Japan: Guitar Wolf, Otonana Trio, and Yoshiki

Legendary cool Japanese band Guitar Wolf will be back in the US & Canada this fall in support of their 12″ vinyl of Beast Vibrator. If you can make it to one of their live tour dates, the vinyl is available online, including guitarwolfshop.com.



Anyway, words from singer/guitarist Seiji indicate his inspiration of the title track (“Beast Vibrator”) from his cell phone: “Be wild! Find your wild instinct! Don’t sit still! Hey, don’t keep staring at your mobile. Fxxk “healing”! Shake your body and heart hard with power of beast!!!”



This new “Tour Magma” throughout the U.S. is with The Coathangers (the all-girl band that I wrote about five years ago, comparing them to “Bikini Kill, the Slits, and other Riot Grrl-type bands”) and Coward (a punk band from Nashville). I’m really looking forward to seeing all these bands live.



Tour Magma tour kicks off next week:

09/26 Memphis GONERFEST10 09/27 Nashville Exit/In. 09/28 Baltimore Ottobar 09/29 NYC Santos Party House 09/30 Montreal Sala Rossa 10/01 Toronto Hard Luck Bar 10/03 Saint Paul Turf Club 10/04 Chicago Subterranean 10/05 Lincoln Knickerbockers 10/06 Denver Marquis Theatre

10/08 Seattle Chop Suey 10/09 Vancouver Rickshaw Theatre 10/10 Portland Dante’s 10/12 San Francisco Bottom of the Hill 10/13 Los Angeles The Satellite 10/14 San Diego Soda Bar 10/16 Austin Red 7 (inside) 10/17 Houston Walter’s 10/18 New Orleans Siberia 10/19 Atlanta Drunken Unicorn 10/20 Memphis HiTone

Otonana Trio, as their name suggests, is a three-piece rock band from Dynamite Club’s Kentaro Saito, The Cavemans’ Naoya Miyara, and Goshi “the hardest working bassists in Japan” Miura.



Their name translate to English as “Three Grown-ups” in broken Japanese. The trio will be in the U.S. in support of their sophomore album The Ramen War:

Yoshiki’s double album Yoshiki Presents Eternal Melody is one of Japan’s top-selling classical albums, and he is back with Yoshiki Classical. The new album features his collaboration with legendary Beatles producer Sir George Martin, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Tokyo City Philharmonic Symphony and the Quartet San Francisco. It was supposed to have been released last month, but due to a controversial “skeleton album art”, the album has been delayed to next week, September 24th.



Hear “Miracle” on Soundcloud.



It’s kind of interesting to see classical musicians in today’s environment, but there is definitely a market for this – considering that
Olafur Arnalds does well and Japan’s Yoshiki selling out his debut solo performance in Los Angeles last month at The Grammy Museum.