the world you desire, appearing faintly
I made up my mind to realize it for you,
even if it means my destruction.

a sharp pain pierces my skin
I embrace it

I close my eyes to the wind that blows against me
and pursue what I desire,
what I was trying to get was obviously your smile.

the world you believe in, gone without a trace
I made up my mind to deliver it unto you,
even if it means the end of me.

a voice of prayer drifts in the air
I embrace it.

I entrust my fate to the wind that blows against me
and pursue what I desire,
what I was trying to get was obviously your smile

a promised flower that returns to bloom, at the grave post
a flash of light, that penetrates the all encompassing darkness.

if only to bring back a distant memory
that wavers still at the bottom of the sea.

I sever myself from the wind that blows against me
and until the day that I die again,
what I will be trying to get is obviously your smile.

“Dawn, can you feel death and life it?” With dawn…
“With dawn, Can you see all of the end?”
Knowing… Knowing… Knowing… Arousal…

Translated by: Brian & Takako Stewart

note: the song title is Calvary and not Cavalry as you might first think. (~.^)

I direct my gaze high into the sky, remove the chains that bind me
and open the door.
I won’t give up until I feel that empty sky, still just out of sight,
with these hands.

it pierces right through my skin, a helix of destruction
that changes everything
in order to survive, a new breed is born,
that separates me from the past

the sound as it crumbles
the end result of lust with no outlet

hair streaming in the wind, spraying your poison about
the sins begin to pile up
trading the sadness that breaks your heart for the purpose behind your vows.
in the corroding darkness, it was like I couldn’t see anything
it was as if even the faintly blurring memory never existed at all.

deep in those black eyes, the fading light shows me wings
in that empty sky, still just out of sight,
I sought the future.

carried up and away on the wind
the end result of lust from which there is no escape

hair streaming in the wind, spraying your poison about
the sins begin to pile up
trading the sadness that breaks your heart for the purpose behind your vows.
in the corroding darkness, it was like I couldn’t see anything
it was as if even the faintly blurring memory never existed at all.

I evolve and bring with me thoughts that connect through the ages

I stand there in the scenery that vanishes like an illusion unable to do anything
forever speaking to you, who has forgotten even how to smile
in the ruins that obscure the view, I see you there and nothing else
even if we’ve angered the heavens, our impulse remains, provoking the ire.

Translated By: Briana & Takako Stewart

white feathers fall through the air
caught in a rain that rewrites even the future
blending together with the tears
nowhere left to run, a sad face looks on.

the more you hunger for the future you fantasize about
the farther away it gets
your mind to be shut by the cold wind
that blows through the recesses of your heart

when you look up, floating there without fail, is the sun that will one day burn us all up
please guide the feelings that we’ve held for an eternity.

the red string of fate pulled taut, caught in a rain that robs you of even your hope
you’ve followed that string to its end over and over again,
but every time you catch the end, you lose it. And still you long for it.

the closer you get to the end you fantasize about,
the farther away it gets
the fever of your pulse rising in the recesses of your heart, makes up your mind

when you look up, floating there without fail, is the sun that will one day burn us all up
please guide the feelings that we’ve held for an eternity.

and yet still, one far off distant day, we’ll tire of this and die off
like we forsake the throngs of people that once believed in the infinite.

when you look up, floating there without fail, is the sun that will one day burn us all up
please guide the feelings that we’ve held for an eternity.
when you look up, floating there impermanently, is the sun that sees all
please guide the feelings, that continue to gush forth without end

Translated By: Briana & Takako Stewart

Most of us ration our dreams like lembus bread, as we trudge along the path through to the dread Mordor of life. Nourished and sustained by our hopes but never defined by them. Most of us… but not Roger Shackleford.

As someone who has known Roger for years, and spent many of them shaking his head and wondering what’s wrong with the boy, I feel uniquely qualified to testify on his behalf should he be tried as a Dream Deviant under Lennon’s Law. Roger’s dreaming is self destructive. After years as DJ of his own college radio show, he went into his own pocket to fund an independent internet radio network in the same spirit while starting activities as a promoter of Japanese rock music in the US. At any point during this time Roger could’ve made the transition to a less niche market and possibly had a career as a DJ or music promoter for Western acts with more reach but instead he’s remained loyal to his brand and, god help him, his fans have remained loyal to him. That means he works odd jobs to feed his dreams which have grown hungrier and ever more insatiable as the years pass.

That’s because underneath that mop of long brown (sometimes blue) hair, Roger is as sincere as a heart attack. Even when the numbers are against him he somehow scrapes by and delivers the kind of experiences that stay with people. He doesn’t smell like a corporate asshole because he isn’t one. Roger is as indie as indie gets.

Which brings me to why I’m telling you this.

Roger has started self publishing a webcomic and it’s full of potential. He and artist Danny Kang have collaborated on the story of a rock band, not unlike the kind he grew up idolizing, called Fixer.

The story is narrated by Dakota Shaw in the present day. Caught in a depression about where his career has led him, he begins writing a journal, remembering the days with the 3 most important people of his life, Damien Miller, Naomi Halevi, Mamoru Kageyama, and their band “Fixer”. The story starts in 1998 with Dakota and Naomi in their senior year of high school, Mamoru having recently graduated, and Damien just starting in his freshmen year. The first story arc will go on to detail how they all met, their motivations for starting and joining the band, Dakota and Naomi’s graduation, and an experiment that leads the band to Mamoru’s home city of Tokyo, where the band finds their artistic direction.

I mean read that again. This isn’t a bullshit superhero story. It’s not about anime space rangers or a nerdy boy who is inexplicably surrounded by hot underage girls. It’s about real life struggles and friendships and the drama of heat applied to adolescent molecules. As someone who couldn’t get enough of Nana and it’s wonderful portait of Tokyo lives engulfed in the burning spotlight of the bright rock n roll lights, I want this to succeed.

Trouble is… these are hard times and the competition for someone’s hard earned mula is fierce to say the least. But I’m getting ahead of myself. The first step in this whole process is to go and read Fixer. It’s a strong start with intriguing (for what else could I call them after only one chapter) characters and top marks for presentation and art design. Don’t let Roger’s past works influence your decision to dive in. It may play to his strengths but you need not be familiar with Japanese rock to get into the story.

So go read it and perhaps when you’re done you could spare some lembus bread to help keep Roger and Danny’s dream machine running. I know I wanna see where the story is going and it’d be a shame if it were cut down before its tale is told.

If you have never heard of Icelandic superstar pixie muffin Björk, you were never alive during the 90s. For all her intrinsic weirdness, Björk’s music in the 90s was always a reliable source of fifth dimensional electronic dance floor passion. It saddens me that this generation may only know her as the girl that wore the swan dress to the MTV Music Awards 2001 Academy Awards show. Well, I mean that’s a hell of a thing to be remembered for but it dismays me that her music has taken a backseat to her persona. Even though her music has always been in and around my life, Björk has never been mine except for my brief love affair with Lars Von Trier’s gutwrenching drama, Dancer n the Dark. All my friends owned her CDs so I never felt the need to be redundant in my purchases. I’ve always been threatening to dive into her work one day and this is that day.

(more…)

I recently made a card for my boss Al’s birthday in which I drew a poor man’s Bugs Bunny. I had such a good time doing it that I figured I would explore the realms of bunny art further. Perhaps mine its depths of bunny treasure and leave a slurry of badly drawn rabbits in my wake. The result is this lyrics card for Cocco’s Raining. I decided to illustrate the part of the song where she sings, “with my hair gone, next I tried cutting my arms. I cut until I couldn’t cut any more. Feeling the warmth, I danced with bloodied arms.”

I started with a pen drawing (Bic!) I scanned it into the computer and opened it in Photoshop.

Next I began painting it using a graphics tab and wet media brushes of varying opacity. 40% was my go to number.

Following that I did the shading and detail, by using the same color and adding a second layer of paint.

Then I added blood. At first I had a lot of it swirling all around her but it was indelicate and took away from the prettiness so I settled for one wide arc. Perhaps if I had the patience for more fine lines I might consider the original idea.

Finally, I added the lyrics with anything blood related in red and I did a kind of paper sliding door thing with the background. Almost as if our bunny girl is dancing away from the bright sun in that moment and into the darkness.

I don’t talk much about the band I fronted while working in Japan from 2002 to 2004. There’s not much to say really. We never got out of the clubs, only did a demo for one song and I left my guitarist and bassist in shambles when I quit. Haven’t spoken to them since. I thought time would be cruel to the memory but recently I got a disc in the mail from my old partner in temperature crime, Jojo and I have to say I wish I could have made it work. We were really close to something cool and different and primal. If only they hadn’t tried to change us into Limp Bizkit in the end and my voice hadn’t completely bailed on me. Guess I should’ve learned to sing…

Here’s some footage from our shows at Club Quattro, Domannaka Hall and a third forgotten venue.

This is the song we always opened with called 「漁村」or Gyoson. It means fishing village. You’d have to travel back in time to ask a younger me why I called it that. Perhaps some clue lies in the lyrics to the coda:

there’s　just　too　many　to　say　hello　to
and　it’s　breaking　my　heart
oh　it’s　tearing　me　apart

there’s　too　many　to　say　goodbye　to
and　i　don’t　know　where　to　start
oh　i　can’t　tell　them　apart

I always wore this creepy featureless white mask to open shows. Got a lot of mileage out of the mask.

This song was called Dharma but it didn’t refer to the red cloaked figure of religious significance. I was referring to the derogatory slang for parapalegics in Japan. The lyrics are total nonsense to me now but I think I was trying to suggest that just maybe medicating our mental issues was not the solution. I myself was on Paxil for a few years and was probably pissed off about that. The song begins with the line: “I’m a hospital of fucking problems.” I have since had a high record of outpatients, I’m proud to say.

This song went through several titles before I settled on Mind Fuck. It was originally called 「小鳥はこの手に」(Kotori wa Kono Te ni) which comes directly from the lyrics:

ah　you’re　doing　it　again　　that　thing
stop　it
ah　little　bird　in　the　palm　of　my　hand
flappin’　

fall…　down　
fall　down
fall　down　この手の平に
fall　down　never　ever　gonna　give　you　up
fall　down　never　ever　gonna　let　you　go
growin　colder　colder　fingers　bolder　bolder
why　can’t　i　have　you　and　not　hurt　you？　

At the time of this performance I had still not written the lyrics or melody to the chorus. Hahaha. Can you tell?

The next song was our ballad. I wrote it for my wife (then girlfriend.) I’ve never been able to top the lyrics of this chorus no matter how hard I try. This was a favorite of mine even though I always started it flat. We changed the way it’s sung several times. I bet if I tried it today I could fucking nail it.

仄暗い暁に溺れた朝
この胸が張り裂けそう　離れたくない気持ちで
陽は手探りでずっと　君の寝顔を探している
僕は邪魔をしようとして　眩しい光に手を上げ
いつも傍にいると信じてた二人
あの頃のくそ辛いぺペロンチーノ

(trans: the morning drowning in the murky dawn
my heart about to tear apart, not wanting to ever leave you
the sun fumbling around searching for your sleeping face
I tried to get in the way, raising my hand to the bright rays
we believed we’d always be together
the flaming hot peperoncino of those days)

That’s a story for another time…

This always closed our shows and I loved it. Hotoke Otoshi (Buddha Takedown) ~ Bringing Down the House. It just leant itself to theatrics. I think it was about how the divine and the commercial are mutually exclusive. How will we face our maker when we’ve changed our faces from his perfect work? The ugly star in the song is actually the sun. Orphan of the universe. The ugly duckling of the cosmos. Someday it’s gonna burn us right up. Yeah… I used to write things like that when I was in my twenties. It’s good to remember that person sometimes while I’m pushing an old lady down a flight of stairs so I can be first to own a Nintendo 3D Fun Machine PS360.

light of the holy star
in the end you get what you deserve
light of the ugly star
just came round to say good… bye.

Good bye… my sweet rebellious, riotous youth.

Mr. Children – 365nichi (365 days)

Hear it coming. Floating towards you.
Feelings I can’t suppress surrounding you.
Even if you shut your ears to them, they resonate within you.

I love you. I know… it’s foolish.
But I can’t help it.
From the moment I awaken, it’s back to dream again,
always a dream of you.

I wish we could always feel the same about one another
I put together these miraculous wishes

A love letter that can’t contain all 365 days worth of my words.
Writing about you, jotting whatever comes to mind.
I’ll continue to keep this flame lit
so that even if the wind should huff and blow
on the candle of my heart
it will never be extinguished.

Take ‘freedom’ or ‘dream’ for instance,
all these phrases that I once used to shield myself
no longer work, enchanted by the lightning you flash.

‘It’s easier being on my own’
It’s time to stop using such cowardly methods of evasion.

Even if we lived in a desert town
as long as you were there with me
I could make a life there and forget all about the dryness
When I think about that,
the cotton candy of a distant sky,
wafts gently down upon our town.

I want to touch you.
I want to kiss your heart.
I want to see you in a place deeper than even just yesterday.

A love letter spelled out with 365 days worth of heart
Letting my passion do the writing for me.
I’ll continue to keep this flame safe
so that even if the wind should huff and blow
on the candle of your heart
it will never go out.
A love song to honor 365 Days worth of you.

Hear it coming. Floating towards you.
let all these feelings that surround you,
somehow get through to you.

Translated By: Brian & Takako Stewart

Mr. Children – Prelude

Hey you, the sun is setting
What kind of day was today?
I’m asking,
knowing full well that things don’t usually go as planned.

Where are you going tomorrow?
so, my friend. where do we go?
even if your dazzling rainbow tinted dreams
should wither and fade,
raise your head.

take that which you yearn for with you everywhere
that train will run again today
the steam whistle blows, its body trembles
and into the light it goes
for now, shelve your worries
you won’t need them, or any baggage!
Don’t take anything with you, and hop on!

Translated By: Brian Stewart & Takako Sakuma

Mr. Children – Haru (Spring)

A star that looked like a UFO, streaked across the melancholic night
and then another, and another
for a little while, time came to a standstill.

the curtain billows
and for a bit, the burdens I shoulder float into space
I stop feeling the need to think about for whose sake I’m living
the wind blows through like it’s tickling my worried heart.

The traffic light signals to others, even when the streets are deserted
it lacks in social graces, but it performs its duty
It reminds me of a certain someone.

In the spring breeze
I sort of felt like the world was wonderful
sometimes I think maybe it’s a sign meant to teach me that
it’s a momentary reward for lives stuck in one place.

If I climb to a place where we can view far off cities
we’ll fly away into the sky, the great big sky
on imaginary wings.

stars coming home
vanish in the morning sky
like a dream, you gradually awaken from, little by little.

in the spring breeze
I sort of felt like the world was wonderful
and stopped caring so much about what awaited me at the end of the journey
the winds blows through like it’s softly stroking my cheek
trembling softly.

Translated By: Brian Stewart & Takako Sakuma