GlitchSlapTko

I get several emails a week from people who are wondering what I'm listening to, so I thought I might want to write a little bit about that here. Of course, I'm always listening to a wide variety of things depending on which one of the several mags that I'm writing for has a deadline coming up. In recent months, I've tried to focus on hip-hop, but these days I find myself headed more and more to the 'dark side' with CDs coming from the Japanese underground noise community. This is more than a little nostalgic, since I used to be very much into this scene about 3 or 4 years ago.

Anyway, this week my favorite CD takes a step back from all of that 'difficult' listening, since my friend Makoto (picture below) was kind enough to suggest that I try and get into the 'Billy' (Rockabilly/Ska) scene. It seems that more than Tokyo, the Tohoku and Kansai areas have more to offer when it comes to this genre, so that where I've headed for the past two weekends to catch some stunning live events.


(Makoto and his nice hair)

Today, I'd like to offer up this CD as a good way to get into the NORTHERN JAPANESE Billy scene. The title is 'Michinoku Heat Wave' and it is a 'Billy' comp CD with 14 or so odd tracks that pretty much sum up the scene as it was in the Tohoku a few years back. I'm personally into track #4, which is by HEAD SLIDER - 'He was standing there when I had got learning Punk Rock'. If you're interested, you can pick up the CD here.