LAST YEAR'S MODEL

At first listen, you may think you’ve heard this before.  Superficially,  UK based techno pop band You Love Her Coz She’s Dead has a lot in common with other 2 person electro punk acts like Crystal Castles and Kap Bambino; fast electronic beats, yelled female vox, 8 bit chirps (yeah yeah, Kap Bambino doesn’t do this…) and plenty of vocoder.  However, YLHCSD is more than another disco clone.

It is the way in which YLHCSD uses the previously mentioned elements that sets them apart.  Where Crystal Castles used chip tunes primarily as a way to make noise, YLHCSD uses their 8 bit to make great pop melodies, quickly moving from glitched out noise to rave hooks inside the same 8 bars.  And the vocals are great.  What starts out as a no tune yell will transition into a vocoder layered harmony fill melody.  YLHCSD is a pop band.  Constantly changing keeps the songs from sinking into repetition.  And while the feel is dark, the songs are ultimately catchy and fun.  I guess it’s easier to hear it than describe it.  Here’s the video for their new single, Young Tender Hearts Beat Fast  Enjoy the unicorn fetus.

So far, the band has released one 4 song ep and two singles.  According to their myspace, they are currently working on a full length, which I cannot wait for.  In the meantime, I have been listening to all of their releases on shuffle–there isn’t a bad song in the lot.  I’ll leave you with a video from their debut ep, the song is called Dead End.

It’s our first interview!  I was very nervous cuz I didn’t want to sound like a total pompous dick (like 003 often does).  Anywayzzzz…I hope you enjoy it!  We are very thankful that The King of the Gigabitches is in our corner!  See you Friday for our release party!! We have finished the ep (in eleventh hour!) and it sounds great.  Also, it looks amazing.  Even more rad than the flyer (see above)  I don’t want to spoil the surprise yet, but trust me, you want a physical copy even though it’s a cd and nobody buys those anymore.  Vinyl next time, we promise!!

READ OUR RADICAL NINJA INTERVIEW WITH THE KING OF THE GIGABITCHES!!!

Let’s talk about rad comics!!  You may know about Taiyo Matsumoto…I think he’s most famous for being the author of Tekkonkinkreet.  It was made into a pretty rad anime movie, too.  But what I wanna talk about today is his newest manga, GOGO Monster, which came out in December of 2009.

GOGO Monster by Taiyo Matsumoto

I can’t speak for Matsumoto’s entire body of work, but of the manga I have read, he tells stories in the vein of magical realism.  I’ve always liked this genre of story, and GOGO Monster is the pinnacle of the genre.  It tells the story of Yuki Tachibana, a first grader who believes that there is a battle going on in his school between good and evil spirits.  He also believes that the good spirits that he used to see are abandoning him, and that soon his insides will rot because of it.  Of course, all this is is a thinly veiled coming of age story where Yuki’s fight to stay in his magical world parallels his desire to stay a child forever and also serves as an excuse to keep himself apart from the classmates he despises.  And though I’ve just explained the story in a nutshell, to say that that’s all there is to it would be an incredible disservice to a simple but beautifully subtle and dream-like tale about the end of youth.

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Hey guys, I’ve never tried to tell anyone explicitly how our writing process as a band works and what inspires us (well mainly me cuz I really can’t speak for the other Models). Okay, so that’s not totally true.  If you know me well, you probably can’t get me to shut up about LYM this or LYM that.  Bag ur face, I love my band!  Anywayz, here we go.

I wanna talk about the title track on our new E.P., “Human 2.0″ (out April 30th for our show at The Tank) and how we tried to musically recreate (at least a small facet of) manga legend Shirow Masamune’s amazing post apocalyptic epic, “Appleseed”.  But before I get into the lyrical content that “Appleseed” inspired, I guess the best place to start is with the instrumental music that we composed, because in our writing process that’s what comes first, not the vocals or the lyrics.

The song that we now call “Human 2.0″  was first conceived in an attempt to once again create a longer, more epic feeling song; something in the vain of “Computer Says, ‘No!’ Episodes IV, V & VI”.  What we found frustrating us about CSN upon its completion was that although the song was tied together loosely in lyrical theme and in musical content, at the end of the day it was nothing more than three separate songs grouped as one.  We wanted to write a longer song again, but we love pop music and never want to write something that just repeats and repeats and drones on and bores us all to tears (like this post–sorz keep reading tho cuz it’s kewl).  This is why our songs are usually short.  As soon as something bores us, we clip it, and that happens far more quickly to us, the composers, as we hear each beat of a song far more times than someone casually listening ever would.  Much to our surprise we were able to keep building and building this time, and to combat potential boredom, we

CLICK FOR MORE EPIC SCI-FI HISTORY IN THE MAKING

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Two sentences I never thought I’d be saying, “Have you heard the new New Young Pony Club record?  It’s rad!”  Okay, so I can imagine myself saying the first sentence, but not followed by the second.  I’ve never been a fan of NYPC.  When their debut album, Fantastic Playroom, was all the rage of 2k7, I was referring to them as “that awful band I hate” (to be fair, this is not a distinction only reserved for NYPC–there are many awful bands I hate out there).  I have, however, always really wanted to like them.  At their core, they are a new wave revival band; minimal dance punk beats, icy detached vox, synth hooks and guitar hooks galore.  It all looks real appealing to me on paper.  But every time I sat down to give their record a listen, I found that the ironic smirk they wore got old fast, and that the songs themselves were not strong enough to keep me from hitting skip.

I begin with an explanation of my distaste for the first NYCP full length only to point out my love for their new album.  On their second record, The Optimist, NYCP show themselves to be the band I always hoped they would be.  Let’s start with my favorite single from the new record, Chaos.

MORE AFTER THE BREAK.  NOT CLICKING IS FOR JERKS AND BABIES
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A Sneak Preview by Evan Neel featuring music from the EP.  See you April 30th at The Tank.

Hey.  I love video games.  Especially RPG’s (that’s “role playing games”, natch)!  I love really long RPG’s where you can customize your party as you see fit and fight really tough battles.  And my favorite franchise ever is Atlus‘ Persona.  And Persona 3 and Persona 4 are the two best video games I have ever played.  EVER.

The Persona series began in 1996 for PSone.  What initially made the series so remarkable was the dark tone, unusual combat system, and Atlus’ love of teen drama humor.  Each game was an improvement upon the last, until we reach Persona 3 & 4, the most interesting and unique games I have played.

First, let’s talk about combat, because you spend most of your time in RPG’s fighting, and if it’s not fun then what’s the point?  Combat is turn based in Persona, with you controlling (or using preset AI to control) a party of up to 4 characters.  Generally, you have a typical variety of physical and magical attacks to choose from.  The first important difference that takes the system away from the traditional is that each characters powers lie inside a demon that they summon to do battle on their behalf.  While the secondary characters in your party have one demon that slowly learns new skills as the game progresses, the main character can take many demons into battle, switching them on the fly in order to better exploit enemy weaknesses.  In fact, exploiting weaknesses is a very important part of Persona, because if you hit an enemy with an ability it is weak to, the enemy is knocked down and you are given an extra attack.  Knock down all the enemies and you are given the option of an all-in attack where you party literally pummels your foes.  Here’s a battle vid so you can see what it looks like.

How rad is it that every time someone summons a demon they shoot themselves’ in the head?!?!

MORE AFTER THE BREAK SO READ IT BITCHCAKE!!

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Yo guyz!  It’s almost time for our release party!!!  Srsly, it’s only a couple weeks away and I’m stoked.  Right now, we are in the process of mixing the ep.  Already I can safely say that this will be the best sounding record we have ever released.  I’m really stoked about the songs too!!  Basically, I’m excited.  really really excited.  really.

The new record is going to be called Human 2.0.  The packaging will feature hand screen printed art by our friend, Damian Genuardi on a slick “cd literature folder”.  As you may know from the packaging of our first full-length, New Wave of Attack Mode Robot Pop, we are really into cool packaging, so you can rest assured that we will not disappoint on this one (rather, Damian will not disappoint.  I will supervise his not disappoint action).

Next, the tracks.  The ep will feature 4 songs:
1.  Edit Friends (3:30)
2.  Neon Fever  (3:27)
3.  2012 (??? prolly like 3:30…?)
4.  Human 2.0 (6:30)

yup.  that’s right.  The title track is six and a half minutes long!!!  Have we gone prog?  NO!!!  More like we crammed a million punk / synth pop / cock rock songs into one epic story about the battle between man and cyborg.  Epic like Snow Crash or something (a rather pulpy kind of epic, natch).

Finally, Mr. Genuardi will also be helping us with the design for a brand new Human 2.0 t-shirt which will be available at our show!!!  Rad Cybertown USA!

Okay, so RSVP and make sure to get there early, cuz the first 25 people in the door at our record release show will receive a free copy of the new ep.  See you there!!

My last post about Japanese music explored some influential bands in the Shibuya-kei scene of the 1990’s.  This time, I wanna talk about the bands that crossed over from the world of lounge pop into the world of punk rock.  Which is where my heart lies.  Psyche.  I have no heart.

While many of the “new wave of new wave” bands had their strongest influences in late 70’s and early 80’s American punk and new wave, several of my favorite J-pop acts transitioned very obviously from the bossa nova heavy music of the 90’s straight into electro punk.   Among these bands are Macdonald Duck Eclair, Hi-Posi, and one of my very favorite bands, Plus-Tech Squeeze Box.

Here’s a couple tracks by Macdonald Duck Eclair.  Sorz, no real vids for these.  Both songs are off  their first full length, “Short Short” (2004).  They cite both french pops and Atari Teenage Riot as important influences.  You can hear this quite clearly on the album, and on these two tracks.  more after the break so click it dbag. Read more

Hey guys, wanted to let you know that I am djing at the Maritime Hotel in La Bottega Caffe on Saturday April 3rd.  So here’s  a bit of the set from last time to give you an idea of what to expect so you get all hyped and stuff.  Come join me, 10pm-2am!  RSVP here.

TRIBECA // SOLITUDE
DAT POLITICS // BAD DREAM MACHINE
BLONDIE // EAT TO THE BEAT
NEW ORDER // SUB CULTURE
TOMMY FEBRUARY 6 // E-MAIL ME MORE
APES & ANDROIDS // WE DON’T UNDERSTAND YOU
RAMONES // MY BRAIN IS HANGING UPSIDE DOWN
CLASS ACTRESS // CAREFUL WHAT YOU SAY
LENE LOVICH // I THINK WE’RE ALONE NOW (JAPANESE VERSION)
NOJONS // PHILLY GIRL
PLASTICS // GOOD
POLYSICS // BABY BIAS
LESLEY GORE // THAT’S THE WAY BOYS ARE
CRISTINA // TICKET TO THE TROPICS
MONOMEN // DRUM OF GLASS
PAT BENATAR // ANXIETY

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