To Be Clips series on Laserdisc

Quick update this time. Yesterday, this complete Laserdisc set of the To Be Clips series, a collection of all of To Be Continued's music videos during their time with Sony Records, came in the mail. Only thing is, I don't have a Laserdisc player yet, nor do I have any equipment to do quality LD rips with... yet. Mark my words, you will see quality rips of these on the blog eventually!

As for what's on each of these collections, the original To Be Clips covers material from their self-titled debut and How Zit? To Be Clips 2 is exclusively material from the Bitter Sweet Love era. To Be Clips 3 covers Beyond The Light... and Day Break. I have no idea if any music videos exist for Creston Drive or Core Pop, but if they do, I sure haven't seen them.

Digidogheadlock: The US Edition

HOLY SHIT I ACTUALLY FOUND IT!!!!!!

As far as Mad releases go, this seems to be a bizarre holy grail, because of the awful distribution it was put through, but here it is, after a long, long time of searching. This version of Digidogheadlock, sporting a purple cover, was released by What's Up? Music, a label created by Mad's lyric translator and manager at the time, George Cockle. Park was also released through this label, but both of these US editions are exceptionally rare due to poor distribution and public disinterest at the time. I found this copy of this ungodly rare edition on Buyee of all places at a whopping 500 yen. It's not in the best condition, but regardless, what an utter miracle!

Is there any reason to get this, beyond going for a complete collection? If you have the European yellow-cover edition from JVC (undoubtedly the most definitive edition of this album commercially available), or you have the original Japanese edition and the "Crash Pow" single, then no, absolutely not. If you don't have the album and you come across it by some chance for cheap, you might as well go for it. It only has one of the single bonus tracks, the rather meh remix of "Crash Pow", whereas the European edition has three of them. This is something that only hardcore collectors are going to see any real value in, since having all three colored covers together would look cool as hell.

The liner notes in this edition are incredibly barebones, plainly printed on the back of the front cover, but it makes them easier to read than the small print against a bright red background in the Japanese edition. Not that that really means all that much, though. Now I just need to find that yellow-cover edition, which is just slightly easier to find, and the trifecta will be complete.

Up Hold - Intersect Of Light & Dark

Other than going after other albums with Up Hold's non-album songs, like 10 Templates or the alternate soundtrack to Beck, I've pretty much found all of Up Hold's main releases-- I'll go after the CD/VHS combo single for Sight at some point, but it isn't going to get me any material I don't already have. All this EP really offers that's in any sense new, if you already have Deepness Of Disorder, is two B-sides smack dab in the middle: "Dimension" and "Signals", which sound like they'd fit right at home in the final cut of the album anyway.

The two songs that did make it to the album aren't very different; "Emotions" is the only one with a discernable difference, and that's just that the synth outro is a little longer. They aren't the best tracks on that album, either; I intentionally waited to upload those to YouTube so I could put up the whole EP there, but if this hadn't existed, these would've been among the last tracks I'd have considered uploading. Really, only get this if you've become an Up Hold completist... the B-sides on this are alright, but the material on Fork was overall more interesting.

The tracklisting is as follows:

1. Intersect Of Light & Dark

2. Dimension

3. Signals

4. Emotions

I assume this means they want demo tapes? I wonder how many bands sent something to them.

Shogo Hamada - The Moment Of The Moment

Along with Ai-No Sedai-No Mae-Ni, which I slightly covered yesterday, I scored Shogo Hamada's 1993 album The Moment Of The Moment. I originally did this in the vain hope that it would have the 1992 single version of "悲しみは雪のように" on there, which became his biggest single ever... alas, it didn't. However, the material that is on this album is really, really good.

Granted, at this point I haven't been able to hear Hamada's albums that preceded and succeeded this one, so I can't say for certain how much this fits into his overall discography, but it definitely sounds like a poppy J-rock album circa 1993. He gets a lot of great mileage out of this sound, although I can't help but be a little bummed at the absence of the aforementioned hit single. There's a copy of this album that comes in a neat cardboard box holding the jewel case, in the vein of its predecessors Father's Son, Wasted Tears and For Whom The Bell Tolls, but this seems to be at the absence of an obi strip. The obi version was the first thing I saw and opted for, and I'm definitely satisfied with this copy of it.

The tracklisting is as follows:

1. 境界線上のアリア

2. 傷だらけの欲望

3. 最後のキス

4. 悲しみ深すぎて

5. ベイ・ブリッジ・セレナーデ

6. こんな気持ちのまま

7. 星の指輪

8. 裸の王達

9. 初秋

My Guide To Collecting Shogo Hamada: Part I - The 1990 CD Reissues

A couple days ago, my copy of Shogo Hamada's album 愛の世代の前に (Ai-No Sedai-No Mae-Ni, aka I Was Born In 1952) came in the mail. To get my opinion of it out of the way, I'll just say this-- it's a damn rocking album. However, the focus of this post will be a potential guide to helping other collectors find the nicest releases of the J-rock legend's music.

When Hamada's album 誰がために鐘は鳴る (For Whom The Bell Tolls) was released on June 21st, 1990, CBS/Sony decided to reissue almost all of his previous albums up to that time. Many of his earlier albums, those released before CDs entered the Japanese market, seem to have been originally issued on CD on December 1st, 1985 (more on that wave later on in this post), but this wave of reissues feature what I would consider more aesthetically pleasing and consistent obi art than what I've seen of that first wave.

Many of his earlier were then remastered and reissued again in 1999, but based what I've heard from them, they seem to be victims of the loudness war, and a few of them were subject to revisionist tinkering from Hamada, most notably his double-album opus J.Boy, and to a lesser extent, this album-- its original subtitle, I Was Born In 1952, was shortened to Born In 1952, and then adopted as the album's new official title, for the 1999 remastered version. These changes have more or less scared me off from sticking my toes into that wave of reissues, and instead I'm after the 1990 versions, which as far as I know is just those earlier CDs rebranded.

Disc-wise, the albums have taken on new labels-- for example, while the original double-CD release of J.Boy has each disc's song titles written down the whole disc, accompanied by yellow stripes typical of older Sony CDs, the 1990 reissues stamp the album name and Hamada's name according to the cover's corresponding fonts, which looks nicer to me.

All of the CDs in the 1990 wave have the "CSCL-11xx" set as their catalog number, instead of the less neat jumble of numbers and letters that the 1985 wave assigned to them. Of course, there's the obvious added 1990 copyright just under this album's original 1981 copyright. Older versions of J.Boy and the albums after it included a "DR" logo on the back indicating the album in question as a "digital recording". That logo is struck from this back cover strip on these reissues.

This release date box reads as June 21st, 1990, although I'm not sure what that L symbol is supposed to indicate; any comments or private messages about what exactly it means would be highly appreciated. You may notice, however, that instead of just saying "90", the release year reads as "C". This confused me for a while until I read Sanremo Co, Ltd's article on Japanese CD release dates-- basically, when CDs were first being introduced in Japan, the recording industry decided to have the release dates written to the phrase "NIHON RECORD", with each letter corresponding to a different year. This system was phased out by 1992, apparently due to a number of reasons: they were running out of letters in that phrase, some of the letters were already repeating, and it was overall a really confusing and unintuitive system to use. The "C" is easy, since it only corresponds to one year: 1990.

Here are all of the updated catalog numbers for the CD versions of Shogo Hamada's catalog up to June 21st, 1990-- which kicks off with the reissue of Aido's sole released album from 1975. You may notice that For Whom The Bell Tolls' catalog number comes before a lot of the older albums, indicating that this wave of catalog reissues was quickly put together in order to coincide with the album's release. You may also notice that Wasted Tears abides by the older, more jumbled style of catalog numbers; I guess Sony figured it would be superfluous to reissue the previous year's album with a new catalog number so quickly.

Finally, as a bonus, here's pictures from a currently active listing for a 1985 CD issue of Hamada's album Mind Screen. The catalog number here appears to the older, jumblier "32DH..." style, but it otherwise looks identical to the 1990 version's obi. This was my sign that the master used for both of these catalog waves could be identical, but at the same time, they're actually replicating the obi on the original LP, so I don't know. I'm not allowed to attempt to bid on this auction anyway, so I couldn't grab this copy of Mind Screen to check, and I've never even seen a 1985 copy of Ai-No Sedai-No Mae-Ni, so going for that is out of the question for the moment. (I almost scored a 1990 copy of J.Boy with the obi until someone bid it out of my hands... grumble...)

According to the back cover, these CDs were issued, as mentioned before, on December 1st, 1985 (hence the "I"), but the date to the left indicates that this copy is banned from being offered in CD rental shops until March 31st, 1986. On the obi, you can see all of the albums that Hamada had released up to the time: the Aido album is absent on this original wave, and J.Boy was only nine months from being released when this CD was issued. For all I know, these actually were released to coincide with something, but I haven't been able to figure out what, if anything.

Thank you for reading this guide on determining which version of an older Shogo Hamada album you could be getting on CD. If you have any additional information on the 1990 reissues, the original 1985 issues, or even the 1999 remasters, feel free to drop some input in the comments or as an email.

Milli Vanilli's last single with Rob and Fab

Did you know there was a second Milli Vanilli album? If you'd read my Artist In Review article on the main bits of their discography, then you know the answer is yes. But did you know it was supposed to be an album with Rob and Fab? This is the original release single for "Keep On Running", from their intended second album of the same name, set to drop in January of 1991. It's hard to get a bead on exactly when this single was distributed, but since one of their first televised performances of the song happened days before Frank Farian's notorious press conference, it couldn't have been more than two weeks before Rob and Fab were outed.

Mind you, there isn't much noteworthy content on here. Two remixes, a radio mix only slightly shorter than the album version, and a B-side that ultimately made the album's final cut. As a strange footnote in Milli Vanilli's sketchy history, however, it's a goldmine of treasures. Look at that intended cover art for the second album! Look at how the catalog number matches the catalog number on The Moment Of Truth, the final version it was released as (under the partially-false moniker "The Real Milli Vanilli")! Just look at how it... exists! In the form that it does! It's crazy!

This single was quickly reissued with generic cover art with the artists listed as "The Real Voices Of Milli Vanilli". The contents were exactly the same, and there wasn't even any pictures of any of the "real voices" anywhere on the reissue version-- it was just reissued as such to save face. It was pretty clear that this was rushed out the door as Farian was still trying to figure out how to rebrand the material, which makes it another interesting testament to how rushed and patchwork the Milli Vanilli project was throughout its entire existence... but not interesting enough to me to make me wanna get it.

The tracklisting is as follows:

1, Keep On Running (Club Mix)

2. The End Of Good Times

3. Keep On Running (Running Man Mix)

4. Keep On Running (Radio Version)

All of my media of Milli Vanilli's second album, juxtaposed at last.

Nunchaku Archives ~もうふぶかない~

Color me impressed. This boxset is a collection of almost all of the legendary Japanese hardcore band Nunchaku's discography: all three of their albums in deluxe editions, with era-sensitive bonus tracks and uncensored versions of songs bleeped on their original CD issues, with a bonus DVD containing a few live shows, music videos, and videos of the band eating together and shooting the shit to serve as interludes. All of it is packaged in this enormous DVD-sized set with beautiful matte-printed artwork.

The first album on this set, their self-titled album from 1995, is a good starting point. It features incredibly rough production, a mainstay of underground hardcore punk, especially of bands' earliest efforts. The rough production amplifies the intensity of the simplistic material here rather well. The one previously-censored song on this album is "３コードで悪いか", which also seems to be uncensored on Howling Bull's Best Of Nunchaku 1993-1998 release, and on the album's LP issue.

Next up is their 1996 sophomore effort Nunchakura, the only album I have a separate original issue of outside of this set. Although this features far better production, it doesn't detract from the faster, harder edged material here-- of particular note is their K.C.H.C. anthem "マラダイス", which had its own music video, included on this set's bonus DVD. The one previously-censored song on this album is "はけ口ドール", which I was actually able to compare to the original edit, but I couldn't hear the censored profanity myself.

Finally on the table is their 1997 album Ichirufubuku. This album sounds like Nunchakura part two, but I don't mind, to be perfectly honest. The title track has an intense breakdown where higher-pitched vocalist Kuni Okada unleashes some wonderfully vicious vocals, making me wonder why Tatsuro Mukai is the only one of the two vocalists who went on to form a band after Nunchaku (that band being Kamomekamome). The sole weak point of this album is "ズボラな瞳", where Mukai brings out some cleaner-than-usual vocals that are really unfitting with the band's normal style. Nothing on this album was censored on original release.

The bonus DVD includes their two music videos, a making of the "都部ふぶく" video, and a few live performances interspersed through the beginning portion, but where this disc really shines is including a full concert from Nunchaku's final tour, a performance at the Akasaka Blitz on January 18th, 1998. A show at a smaller club a week after the Blitz performance closes out the disc.

There are just a couple things missing from this set that keep it from absolute perfection. While there was another Nunchaku DVD released, showcasing a reunion concert filmed in 2007, the year this boxset was released, that performance happened a month after this set came out, and wasn't released until February of 2008. However, a Nunchaku track on a compilation called "Taste Of Sweet Love Masterpiece 1969-79", while referenced within the booklet of this set, is nowhere to be found here. The absence of this song could be chalked up to label issues or that it was a collaborative song with vocalist Tamaki Ogawa, but regardless, it keeps this set from 100% perfection, reaching instead for 99.9% perfection.

Speaking of the booklet, it's really, really sweet. I can't read the various interviews that it's packed with, since I can't read Japanese, but I can absolutely read CD tracklists, references to every non-album release Nunchaku has put out (all but one of which are retained here as bonus tracks), and pretty pictures, and they all tell me that this booklet is dope.

There is simply too much material to list as tracklistings here, but let the above pictures, or the Discogs article on this boxset, be your guide to navigating the massive amount of content here. I found this boxset for slightly under 5,000 yen, and it'd be safe to say that you probably will too, should you be on the lookout for it. This boxset does come with a giant obi that wraps around the bottom, which gives an immediate listing of all of the set's contents. I've seen this obi in the wild, but unfortunately my copy did not have it.

Babymetal US Edition

I found this in an FYE on Tuesday for seven goddamn ninety-nine. As unfortunate as it is that Japanese acts only seem to get popular abroad when they're marketed as novelties, especially in this day and age where everything "weird" gets memed to hell and laughed at, the bright side is that Babymetal's album got released in the US, where I was able to get it at an honest to goodness brick and mortar retailer. Life is great sometimes.

I know a lot of metalheads who will explode with rage at the very mention of Babymetal, which I can understand to a degree-- metalheads demand authenticity, and the thought of heavy metal being created and packaged as J-pop by a team of pop producers is as inauthentic to the concept of "true metal" as one can get. However, I just don't consider this a genuine metal album, moreso a genuine J-pop album, which it's excellent at. There really isn't a moment on this album that feels like it's dragging the entire effort down. It also gets pretty close to being genuinely great metal at times, just with young Japanese girls supplying mostly clean vocals.

This is one of many releases of the new international edition of the album, where you sacrifice the lovable luxury to get a couple nice bonus tracks instead. Road Of Resistance holds up with the quality of the regular album, although I wish there would've been a second studio track instead of the live version of "Gimme Chocolate!!" they threw on. It looks like one of the other international releases of this album, one from Europe, was given the digipak treatment, which I may try to seek out at some point. Hell, I still want a Japanese copy of this for the obi. But for the moment, this will suffice for all my Babymetal needs.

The tracklisting is as follows:

1. Babymetal Death

2. Megitsune

3. Gimme Chocolate!! (produced by Takeshi Ueda!)

4. Iine!

5. Akatsuki

6. Doki Doki ☆ Morning

7. Onedari Daisakusen

8. Song 4

9. Uki Uki ★ Midnight

10. Catch Me If You Can

11. Rondo Of Nightmare

12. Headbangeeeeerrrrr!!!!!

13. Ijime, Dame, Zettai

International Edition Bonus Tracks:

14. Road Of Resistance

15. Gimme Chocolate!! (Live at O2 Academy, Brixton, London)

To Be Continued - Wagamama Ga Hoshii Komarasete Hoshii

This is a non-album single from To Be Continued, released in the time between Bitter Sweet Love and Beyond The Light, on November 21st, 1993. It did not show up on the final cut of Beyond The Light, which may have been because this single completely failed to chart on the Oricon Singles Chart. Although the A-side to this single later showed up on Sony's GOLDEN☆BEST singles compilation of the group in 2002, the B-side never turned up on any of their releases ever again.

That's all there really is to say about this single. On a related note, I will have songs from To Be Continued's first two albums up on YouTube soon, with articles to follow not long after.

The tracklisting is as follows:

1. わがままが欲しい 困らせてほしい

2. あの日の夢見てた…

3. わがままが欲しい 困らせてほしい (instrumental)

Up Hold - Engine digipak

Admittedly, I'm still reeling a bit from the disappointed tone of yesterday's article, a piece on Up Hold's disappointing final album Deepness Of Disorder. Let's lighten things up a bit by posting a variant! Engine. If you're a dedicated reader to this blog, you know it, and you know I love it. There was also this thick hard-cased digipak version.

Now, I don't know if this had an obi or not, but from what I've seen of other, similarly made digipaks, perhaps not? It has a barcode on there, which obis usually have, but Limited Records didn't print a barcode on the obi for the jewel case edition, so I wouldn't know. If any readers can confirm, I'd like to know!

There isn't much else to say, other than, I guess, read the original article here! It's a great album.

It may look it but trust me, the jewel case version doesn't fit in the digipak. Although that would be really cool.

Collectors Beware: Do Not Buy From shoot1998_11

I normally don't like the idea of publicly shaming a seller, but I have to put this as a warning to any fellow collectors out there, who may be reading this blog-- do not buy from Yahoo! Japan Auctions user shoot1998_11, or at least be extremely careful about what you buy from them.

Today, my copies of The Checkers' albums Flower and Go arrived, with bizarre taped bits around the obi strips that made opening these CDs more difficult than it should be. The strangest part is that these are not fully adhesive, but only at the edges. On the seller's descriptions, which I read going back and looking at the listings, the description of these bits of tape translated to "protection sheets", which sounds noble enough, but the problem is that the tape is actually spread on the obi, and the adhesive is way, way, way too strong.

My initial attempts in removing these ripped the obis. RIPPED THEM. The worst part is, I still have two more awaiting arrival from this seller-- Motto!! Checkers and I Have A Dream, which upon further inspection, also have this horrible tape across them. I actually slightly noticed this when I bid on Go, but I thought it was a bit of discoloration on the obi, not intrusive tape that only serves to rip it. After trying a few methods, I ultimately just cut around them, but I will be on the lookout for new copies of these albums whose obis aren't ruined like this.

Here is their list of items for sale/auction, as it appears through Buyee. As I look through this, I can see that not every CD they sell has these "protection sheets". I want to give this seller the benefit of the doubt: perhaps these are how these CDs came from a distributor who tacked these awful things on? I don't know, but it doesn't excuse their obnoxious presence either way. Just to be safe, I will avoid buying anything from this seller in the future, and would advise anyone else who is adamant about preserving these types of things to do the same.