so was akiko yano!
― visiting, Saturday, 16 April 2022 04:16 (two years ago) link
“Of the three dishes for today, I like this one the best. But you know, the relationship between the prawn and the shark fins in this dish, well you know, it’s a little…dissonant.“
- ryuichi sakamoto
― Karl Malone, Saturday, 16 April 2022 04:44 (two years ago) link
With Throbbing Gristle
https://64.media.tumblr.com/eb0f480d76c4e8645eb977a84c1cff2b/af11579342429de0-4d/s1280x1920/458e25075e57fb5ed9d299dbd4903a314f740689.jpg
― Kim Kimberly, Sunday, 1 May 2022 20:13 (two years ago) link
Woah! Lucky Gen got a YMO shirt too. Maybe they made him a special GPO one?
― stirmonster, Sunday, 1 May 2022 20:43 (two years ago) link
I wonder if this was backstage after the Hammersmith Odeon gig in 1980
― Maresn3st, Sunday, 1 May 2022 20:49 (two years ago) link
I'd seen a photo of Gen in the YMO shirt before and had always wondered about it.
― visiting, Sunday, 1 May 2022 23:20 (two years ago) link
https://i.discogs.com/uR_oYov9lZowGSCOYNZAOxjazFjtm4_Fz-l8nyYxUbg/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:597/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTIxOTEy/Ni0xMzU3NTU4NDky/LTM5MDMuanBlZw.jpeg
― Was Hitler a Hobbit? (Tom D.), Monday, 2 May 2022 09:44 (two years ago) link
I don't wonder if you could buy them at gigs, perhaps from the merch stall.
I know they packaged those shirts later on with the Ultimate Collection box set.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/UC-YMO-Premium-Ultimate-Collection-of-Yellow-Magic-Orchestra-Limited-T-shirt-/313470319914
― Maresn3st, Monday, 2 May 2022 10:06 (two years ago) link
i have probably looked at that TG Greatest Hits sleeve 100s of times but somehow never noticed the YMO shirt. x post.
― stirmonster, Monday, 2 May 2022 10:35 (two years ago) link
Not really great news
https://www.brooklynvegan.com/ryuichi-sakamoto-battling-stage-4-cancer-report/
― the classic emerson lake & palmer line-up (Matt #2), Wednesday, 8 June 2022 19:28 (one year ago) link
Awful news.
― SQUIRREL MEAT!! (Capitaine Jay Vee), Wednesday, 8 June 2022 19:38 (one year ago) link
When I see a YMO thread bumped, I always have a little fluttery moment where I think that it may be sad news about him or about Yuki, boomer-era Japan is going to go into major mourning when he goes.
― Maresn3st, Wednesday, 8 June 2022 19:45 (one year ago) link
actually makes me feel guilty about bumping them all the time. I think the same when these threads get bumped.
I'm a member of a few YMO groups on FB so I kinda knew something wasn't right, but it's hard to tell when everything is translated from Japanese. I thought the "I hope to make music until the end" quote was from Takahashi, who just turned 70. he seemed to be doing okay, though. but he's not performing live at the moment which is a bit troubling. him and YT are such restless musicians that you know something's up when they take some time off.
― frogbs, Wednesday, 8 June 2022 19:50 (one year ago) link
Don't Panic!
I just thought I'd share this w/you all.
"A recording of YMO's first-ever show together, from shortly after they released their first album. You will notice that it does not contain any of Ryuichi Sakamoto's solo stuff (from 1000 Knives) like the other concerts from '78 do. To make things even more unusual, Makoto Yano (Akiko's first husband) plays keyboards here. Furthermore, this is the only recording I know of that contains live versions of 'Simoon' and 'Mad Pierrot'."
https://fromsmash.com/WW4oHf0fSv-bt
It's really great, btw
― MaresNest, Friday, 8 July 2022 16:51 (one year ago) link
oh wow, never heard a boot that early. "Simoon" is uh...pretty woozy. interesting that they had "Behind the Mask" worked out already.
― frogbs, Friday, 8 July 2022 19:44 (one year ago) link
Me too, the earliest one I'd heard was from the Kinokuniya Hall in Tokyo, a couple of months later with its lovely disco fantasia version of Tong Poo and Sakamoto's keys distorting throughout.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJ55qxrzh4w
― MaresNest, Friday, 8 July 2022 19:52 (one year ago) link
Hosono turns 75 today!!
― frogbs, Saturday, 9 July 2022 04:13 (one year ago) link
Let's just dwell for one moment on how epic Harry is, I mean, he's bloody legendary.
― MaresNest, Saturday, 9 July 2022 10:38 (one year ago) link
I had a very strange YMO related dream the other day
I was a member of a Facebook group called "YMO Tongposting" (or something like that) which was mostly memes about "Yukihiro Takahashi's Sexual Voice Message" and I came up with an idea for a meme that would get a thousand likes, it was a video of the three members of YMO on Wheel of Fortune and every time one of them was up they would say "give me a Q" like in "Cue" and Pat Sajak would keep going "sorry, no Qs" and then eventually "do you have any guesses other than Q?" and the three would say "Q! Q! Q!" like in "Kimi Ni Mune Kyun". I posted it and it got thousands of likes and in the comments a bunch of photos of YT with his arms folded and the text "Yukihiro Takahashi Fact Check: True"
ok I know this shit belongs in a fanboy Discord but I was just impressed I came up with a pretty fully formed (if extremely niche) joke in my dreams. I had to document it somewhere
― frogbs, Wednesday, 28 September 2022 03:20 (one year ago) link
i 100% get all of that, haha
― Karl Malone, Wednesday, 28 September 2022 03:26 (one year ago) link
That is amazing lol
― Kim Kimberly, Wednesday, 28 September 2022 03:37 (one year ago) link
As a Brit, I don't really get the full picture but I sense the greatness.
― MaresNest, Thursday, 29 September 2022 14:40 (one year ago) link
is there any band (let alone only three-member) that did more great things as a group and among their various side projects and solo careers?
Realised the other day that one contender for this would be Tropicalia, if you count them as a band (which is a stretch I admit).
― Daniel_Rf, Monday, 10 October 2022 13:24 (one year ago) link
TG, albeit they were 4.
― stirmonster, Monday, 10 October 2022 15:11 (one year ago) link
the 10cc folks wrote/produced all kinds of bubblegum singles and stuff, right?
― lets hear some blues on those synths (brimstead), Monday, 10 October 2022 15:34 (one year ago) link
Japanese sources are reporting that Yukihiro Takahashi, the former Yellow Magic Orchestra drummer and lead vocalist, has died. He was 70. He had an operation to remove a brain tumour in 2020, and in 2021 revealed further health problems. A sad loss of a prolific talent. pic.twitter.com/Fp9FZ0a9F2— Electronic Sound (@ElectronicMagUK) January 14, 2023
damn, rip
― ufo, Saturday, 14 January 2023 19:42 (one year ago) link
Feeling sad about YT, and worried RS is the next shoe to drop. I hope not.
I'm not sure why I never posted this, but it's embedded into my memory from a very young age. It was a direct-to-VHS movie called "Where The Toys Come From" and the music was composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Akiko Yano.
(Spoiler alert, the toys come from Japan)
There's this song—I can't remember the name—but it's a sequence YMO used to perform live, and there's variation of it on one of the Akiko Yano albums. Anyway, another version of this appears in Where The Toys Come From, when they travel to Japan:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLDoKgFw9RI
And then the closing credits feature a Sakamoto / Yano collaboration where she sings about toys:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTmD8FQKHmY
I'm pretty sure this is the only context where this song ever appears, so those if you interested in rare YMO memorabilia may find this interesting.
― Publicradio (3×5), Tuesday, 31 January 2023 19:35 (one year ago) link
I never realised there was a noodly techno 90s reformation! I quite like it actually, guessing this might be the encore?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfY9AKKK28M
― end-times league extra (Matt #2), Monday, 13 February 2023 00:25 (one year ago) link
Technodon! the YMO record with lots of guest voices, good concert that too, Technodon In Tokyo Dome
― MaresNest, Monday, 13 February 2023 00:37 (one year ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtnifKDe4zY
― MaresNest, Tuesday, 14 February 2023 15:16 (one year ago) link
I watched that entire concert the other day. it must've been so cool to have actually been there. as mentioned in the top comment Sakamoto slipping "Cosmic Surfin" in at 7:27 to the surprise of the other band members is such a cool moment. definitely my favorite version of "Behind the Mask" - it's kind of a bummer that they didn't record a technofied remake album the way Kraftwerk and Telex did.
― frogbs, Tuesday, 14 February 2023 15:28 (one year ago) link
also I think I finally realized what makes Naughty Boys such a special album, it's the fact that it's basically 40 minutes worth of advertising jingles. every single sound on it shimmers, all those drum rolls just pop out of the speakers, even the vocals are surprisingly tuneful. and tons of reverb on everything which makes it all a bit surreal. it just fires off so much serotonin. no wonder these guys got so much work doing commercials and soundtracks.
― frogbs, Tuesday, 14 February 2023 16:02 (one year ago) link
I can’t recommend this compilation of RS’s advert work highly enough:https://www.discogs.com/release/2283320-Ryuichi-Sakamoto-Works-I-CM
― not too strange just bad audio (brimstead), Tuesday, 14 February 2023 20:35 (one year ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qHvgf89FuI
― MaresNest, Saturday, 2 September 2023 10:50 (eight months ago) link
lmao
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0V_whX77j4
― frogbs, Thursday, 7 December 2023 02:32 (five months ago) link
Exactly.
― SQUIRREL MEAT!! (Capitaine Jay Vee), Thursday, 7 December 2023 11:48 (five months ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPv794U09Ek
― MaresNest, Friday, 8 December 2023 12:58 (five months ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNA2ArzxmWI
Very Japanese commitment to detail here
― MaresNest, Monday, 11 December 2023 18:56 (five months ago) link
How is it so easy for these guys to melt my heart? Is it just the accumulated weight of all those years of friendship? Hosono and Takahashi doing the Flying Saucer arrangement of Sports Men:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiDbcy-nfpg
Watching Takahashi play drums is one of the chief delights of the Internet age, this we all know. I didn't know that he can lay the charm on just as thick when all he's doing is singing harmony.
― TheNuNuNu, Monday, 15 January 2024 10:55 (four months ago) link
Naughty Boys has been smashing my mind into splinters. Godly album.
Here's my attempt at a translation of Sakamoto's lyrics for Kai-Koh ("Chance Encounter"). My Japanese is a work-in-progress but in this case (and all of Naughty Boys!) I can compare it against a fan translation into Chinese.
...
I can't singany more beautiful love songs.I've been walking alone, on foot.And I'm saying goodbye to the person I've been until now.
I've run too far away.There is nothing left at all now.I can't stay here.And I'm saying goodbye to the person I've been until now.
[repeat first verse]
Go figure that THE most propulsive and thrilling song on the album (okay that's arguable) has crushingly sad lyrics.
― TheNuNuNu, Friday, 26 January 2024 14:32 (three months ago) link
hah, the different between the music and lyrics there is practically They Might be Giants-esque
always found their lyrics post-SSS to be fascinating, especially "Music Plans" and all the meta stuff on BGM. for whatever reason I've never really cared about the Naughty Boys lyrics but yea a full translation of the non-English songs would be awesome! not asking YOU to do it...just saying someone should :)
― frogbs, Friday, 26 January 2024 14:56 (three months ago) link
I've never really cared about the Naughty Boys lyrics
Maybe precisely because there are almost no English ones? Other than Opened My Eyes and Wild Ambitions, the side closers (again with these guys and the really careful LP sequencing) I think there's just a line or three here and there -- the outro to Focus, the chorus to Expecting Rivers.
not asking YOU to do it...just saying someone should :)
I don't want to publicize everywhere that this is my intention, in case I fail to get it done, but... this is my intention.
― TheNuNuNu, Friday, 26 January 2024 15:04 (three months ago) link
Alright, here's Ongaku ("Music"). Comments in the premier Chinese streaming app say this was written for Ryuichi's daughter Maaya, who would have been two to three years old at the time. So that'd be a toy train in the last line of the verse. Gorgeous song.
I spread our atlas open: hey, that's music.You climb onto the piano: hey, that's music.
Can't wait 'til we can sing together.
I spread our atlas open: hey, that's music.You climb onto the piano: hey, that's music.I nibble on an apple: hey, that's music.And you rattle the train: hey, that's music.
Can't wait 'til we can sing together.Can't wait 'til we can dance together.
― TheNuNuNu, Saturday, 27 January 2024 05:59 (three months ago) link
Goddammit Takahashi! I was translating the second verse earlier ("I didn't look back" etc., x:xx in the recording) and started crying. I'm beginning to think that in those fateful years between 1978 and, what, 1985 or so, Chris Mosdell and Peter Barakan had the best jobs in the world.
Here's Expected Way.
I have come a long way.At last, I have arrivedand cast aside my heavy pack.I think there is nothing left of what I left behind --
the light from the window, always the same,the air inside the room I once loved,the book lying open, always at the same page,the cigarette butts in the ashtray...
I didn't look backno matter who called after me.I pushed the door open with my own two handsand saw a road I'd never taken stretching ahead.
I'm certain you're the same as ever,watching TV, laughing alone,setting aside a half-finished cup of tea,getting up when the doorbell rings.
[instrumental break]
[repeat above stanza]
If you can get an agitated heart to quiet down,it will feel like a harbinger of something;that's the strange sensation that I want this song to get across.
― TheNuNuNu, Sunday, 28 January 2024 15:29 (three months ago) link
Oops, meant to fill in that time-stamp. Second verse starts around 1:27.
― TheNuNuNu, Sunday, 28 January 2024 15:31 (three months ago) link
had no idea the lyrics to Ongaku were so cute. I knew it was a tribute to his daughter but that's it.
Takahashi, for all his talents, also seems to be an incredible lyric writer? idk I never see that mentioned but the dude is pure class
― frogbs, Monday, 29 January 2024 00:06 (three months ago) link
Right?! I think you would have to be in a band with, uh, Hosono and Sakamoto to be THIS good at what you do and still end up kind of overshadowed. I loved those two right away (Kazemachi Roman, Thousand Knives of), Takahashi took a bit to grow on me, but the longer I spend with his work and the closer I pay attention to what he's doing, the more I adore him.
― TheNuNuNu, Monday, 29 January 2024 04:07 (three months ago) link
Focus -- the story of a guy nursing a broken heart, wandering around town in the evening, who accidentally photographs his ex out on a happy date. In what I believe is typical Hosono style (developed during the Happy End days as a defense against being in the same band with Takashi Matsumoto; Hosono felt he couldn't compete with Matsumoto where narrative and emotional weight and imagery were concerned, so when he started writing lyrics for his own songs on the band's third album, he leaned heavily into wordplay -- not that he didn't get good at all those other things too, but the wordplay remained prominent), there are probably lots of puns and double meanings that went over my head -- and I don't know photography so I can only guess at the technical bits too.
An example: the word for "end" that Hosono chose for "end of the world" is a homonym for the Japanese word for "weekend," a word that only appears in the song in English.
In any case, the rhythm of the falling words is probably more important than the words themselves, in this song's case. Those English line endings (weekend! TRY-X! weekend! focus!) are so satisfying.
Seems it's happened again --somehow the day grew dark while I wasn't paying attention.What's out of the ordinary is the envy burning inside me.
An ordinary weekend in the city.The position fixed, the shutter set.A noisy weekend in the city.The focus suppresses nausea.
Abruptly, on the street corner, I'm conquered by jealousy.A face I could never forget, accompanied by a secret silhouette.
(You'll be burning with a new love tonight,and I'll be burning old pictures on my mind.)
An unexpected weekend --crushing the TRY-X in my hands.A weekend like the end of the world --you there, in distinct focus.
That smile, frozen in place, has forced me to shut my eyes.The girl who turned towards the camera is a star in the firmament now.
(You'll be burning...)
― TheNuNuNu, Monday, 29 January 2024 23:54 (three months ago) link
Speaking of Haruomi Hosono and imagery, here's Lotus Love.
A feeling that doesn't change,eternally returning and reverberating.(I love you.)Petals in the inner corner of the eye,the accustomed incantation in the throat.(I love you.)
(Baby!) Come leap through time.(Baby!) Let's meet outside the world.
Sitting in the dusk.Words that no one can see.(I love you.)In times of fatigue,I become like snow melting in the sunlight.(You love me.)
(Baby!) Come leap through time.(Baby!) Let's meet outside the world.(Baby!) Let's meet outside the world.
An incantation surreptitiously grazingthe mouth glimpsed in a dream.(Love, love, love.)
― TheNuNuNu, Tuesday, 30 January 2024 06:56 (three months ago) link
Hosono seems he would be a high-maintenance boyfriend
― frogbs, Tuesday, 30 January 2024 14:28 (three months ago) link