Finally, Kula Shaker will come to a Japan tour on January! I can't wait!

17th Jan (thu) Shibuya AX, Tokyo
20th Jan (sun) Nagoya CLUB QUATTRO, Nagoya
21th Jan (mon) BIG CAT, Osaka

http://www.smash-jpn.com/band/2008/01_kulashaker/index.php

Yay! Will you go to all three?

I'd love to go to all of them, but it'll be all about luck...I'm going to buy those three tickets though

oooh, suqee for you \and January, that's not too far!

Yeah, it's only 3 months later, I'm really looking forward to it! I have to save my luck for that

Yaaaay!!
I also have to buy tickets

OK, just in case people didn't know, here's the full list of Japanese dates:

16th - Liquidroom Ebisu, Tokyo
17th - Shibuya-Ax, Tokyo
20th - Quattro, Nagoya
21th - BigCat, Osaka
22th - Liquidroom Ebisu, Tokyo


And today was the first day of the Japan tour, they played Mystical Machine Gun! But it was more up-tempo than the original, so it has kind of lost an atmosphere, I felt... but it was still great! And they didn't play Great Hosannah, it's a really shame! But the gig was brilliant!! I'm so happy!!!

Setlist:
Hey Dude
Out on the Highway
Second Sight
Jerry Was There
Kick out the Jams (MC5 cover)
Mystical Machine Gun
Shower Your Love
Temple of Everlasting Light
303
(New song?)
Hurricane Season
Tattva
Melody Day (Caribou cover)
Hush
Song of Love/Narayana

Great Dictator
Govinda


They played an unknown song, it might be a new song... When Crispian started singing, I thought he was singing 'Teenage Breakdown', but it was a completely different song, an another beautiful song, I like it! So I guess it's a new song, but who knows?

And Simon played 6 or 7 (8?) songs on his own (cos Joff is in the UK...) as an OA, it was nice! He sang a song in Japanese, which was written about Japan, it was so funny! It was written about like 'finding vegetarian foods in Japan is not easy'. I can really understand it Everyone enjoyed his performance too

Cool! that's a really interesting tracklisting. So they finally put MMG back in to the set? I never was a big MC5 fan, but I'd be interested to hear what KS's interpretation of "Kick Out The Jams" was like... and Simon doing support on his own sounds like fun

Thanks for letting us know so quickly how it went I'd forgotten that the gig was today, to be honest...

I hope you enjoy the rest of the gigs

Seems like you had loads of fun which is great! The setlist sounds nice as well, especially putting MMG back on is fab! How was the crowd? How many people were there?

Strange choice covering one of the archetypal protopunk tunes. Not exactly the church Kula worship at, so to speak!!

Thanks m2 for the setlist

quote:

Originally posted by 2-J:
Strange choice covering one of the archetypal protopunk tunes. Not exactly the church Kula worship at, so to speak!!

I never bought the idea that the MC5 were that "punk", though doubtless that's considered heresy.

Check out exhibit A for instance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4I8o3y5wP48

You'd probably get less rock-posturing at a Bon Jovi concert. And fewer guitar solos too...

It's not punk, hence the term 'protopunk'. One of the 'Ur texts' of Punk, a definite thread that points to some of the themes Punk would develop. Louie Louie by the Kingsmen, and even You Really Got Me, by The Kinks (though none of these groups were Punk) also point the way, though they aren't punk. That wild untamed spirit and rawness.

Oooh! MMG is back in tours! hooray!

And Hurricane Season is still there, yupee as well. Although a shame Dr Kitt seems to have been dropped, it was great live. Maybe in the other dates. Have loads of fun in those too!

quote:

Originally posted by 2-J:
It's not punk, hence the term 'protopunk'. One of the 'Ur texts' of Punk, a definite thread that points to some of the themes Punk would develop.

Yeah, I realised you qualified it in that way; I was more referring to the claim I often read that MC5 somehow represent the spirit of punk itself.

quote:

Louie Louie by the Kingsmen, and even You Really Got Me, by The Kinks (though none of these groups were Punk) also point the way, though they aren't punk. That wild untamed spirit and rawness.

I guess the problem is that the term "punk" can mean all things to all men. But to me punk was more than just about a raw quality; otherwise you could argue that Elvis singing "That's All Right " was punk in some way. To me the key quality of punk is its anarchic spirit, and its desire to stick two fingers up at any kind of convention and desire for acceptability. And when I hear the Pistol's "God Save The Queen" I hear that in full effect. To me the MC5s music and image is too safe, too rooted in what had come before it. Though I realise that their personal politics were a different matter altogether. But their music doesn't capture it for me.

Maybe MC5 are just one of these things where I read too much about their importance before I got to hear their actual music, and then felt let down by the reality. I think it was a similar thing for me with Big Star also (though obviously in a completely different context.)

Well there is that question of what Punk is, but I think most of the confusion is not down to embracing relativism ('punk can be all things to all people' - trivially in this postmodern age it can, but we can still have reasoned critical debates about what Punk is nevertheless) but the fact that Punk can refer to a form of music as well as an ideology..

Punk is a loose ideology and approach to music and art, first applied to the CBGBS scene from arounf 74 onwards and then the UK scene, originating from the Sex Pistols from 1975. But there's also a predominant sound (a predominant form that this took, from the Ramones and Richard Hell in the US and then Sex Pistols in the UK), the generally fast raw stripped down rocknroll without emphasis on technique or proficiency. That can be heard in very early rocknroll but perhaps even more clearly in some MC5 stuff and 60s garage rock.

I think 'Kick Out The Jams' in the studio version and some of the live versions as seen on youtube, is remarkable for its time. It wasn't, granted, a full attempt to break with the past / end rock n roll, that the original ('ideologically sound') actual Punk was.