Radiozilla #5 - 8/19/12

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Puffy Amiyumi

HEY I'M BACK! You still missed me, right?

So as the rotation gods would have it, I had the Latin Show and Radiozilla back-to-back this Sunday, and honestly, and can't think of a better two hour slot to have. This Radiozilla was especially eventful because I had two people in the studio with me, one being my friend who was visiting, and another being Gus, who is a trainee to become a real-life WCBN DJ! Yaaaay Gus! Luckily for me (and him, who are we kidding), he chose to do his specialty apprenticeship with me during Radiozilla, so a few of these tracks were picked out by him! I've notated which ones with a "+" beforehand. We also learned that we have similar favorite SNES, such as Chrono Trigger and Super Mario RPG, which makes me like Gus a lot, so we'll probably be best friends now.

Seriously though, it's amazing to see these newbies, and what kind of music they pick out when they have the chance to explore. That's a major thing I love about WCBN, and sometimes I wish we could do more collaborative radio, like how this show was done.

Anyway, enough jibber-jabber.

[Artist: Song - Album]

1. Polysics: Buggie Technica - Hey! Bob! My Friend!
2. Puffy Amiyumi: Radio Tokyo - Splurge
3. +Nobukazu Takemura: Everyone Gets His Own Nemesis - Akey To The Underworld
4. Nubuo Uematsu: Battle Theme - Final Fantasy X
5. Petty Booka: Chotto Matte Kudasai - Let's Talk Dirty In Hawaiian
6. Asobi Seksu: I'm Happy But You Don't Like Me - Asobi Seksu
7. Xtatika: Gone - Tongue Bath
8. Mai Hoshimura: Stay With You - Japan For Sale Vol. 3
9. +Ken Ishii: Frame Out - Jelly Tones
10. Yoko Kanno: Cat's Delicacy - Vision of Escaflowne OST 2
11. +Martin Atkins' China Dub Soundsystem: Mostly Hulusi - Made In China
12. Kicking Giant: Alien ID - Alien ID
13. +Atau: delull - biorhythms
14. +Himawari: Wonder Pan - Mineral
15. Fushitsusha: (track 3) - DBL Live Disc 2

I'm Happy:

1. Gus ole buddy: Gus did a really great job, and I don't think I can say enough how happy I am to have him at WCBN now, and how excited I am to hear what kind of music he checks out in the future for his own show.
2. Puffy Amiyumi: Remember that cartoon, Teen Titans? Well, I don't know about you, but the first time I heard of Puffy Amiyumi was because they did the theme song to this show, and I'm not going to lie...I really liked this show. I also had NO IDEA we had so much Puffy Amiyumi in the station! You will hear more Puffy Amiyumi on my freeform show soon...
3. Martin Atkins: This track was so great. So, so, so great. I love how the hulusi was incorporated, and I really want to figure out how much of it was analog, and how much of it was digitally composed. Songs where I have to question that are what really blow my mind. Good pick, Gus!

But You Don't Like Me:

1. Honestly I got nuthin': This was a great show.

Ja ne, minna-san!

Radiozilla #4 - 7/15/12

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Le Polysics

Did you know that I really like DJing Radiozilla? I do. It's only an hour, and I still have to read concert information right in the middle of it, but it's really fun. Having the freedom to play all Japanese music for you is something that I wouldn't allow myself on my freeform show, so sometimes I wonder if it still sounds like me, you know? Does it sound like MY radio? I would love to hear what you think about it.

Also, I've come to realize that I play a song by Polysics every single Radiozilla. I also play it on my freeform show. And you know, I think I realized that I'm kind of obsessed with them. Sometimes I can't listen to an entire album in one sitting, but they are the perfect mix for freeform-style radio. Thank you for existing, Polysics.

[Artist: Song - Album]

1. Polysics: Married To A Frenchman - Hey! Bob! My Friend!
2. Asobi Seksu: Coming Up - Fluorescence
3. Koenjihyakkei: Guoth Dahha - Viva Koenji!!
4. Oorutaichi: (track 11) - Jurasy Human
5. Matally: Four Seasons VS YoYo-C - Japan For Sale Vol. 3
6. Thee Machine Gun Elephant: Citroën No Kodoku (The Loneliness of Citroën) - Rodeo Tandem Beat Specter
7. Joe Hisaishi: Kaonashi (No Face) - Spirited Away OST
8. Ken Ishii: Iceblink (main mix) - Japan For Sale Vol. 2
9. The Pillows: Tiny Boat - The Pillows Acoustic
10. Tokyo Jihen: FAIR - 2012???
11. Takemoto Akira: Island in Video Casset - Serial Experiments Lain
12. Gackt: Vanilla - Vanilla

FAIR: 

1. New Polysics album: Yay! More Polysics for you! This new album's really fun, and kind of more of the same style as other Polysics albums, so...it's perfect basically.
2. Spirited Away: Mmmm I'm so glad I found this album in the soundtrack section. I love the music to this movie, and I wish that we had more Miyazaki movie OSTs in the library! Like My Neighbor Totoro? I would kill someone for that.

NO FAIR:

1. Too much online music: In retrospect I realize that 3 out of the last 4 songs were from a computer online, which I don't normally do at such frequency, and especially for such a short show. I'll be more careful next time, although I really did want to play those artists for you.

Thanks for listening! Stay tuned for more updates!

Surprise Radiozilla #3 - 2/26/12

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Minekawa-san with a cat

 Konnichiwa, minna-san! Today's Radiozilla is brought to you by...*drumroll*...a surprise no-show DJ after the Latin show! Luckily, I really like Radiozilla, and I really like WCBN, and I'm on spring break, so I was happy to stay.

Miyavi-san with a cat

Honestly, I didn't feel great about this show, purely because I wasn't prepared to actually DJ this show. I usually come to the station about 15-30 minutes before I do a show so that I can pick out music, and accumulate a nice pile of CDs/LPs so that I don't have to run around the station a lot. Unfortunately, that's exactly what I was doing this time. For a freeform show it's pretty easy to operate like that, because I have the freedom to literally grab whatever I want. But with an all-Japanese show, I must grab Japanese music. Here's the trick: there's no Japanese section. I need to literally scan all of the sections to find Japanese artists, or go from the Japanese artists that I know. I had a little bit of help from a special guest in the station, but I still felt a bit stressed. I hope that didn't come across.

Although this show isn't cat themed, I hope you like these pictures of two amazing artists which you will hear in this set with some cats (fake and real ones), and this other picture of a cat meme!

[Artist: Song - Album]

1. Kodó: Strobe's Nanafushi (Satori Mix) - Sai-So
2. Miyavi: Are You Ready To Love? - Miyaviuta (Dokuso)
3. Takako Minekawa: Sleep Song (Remixed by portastic) - Recubed EP
4. Cibo Matto: Working For Vacation - Stereo Type A
5. Puffy: Circuit No Musume - Japan Not For Sale vol. 2
6. Sachiko: Tokyo Song - Fork in the Road/Tokyo Song
7. Kahimi Karie: Lolitapop Dollhouse - Kahimi Karie
8. Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O - Pink Lady Lemonade (I Want To Drink You) - Live in Occident
9. Cornelius: The Micro Disneycal World Tour - Fantasma
10. Tujiko Noriko: Kiminotameni - From Tokyo To Naiagara
11. Supercar: White Surf style 5. - Japan For Sale
12. Yoko Kanno: Pokketto O Karani - Escaflowne Over the Sky
13. High Rise: Mainliner - Live

DJs who show up for their shows:

1. Last-minute sub award: 'nuff said. 
2. High Rise: Always a pleasure. I always try to keep them in the back of my mind during Radiozilla, because we have like 5 albums of their stuff. 

DJs who forget their shows and don't apologize:

1. Sub-par picks: Apart from the tracks that my special guest picked out, I felt like my own tracks were a bit below the bar that I aim for Radiozilla. I like upbeat tracks contrasted with pretty acoustic tracks, but it felt really all over the place today.

Sorry, not much to say for such a short show. Still hope you enjoy it!

Radiozilla #2 - 1/1/12

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RAWWWWR!!!

That's Zilla for "HEY I LOVE YOU HAPPY NEW YEAR!" 

This set seemed really tight to me. I really liked what I was playing, the transitions were good, and I felt like I was constantly busy doing something, which is good for an hour show. Something I realized about myself while DJing Radiozilla is that as far as an hour show is concerned, I never want to play anything that's too downbeat. Almost all of these tracks are upbeat, or at least have some sort of pulse underneath. I almost played some avant-garde Japanese stuff (you know, no beat, no key, etc.) but I just couldn't do it.

It's always a funny balance of playing my personal library and the WCBN library. For the most part I try to play as much WCBN music as possible, since everything's so good here, but when it comes to specialty shows, a large part of me starts to scream, "Hey! Listen to this! Isn't this cool! I have cool music too!" Especially with Japanese music this is true, because I used to listen to it a lot, so I have all these bands floating in my head that we just don't have in the library. Because of how tight the set turned out, I'm inclined to think that I made a good decision today, but it's something that I want to be careful not to get comfortable with.

Also, here's the translation for Onaji yoru, if you're interested. Romaji, Kanji, and English are all there. 

[Artist: Song - Album]

1. Plastics: Robot - Plastics
2. Polysics: Walky Talky - Now is the time!
3. Yoshida Brothers: Morricone - III
4. Fantastic Plastic Machine: Bon Voyage + L'aventure Fantastique - The Fantastic Plastic Machine
5. TM Revolution: MID-NITE WARRIORS - triple joker
6. Lab Life: World Wide Love Song - Japan Not For Sale vol. 2
7. Shiina Ringo: Onaji yoru - Muzai Moratorium
8. Suppa Micro Pamchopp: Maimerodii - Obake
9. Yohihito Yano, Saki Kabata: Lonely Rolling Star - Katamari Damacy OST
10. Akiko Yano: Soredakede Ureshii (That's All It Takes) - Piano Nightly
11. Makoto Kawamoto: 1/2 - Rurouni Kenshin: The Best Theme Collection
12. Uzume Taiko: Chirashi - Chirashi
13. Yoko Kanno & The Seatbelts: Ask DNA - Cowboy Bebop OST
14. Dog Hair Dressers: Orange Juice - Japan For Sale
15. Junichi Masuda: The Road to Cerulean from Mt. Moon - Pokemon OST
16. Nobuo Uematsu, Junya Nakano, Masashi Hamauzu: Chocobo Jam - Final Fantasy X OST

Japan For Sale:

1. Pokemon: What better way to start the New Year than with some motivation video game music? No way, that's what.
2. Plastics: This is one of the few Japanese rock LPs in the library I think, so I'm happy to play it for you. I really like it actually, so maybe I'll play it on my freeform show sometime.
3. Shiina Ringo: This song is near and dear to my heart, and I'm very happy to share it with you. It tends to break hearts, so watch out. 

Japan Not For Sale:

1. Too much from comp?: I'm not sure about this, but I played quite a few from my personal library, which I don't normally do. It's not that I didn't have enough CDs--I had more than enough, believe you me--but I really wanted to share some of these tracks with you for this show. Nevertheless, I'm wondering whether it was a good thing. What do you think?

Thanks for listening to the New Year's Marathon, brought to you by Freestailo, Inc. We hope to be serving you in the near future. 

Radiozilla #1 - 12/11/11

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I recently got drafted into the Radiozilla rotation list, guys. Radiozilla is WCBN's all Japanese music show. Does that seem oddly specific? Maybe it is, but I really don't care, because I could play this stuff all day.

There's not much else to say except that I had a fantastic time searching through the WCBN library for the Japanese stuff. There was a list of Japanese musicians that I was e-mailed beforehand so that I wasn't so overwhelmed (which is really a life-saver), but throughout my search I also found a lot of other names that weren't on the list, so I'm really excited to do another Radiozilla show!

[Artist: Song - Album]

1. Gontiti: Coconut Basket - Sunday Market
2. Takako Minekawa: Fantastic Cat - Roomic Cube
3. Polysics: E.L.T.C.C.T. - Absolute Polysics
4. Nobukazu: White Sheep and Small Light - Hoshi No Koe
5. Sadao Watanabe: Echo - A Night With Strings
6. Yoko Kanno: Pu Qua O - Macross Plus OST II
7. Junko Sumi: (track #1) - Junko Sings Japanese Nursery Rhymes
8. Thee Michelle Gun Elephant: God Jazz Time - Rodeo Tandem Beat Specter
9. Hiromi: Keytalk - Brain
10. Chocolat: Blue Mint Blue - Japan Not For Sale vol. 2
11. Tokyo Kid Brothers: (track #3) - Golden Bat
12. Polysics: New Wave Jacket - Japan For Sale vol. 2
13. Yoko Solo: don't fall asleep i'm warning you don't fall asleep - The Beeps
14. Akiko Yano: Angler's Summer - Love Life
15. unknown: (track #8) - Tenchi Muyo Christmas

Fantastic Cats:

1. Polysics: I love all things by Polysics. They were one of the first Japanese bands I ever listened to. 
2. Yoko Kanno: Always a pleasure, m'dear. I'm so obsessed with you.
3. Tenchi Muyo Christmas: I used to watch Tenchi Muyo alllll the time when I was a kid. It was one of my first animes actually, and I would sometimes watch it with friends who had taped it off of Cartoon Network so I wouldn't miss it. Haha! 

Not so fantastic cats:

1. Nothing: This was perfect. Practically. Also, it was just too short to mess up.