The 4th CD Shop Grand Prix winners

The 4th CD Shop Grand Prix, an award decided by nationwide CD shops' staff, has determined the winners.

Previously, 14 nominees were announced. It then went through a secondary voting round, which determined the 7 winning works as follows:

[Japanese]	[Romaji]
熊谷育美 「その先の青へ」	Kumagai Ikumi "Sono Saki no Ao e"
サカナクション 「DocumentaLy」	Sakanaction "DocumentaLy"
高橋優 「リアルタイム・シンガーソングライター」	Takahashi Yuu "Real Time Singer Songwriter"
back number 「スーパースター」	back number "Superstar"
星野源 「エピソード」	Hoshino Gen "Episode"
MAN WITH A MISSION 「MAN WITH A MISSION」	MAN WITH A MISSION "MAN WITH A MISSION"
ももいろクローバーZ 「バトル・アンド・ロマンス」	Momoiro Clover Z "Battle and Romance"

The other categories and the Grand Prize itself will be announced at the awards ceremony, to be held on 27 February.

The past 3 years saw Soutai Seiriron's "Chiffon Shugi", THE BAWDIES "THIS IS MY STORY", andymori's "Fanfare to Nekkyou" taking the Grand Prize. Which album will win this year?

Fingers crossed for DocumentaLy.

source

Yamaguchi Ichiro to be part of supersized collab song

Synthpunk rock band POLYSICS are releasing an album on 29th February to commemorate their 15th anniversary. On this album, there are several collaboration songs, but one of them stands out. Track 6 of the album 15th P, is a song called "Tomodachi Kecha featuring tomodachi" (友達ケチャ featuring 友達). In Japanese, "tomodachi" means friends, so "tomodachi" here is not referring to another artist, but rather, a collection of a mind-boggling 67 other musicians (counting each individual from bands and solo artists) who will be featured on the song.

As the title of this post says, Sakanaction's vocalist Yamaguchi Ichiro is one of those 67 people. Check out the list of collaborators below for this particular song! There will definitely be more than a few familiar names if you listen to a lot of Japanese rock.

source


Tomodachi Kecha collaborators

Goto Masafumi (ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION)
Kinoshita Riki (ART-SCHOOL)
Kamijou Chihiro (9mm Parabellum Bullet)
Sugawara Takuro (9mm Parabellum Bullet)
Taki Yoshimitsu (9mm Parabellum Bullet)
Nakamura Kazuhiko (9mm Parabellum Bullet)
cp (group_inou)
Kurimoto Hiroko (ex. Kegawa no Maries)
Yamaguchi Ichiro (Sakanaction)
Hamano Kenta (SAKEROCK)
Kiuchi Yasufumi (Sambomaster)
Kondo Yoichi (Sambomaster)
Yamaguchi Takashi (Sambomaster)
Mizuno Masaaki (SPANK PAGE)
Ishige Akira (the telephones)
Okamoto Nobuaki (the telephones)
Nagashima Ryohei (the telephones)
Matsumoto Seiji (the telephones)
Ueno Kouji (the HIATUS)
Hosomi Takeshi (the HIATUS)
masasucks (the HIATUS)
Okamine Koushuu (THE BACK HORN)
Suganami Eijun (THE BACK HORN)
Matsuda Shinji (THE BACK HORN)
Yamanaka Sawao (the pillows)
Isobe Hiroyuki ([Champagne])
Kawakami Youhei ([Champagne])
TAKUMA (10-FEET)
NAOKI (10-FEET)
Oomori Hajime (Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra)
Katou Takashi (Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra)
Kitahara Masahiko (Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra)
Oki Yuichi (Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra)
Masuko Naozumi (Dohatsuten)
Hanaregumi
Kawazaki "FIRIPO" Hirotoshi (HiGE)
Saitou Yuuki (HiGE)
Satou "KOTEISUI" Kouichi (HiGE)
Sutou Hisashi (HiGE)
Abe Kousei (HINTO)
Itou Shinichi (HINTO)
Kakinuma Hiroya (BIGMAMA)
Kanai Masato (BIGMAMA)
Higashide Mao (BIGMAMA)
Yasui Hideto (BIGMAMA)
Riad Ibu (BIGMAMA)
Suzuki Keisuke (Flower Companyz)
Takeyasu Kenichi (Flower Companyz)
Mister Konishi (Flower Companyz)
TGMX aka SYUTA-LOW TAGAMI (FRONTIER BACKYARD)
Koide Yusuke (Base Ball Bear)
Ahito Inazawa (VOLA & THE ORIENTAL MACHINE)
MIYAVI
Takei Yasunori (MO'SOME TONEBENDER)
Fujita Isamu (MO'SOME TONEBENDER)
Momono Yousuke (MONOBRIGHT)
Izawa Atsushi (LITE)
Rekishi
Aida Shigekazu
Utsumi Youko
Okuda Tamio
Kuhara Kazuyuki
Smiley Harashima
Tabuchi Hisako
Hidaka Tooru
Matsuda "CHABE" Gakuji


Romanizing these names took me forever. Have fun spotting your favourite artists! 

[Random] The most precious photo you will ever see in your lifetime

A rare finding is about to be presented before your very eyes! Behold... 4-year-old Yamaguchi Ichiro.

The 4th CD Shop Grand Prix

The nominees for the 4th CD Shop Grand Prix have been revealed today, and Sakanaction's "DocumentaLy" album was nominated.

The CD Shop Grand Prix is based on the nominations and votes of CD shop staff across the entire nation of Japan. "There is a sound you have to meet" is the slogan of this award. This is the fourth year that this award is running, and a total of 14 works were nominated.

Other than this, there are also the "Western Music Award", "Maestro Award", "New Blood Award", "Live Performance Award", "Entire Japan CD Shop Clerks Association 2012 Special Award", as well as provincial awards which are decided by each regional block.

The announcement of results and the ceremony will be held late February.

Check out the list of nominees for the Grand Prix below:

[Japanese]	[Romaji]
amazarashi 「千年幸福論」	amazarashi  "Sennen Kofukuron"
androp 「relight」	androp  "relight"
andymori 「革命」	andymori "Kakumei"
熊谷育美 「その先の青へ」	Kumagai Ikumi "Sono Saki no Ao e"
黒川泰子 「あなたへの贈り物」	Kurokawa Yasuko "Anata e no Okurimono"
サカナクション 「DocumentaLy」	Sakanaction "DocumentaLy"
さよならポニーテール 「魔法のメロディ」	Sayonara Ponytail "Mahou no Melody"
高橋優 「リアルタイム・シンガーソングライター」	Takahashi Yuu "Real Time Singer Songwriter"
Czecho No Republic 「Maminka」	Czecho No Republic "Maminka"
back number 「スーパースター」	back number "Superstar"
FoZZtone 「NEW WORLD」	FoZZtone "NEW WORLD"
星野源 「エピソード」	Hoshino Gen "Episode"
MAN WITH A MISSION 「MAN WITH A MISSION」	MAN WITH A MISSION "MAN WITH A MISSION"
ももいろクローバーZ 「バトル・アンド・ロマンス」	Momoiro Clover Z "Battle and Romance"

Yamaguchi Ichiro to appear on NEWS ZERO

Just revealed a while ago, Yamaguchi Ichiro will be appearing on tonight(6th Jan)'s NEWS ZERO television program on NTV.

Yamaguchi appears on the program's culture corner "ZERO CULTURE". Things about Sakanaction's music, videos, collaborations, and activites up til now will be recalled in an interview.

The program airs tonight 24:28 - 25:28 JST (12:28AM - 1:28AM 7th Jan JST. Japan uses a 26 hour clock when listing TV programs.).

Comment from Yamaguchi, from NEWS ZERO Facebook Page:

2011年という年は、この時代を生きた人間、震災を経験した人間に
関わらず日本人が必ず振り返る一年になったと僕は思っています。
2012年、僕らは何を背負い何を感じて生きていくのでしょうか。
音楽というフィールドで僕らサカナクションが届けたいこと、
それはまだ煙の中ですが、来年の今頃は今よりもっと音楽が好きな
人達が増えているように活動していきたいと、心に誓っている次第です。

The year of 2011; the people living in this era, the people who have experienced the earthquake;
I think that it has become a year that Japanese people will always remember regardless.
In 2012, what kind of burdens and what kind of feelings will we be living with?
We as Sakanaction would like to reach out with the field of music.
Although it is still in progress, this year we pledge from the heart that
we want to be active more than ever to increase the number of people who like music.

サカナクション　山口一郎
Sakanaction - Yamaguchi Ichiro

source
source2

Sakanaction to perform in Taiwan in February

Sakanaction will be performing in Taiwan in February. It is their second time having an overseas live.

"HighApps", a live event which seeks to introduce the next generation of up and coming artists, is taking place overseas for the first time. Titled "HighApps in Taiwan", there will be two shows, one in TheWALL TAIPEI on 24th Feb (Fri) and one in TheWALL Pier 2 on 25th Feb (Sat). Both are in Taiwan.

Only 3 Japanese rock bands have been slated to perform, namely Sakanaction, LITE, and avengers in sci-fi.

Japanese source
Taiwan event venue website for details and ticket buying (in Mandarin)

I'm happy that Sakanaction is finally getting the chance to expose themselves to overseas crowds. The venue website and event title all seem to put Sakanaction as the headline act as well. Although I'm not sure if they're really popular in Taiwan, this is a really good chance to increase their popularity there. Someone I know who lives in Taiwan told me that TheWALL is a really good venue.

I would love to go myself since air tickets to Taiwan are relatively cheap, Mandarin's my second language, and the ticket prices for this event are insanely reasonable (about 3600 JPY. even cheaper if you buy as a group.). Besides Sakanaction, I really want to see avengers in sci-fi as well, so this is kind of like a perfect event of sorts for me. Unfortunately, I would be busying myself with exams on those days, so yeah...really bad timing clash. However, I would really recommend it to anyone who has the means to attend!

Yamaguchi Ichiro makes surprise appearance in Base Ball Bear's concert

update: news confirmed

I don't have an official source for this. I saw several accounts of it on Sakanaction's 2ch thread, and many more on Twitter have corroborated that this actually took place.

On January 3rd, Base Ball Bear held a live at Nippon Budoukan arena. During the concert, Base Ball Bear sung kimino-me, the song that features Yamaguchi Ichiro. Yamaguchi's part in the song starts after the first chorus, and right after the first chorus during the song's break, it was announced "Special guest! Yamaguchi Ichiro!". Yamaguchi then sang til the song was finished and that was it.

Many people on Twitter have tweeted things like "I have finally seen kimino-me done live with Ichiro-san", "During the BBB live, when I heard Yamaguchi Ichiro sing kimino-me, I cried tears of gratitude", "When Ichiro-san came out during kimino-me, I thought that I would get a nose bleed! I have seen great stuff~" and "I wanted to go to BBB's Budoukan live...I want to hear kimino-me live *cry*".

However, some accounts on 2ch say it wasn't really that great a performance, because Koide Yusuke of Base Ball Bear messed up some of the lyrics before Yamaguchi's parts, and also the microphone that Yamaguchi was using was in bad condition so his voice couldn't be heard clearly.

Whatever it is, I'm still glad to hear kimino-me was done live. Perhaps we'll be able to judge for ourselves in a few months, since I believe there's a DVD release planned.

New Year's Day Sake no Sakana (very) partial roundup

notice: I'm doing a horrible job of covering Ustreams, so if anyone has a reliable internet connection and wants to do so, please comment ;o;

Koide Yusuke and Hoshino Gen -- Photo from Yamaguchi Ichiro's Twitter

The stream started at 4PM JST today, but apparently I had an appointment set around that time and it wasn't nice to cancel it, so I thought I was going to be unfortunately missing the entire stream. I returned home at 7PM JST with zero hopes, but I opened the link anyway. Lo' and behold, the stream was still on air!

And at a nice time too - it was a black screen with the notice that they had gone for a short break. I took the time to read the tweet stream by the side and noted that Koide Yusuke of Base Ball Bear had shown up unannounced on the program earlier. The next segment was also the last segment which was the acoustic singing session. Many were tweeting that they wanted kimino-me (a very nice Base Ball Bear song featuring Yamaguchi) to be sung.

They reappeared onscreen without Koide. Then they started impromptu playing the guitar and sort of composing a relaxing sounding track which got everyone on the tweet stream excited. Until they started impromptu singing along with it as well. The lyrics made everyone laugh because it was just plain silly and it was like an ending theme for the Sake no Sakana program. The lyrics were something like... "Hoshino Gen... Yamaguchi Ichiro... lalala lalala Sake no Sakana".

Yamaguchi's silly laughing face.

Yamaguchi then proceeded to troll the audience by waving goodbye. Of course, it wasn't the end since they hadn't sung anything actual. Yamaguchi chose to sing Coelacanth to Boku. It was really good as usual. Halfway through, Koide popped up by the side and sat quietly, looking like he was genuinely enjoying the song.

After that, Hoshino sang Kudaranai no Naka ni. Check out the bromance as he sang the song:

Unfortunately, Koide didn't sing even though he was there. Yamaguchi said that he would have liked Koide to sing as well. I didn't manage to catch the reason why he didn't. Probably something like, Koide didn't bring his guitar or prepare anything.

All in all, though I didn't get to watch much, I'm just grateful to have caught the singing part. The bromance made me go "aww". I'm really glad that Yamaguchi seemed to have enjoyed the first day of new year with his buddies. And on that note, happy new year to whoever's reading this blog!

ps. What is that thing taped on Yamaguchi's MacBook Pro??
pps. Order links for Sakanaquarium 2011 DocumentaLy -live at Makuhari Messe- are up by the sidebar.