Syracuse Ska Forum

Mimie-chan hails from Tokyo, Japan and
combines "cosplay", the Japanese art of dressing up like your favorite cartoon character, with ska. They are powered by an all-female horn section, who dress like geishas, fuzzy chickens, and pretty much everything else and belt out melodies that would dominate most marching bands on top of it. Then there's the drummer Takabe, who's known for his fishnet bodysuits. Most of the guys in the band typically wear diapers on stage, stuffed with whatever they come across.



Even listening to the stuff, you can tell how wacky it is.

We need more bands willing to be this silly.

But you can only make it look cool if you're from Japan!

WOW




i am so buying their cd




WOW

How about Kemuri? Are they still around? They were pretty sweet, they did that split 7" with LTJ so I checked them out and was impressed.
-Mike

Yeah, looking at the Kemuri website, it seems obvious they're focusing primarily on Japan now. You'll notice lots of new releases and lots of touring. They're also now on major label Universal, albeit their Japanese subsidiary. Apparently, Kemuri means "smoke" in Japanese and their guiding philosophy as a band is “P.M.A” or “positive mental attitude”. While this seems to have been a novelty concept for them in the American ska-punk scene, it seems to put them squarely into the international ska scene (trust me, this will be a thread of mine soon).

Anyways, the ska scene in Japan has been absolutely exploding lately, so we can easily discuss Japanese ska for as long as you like.

Wow, their site is crazy...is that Japanese characters where it shows up as all ????s for me? Anyhow, is there an inexpensive way to get ahold of any of their newer stuff? Are they still doing a lot of English language songs? I have two albums of theirs, I think their first two...that I downloaded. Maybe I shouldn't say that, but I don't know if you can easily buy them here anyhow. I can't make a whole lot of sense of their site.
-Mike

I'll be there in September, I'll see if I can bring back any obscure Japanese ska for your listening pleasure.

Bring a big shopping cart, because I can think of a lot of stuff I could use.

Seriously, I'm hoping buying stuff in Japan and shipping it back is significantly cheaper than online mailorder. I haven't found anyone online yet that can ship for less than $20 per CD, which gets quite expensive, quite quickly. But it seems to be a function of prices over there ...

Check it out. I used to take lessons from Master Ronnie Nyguetso Seldin on the shakuhatsi (I think that's the spelling..) It's a bamboo flute played traditionally in Japan.

He used to travel back and forth from Japan to NYC to Syracuse to give lessons and play at buddihst zen centers. I only took lessons for a couple years (once every other month, for an hour at a time, $50, it was insane) and I had to practice all the time to keep up, but it was awesome. I love the zen center in the valley, and they the people who live there are so nice, and they have amazing food.

It was some cool stuff. Readin Japanese characters, learning how to say certain things, reading up down and then right to left. The beats and way the count stuff out and mark it was so unbeliveably strange to me at first, and Master Seldin gave me 3 or 4 of his personal albums to listen to and practice with and learn counting with. It was awesome

Aww. Now I miss it. I wish I had the time/money to keep doing it. Lessons were up to like $70 each when I left, though he kept my price to $50. And then my flute cost $250, and he offered to buy it back for what was paid for it, but I wanted to keep it because it's awesome and who knows when I might decide to start actually playing it again.

wow thats incredible.

this also reminds me how vital it is for me to go see skapara next month.

oh yeah and im gary. im new here

PLEASE find out if they have any other Northeast US shows, okay? It's considered very uncool to skip one's own concert to see even a band like Skapara.

At the very least, get some good video of them and take my shopping list with you so I can get more of their CDs, okay? I'm very serious ...


Welcome Gary. Please intro yourself in the thread for that behind the sticky.

If you love good Japanese ska, you'll be a great addition here!