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Your Homicidols Weekender #127

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Good morning! You’ll have to forgive me, gang, but I am wrapping up this Weekender via cell phone while traipsing about the international capital of hipsterdom. Will you miss the intro? Unlikely!

Week good? Week good. Stressors? Sure. Idols alleviate? That’s how I spell R-O-L-A-I-D-S. Let’s get to it, and you all have a good time!

Thanks?

If you want to read SU-METAL and MOAMETAL’s first interviews in over a year and don’t Japanese, here’s a translation:

PMC vol. 13 BABYMETAL feature translated

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One More Track to Get You on that Shihatsu-machi Underground Train

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It’s out already, right? Shihatsu-machi Underground’s album? I feel like that’s right. I tend to base these things off of when MVs are released for a whole host of reasons ranging from laziness to shortcuts. But anyway! All of those previews that they teased out over the early course of the year, they were pretty slick, weren’t they?

Shihatsu-machi P apparently wants you to have a little bit more, so get to it:

I want to meet the people for whom that isn’t super enticing. I want to learn about how much they hate puppies and fun, and I want to show them my pity for them to their faces. There are a lot of things to read into that snip, and every single one of them is capable of inspiring happiness.

Some bonus photos because I’m excited for the members:

Your Homicidols Weekender #126

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Welcome back to the weekend, gang! Yours truly had a week for the record books, and not totally in a good way. Went to a show that was 2/3 really great, had a meal that should have been far greater than it was, had a little sick, accomplished some things and … did nothing idol-wise, it seemed! It’s not like there was all that much to talk about, though, you know? And I do have some things that I’ve been meaning to cover and just haven’t. It’s kind of annoying!

And yet this turned out to be a pretty okay Weekender. Not the most robust ever, but I hope you dig it. We did have a little error yesterday, so the Fun, which I normally admonish you to play at about this point of the intro, I’m instead telling you to play today, because it’s going to publish in a little while and be a weekend thing.

And why not? Spring is in the air, life is returned to us — let’s just have fun with it.

What a Philosophy

BILLIE IDLE finally released the “BULLY IDOL” single:

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Melt Brain? Melt Music

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Unless you’re a regular Weekender-er, folks, chances are that you haven’t heard of melt music or their previous incarnation as JoanJoan. After having debuted I guess round about a year and a half ago, coming out of the excellent Osaka chika scene, they’ve had ups and downs and through it all they’ve been a projected that I personally held in very high esteem and supported as much as one can support a barely-there creative venture from a bazillion miles away.

And now maybe you can get into them too! They just dropped a couple of tracks onto Soundcloud yesterday. This is good:

This is better: Continue reading →

Your Homicidols Weekender #125

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Welcome back to the weekend! This week felt a little like being on the kind of flight where everybody claps at the landing. Idol stuff, yes (and I’m just now realizing that I lost track of some of last week’s stuff and will try to catch up), but also just a regular ol’ whirlwind. Madness, I tell you. This level of activity should be banned for everybody who isn’t a new parent.

Important programming note: The Corenament’s Final Four will kick off today, semifinal today and then the championship on Monday. You guys have done really great with it (congratulations on being the Duke of this year, BiSH!), and I’m excited to see where things land. There’s still a chance of our first repeat champion, and that’s really cool!

If you wanted a Weekender, though, I think you’ll be happy. The regular items are fine, though a little light; on the plus side, idol conspired to make some particularly amusing things happen, so we are all winners for it. Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s the ass-crack of dawn and I both have to be at a work event today and then have a, uh, ceiling to repair and a garden to dig and shut up, just play the Fun and try to enjoy yourself more than I will.

You Got It

No big deal, just NECRONOMIDOL covering Electric Ribbon:

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Excellent Energy in This New One from NEO JAPONISM

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I like to write posts backwards sometimes. Start with the product, then react to it, then try to contextualize and/or frame, depending. Yes, I realize that The Craft of Blogging isn’t what you’re here for — I’m bringing it up, you impatient nerd, because this is a really good example of how sometimes the intro defies you, so all you can do is start typing and … there it is! Thanks for joining me.

I was listening to this one and I felt this weir twinge of “man, can you even imagine what the idol world would be like without NEO JAPONISM in it?” Which was really weird unto itself, given that they’re still kind of new, you know? But it made me realize that this surprisingly hard-charging group has been responsible for a surprisingly large amount of my favorite idol stuff over the past year and change, and that I always appreciate getting more of it but never really seem to express just how much I appreciate it.

So here goes: I could not be happier or more thankful to have this new one from NEO JAPONISM, and by new I mean that they’re just dusting it off for this tour that they’re on!

Hot dang! Continue reading →

Your Homicidols Weekender #122

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Oh my Bob, it’s finally the weekend. You guys. My dog.

Of course, though, the last few days had to be cruel just-early teases of spring, and now it’s chilly and rainy and I have to hop in a car to visit people I’ve never met before and then come back, so it’s less whee-this-is-fun than really-I-just-want-to-chill-a-minute. At least idol was interesting again this week! And if we’re really lucky, we’ll start to see even more movement in the next little while. Debut season is coming up, and while these things do tend to move in cycles and last year was absolutely excellent for new groups, I’m betting that we’ll wind up with plenty of things to be excited about even if we can’t keep the same kind of banner-year pace.

And just in case you don’t simultaneously follow idol, this website and major American amateur sporting events, the Corenament will kick off this week. It’ll be … well, different. You can only go to the same well so many times, you know? To prepare, I encourage you to think about those things that you really, truly love about your favorite idols and maybe what their best look to the rest of the world might be, and how you can mobilize people to support your favorites. It’s going to be weird and stupid no matter what, but hey, two out of three past winners have been big surprises, so let’s keep the trend moving.

Go play the Fun, too, and try to have the best time that you can. We only get a weekend once every week!

You can’t possibly be ready for Yanakoto Sotto Mute covering their pals in NECRONOMIDOL:

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Owaranaide, Yoru Takes Us Beyond the Night Sky Indeed

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Misanthropic post-pop nightstalkers Owaranaide, Yoru are very much on the move, gang, and I feel like a group that’s been teasing a ton of potential since their debut last fall in the aftermath of the original Candye Syrup is reaching that point where their pot bubbleth over. Today is a smorgasbord of good things.

First, and frankly quite importantly for getting a better feel for their total aesthetic, their first real-deal MV:

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Your Homicidols Weekender #121

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Good lord, is it the weekend again already? I don’t want to speak for anybody else, but these past few-odd days have been a whirlwind — work in abundance, other obligations piled up, the seasons being in that weird in-between where you can have like 50-degree temperature ranges over 72 hours and still get back to where you started. At one point last night, I was writing an email to a colleague and realized that, whoops, it actually is Friday and what are you doing with yourself? And the thing was, I didn’t mind. I just finished what I was doing, closed up shop and tried to take some chill time.

All that, and it was actually a pretty good week in idol, at least at the end, which I think this low-volume-high-quality Weekender will attest to. We are approaching the big spring release season, thank heavens, and … well, Corenament time is practically upon us. I can’t wait for all the people complaining about the thing that they’re under no obligation to observe!

Enjoy this one, kids. The Fun is high-concept as hell and you should go spend time on it, flex those artistic chops. Then check out all of this stuff, and enjoy yourself one dang fine weekend. I’d say “on me,” but you’re going to have to pay for yourselves, you miscreants.

This Isn’t a Date, You Buffoon

O’CHAWANZ meets 3776, the Movie:

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Your Homicidols Weekender #120

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Hello friends! Welcome back to what I hope can be not just a normal, productive, relaxing Saturday, but idol in abundance. That was a pretty good week! At least at the end. On Wednesday, I was cursing gods of goodness and hope and spitting at their feeble offerings of succor; by yesterday, I felt like my cup runneth over. So it goes.

So this is a good Weekender, the best in a while, and I hope you find something interesting in it. It’s still not as long as the best every done, but this is because I’m holding a good bit of stuff for actual posts. Get back into the swing, you know? The Fun, which Kerrie hilariously lost track of until the last minute and then threw into the world on a wing and a prayer, turned out to be unexpectedly hilarious, so go play that for a few, too. All in all, enjoy.

It Feels Like Things Are Better

When APOKALIPPPS goes metal af:

They’re also crowdfunding in a really poorly defined way!

Haven’t posted about WEAR since that ill-advised MV a while back; now they’re down a member!

The first Shidare-less release from Not Secured, Loose Ends will be this as-yet-untitled single:

Details and trailer for PassCode’s live DVD:

And DVD from REGiNA KiSS:

CY8ER has graduated from me being able to follow them well:

In case you weren’t sure of it, we will in fact get another MV from Zenbu Kimi no Sei Da:

A very special greeting from Broken By The Scream:

Idol in Focus

This week’s Idol in Focus is MIGMA SHELTER, who came back from the brink of extinction with four new members:

And a new song!

So much for my theory that the dismantling of TTTs was going to be a massive injection of talent into Migma! Good for them, though.

And in kind of a bonus Focus, here’s sora tob sakana and a trailer for their tour …

… which will look a lot like this!

yandoll is one of the strangest groups to try to follow:

What the heck is this?

Yes, that’s very old

While Kaishin no Ichigeki continue to re-rev their engines, their anniversary one-man is quickly approaching:

I hope it’s as nice as Toricago got:

Such a nice slow jam from Koutei Camera Girl Drei:

So I was originally going to share this around Valentine’s Day and now it’s nowhere near that anymore, but here’s Niji no Conquistador doing something that I hope you dig:

Have a great weekend!

This thing of Seiko’s is the gift that keeps on giving

Always and forever the far more interesting Knowles