Fiddle and Violins: Rest In Peace & Fly Away

Sugizo: Rest in Peace & Fly Away

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Like a lot of the other SMMers last week, I had a hard time coming up with songs about Truth, Veracity, Honesty, or even Truthiness that I really enjoyed.

Not so with this week's theme.

In fact, I've almost come full circle with this post – it was nearly a year ago that I joined the group here (thanks for inviting me!) and I posted a near-twin of this song, a similarly slow, moving instrumental by the Japanese rock star, Sugizo. He wrote this as a theme song for the movie "Soundtrack," in which he also starred.

Sugizo is kinda like the Ry Cooder of J-Rock, with his capable fingers in many pies. He's currently a member of not one but two of the foremost bands in Japan (Luna Sea and, most recently, X-Japan). If that doesn't keep him busy enough, he's a featured musician on numerous other bands' songs, writes soundtracks, and contributes to many ecological and humanitarian causes. He's primarily noted as a guitarist, but as you can see, he also plays the violin quite well.

So check out the song, but you won't get the full effect until you watch him perform with X-Japan live in Tokyo in this YouTube clip. If you want to know why I'm so hot for J-Rock, then this clip might give you a hint. It's got it all: the long-awaited hometown resurrection of a hugely popular band whose members went through more trials than Britney, Mariah, and Tina Turner combined, the emo-classical intro—a duet with Sugizo and J-diva Yoshiki playing matching clear acrylic instruments and wearing matching frilly waistcoats, joined by their clearly overwhelmed vocalist who'd just had the scales fall from his eyes about a cult he'd been entangled in for the past ten years, a duet which then segues into an over-the-top uber-rock-band anthem, complete with enough flashing lights and fireworks to trigger epilepsy, where Sugizo swaps his violin for a clear acrylic guitar and Yoshiki mounts his drum kit and never holds back even though everyone in the audience knows he's nearly been paralyzed from repetitive stress motion and could still succumb…. Whoa. This needs to be a reality show, you know what I'm saying?

Instrumentals: Synchronicity

Sugizo – Synchronicity

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Darius has generously encouraged me to offer up a second post for Instrumentals Week, and since I've been a huge fan of Star Maker Machine these past years, I took him up on it with glee. Besides, I just retired yesterday, so it's not like I don’t have the time. Heh.

There's no one quite so passionate as a convert. And although I have more traditional tastes, and would like to share those with you, I suspect I'll try hard to coax you into following me into my new love of Japanese rock (aka J-Rock or J-Pop). Like most of you, I've liked world music in one incarnation or another for quite a while, but I recently discovered this whole new genre. Don't you just love it when worlds unfold like that? You're all music lovers, so I know you've had it happen, too. Scales falling from eyes!

So. Sugizo. That's him in the photo, looking like he's decked out in Halloween crepe and doing the goth limbo. He plays both guitar and violin, amply on display in this song. He's the lead guitarist for Luna Sea, a big name in the 90's, mainly, but who reform on occasion. At the moment, he's joined X-Japan, one of the biggest J-Rock groups ever. If you like your rock with a side of emo soap opera, come sit by me and I'll fill you in. Or you can Wiki them. And if you happen to live in Chicago, you lucky things, you can see X-Japan reunited at Lollapalooza this summer, an event that has me counting my frequent flier miles. Think The Beatles, if they'd managed to get back together before George died (because oh yes, we also have tragic band member death).

Synchronicity is from the Sugizo-penned soundtrack to the movie Soundtrack (and boy, if you want to confound a Google search, name your movie Soundtrack). Sugizo also stars in this film. I just watched it a few weeks ago and couldn't make much sense of it, to be frank. It's mostly a lot of violent imagery backed with tender violin playing. Still, the music's terrific and the actors are easy on the eyes, so what's not to like?

Guest post by Geoviki