a bluebirds's photograph box

Melt-Banana! Live!

(a drawing I did inspired by the show and their new album)

On Thursday night, May 17th, 2007 the fantastic band Melt-Banana, from Tokyo, did the second show of their US tour in support of their new album 'Bambi's Dilemma' in the little burgeoning burg known to some as Visalia, California.

Starring:

Yasuko O. (aka Yako) on visionary punk poet vocals and space effects.

Rika mm' on killer bass.


Agata on radical guitar.


And their drummer, not sure of this guy's name, but he was totally killing that night.

This is how close we were. Isn't Yasuko O. the coolest?

People went pretty crazy at the show, even knocking Yako's effects box over at one point, which I would have been pissed about but she handled it with much grace, I thought. There was even a dude in a wheelchair going nuts, moshing, as it were, rougher then most of us active bi-peds would even hope to. Not that I recommend slamdancing with a nutty guy in a wheelchair, that's just such a grey area and those metal parts hurt. Suffice to say, we moved around a lot to avoid the people who had been making fun of Melt-Banana, and I quote, 'They're from Japan, come on, they won't even know English.' These people apparently needed an outlet for their Visailia lives and had come to this show, which was held between two large mill like buildings, to do so. There were some big fans though, a girl who had come with all her Melt-Banana cds to have them signed, a dude with the 'Cellscape' vinyl and a poster, and even a young boy and girl who had come with face masks on in support of Agata.

Here's five videos from the show that I uploaded to youtube, via my account psyfuck...

Video one, wherein Yako talks about playing in Visalia.


'Cat Brain Land' live!


a)


b)


c)

When Rika 'mm saw Panda's shirt she said, in a sweet, cooing voice, Oh, kawaii! It was a Yoshitomo Nara print. But she didn't say anything about my Junko Mizuno shirt, but I was okay with that. Just slightly, microscopically crushed.

Their new album, 'Bambi's Dilemma' is absolutely awesome. And Agata's solo for Tzadik is my favorite solo guitar album so far. Check these discs out! And go see Melt Banana if they're playing somewhere near you, not only are they one of the greatest bands around, and quite legendary, they're also just the nicest people.

Here's two shirts we got at the show (we bought buttons too but no photos - yet), this first one is Panda rocking the MxBx doppleganger design.




The shirt says, in a pretty cooly stylized font, メルト バナナ, that's 'me-ru-to ba-na-na' as there's no 'l' in Japanese.

Official MxBx page: here.
Melt-Banana's official myspace!
A Melt-Banana myspace fan page.

(half of Agata's rad pedal melange)

q: What are your two favorite Melt-Banana songs?

a: That's a tough one. The easy, cop-out answer would be their covers of 'Surfin' in the USA' and 'Monkey Man'. Which are two of the best recordings bar none... no shit! They cover 'Heart of Glass' live, which I bet is awesome.

q: Really?

a: Yes. But actually my favorite Melt-Banana song is 'If it is the deep sea, I can see you there' off Cell-scape. Or basically anything off 'Scratch or Stitch', or maybe 'Spathic!!' from 'Charlie' or '13,000 Miles at Light Velocity'.


Fan video of Melt-Banana doing 'Heart of Glass':


(promo from show)

(picture from discogs)

More Melt-Banana on youtube.

To throw up please visit the Melt-Banana page at wikipedia. Or not.

In the meantime, here's a very cool video MxBx did for 'Sick Zip Everywhere':


Fan made video for 'Monkey Man':


Hope you enjoyed Melt-Banana!

Momo's Moment (for Jeff)

"Today is going to be a good day. Oh, what is all this stuff?"





















"Where is she taking me, I could think that. What would be the best thing to think about here?"


"I can have fun, this is summer vacation. It's so hot, and I'm learning to show that I can really take care of myself, I could write that. She'd believe it."

"In Japanese my name is, プリンセスピーチ, what does that mean?"

"I used to have so many friends."





















"I remember this time when I was just a little baby, I'm on this girl's head, she's going to eat. It's a surprise. I knew how to smile for a camera, automatically I guess. They said I was like baby Moses, my mom flushed me down the toilet so I could be free of the demons who only wish to give my body to their master. I loved my new sister, we we're just pretending."

"I've never had to sign a contract so theoretically I could quit right now. Does that inauguration or whatever count? I could be free, from what though? Free to do what?"



















"This could be something."

"I understand that you want to take me and lock me up. But can't you just look up my dress like a regular weirdo? Come on, it's a nice dress. Then you can go home and do whatever it is you do there, and I can stay here."

"If I was a fish I could swim anywhere. I could have fish sex, what's that like? I think it's pretty devoid of physical contact. That could be good, maybe. I'd lay a bunch of eggs not just somewhere, but in the best somewhere I could find. A special somewhere with rocks that didn't look like they'd one day end up in a castle's garden."


"If you're a fish and you eat your eggs, do you get sick? What if they're fertilized? That guy who joked about snacking on a placenta, that was strangely amusing. But also gross. It was actually kind of endearing. Like he meant it as an act of affection or something of that ilk. He was kind of cute, but there was something complicated about him. If you joke about eating a girl's placenta does that mean you sort of love her? Or does it mean you just want to tell her you love her but are afraid of physical stuff? Maybe even afraid of loving her? Perhaps he has some body image issues. At least he's trying."

"I wonder, if he wasn't the guy who got me pregnant, would he still eat my exuded placenta? Is exuded the right word? Hmm, I wonder. Perhaps discharged, I don't know. After it happens, if it happens, then I'll know. Or won't care. One or the other. He said he would still eat it even if the baby wasn't ours. He said he'd put it into a sandwich right then. Is that legal? I kind of want to watch that, right while I'm laying there in my hospital bed. But what if the baby needed it?"






















"Now that I think about it, I can't deny that a lot of guys think they're kind of in love with me. I know they think they want to be in love with me. But, I'm not sure what they'd do if I was actually in love with them. I think it would scare them, maybe. I want to be in love too. Would they still want me?"

* スーパー (n) (1) super; (2) (abbr) supermarket; (3) (abbr) superimpose; (4) (abbr) superheterodyne; (P); EP
* プリンセス (n) princess; (P); EP
* ピーチ (n) peach; (P); EP
* 桃 【もも(P); モモ】 (n) peach; prunus persica (tree);



pictures from (not all pictures used here, just for referenec):

sdx from http://www.geocities.jp/shirius11/game/kyo/kyo-sdx.html http://www.geocities.jp/shirius11/game/kyo/kyo-sdx.html - get more http://gameyoutube.blog74.fc2.com/blog-date-200701.html http://blog34.fc2.com/i/ichikazu/file/of-147.jpg pd.jpf http://www.tomoyo.com/kana/pd.jpg http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/event/2005/84BA mariof27.png http://asame2.web.infoseek.co.jp/mariof8.html http://asame4.web.infoseek.co.jp/nintenf14.html p003.jpg from http://homepage3.nifty.com/muten/ - great page! 061203_2.jpg from http://fblogi.blog15.fc2.com/blog-date-200612.html peaches - pressthebuttons.typepad.com/nintendo/index.html http://yoshi.2yr.net/comics.php http://boomansion.net/comics/sma/Page96.gif http://www.x-entertainment.com/pics3/mariob33.jpg http://syuz.srv7.biz/main.html http://www.geocities.jp/abekawa0810/ sakisakisakisaki.blog3.petitmall.jp/blog-date...

The Phone Call

g: Hello?
a: Hey Grandma, don't touch my bling!




g: You mean that pile of plastic friendship bracelets, with a red UC Davis sweatshirt on top of it?
a: Yeah! Don't touch that!