Acoustic Guitar

I like acoustic guitar plays, and today I found a cool video on YouTube.
Toto's Africa covered by Andy McKee using an acoustic guitar. :)



BTW, the below is also awesome. :)

Shamisen

Today, I found a great video on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK6XwrZB0tY



Fascinating... isn't it? :)

Venezuelan Harp

This is great!

A duo of Venezuelan harp and quatro playing Merry Chriestmas Mr. Lawrence by Ryuichi Sakamoto. You have to wait at least 3 minutes because they play the tune in Venezuelan arrange in the latter half of their play. :)

The harp player is Yoko Yoshizawa, and the quatro player is Hisashi Takahashi.

In Memory of Kiyoshiro

Today, one of the greatest rock singers in Japan, Kiyoshiro Imawano (忌野清志郎), past away because of cancer. He was 58 years old.

Although the English page of Wikipedia does not have much information, but as the Japanese page says, Kiyoshiro was not like any other musicians, and in a sense, he established a style of singing rock music in Japanese.

As for me, I loved YMO (Yellow Magic Orchestra) when I was a junior high school student, and he appeared as the singer of the tune below (い・け・な・いルージュマジック) which is in collaboration with Ryuichi Sakamoto who is, needless to say, a member of YMO.
In those days, I felt his song a bit strange, but still I thought that this singer is something special.
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One more his work I want to refer here is a collaboration session with Akiko Yano singing "Hitotsudake (ひとつだけ)" which means "The Only One Thing." As I wrote several times, I love Yano's songs, and listening to the song especially I'm always moved to the point of tears.
Furthermore, Kiyoshiro's voice has something special and appeals to me especially with the lyrics.
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It was really a great loss of Japan...
I prayed for the repose of Kiyoshiro's soul today.

Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence - FYI

I didn't know that Utada did a cover of "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" in her third studio album, "This is the One."
Its lyrics is here, and I'm wondering why she didn't choose completely different title from the original. What does she mean by just adding "FYI" to the original title?

Oh, but anyway I like it.
I know several covers of the tune, and among them Utada's cover could be the best. :)
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Maybe this link is better. The latter half is the tune above.

The Stew

Today's dinner was one of my favorites, stew. :)



BTW, I love also "The Stew" by Akiko Yano, and I'm dreaming someday I sing the song with my daugher. :)

Sotte Bosse

Today, I went to Diamond City Mu again with my wife to buy a present for my mother.
We were looking for a photo stand so that she can put photos of her grand child due in this November. :) But, it's not the point of today. When I went to Harvest Village, I heard Hanamizuki of Yo Hitoto. But, actually it's not Yo Hitoto herself, but other singer was singing the song in bossa nova arrange.

After hanging around the shopping center including HMV, we found it's Sotte Bosse (http://www.sottebosse.com/). At this moment, they have 2 CDs and all the songs are cover versions of popular Japanese pop songs. I think it's a healing arrange of the original songs in a sense. And so, I bought "innocent view" above. :)

Everly

I saw an interesting quartet in Koganei Park.



Its name is Everly, and their official home page is here.

They look like just a classic quartet in the above photo, but their uniqueness is that they play both classic and popular music. I mean they play also popular instruments such as guitars and sing songs not only classical instruments. As it was an open air concert, I'm not so sure their tune is very good or not. But, they have good atmosphere and make their audience have fun. So, I want to see their pops concert. :)

BTW, my wife found that two violin players look almost the same. In the closing talk their open air performance, it turned out that actually they were brothers.

Forbidden Colours

I really love this tune.
Lyrics here.

BTW, someone might say, "You just wanted to test an embedded object from YouTube!"
So what? :o