YouTubesday: J-Bands

This week we are taking a break from tromping through the flowerbeds of my childhood television to revisit the fertile fields of Japanese music videos, or promotional videos as they are called. This week I will be concentrating on groups with really strange/awesome names, such as PaperBagLunchBox or Natural Punch Drunker.

(Partially inspired and informed by Sparkplugged's "5 Cool Japanese Band Names" and "5 Cool Japanese Band Names Part 2")

Lets start our journey into the realm of WTF was that name again with the song "Loveless Ideals" from Sloth Love Chunks. If you can't love a band named Sloth Love Chunks there is no goodness in your soul.




Now we'll slow things down a little with the eletronica-post-rock sounds of Spangle Call Lilli Line with their song "Nano":




I would never pass up an opportunity to post a PV from a group named the Funky Monkey Babys with their song "Lovin' Life":




Actually I like their brand of melodic hip-hop, if you can even call it that, so much that you will have to watch this video with the fat kid in it as well:




Sadly the only video I was able to find for The Jerry Lee Phantom was this live recording of their performance from 1999:




Here we have "Supernova" from the group Bump of Chicken:




Now I have no idea what is going on in this video, for "Shonen to Shiroi Inu", from the Shakalabbits. I think the singer sounds a bit like Alanis Morrisette. Plus she's wearing an eye-patch. That's just pi-radical!




The video for "early RISER" from Plus Tech Squeeze Box gave me frashbacks to living at Meatplant, and not in a good way and with more guitars. You have been warned.




While this does not fit into the category of strange band names I thought I would share the debut PV from professional eater Natsuko "Gal" Sone's band Gyaruru "Boom Boom Meccha Maccho!" or "Boom Boom Very Macho!"




I thought we might begin our cool-down with the single biggest disappointment that YouTube coughed up for me this week. While searching for videos and bands for this post I went ahead and punched the Beat Crusaders in to see if anything new popped up from my favorite J-band. Well what to my wandering eyes should appear but a video titled "Cum on Feel the Noize." Imagine my excitement as I am a HUGE fan of the 1983 version of the song by Quiet Riot, which I thought was the original until researching this post, and thus I was a little disappointed by this recording:




Finally we'll end this week's installment with a couple of videos from the Polysics (OR DIE!), whose song "Black Out Fall Out" features in my Funkwoodjamz - Big in Japan mix. Both of the following videos feature Mao Murakami, better know as Strong Machine 2, and she is pretty much the reason they are included. She can pop-n-lock with the best of them.

First up we have "I My Me Mine" which gets stuck in my head all the freaking time:




The second is "Electric Surfin' Go Go":



I so need to get me some of those glasses!

Bonus Round!

Here are a couple of commercials featuring Mao: