Moon Riders - A New Crusade

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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)

[Ess Ay Cee Dee]

nt

[Patrick M]

I got nothing. Sorry to disappoint.

[Patrick M]

This is a thread crap.

Every time I see "Moon Riders," I think of the famous wrestling group "The Moondogs."

http://www.obsessedwithwrestling.com/pr ... ndogs.html

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All of their Crown-label albums have samples available at hmv.co.jp. I'm throwing two songs up at www.lukpac.org/~handmade/riders/ . They're from the band's 79/80 albums, when they suddenly realized that Keiichi SUzuki's spazz-voice could be a new-wave asset.

I think they're damn good.