I'm seeing Duffy in two weeks at the El Rey

While I should be typing my ten page paper on Filipino American political participation, I'm once again wasting time talking about how excited I am for the Duffy show at the El Rey. Out of the three new British Motown revivalist songstress (Amy Winehouse and Adele), Duffy is my favorite. I caught her set by random back at Coachella Music And Arts Festival back in April. After witnessing the shittiness known as Manchester Orchestra, I decided to give Duffy a chance. Her performance was probably the best discovery of that weekend despite the technical difficulties in the beginning.
Anyway I just got her album Rockferry and I have to admit that I'm digging these tunes. I'll probably post a review once I'm finished with finals.


Photo by Chromewaves

Here are three songs that I dig from her new album:

Duffy - Warwick Avenue
Duffy - Serious
Duffy - Syrup & Honey

Japan's darling (in my opinion)....Takako Minekawa

Takako Minekawa:

from the wikipedia article since I'm too lazy to come up with my own bio:

Background
As an accomplished all-around musician, Minekawa's musical skills set her firmly outside of the J-Pop tradition: she writes and composes most of her material, singing quirky lyrics about subjects such as clouds, cats, and the color white (her personal favorite), with her love of Kraftwerk and Music of France also showing through her unique experimental sound. She often makes use of vintage Casio keyboards and analog Moog synthesizers, as well as vocoders and other electronic instruments.

Her live debut was in 1990, calling herself Mamene Kirerie as a member of the group ''Fancy Face Groovy Name'' alongside Kahimi Karie and backed by Flipper's Guitar. She was also a member of the band L⇔R before releasing her solo debut, ''Chat Chat'' in 1994.

Although as a child Minekawa had a short acting career, this interest has not resurfaced in her adult life (aside from her voice exclaiming ''PlayStation!'' in a recent commercial for the product).

She has written professionally, as regular columnist in the Japanese edition of ''Keyboard'' Magazine; she also contributed a serialized novel to the Japanese quarterly ''Bungeishunjū Bungei''.

She married fellow musician Keigo Oyamada (aka Cornelius) in 2000. The pair have collaborated on several projects. Cornelius remixed some of her songs, including the well-received "Milk Rock". He also produced her album ''Fun9''.



Juan's verdict: She is indeed the queen of the Shibuya-kei sound (although Kahimi Karie is the empress). I remembered stumbling upon her music a few years ago back in high school by random. Don't know how I managed to find her by random but I did. It wasn't until last year that I discovered her song "Soft Grafitti" from the album "Fun9" on youtube. The song is just so beautiful and enchanting that it fits well with the video.

Anyway, finding a Takako Minekawa album is quite rare these days considering Emperor Norton records discontinued her releases. Thank god I was able to find it on Amoeba records on the used bin.

Here are three tracks to download:

Takako Minekawa - Plash
Takako Minekawa - Soft Grafitti
Takako Minekawa - Maxi On!

Movie Review: Nobody Knows (2004)

"Nobody Knows"

Summary:
A self-centered mother and her four children move into a small Tokyo apartment after being forced out of their apartments. We do not know their backgrounds other than the fact that each child was born from different fathers. Keiko's (the mother) egocentricism and child-like behavior fall into old habits and abandons the children. Akira, the eldest son, soon takes the role of the fatherly figure and soon must face the harsh realities of life. The children begin to run out of money and are forced to use other circumstances to survive.

Review:
Hirokazu Koreeda's award-winning film "Nobody Knows" is based on the tragic 1988 "the affair of the four abandoned children of Sugamo". Koreeda does an excellent job of portraying such a dire event with the film's strong acting and minimalist filmmaking. The film runs around 2 hours and 20 minutes which could be an extremely long time for someone who's not use to the film's very slow pacing. However, the pacing shouldn't turn one away from watching this film; after all, the wait is very enriching and rewarding. The cinematography is good but not spectacular as a Wong-kar Wai film or an Ingmar Bergman film. However, what caught my attention are the lush colors of metropolitan Japan, which is quite important in this film to show how contemporary society is so extremely fast yet people are unaware that tragic event is occurring. Koreeda is heavily influenced by Yasujiro Ozu's (known for his films Floating Weeds and Tokyo Story) filmmaking style as evident in his use of static shots, lack of camera movement, and so on. However, allowing these static shots makes the viewer pays close attention to the little, intricate detail in the film's scenes. Film buff note: Koreeda does use a lot of the stationary tatami shots that Ozu was known for.

The acting in this film is top notch despite many of the main actors' little to no formal acting training. Yuya Yagira (who plays Akira) deserves all honors for his acting abilities and I do hope to see him continue to grow as an excellent acto (He did win the Cannes Best Actor 2004 Award). You's (that's the actual actress's name) depiction of the mother Keiko may seem annoying at first, but it fits well with her character, which makes her seem very child-like rather than as a motherly figure. Although the film has very sparse dialogue, the movements and intricacies of each child's facial feature truly shows how emotion can very well be carried nicely through the scene.

Only a few filmmakers (Yasujiro Ozu, Alain Resnais, and Ingmar Bergman) can truly understand and capture the human soul through film. Despite the hardships of poverty, the children's love for one another is a testament to all that love conquers all. A highly recommended film for all. Do not hold those tears, for life is not worth holding back.

my rating: 5/5

Trailer:

Rehaul and school

As I'm nearing the end of my year as a Junior at UCSB, I realized how much shit I've wasted. I completely forgot that i still had this blog available. I will promise you all that I will post this as frequent as possible once finals are over. In the meantime...I will be posting past reviews and shit.

For now...here's my concert schedule for the year:

January:
1/17/08 - Cornelius w/Plaid at Walt Disney Concert Hall

April:
4/23/08 - Spiritualized Acoustic Mainlines at Lobero Theatre, Santa Barbara
4/25 to 4/27/08 Coachella Music and Arts Festival; Indio, CA

June:
6/19/08 - Duffy @ El Rey Theatre, Hollywood, CA

August:
8/9/08 - Rock The Bells Music Festival, San Bernardino,CA
8/23/08- Sunset Junction Fair, Silverlake, CA
8/24/08 - Radiohead w/Liars at Hollywood Bowl
8/28/08 - Radiohead w/Liars at Santa Barbara Bowl

September:
9/9/08 - Mogwai @ Wiltern (if there is such an event)
9/17 Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds w/Cat Power, Spiritualized at Hollywood Bowl
9/21 Stereolab @ Glasshouse Pomona

October:
10/1/08 My Bloody Valentine @ Santa Monica Civic