Lucky for you that your first experiences of Japan had to do with indie music. Mine had to do with a laser gun toy bought at the only Japanese toys shop in town (called, in a Warholian-self desciptive way, 'Tokyo Toys') when I was four or five. I remember looking at it and its package and thinking how weirdly beautiful they were. If I had followed a path similar to yours, I would've joined the Self-Defence Forces by now.

Mine might have been Astro Boy, Speed Racer or Star Blazers on after school TV, or maybe a Godzilla movie. There is a chance that it was a store in downtown NYC called Azuma which my parents took me to as a small child.

schrager's mishima, being 12, not bad huh ;]

oh, you finally got it, huh? cool.but i'm from athens, so you should've asked me a long time ago.

Murmur and Reckoning are genius. Liffe's Rich Pageant still good. I'm not very interested in the later albums.

sparkligbeatnic,
right, right, right!!!
that is why when i see you in kyoto, i'll give you a big hug, because you understand the beauty of REM.
murmur is 'da bomb!
kudzu a-hoy!!!
reckoning is also chips-a-hoy.
anyway, i'm sure mr. stipe would smile down from heaven upon all of us, the true believers...
oh wait, he isn't dead yet.
word,
r.

Enticed to 'Murmur' by comments like the ones above and hearing wonderful things about 'Width of a circle', I got myself a copy of that album a few years ago. I just thought it was totally overrated, and didn't change my uninterest on R.E.M.'s career. I prefer fellow Georgian musician, Miss Chan Marshall. It looks like I won't be getting a hug from r.

right, no hug from me, unbeliever!!!
hug,
r.

Oops, I was born in the 60's so I confuse David Bowie with R.E.M.: I meant 'Perfect circle'. I'll have a another listen to 'Murmur' though.

Murmur and Reckoning are genius. Liffe's Rich Pageant still good.

It's another classic example of success ruining a band. My general rule of thumb for pop music is that after the first couple of albums it's all downhill, if the band has been a success. There are very notable exceptions, of course.

Murmur and Reckoning are genius. Liffe's Rich Pageant still good. I'm not very interested in the later albums.

I think LRP and Document are really solid albums if approached from a different perspective than the first two, but in a lot of people's minds, R.E.M. is Chronic Town and the returns dwindle after that.

wait, you mean no one here loves the latest album? I thought michael called it his best work yet.

The Japanese from the start of Superman is indeed from an old Godzilla movie. Kind of hard to make out cause, well, it's sped up, isn't?

The Japanese from the start of Superman is indeed from an old Godzilla movie. Kind of hard to make out cause, well, it's sped up, isn't?

I had figured as such.

Japanese, or any foreign language is always most fun when it is not understood. In my New Jersey high school days I forced my bandmates to play covers of early Shonen Knife songs, spending no more than five minutes transcribing the lyrics phone-eh-tick-ley. I read all the reviews that said things like - - - Shonen Knife are these like totally happy Japanese babes who sing songs about playing tennis and eating twinkies. After picking up some Japanese I was surprized that the songs are actually pretty hard-core. Check out "Parallel Woman" - - - this kind of bitter critique of this "schizophrenic girl" in "office automation hell" Hakai! Hakai! It's not as cute as I thought... It's oh so much cuter! If I had followed my early subliminal Japanese indoctrination I think I would be a miserable O.L.