Rancid excite much of the punk community by returning to Japan in January 2007. The tour consists of 8 shows in total in Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, Hiroshima, Fukuoka, Kanagawa and Sendai. When touring the USA recently they were proud to announce they had 150 songs to choose their set from, and wouldn’t do the same set each night. Let’s hope this continues for January 2007!

Via Creativeman

Last month, Plastic Bamboo hero, Ryuichi Sakamoto, started his own podcast as part of his slot on J-Wave Radio (81.3FM) in Japan. The slot, Radio Sakamoto is for 2 months, and features guests and music of Ryuichi’s choice. Being the world citizen that he is, the last podcast came from Vienna. The next episode will apparently feature Cornelius.

Go here to download the podcast.

Despite several breaks throughout their career, new wave band Blondie are finally performing their last tour. This nicely involves 3 dates in Japan this week. The dates are:

6th Sep - Osaka, Namba Hatch
7th and 8th Sep - Tokyo, Shibuya O-East

Obviously a memorable event for every Blondie fan. However, the best news is for those attending on the 7th September who will get to see the amazing Polysics supporting!

All shows 7,500 yen (£34/$64)

The tracklisting for Cornelius’ new album Sensuous has been announced. Here we go…

1. Sensuous
2. Fit Song
3. Breezin’
4. Toner
5. Wataridori
6. Gum
7. Scum
8. Omstart
9. Beep It
10. Like A Rolling Stone
11. Music
12. Sleep Warm

Some of these tracks won’t be unfamiliar to the more hardcore Cornelius fan. Toner was previously released as a track to accompany a video piece by Takagi Masakatsu for Sound & Recording magazie, while Wataridori was released 2 years ago as part of a Creative Commons CD that came with Wired magazine. The title of the track was Wataridori 2, which I assume was to get around licensing issues. This can still be downloaded from here. Gum was previously used in a Vodaphone advert in Japan and also appears as a b-side to Music. You can download Music by reading this post. It can also be assumed that Like a Rolling Stone is a cover of the Bob Dylan song. Unless it’s just a coincidence and Cornelius has never heard of Bob Dylan. Which would be funny.

You can pre-order ‘Sensuous’ online now from YesAsia!

Via Chipple

One thing I thought I had over pop stars was my gaming ability. Unfortunately this is no longer the case. At the start of the month there was a Nintendo promo event with Japanese singing superstar Utada Hikaru taking on 30 challengers at a game of Tetris DS. Video of the event has finally been put online where you can marvel at Utada’s skills. Watching this video made me play Tetris online for an hour just to prove I was at least better than some people.

Via DSMeet.

Good news for gamers - the new Electronic Arts football game, FIFA 07, has a soundtrack featuring songs from international artists in order to represent each country in the game’s team. The two artists selected from Japan were Plastic Bamboo favourites, Polysics, and funky hip-hop rhymer Tigarah. The songs used will be ‘Tei! Tei! Tei!’ by Polysics, and ‘Girl Fight!’ by Tigarah. You can listen to snippets of all the tracks used in the game here.

As a massive Cornelius fan, I’ve been checking his website every day for news on his new album. After clicking the first link in the news section (and being extremely annoyed that it resized my browser), there wasn’t much to see other than a little bit of info about the new single, ‘Music’. I noticed that the page I was looking at was in the /music/ folder, so I decided to look in there to see if there was anything more. Imagine my surprise when I found links to some downloads - an mp3 of the new single and .mov of the accompanying video.

See for yourself at this link.

I’m not saying I downloaded them, or that you should, I’m just telling you what I found. That is all!

YMCK, the popular 8-bit combo, are giving fans the opportunity to make music sounding just like them or any old Nintendo game you can think of. They’ve developed the ‘Magical 8-bit plug’, which is a synth plug-in (Audio Unit & VST available) for most music sequencing software that will allow you to enter YMCK’s world. Works with both Windows and OS X.

You can download the plug-in from YMCK’s homepage.

Polysics will be releasing yet another live DVD. ‘Now is the live!’ will be released on 23/08/06. The film was shot on 14/05/06 at a show at the Shibuya-AX venue in Tokyo. Extras include documentary footage from their recent UK tour.

The tracklisting is…

(more…)

Good news for Limited Express (has gone?) fans. Their international debut is upon us. Titled ‘The best is coming!’, the album will be released in Japan, Europe, U.S. and Australia. No tracklisitng yet I’m afraid. The rough release dates are as follows:

Japan - 04/10/06
Australia - 12/06
Europe - 02/07
U.S. - 02/07

This Wednesday (23/8) sees the release of the first Cornelius single in over four years. ‘Music’ will feature 3 b-sides. The tracklisting is:

1. Music
2. Gum
3. Clap & Whistle & Walking
4. The Star-Spangled-Gayo

You can also watch the video for the new single on youtube.

‘Music’, is off the forthcoming album ‘Sensuous’, which is out on 25th October, which is also followed by another single, ‘Breezin”. The CD single for ‘Breezin” will feature a cover of the incredible YMO song, ‘Cue’.

Other, more bizarre Cornelius news, is the inclusion of Cornelius-composed sounds for new Nintendo game ‘Coloris’, which you can hear snippets of from Nintendo of Japan’s Coloris site.

You can pre-order ‘Sensuous’ from YesAsia.

Via Chipple.