Moon Riders - A New Crusade
Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2005 7:24 pm
Because I didn't learn anything--ANYTHING--from the Brown'Nose fiasco:
The Moon Riders. 1970s-2000s new-wave/pop/etc. Astoundingly good. Responsible for several albums of great music (of which their late-70s/early-80s output is the most "important," where they're essentially a Japanese version of the Talking Heads and several other groups), along with a crazy amount of side-projects, some of which are known to American audiences. Keiichi Suzuki did the soundtrack work to the SNES game Earthbound, and has scored several well-received movies as of late (Tokyo Godfathers, Uzumaki, etc.). Ryomei Shirai's produced a lot of popular J-pop acts that I couldn't care less about (The Pillows, who're obnoxious and whiney and WHYDOTHEYGETTOBEPOPULAR?). Apparently, the Moon Riders aren't even that popular in Japan, as their moderate level of "difficult"-hood puts them way over the heads of most of the Jpop/Jrock crowd. Good riddance.
I "discovered" the band via an odd route: they contribute a very, very strange cover of "I Need You" to the Japanese Harrison tribute, "Gentle Guitar Dreams." I think Ryomei also produced the CD. It took me a while to warm up to the band--they're more than a bit idiosyncratic, and their wholesale embrace of a "we're old! we're geezers!" aesthetic in the 90s is a bit off-putting--but geez, they're really pretty good.
Check them out. Really. I'm not kidding.
(Cue: Patrick fetish joke)
The Moon Riders. 1970s-2000s new-wave/pop/etc. Astoundingly good. Responsible for several albums of great music (of which their late-70s/early-80s output is the most "important," where they're essentially a Japanese version of the Talking Heads and several other groups), along with a crazy amount of side-projects, some of which are known to American audiences. Keiichi Suzuki did the soundtrack work to the SNES game Earthbound, and has scored several well-received movies as of late (Tokyo Godfathers, Uzumaki, etc.). Ryomei Shirai's produced a lot of popular J-pop acts that I couldn't care less about (The Pillows, who're obnoxious and whiney and WHYDOTHEYGETTOBEPOPULAR?). Apparently, the Moon Riders aren't even that popular in Japan, as their moderate level of "difficult"-hood puts them way over the heads of most of the Jpop/Jrock crowd. Good riddance.
I "discovered" the band via an odd route: they contribute a very, very strange cover of "I Need You" to the Japanese Harrison tribute, "Gentle Guitar Dreams." I think Ryomei also produced the CD. It took me a while to warm up to the band--they're more than a bit idiosyncratic, and their wholesale embrace of a "we're old! we're geezers!" aesthetic in the 90s is a bit off-putting--but geez, they're really pretty good.
Check them out. Really. I'm not kidding.
(Cue: Patrick fetish joke)