Asakawa Maki | 18 albums

[Re-upped once more on April 25, 2015, at a reader's request]

When I was in Tokyo in mid-2010, I spent a couple of full days wandering around almost all of the 9 floors of the massive Tower Records superstore in Shibuya. 

When I got off the escalator at floor 2, which houses Tower Shibuya's extensive J-Pop and J-Indies stock, I was immediately struck by a kind of mini-shrine made up of of the CDs of Asakawa Maki, most of which seemed to feature grainy black & white photographs of the singer on the cover, often smoking.

I had no idea who this mysterious enshrined singer was, but after a bit of YouTubing and Googling, I was able to figure it out. Asakawa Maki was born on January 27, 1942, in Nagoya--she'd have been 70 years old this month had she not died in 2010, just shy of her 68th birthday. She got her start singing in U.S. Army bases, but got her big break in a series of concerts organized by avant-garde poet and playwright, Shuji Terayama in 1968. (Terayama would write lyrics for a number of her early songs.)

Over the next 40 years, Maki (as she was often referred to) released some 30 records, only slowing down in the aughts. She continued to perform live up until her death. She was one of the greatest, most expressive singers of all time, not just in Japan, but in the world.


Listen to "House of the Rising Sun" live

FILE ONE
Asakawa Maki II
Asakawa Maki no Sekai
Black
Blue Spirit Blues
Cat Nap

FILE TWO
Darkness I
Darkness II
Darkness III
Darkness IV

FILE THREE
Hitomoshigoro
Live
Maboroshi no Onna-tachi
Maki
Nothing at All to Lose

FILE FOUR
One
Rear Window
Ura Mado Maki V
Yami No Naka Ni Okizari

Yellow Music: Shanghai Pop 1930s-40s

Freshly reupped, by reader request, here.

In the 1920-30s, American jazz musicians began to visit and, in some cases, make extended stays in Shanghai, where a songwriter and composer originally from Hunan, Li Jinhui, was taking in everything he heard and integrating it into the popular Chinese music of the time. He composed hundreds of songs from the 20s to 40s, helping to launch the careers of China's most famous singers of the time, and single-handedly inventing shidaiqu, the precursor of contemporary Mandopop. Denounced for his "yellow" (meaning "pornographic") music, Li would eventually fall victim to Mao's Cultural Revolution in 1967.

Li's contribution is covered in depth by Andrew F. Jones in Yellow Music: Media Culture and Colonial Modernity in the Chinese Jazz Age, a well-written academic history of this period that, despite how the subtitle sounds, steers clear of academic language to tell an engaging and fascinating story of one of the most culturally rich periods of modern Asian history.

What Jones' book does not do is to breathe life into the specific histories of any of the singers of the time (though there is a passage near the end of the book detailing a bit of Zhou Xuan's performance in Street Angel). For that, we must piece together what little we can from Wikipedia entries on shidaiqu and the so-called Seven Great Singing Stars, and then hunt and peck our way through mostly other blogs for whatever scraps are out there. 

Despite the richness of Chinese pop music of the 20s-40s, it's effectively unavailable anywhere in the United States outside of media stores run by Chinese, Hong Kong and Taiwanese immigrants. Which is where your friendly bodega proprietor comes in.

As you've probably guessed, I'm on a constant lookout for recordings of shidaiqu, the Mandarin-language pop music that migrated from Shanghai to Hong Kong in the 40s, where it slowly morphed into the Twin Towers of Mandopop and Cantopop. Most of the nearly 50 CDs I have of this music is later stuff, recorded in Hong Kong, but I do have a dozen or so very coveted collections recorded in Shanghai that I've managed to pluck from mostly two stores (one no longer extant) on Bowery, just above Canal, in Manhattan's Chinatown.

For this mix, I included six of the Seven Greats: Zhou Xuan (Golden Voice), Yao Lee (Silver Voice), Bai Guong (White Light), Bai Hong (White Rainbow), Wu Yingyin (Queen of the Nasal Voice) and Lee Hsiang Lan, who was born Yoshiko Yamaguchi to a family of Japanese settlers in Manchuria, and thus apparently does not deserve a nickname. I have only a few songs by Gong Qiu Xia (Big Sister), but nothing that thrilled me as much as the songs that made the cut here.

Two other singers of the period are also repped: Chang Loo and Yun Yun. I limited myself to my two favorite songs by each of the eight, bringing the mix to a tight but hopefully fulfilling 16 songs. 

A final note: Just as easily as an enterprising scholar of popular and/or Chinese culture could make a career telling the life stories of these singers and placing their significance into the cultural context of their time, she or he could write a really interesting paper on the preservation of this music. A number of people, including a handful of non-Chinese, have been exploring a variety of methods for noise reduction and arguing about whether or not one should digitize the music directly from the original 78s or later LPs. And, as you'll hear on the first track: Someone is doing something ever-so-slightly obtrusive, but nonetheless kind of cool, using some form of digital overlay and delay.

Arthur H | Arthur H

Repped, B-cuz it B so speshul, aqui. (Also, I was bragging about the circumstances under which I'd found it to some friends at dinner after the NY Art Book Fair this weekend.)


Listen to "Quai No. 3"


Listen to "Perfect Stranger"

[Originally posted August 5, 2012.] This album, Arthur H's first, is 23 years old. Imagine! We've been deprived of this unimpeachably sublime record for more than two decades. Why? We don't need to hear the damned Buena Vista Social Club every time we order an Americano, do we? I love Monk and Mingus as much as anyone, but, really, is that all you can play in your used bookstore, Mr. Used Bookstore Owner?


Please let's do everyone around us a favor and, instead of just grabbing this delicious CD and grooving to it at home while reading Natsuo Kirino's Out or whatever, let's all take the extra few minutes to transfer the thing to a flash drive and share it with the awesome people who run the cafes and bookstores in our neighborhoods. Yes?


Arthur H, born in Paris in 1966, spent much of the 1980s traveling around the West Indies and studying music in Boston before returning to France where he began to perform live in 1988. Clearly influenced by Serge Gainsbourg and Tom Waits, his style is instantly recognizable and, ultimately, all his own. 


It's unfathomable to me that he's little known outside of France. I'm guessing many of you will feel the same, as at least a couple of you asked to hear more of his music a few weeks ago when I posted this.


As is clear from the scan above, this copy was previously held by the library of the Alliance Francaise; I picked it up at Bastille Day on 60th Street for a mere 25 cents.

สุนทราภรณ์ แฟนคลับ รวมฮิตศิลปินหญิง | Ruam Hit Sin La Pin Ying

Listen to "Wang Nam Won"


Listen to "Cham Dai Mai"

Freshly reupped in 320KBPS because it's so ding-danged thrilling, here.

[Originally posted in late 2010.] Found in Manhattan's Chinatown, in a Thai book, music and knick-knack store just south of Canal. Mulberry, I think. I have no idea who these women are, or how old this music is, but it sounds like it could be 1940s-50s. Perhaps 1960s, given how good the sound quality is. It's sort of pop-y, sort of lounge-y, sort of jazz-y, with vocals that make my arm hairs stand on end. I've gotten teary-eyed and blubbery more than once listening to it.
What say you?

Mayumi Kojima | Ai No Poltergeist

Reupped at 320kbps here.

I found this fabulous Japanese import at P Tune & Video Co (see the header image of this blog--that's the place) on Chrystie Street in Manhattan's Chinatown in late 2009. I knew nothing about the artist, but soon became obsessed with her, tracking the rest of her complete output -- more than a dozen albums and EPs -- on a trip to Japan in 2010 and then later, through various Japanese-focused blogs from South America to Asia.

This was one of the first albums I posted to the Bodega and for a very long while, it was the most popular in terms of grabs. Reupped in case you missed it the first time around.

Midori | Complete catalog

I remember seeing the cover of the album to your right, Midori's last, the moment I walked into Tower Shibuya in May of 2010 while in Japan on a two week vacation. If any of you have been to that Tower, you know how it feels to suddenly “wake up” after apparently having spent hours listening to samples, which are available at dozens of stations throughout each of the superstore’s 8 or 9 floors. Midori’s Shinsekai was the first thing I listened to and, for reasons my present self can’t begin to comprehend, I decided not to pick it up. I know I saw it again on my way out and thought: “Gosh … should I …?”

Back in the States, as I recalled the mysterious album with the shrieking girl and crazy cascading piano I’d heard at the Tower listening station, I grew sick with horrible pit-of-the-stomach XRGs (Xtreme Regret Gnawings), the haunting song of the collector filling my feverish head: “Gotta have it, gotta have it, gotta have it, gotta have it …” So deep, so dark was my misery, not even repeated listenings of this, which I did purchase at Tower, could console me.

Those remiss-filled days, weeks and months are a blank to me now. I can’t remember anything that I did or felt, other than the sucking wound in the pit of my soul: what I now refer to as “BM” (“Before Midori”). I don’t even remember how, finally, I discovered this album again—online, natch, exuberantly touted by some music blogger in Argentina no doubt, or, perhaps, gay Peru. I do vaguely recall, having the band’s name suddenly at hand and in mind, that I began searching the web, from YouTube to JRawk, for any possible shred of their online presence.


A song from Mariko Goto's first, pre-Midori band, Usagi (included in "Early" link below)

More than a year later, I’m now the “proud,” “fulfilled” “owner” of every album, EP and single Midori ever put out.

A few random factoids relevant to the band: Shinsekai, which means “new world,” is an Osaka neighborhood near the downtown Minami area. According to Wikipedia, it was built in 1912 “with New York as a model for its southern half and Paris for its northern half.” After the Second World War, it devolved into one of Japan’s poorest and most dangerous neighborhoods and, to this day, boasts a reputation far worse than Joan Jett’s.

The members of Midori all hailed from Osaka and, one assumes that at the very least, singer Mariko Goto was specifically from Shinsekai. 

A brief, colorful description of Midori's last album, Shinsekai, from JRawk:

“Midori has mixed the sour and sweet in the past, often blending them evenly to create an uncannily disturbing rumble, but here, they're flung together to create some truly weird sparks. “ メカ” (“Mecca”) isn't just all over the map, it's specifically built on chaos: crunching hyperactive, diseased tango, Boredoms style flashes of transcendent freakout, feverish repetition, madcap Carl Stalling-esque interludes, and God Knows what else in just under three and a half minutes. It's the strongest track they've done since "わっしょい" ("Wasshoi") from their first EP, and a quantum leap forward in their unique brand of brain smearing musical schizophrenia.”

Get the early albums. (Includes Usagi's Akemi-San to Midori-san and the following by Midori: First Demo; Second Demo; First; Second)

Get the late albums. (Includes Shimizu/Spring Water; Hello Everyone. We Are Midori. Nice to Meet You; Live!!; Swing; Shinsekai)

La Merde Chaude! | 19 Hot French Trax

Listen to "Quai No 3"



Listen to "Le P'tit Clown De Ton Coeur"



Listen to "Sex Accordeon Et Alcool"



Listen to "Le Travail"



Listen to "Au Revoir"


Get the 19-song mix here.


Despite New York's reputation as one of the most expensive cities on earth, there is not a single day of the year that you can't find at least one totally free event to partake in--everything from live performances to gallery openings to street fairs. Today, of course, was Bastille Day on 60th Street in Manhattan, which is held annually on the Sunday following the actual Bastille Day. For several long blocks along 60th Street, just below Central Park, you can listen to free live music as you wander by stalls offering French eats, groceries, knick-knacks, books and--you guessed it--music. 

Last year, I picked up three French hip-hop records for $1 each, one of which I posted here. At today's fair, the Alliance Francaise Library was offering French CDs withdrawn from their library for 25 cents apiece. I happened to be at their stall the moment they opened. Fifteen seconds after they opened, I walked away with all 16 CDs they had out for sale. I knew it was a gamble; after all, these were rejects, la merde de la merde. I stuffed them all in my backpack and promptly forgot about them as I wandered around, taking in the sights and smells and sounds. Hours later, when I returned home, I plopped the first CD into my computer to have a quick listen (Arthur H's first album, Arthur H--that's an image of him from the back of the CD at the top of this post).

The opening track, "Quai No 3" (listen to sample above), had me sitting up and taking notice. I created a new playlist in iTunes, titled it "Merde," and dragged the song into it. Not that I thought every album was going to be a winner, or even have single listenable track. But I thought it would be fun--and appropriately French--to perform a kind of oulipian experiment using the Alliance Francaise Library's withdrawn CDs I had picked up this year and last.

When the second CD (Johnny Hallyday's Les Grands Success De Johnny Hallyday--second sample above) turned out to be as great as the first, I figured I'd just gotten lucky. When the third, fourth and fifth CDs all proved to each be as fabulous as the last, I almost started to cry. Really? I'd spent four lousy bucks on this merde. And all of it was kicking my ass.

In creating tonight's mix-tape I gave myself a couple of rules: (1) I could only include one track per CD and (2) I had to use EVERY CD I'd gotten at the fair, both this year and last. I admit that I broke the second rule--while I found a couple of tracks on Florent Pagny's Re:Creation that didn't make me want to do violence to myself, I also remembered how OuLiPo creators had embraced the "clinamen"--or "unpredictable swerve." In layman's terms, it means the Oulipians allowed themselves one opportunity to cheat. So I took mine.

That said, this is an effing supremely fabulous mix, especially considering the fact that I only passed on one of the CDs I picked up in the last two years at a street fair. Do note, however, that while I did stay true to the first rule of only including one song per CD, I wound up getting two CDs each by two artists Java and Dominique A, which is just as well, as they're both incredible. Also, JL Murat's Lilith is a two-CD set; I picked a song from each disc.

Obviously, this is not a representative sample of contemporary French pop. It seems skewed toward the experimental (Franck Vigroux's collaboration with Elliott Sharp!) and the music dates from as far back as the 60s to the present, with quite a bit of 90s action.

If there's anything you find yourself particularly thrilled by, let me know and I'll perhaps post a few entire CDs of the creme de la merde.

Kojima Mayumi | Omokage

Listen to the title song

Get it all here.

I originally posted this CD in June 2010, soon after having found it at a used CD place in Tokyo. I'm reposting now because I hadn't previously put the whole thing together in a single zip file (or rar, as the case is now), meaning anyone wanting it had to grab each song individually.

Obviously, such a finding is outside the purported parameters of this blog; but I posted it because I had earlier found Kojima Mayumi's Ai No Poltergeist at P-Tunes and Video, the much-alluded-to mom and pop Chinese media store on Chrystie Street in Manhattan's Chinatown pictured in the header image of this blog.

From her LastFM entry:

"Kojima Mayumi’s maturation over the years has been exciting to watch, as she evolved from the cutesy, almost childlike persona of the nascent years of her career to the confident, sultry diva we’ve seen this side of the millennium.

"That it was this cute playfulness that contributed greatly to the charm of her early material cannot be doubted, but gradually she moved away from that as her musical appetite increased in its avidity. It wasn’t just the strengthened influence of jazz, an important element of her repertoire from the very beginning, but also a newfound enthusiasm to incorporate styles as wide-ranging as rockabilly, reggae, Americana, and cha-cha to her own music.

"The girlish elements never disappeared completely of course, and traces can still be heard in albums as recent as 2003’s Ai no Poltergeist (“Koi wa Psychedelic”) or the following year’s Pablo no Koibito (“Chairo no Kobin”). But at the same time it would’ve been senseless to characterize that as her musical centerpiece."

Video from Ai No Poltergeist

Drew Gardner & Various Artists | Flarf Orchestra

Listen to K. Silem Mohammad reading "Utah!" and other pieces.


Listen to Sharon Mesmer reading "A Unicorn Boner for Humanity"

Buy a copy of this crazy-ass CD here.

Most readers of this blog probably don't know this, given that most of you are in Europe or Asia and probably don't read much American poetry, but back in late 2000 I began writing a bunch of crazy, somewhat offensive poems that I began to call "flarf." In the spring of 2001, a half-dozen friends and I launched the Flarf email list, which ultimately grew to about 30-40 participants.

You can read a short history of the movement here and an article about us that appeared on the front page of the Wall Street Journal here.

Over the course of a decade or so, my friends and I put on a number of performances--in New York, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Maryland, Minnesota, Washington DC, and elsewhere--and at a few of these performances, flarf poet and jazz musician Drew Gardner put together impromptu Flarf Orchestras, made up of both local professional and completely amateur (or altogether non-) musicians, who provided music for some of the readings.

This CD, just released by DC flarf poet Rod Smith's Edge Books, features 10 of those live performances. For those curious about this blog author's "other life," I should warn you that I'm not one of the featured readers, though I do play a plastic blow-into-it sort of "keyboard" on one of the tracks. That said, the music is solid, often fabulous and, as is the case with the sample tracks above, offers an occasionally transcendent mix of language and music, the likes of which I'm guessing you've probably never heard.