SCANDAL! the most powerful Japanese Girl Band...

That's what their website says. Well, I don't know if they are the most powerful Japanese girl band, but I do know that they are a lot of fun to listen to.

If you went to SAKURA.CON in the US, you might have heard them before. They toured here recently. This group out of Osaka, Japan is hot and rising fast!

I admit it. I like Japanese J-POP. And I am always amused by the personas that J-POP bands will take on. SCANDAL is a girl rock/pop band. The four of them appear complete in Japanese school girl outfits -- the kind in male fantasies, rather than the reality. They all do their makeup so that they tend to look like clones of each other too! The male fantasy continues!

But beyond the hype, the music is fun and bouncy and the vocals are good.

Even beyond that, they really are part ROCK! You can definitely hear rock vibes and strong guitar musings threaded among the bouncy, girlish J-POP tunes.

That might actually qualify them for the most 'powerful Japanese girl band'...these J-POP fantasy dolls really can hit a rock beat and make it stick.

So give them a look and a listen...you might find yourself getting addicted to J-POP.

Their Myspace music site is at:
www.myspace.com/scandal4

Have fun!
CG Anderson

JPOP singer RayRi (RayLi) aka 玲里

Sorry it's been so long a wait but time for a music review. Between work, studying and new music players (MySpace) that didn't work well as well as buggy MySpace itself, it took a while!! I almost gave up on doing MySpace music reviews...I mean MySpace has gotten really really buggy and the new music player is even slower than the last one!

Time for a little JPOP again. Nothing outrageous. Just a great voice and some standard POP tunes. RayLi out of Japan fits the bill. Lovely to look at, in an almost androgynous way, and with a great voice, great range of voice and wonderful emotional delivery.

The only thing that really bothered me was the choice of tunes. RayLi has a great voice and knows how to deliver a compelling song. But, the tunes themselves were rather ordinary. Nothing really grabbed me.

I want the songs and melodies to match the power of this singer and this great clear voice with its clear, bright vocal range. I hope RayLi is put together with a really good songwriter and a great producer.

If that happens, I think another great JPOP star will be born. Not that 200,000+ listeners are wrong. I just think that that number could go way way way way way up!

Judge for yourself, RayRi (RayLi/ 玲里) is at:

http://www.myspace.com/rayri

Cheers!
CG

The ARC goes online. (ARChive of Contemporary Music puts catalog online.)

The ARChive of Contemporary Music (known as ARC or ARChive) is going online. It will make its catalog of popular music, the largest in the world, available online to the public. The ARC also has the largest collection of sound tracks as well as film scores in the world.

Unfortunately, you won't be able to listen to the recordings online, but you will have access to the information about the recordings. There are more than 2 million recordings in the ARC, as well as millions of photographs, press kits, books, videos and other memorabilia.

The ARChive is physically located in Tribeca (New York.) According to the Associated Press, this public access is tied to an agreement with Columbia University.

The site location is here:
http://www.arcmusic.org/begin.html

For music fans, this opens up an invaluable treasure trove waiting to be explored.

CG Anderson

AP news article on ARChive announcement
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j0LmTZQby952R7jj7smCCZXCEV8wD97IFTDG0

Help President Obama WHACK those pesky Bailout Babies from Wall Street and Beyond (free GAME) -- 自由なゲーム -- WHACK WALLSTREET

This is just a little, 30-second fun game I adapted from another game of mine. I couldn't resist. It needs Flash version 5 or above.

Help the Obama clones whack all those undeserving BailOut dudes. (Not the ones that deserve a hand, of course!) Use the fly swatter. You gain points if you whack the money grubbers. You lose points if you whack the clones. The clones and the grubbers are trying to whack each other as well (who wins is random when they hit.)

Just in good fun! Have a great weekend.

http://megaswf.com/view/06a933d3d91c3a3e8173e7bd5ffd4d12.html

Later!
CG

In Japanese:
これは楽しむためだけです。
これはただ少量、速い、面白いゲームです。 私は私が作ったもう１つのゲームからそれを改造しました。 私はそれを作ることに抵抗することができませんでした。 それは「Flash5」を必要とするか、あるいはより大きいです。

その Obama クローンがそれらすべての undeserving 緊急援助男をぴしゃりと打つのに役立ってください。 その蝿 swatter を使ってください。 もしあなたがその守銭奴をぴしゃりと打つなら、あなたはポイントを得ます。 もしあなたがそのクローンをぴしゃりと打つなら、あなたはポイントを失います。 そのクローンとその grubbers は同様にお互いをぴしゃりと打とうとしています（誰が勝つかが、彼らが打ったとき、任意です。)

ただ良い楽しみで！ 素晴らしい週末を持ってください。

Amazing Illustrator: Mike Correiro

As promised, links to great art by well-known to little known artists.

Check out the link to the Art of Mike Correiro. You may not know his name but you've probably seen his artwork. And if you do know his name, you know his artwork is fantastic.

http://www.mikecorriero.com/index/Top/default.htm

Check him out!

CG