RFI: Yellow Magic Orchestra

I have a recollection of The Plastics doing Copy on some US Punk documentary film? I think they lived in NYC for a while.

Yes! Thanks

iirc Grandmaster Flash always had "Firecracker" in his DJ set. and the group *somehow* wound up on Soul Train

These snaps are so great they give me goosebumps -

An homage to the lost days of the Shinkansen dining car~time to relax transiting between cities after a rushed early hotel departure~as hangover gives way to appetite and the option to enjoy a tasty spaghetti meat sauce, Japanese curry or failing the constitution a simple omrice pic.twitter.com/ZTejyQjaj6

— Steve Jansen (@istevejansen) August 15, 2021

cool to hear "tong poo" and "firecracker" soundtrack junya watanabe's ss22 show, the former seems to be a newly arranged version by sakamoto

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t0r0kuC5ts

holy shit how did i not know that akiko yano did an album with (the band) japan?

Fun Fact: Kazemachi Roman by Happy End and Technodelic were released 10 years apart. That is the same amount of time from when "Party Rock Anthem" was released to now.

awesome photo, looks like something out of the Beastie Boys Book

https://i.imgur.com/wVBP6Kp.jpg

Sakamoto was a judge on Iron Chef Japan!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR76FyJdCmo

so was akiko yano!

“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

With Throbbing Gristle

https://64.media.tumblr.com/eb0f480d76c4e8645eb977a84c1cff2b/af11579342429de0-4d/s1280x1920/458e25075e57fb5ed9d299dbd4903a314f740689.jpg

Woah! Lucky Gen got a YMO shirt too. Maybe they made him a special GPO one?

I wonder if this was backstage after the Hammersmith Odeon gig in 1980

I'd seen a photo of Gen in the YMO shirt before and had always wondered about it.

https://i.discogs.com/uR_oYov9lZowGSCOYNZAOxjazFjtm4_Fz-l8nyYxUbg/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:597/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTIxOTEy/Ni0xMzU3NTU4NDky/LTM5MDMuanBlZw.jpeg

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

i have probably looked at that TG Greatest Hits sleeve 100s of times but somehow never noticed the YMO shirt. x post.

Not really great news

https://www.brooklynvegan.com/ryuichi-sakamoto-battling-stage-4-cancer-report/

Awful news.

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.

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.

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

oh wow, never heard a boot that early. "Simoon" is uh...pretty woozy. interesting that they had "Behind the Mask" worked out already.

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

Hosono turns 75 today!!

Let's just dwell for one moment on how epic Harry is, I mean, he's bloody legendary.

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

i 100% get all of that, haha

That is amazing lol

As a Brit, I don't really get the full picture but I sense the greatness.

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).

TG, albeit they were 4.

the 10cc folks wrote/produced all kinds of bubblegum singles and stuff, right?

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

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.

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

Technodon! the YMO record with lots of guest voices, good concert that too, Technodon In Tokyo Dome

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtnifKDe4zY

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.

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.

I can’t recommend this compilation of RS’s advert work highly enough:

https://www.discogs.com/release/2283320-Ryuichi-Sakamoto-Works-I-CM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qHvgf89FuI

lmao

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0V_whX77j4

Exactly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPv794U09Ek

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNA2ArzxmWI

Very Japanese commitment to detail here

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.

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 sing
any 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.

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 :)