves. The band was learning, like, five new songs a day, and we’d record them at night. It’s also my favorite thing we’ve done. There’s kind of a narrative to the whole thing, but it’s not so clear what it is, even to me. I was waking up and writing in this notebook and I kept seeing the same words over and over again: like ‘invisible’ and ‘frequency.’ There was something going on with that record.”

The song When You Emerge was tucked deep inside Spectral Projections when it was released in June 2001. But three months later, it's lyrics like "When you emerge like the ghost of a hero, walking away across ground zero” took on a new meaning. Smith: “A people mentioned that it seemed like the song predicted 9/11. It was really strange.”

After Spectral Projections, Outrageous Cherry began to rotate back to delivering concise pop songs. Smith’s more explorative side now has a home in his THTX (for Twenty-three Hour Technicolor Xorcism) side-project, which ventures into epic acid jazz and prog-rock territory. He’s also active in alt-country band The Volebeats and deeply involved in Detroit’s famed music scene as a producer.

Meanwhile, back at the show, the band is making room for the up and coming headliners, Gris Gris. To be honest, it was clear that most of the crowd came to see them instead of the still-unknown Outrageous Cherry.

On her way off the stage tugging an amp almost as big as she was, Courtney stopped and told one particularly sweaty fan, “I love it when someone sings along with us. It’s so great. Every time I smiled it was because of that.” Guilty as charged, and delirious from my brief tour of the astral plane, I replied, “Hey, you make the music. I just receive it.”

I suggest that you turn on your receivers now.

Outrageous Cherry homepage (with MP3 samples)

THTX homepage (with MP3 samples)

Mild Concussion

Manga Mania!
At the Japan Society of Northern California
May 3
      
Want an alternative method to learning Japanese? Whoever heard of using ‘comics’ as textbooks? This program will focus on alternative ways of learning Japanese, specifically through reading manga. In his recently published work, Japanese the Manga Way: An Illustrated Guide to Grammar & Structure, Wayne Lammers provides an in-depth alternative Japanese language textbook using various manga excerpts and visuals. Mr. Lammers will also present quick and easy tips on using manga to learn Japanese. Frederik Schodt will provide background on the manga explosion and increasing popularity in the US.

Panelists:
Wayne Lammers: Author, Japanese the Manga Way (2005), translator, Mangajin magazine
Frederik Schodt: Author, Manga! Manga! and Dreamland Japan
Patrick Macias (moderator): Co-author, Cruising the Anime City: The Otaku Guide to Neo-Tokyo

5:30 p.m. Registration & Reception
6:00 – 7:30 p.m. Program

312 Sutter Street, 2nd Floor
San Francisco, CA
Map & Directions
$5 Students with ID
$10 Members
$15 Non-members

Itai

There’s blood in the sink. Mine. It’s coming out of my nose. Not a steady stream, like in the movies, thank god, but it’s enough to make me have to clean up afterwards. While dabbing at the porcelain with paper towels, I start to taste it in my mouth. There’s a red groove running horizontal on my lower lip. I can feel cuts inside of my mouth from where the mouth guard rattled around.

I just sparred for the first time. It was only two rounds with no winner declared. I can’t imagine how someone could do it for ten let alone 15.

Most of the damage came from a big jab I caught right in the face. It's a hot blue light that hits like a flashbulb, then twinkles out into cartoon stars. It’s my most vivid memory of the fight, which zips by in blurry hysterical nanoseconds. Mostly, I’m doing a lot of jabbing, trying to keep the guy (same age as me, slightly heavier, longer reach) away. He hooks me on the left side, head and body. I get him with a one-two, a jab and a straight right in the face. “There you go! Keep jabbing,” a young guy says standing just outside the ring, waiting for his turn to spar. I wonder if he’s making fun of the new guy, or just rooting for the underdog.

Round two: I go for the body, and catch him in the stomach. Then I start getting robotic. I jab and then try to connect with my right, which served me good before. He starts countering and trying to overwhelm me with headshots. The gym’s trainer, Paris, tells me what’s going on: “He’s got your rhythm down. You need to mix it up!” I try to lead with my right instead. Bad move. It opens up my guard. He caps me in the face, smothering my nose and chin with his glove, and I back up. “30 seconds!” Paris yells, but there's no big shots for the finale and no real memory of much until it’s time to step out of the ring.

When I come out of the bathroom, my sparring partner, whose name is Jose, is dabbing at his nose with a Kleenex. Seems we both have bloody noses. I look around. Another kid has a cut on his chin. We’re all sweating, leaking. Jose tells me I have a good jab. He couldn’t get inside or around it often, and it hurt when it connected. Paris’ measured verdict: “Not bad. Not bad for your first time.” I’m just happy I didn’t fall down or trip up and was on my feet the whole time.

By the time I get home, I can tell my nose is going to hurt the next day. And it does. The lip doesn’t look as bad it did the night before, but I have Advil for breakfast all the same.

We'll see how I feel about doing it again next week. Right now, I just want a beer, a hamburger, and some sleep.

Yabuki Joe

There’s some deadlines and stuff in Japanese, but there’s only one thing on my mind right now: boxing. It will be my first time to spar on Thurs/21. It will be the opposite of losing my virginity.

Wish me Rocky movies.

Tomo is going to be there too

Author Patrick Macias to speak at Get Lost Books in San Francisco

On April 20th Get Lost Travel Books hosts TOKYO ANIME, an event in which Patrick Macias, co-author of Cruising the Anime City: An Otaku Guide to Neo Tokyo, presents a different view of Tokyo: an alternative-pop world of comic book and electronic game stores, anime film locations and the hang-outs of cosplay (those who dress up as anime characters). "...the information is one of a kind."

This free event starts at 7 pm at Get Lost Bookstore, 1825 Market Street, San Francisco, 94103

Yotomono Jingi

Big Anime City coverage over at Anime News Network: interviews with Tomo and me, along with a big review of the book. It's all here.

Kamisori

DVD Maniacs has the first review  of HVE's Hanzo the Razor DVD box set. Tomo and I did the liner notes for film number one: Sword of Justice. The review is here.

Manda tai Goten-go

I was interviewed by Newsday about the "Little Boy: The Arts of Japan's Exploding Subculture" show in NYC, curated by Takashi Murakami AKA "Darth Vader." The link to Newsday's article is here.

Operation: Final Wars has begun.

bakuretsu toshi

My soon to be  neighbor Matt Alt, who also lives in the Mitaka area, chimes in via email with a few musings on the Tokyo Anime Fair earlier this week:

Anime fair was so-so. Shoji Kawamori's latest, Aquarion, was on display, as was the latest from the guy who directed that live-action series "D," called Specter. Unlike previous shows, Hollywood types were out in droves this year, many looking as though they were serving their time in anime purgatory before moving on to the "big leagues." Most productions looked quite derivative and flat, to be brutally honest, and the screens attracting the most attention were the ones showing vintage stuff such as at Sunrise's booth. I found myself more excited looking at the new Macross toys than I did by any new productions. I think I liked anime better when the Japanese didn't realize it was their country's hottest export product. This is the first year I've really felt that the Japanese have realized just how much anime has "broken through" in America. I kept overhearing snippets of conversations in hushed tones about "the Pokémon effect" and things like that; it seems every major production is being geared to appeal to
foreign audiences on at least some level.

Shin Gekitotsu Jitsuroku Gaiden

I’m moving to Tokyo in June.

There. I’ve said it.

I’ve already got a place to stay in Mitaka. I’ll be working on a pair of books, trying to freelance as much as I can, and studying Japanese among other things.

Maybe I’ll come back. Maybe I won’t. It’s all kind of a gamble, but the alternative is a slow death by boredom here in the states.

Now all I have to do is summon up the engery to box up my life and move.

Irezumi Ichidai

My boxing trainer, Chris Cariaso, won his match at the San Francisco Golden Gloves last night. I was there in the 8^th row cheering like a loon and having multiple Rocky-gasms. Boxing rules OK.

Working on the DVD notes now for The Fall of Ako Castle - which is Kinji Fukasaku’s version of the Chushingura legend, and Shogun’s Shadow - an update of the Eichi Kudo style “gang of samurai” film by way of The Wild Bunch. Both discs offering varying degrees of Sonny Chiba and are coming from Ventura Select / Adness in June.

Lastly, Godzilla Final Wars is the "Mutantou" movie of the millennium and the Sayonara Jupiter for a new generation. Not be missed. But it only really matters what Kojiro Abe thinks...