Blog - Weekly revue: 2018 week #47 (November 17 to 23)

Weekly revue: 2018 week #47 (November 17 to 23)

"SakuSaku" Katsumon, the official character of tonkatsu chain Saboten

Food: - Curry lunch at Dhaba★Kunitachi
- Oden at Tapir, Shin-Ōkubo
- Spice Hut's chicken & oyster curries at Bar Hoshio, Shinjuku
- "German pizza" Flammkuchen at Lecker Maul, Gokokuji
- Strawberry and chocolate ice cream at Tomihisa Ice Cream, Shinjuku

Music events: - On Sunday November 18 was event "Guitar Pop Restaurant vol.40 ~Guitar Pop Festival 2018~" at Koenji High! The event featured many great guitar pop and like-minded bands DJs. I got to see shows by Elektel (feat. Cutie Pai), Spaghetti Vabune!, Tsujibayashi Miho, and two DJ sets by Imai Kentaro (Aprils, CTO LAB., VirtualBoys), and a bit of "yes, mama ok?".

For his DJ booth sets, Imai Kentaro was joined by VirtualBoys and CTO LAB. band mates to give mini live shows! It was my first time hearing VirtualBoys (formed of Imai-kun with Taichi from Genius) and they were great! I got their first CD-R ("VirtualBoys I+II") and I've been listening to it a lot already, almost regretting not getting their more recent other CDs at the same time. The other set was with CTO LAB's polymoog (also of Elektel), and they played mostly songs from latest album "Beyond The Box". I was so happy to hear "Nazo No Enban" (for which I wrote the lyrics) performed live! :) Between these two sets was a great show by Spaghetti Vabune!

After catching a bit of Sugimoto Kiyotaka (orangenoise shortcut)'s show, I went to the other venue upstairs (Amp Café) to get ready for Elektel. Elektel played a fun lounge-y set with large visuals projected on the wall. They were joined by Cutie Pai aka Mayu-chan for three songs, including "miss you" from her latest single (a song arranged by polymoog) and also the pop'n'music track "Le depart a L'Alpe-d'Huez" which featured her scats. She stayed for "Better Sound For Better Kindness" for more scat, a vocal style it's rare to hear Mayu-chan sing live! The set also included brand new song "Moon Race". Great show!

Elektel set list: I love pod / Runway Star / Moon Race (Special ver.) / miss you (Cutie Pai) / Le départ à l'Alpe-d'Huez / Better Sound For Better Kindness

After checking out part of Fujino Manami (ex-Parquets) on the main stage, I went back to Amp Café and caught a show by singer-songwriter Tsujibayashi Miho. I didn't know of her except that I remembered seeing her name in credits (she wrote Hoshino Michiru's "One-Time Love"). Turned out that her show was awesome, featuring herself on piano accompanied a string quartet (two violins, viola and cello). Her songs are great pop tunes with a twist, completed by her somewhat particular voice. She reminded me a bit of Frenesi. She was my best discovery of the day, along with VirtualBoys.

After that I was able to catch the end of "yes, mama ok?"'s show on the main stage. I had seen them twice before in small venues, so it was nice to see them on Koenji High's great stage.

- I went to a café event titled "sorezore no Retro" organized by singer-songwriter/producer Yafune Tetsurō. Held at "BAR? CCO" in Shimokitazawa (it was my first time there), the event featured Yume To Cosme, singer Chimoto Rika and singer-songwriter Kanou Emiri. It was great to see Yume To Cosme again after a while, they performed some of their best songs along with self-covers of ones written for Chelip and Nao (Negicco). Next up was Chimoto Rika, a young singer who sings Shōwa-kayo standards just perfectly. For part of her set, she was accompanied on piano Yafune Tetsuro.

Last on stage was Kanou Emiri, a singer-songwriter who takes influence from the 80's despite her young age. She succeeds in smartly borrowing bits of melodies from famous songs but keeping it all very original. Good dancing too! Watch a live clip from this show below. I got her first CD-R titled "EP.1".

Yume To Cosme set list: Yume To Cosme / deai kashira no ichibyō go / korette koi da to omoun da (self-cover of song written for Chelip) / Happy End o chōdai (self-cover of song written for Nao (Negicco)) / matsuge no saki ni Tomorrow / zettai! Love Motion

Chimoto Rika set list: mizuiro no koi (Amachi Mari cover) / Romance (Iwasaki Hiromi cover) / yumesaki annnainin (Yamaguchi Momoe cover) / machibuse (Miki Seiko cover, written by Yuming) / akai Sweet Pea (Matsuda Seiko cover) / hare tokidoki Kill Me (Watanabe Noriko cover)

Yume To Cosme, Chimoto Rika with Yafune Tatsuro, Kanou Emiri