Melbourne’s favourite busker (in fact, Australia’s favourite busker!), the “Japanese Blues Cowboy” George Kamikawa, was featured this week in The Age’s entertainment section!

Kamikawa is a regular feature of Bourke Street Mall where he plays some kick-ass blues music on a beaten up old guitar. He’s originally from the Nagoya area of Japan, and is now married and settled in Australia. If you can, try to get a copy of his CD while he’s busking!

Hiza:ki - “lamp”
Faye Wong (composed by Nobuo Uematsu) - “Eyes on Me”
SOUTH BLOW - “Contrast”
the pillows - “Runners High” (karaoke version)
Yasushi Ishii - “LOGOS NAKI WORLD”
Southern All Stars - “TSUNAMI”
Asakusa Jinta - “Ride & Bent”
paro no JAPAN - “paro no dancing all night”
The Seatbelts - “Fantasie Sign” (Ian Pooley remix)
The Canastas - “NENAI NENAI NENAI”
w-inds - “Shiki”
OGRE YOU ASSHOLE - “Mata Ashita”
The Predators - “BAKUON DROP”
STANCE PUNKS - “ikareta BOOGIE”
ghostnote - “love song”
The 50 Kaitenz - “Saturday Night”
POLYSICS - “BUGGY TECHNICA”
THE BREAKERS - “I FOUGHT THE LAW”
Chieco Kawabe - “Sakura Kiss”
Ni Hao! - “MISS FUJIKO”
LANCER>>Bee - “mamagoto”
PISTOL VALVE - “Sit at Cow Char Nall”
Ai Otsuka - “U-Botto”
L’arc~en~Ciel - “Niji”

ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION - “Rewrite”
The Emeralds - “All My Love For You”
Swing Girls OST - “COMIN THROUGH THE RYE”
Zunou Keisatsu - “Comic zasshi nanka iranai”
ORANGE RANGE - “~*Asterisk~”
the pillows - “Lorelai”
cow’p - “small smell’s speaker”
Ai Otsuka - “Tokyo Midnight”
AKAKAGE - “THEME FROM LUPIN THE 3RD 3 - AKAKAGE’S Happy Set-”
Yoko Kanno - “Hodo”
PLUS-TECH SQUEEZE BOX - “milk tea”
pirokalpin - “Kyoto”
BEAT CRUSADERS - “Firestarter”
The Seatbelts - “What Planet Is This?!”
YMCK - “Magical 8bit Tour”
Analog Fish - “Speed”
doburoku - “Don’t Remember Me”
LAST ALLIANCE - “Shissou”
Okino Shuntaro - “Cloud Age Symphony”

HAPPY 19TH BIRTHDAY TO the pillows! Can’t wait til the big 2 - 0!

the pillows - “Tokyo Bambi”
NICO touches the walls - “Broken Youth”
minxzone - “Vinyl Umbrella”
Hoover’s ooover - “Timer”
The Emeralds – “Love is Rolling”
The Emeralds - “Talk About Love”
Doberman – “shasho wa nekoronda mama”
the pillows – “ROCK’N'ROLL SINNERS”
THE BEACHES – “POLICE & BOYS & GIRLS”
Minmi – “love song”

cow’p – “small speaker’s smell”
GO!GO!7188 – “Ska”
HIGH and MIGHTY COLOR - “Rain”
the pillows - “Little Busters” (live)
LANCER>>bee – “mamagoto”
Ni Hao! - “MISS FUJIKO”
noodles – “Cover Me Shakespeare”
little by little – “kimi monogatari”
Galneryus – “Struggle for the Freedom Flag”
the pillows - “BOAT HOUSE”

Japan has this strange talent for taking things from the rest of the world and making them better. Making them their own. Look at ramen, kanji, beer, the automotive industry… Music is no exception. The Japanese music industry is the second largest in the world and full of every genre imaginable, many of which were adopted from the West.

Like Rock & Roll.

One of my new favourite bands are THE EMERALDS. The trio started in 2002 in my second home-town, Yokohama.

L-R: Osuke (B.), Kazuya (G. & Vo.) and Akio (D.)

Their fun riffs and energetic performances make you want to bounce off the walls and wonder whether Rock & Roll was in fact invented by the Japanese!

The band had only released a number of singles and mini-albums but this year saw the arrival of their first full-length studio album ‘LOVE IS ROLLING’.

Already, THE EMERALDS have quite a following overseas, particularly in America, where they have performed at the famous SXSW festival in Texas every year since 2004. They’ve also appeared at a number of anime conventions, where the crowds loved them, despite not understanding their lyrics or recognising any of their songs from famous anime soundtracks.

This ability to engage the crowd seems to be an EMERALDS specialty. Stories abound of how they can get a crowd who’ve never heard them before stamping their feet and cheering within a minute of playing. They’re now known as the “Samurai R&R Trio” with performances as cutting-edge as a samurai sword.

Their fans aren’t just in the U.S. though. They’re getting radio airplay in Europe and Central America. In Korea, they performed at the country’s largest music festival: Ssamzie Sound Festival” to a crowd of over 10,000. In their native Japan, they tour and get media grabs constantly.

Now, we’re giving them some airplay in Australia! Hopefully they can tour here one day.

Check out THE EMERALDS on the internet:
Official Site
MySpace

Ohisashiburi! (Long time no see!)

After a long hiatus (thanks to the 3SSR computer blowing up), RADIO TOKYO returns tomorrow night! And perfect timing too because it’s the 16th of September - the pillows’ 19th birthday! Hehehe!

Expect plenty of the pillows but also plenty of new music - the latest singles from great Japanese bands, including noodles, HOOVER’S OOOVER, ZAZEN BOYS and more!

We also now have freebies! Yep, listen in for your chance to win some CDs and merchandise of Japan’s Samurai Rock’n'Roll Trio: THE EMERALDS!

We’re also now sponsored by JapanFiles.com where you can instantly and legally download some of the great artists that you hear on RADIO TOKYO so be sure to check them out!

Tune in online! Open this stream in your music player of choice - rtsp://136.186.1.204/3ssr/swinradio.sdp

Okay, T minus 21 hours until RADIO TOKYO is back on the air! Tune in from 7pm AEST!

Get excited, people!

RADIO-TOKYO.net
MySpace
last.fm
3SSR

Well, it seems like the 3SSR studios are having a rough time with the broadcast feed. Many apologies to everyone but it seems like RADIO TOKYO won’t be on again this week.

I’m going to ask for confirmation before I make the trek into the studios from now on, so until you see me post that we’re live again, I guess you have to consider RADIO TOKYO off the air for now

I will be posting gig guides and blog posts though, so please check out the website often.

Also, check out some of the awesome bands we have friended here - it’s the easiest way to discover great new Japanese music!

Apologies again to everyone, and take care,

Magda

MinxZone are the Japanese band behing “Vinyl Gasa” - the song used in the David Jones commercial starring Megan Gale entitled “Japanese Story”. They’re a sweet little pop band and they’re performing in Melbourne TONIGHT with Australian band The Wellingtons.

The best part about all this? It’s FREE!

MinxZone and The Wellingtons
8.30pm, Wesley Anne
250 High Street
Northcote Hill
FREE!!

I’ll be there tonight too so come along and say g’day

Walked into the studio just now and found this:



Not happy -.-;;

Sorry people, RADIO TOKYO is down for another week. Hopefully everything is fixed next week.

But while I’m here, have a photo of the studio!

Sorry listeners but you won’t be hearing RADIO TOKYO tonight. There’s some higher priorities that need to be taken care of first

In the meantime, feel free to message or email your requests or gig events for next week’s show! And if you really need a Japanese music fix - check out some of the awesome bands that we have friended on our MySpace page or on our last.fm playlist.

We’ll be back next week, better than before! I’ve got quite a lot of new music I want to play for you, so stay tuned