We Are Stars!

I’m sure you’ve heard the USA For Africa charity song from the ’80s that raised money for starving children in Africa called “We Are The Children”.

I know that song was popular but, honestly, I never liked it.

You may not be aware of a much better charity song for African children that was recorded 28 years ago today by some of the biggest names in 80s heavy metal.

On 1985 May 20th, members of Dio, Judas Priest, W.A.S.P., Twisted Sister, Dokken, Queensryche, Quiet Riot, Rough Cutt, Motley Crue, and more got together and called themselves Hear ‘N Aid to record the song “(We Are) Stars “!

“(We Are) Stars“, twenty-eight years old today, is the heavy metal answer to We Are The World.
And it’s much better!

Check it out:

Metal condolences to Japan

A number of heavy metal, rock and pop bands have written messages of condolences and concern to the people in Japan who were affected by last Friday’s terrible earthquake and tsunami in the Sendai area.

Japanese flag and sakura image from the KISSOnline.com website.

KISS, who recently postponed their Japan tour, wrote on their official website:

To all our loyal fans, friends and their families devastated by the effects of the earthquake in Japan: We stand side by side with you in support and you will remain in our prayers through this time of tragedy.

(Signed) Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Eric Singer, and Tommy Thayer

Iron Maiden, who had concerts scheduled near Tokyo on March 12th and 13th (one and two days after the earthquake) and had their flight to Tokyo diverted to Nagoya, Japan and their concerts canceled, had this to say on their website:

We are extremely saddened by the calamitous events of the last day or so which led to the cancellation or our two shows in Tokyo. Our deepest sympathies go out to everyone affected by this disaster — our fans in Japan, the people of Japan and those in many other places suffering from the Tsunami. We are also aware that a number of fans flew into Tokyo from various parts of the world to see a Maiden show there and we hope you guys are safe and sound. We have had a long relationship with this wonderful country and have always been made to feel most welcome – this would have been something like our 16th tour. Our sincerest condolences to all those who have suffered and to the families and friends of those who tragically lost their lives.

– Iron Maiden

 

Mr. Big are very popular in Japan…maybe even more so than even in their home country of America.
They have a number of “Live In Japan” albums, their lead singer has two solo albums on which he sings remakes of Japanese pop songs in English, and their guitarist moved to Tokyo a while back for a year or so with his Japanese wife.

They wrote a message to the people of Japan in Japanese on their website:

To our brothers and sisters in Japan:
この大地震で被害を受けている皆様へ：どうか気を強く持って下さい。皆様が助け合って、立ち直られますことを僕たちも心から願っています。
-Mr. Big

(I’d translate it as:
“To our brothers and sisters in Japan:
To the victims of the giant earthquake: Please have a strong mind. With everyone’s help, we hope you will be back on your feet again.”)

Is my music collection considered “oldies” now?

In 1986, when I was sixteen years old, if you had asked me my opinion of music that was released twenty-five prior to that (in 1961)…music by artists such as Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles and Chuck Berry was popular at that time…I wasn’t interested in that type of music and I probably would of considered it “ancient”.

It’s now 2011 and 1986 is now twenty-five years in the past!
My taste in music hasn’t changed at all. I still listen to the same great albums that I bought in the ’80s.
My I-pod has a number of albums from 1986.

Look at this list of albums that are now twenty-five years old (listed here in order of release). You can’t deny that they’re all excellent…much better than most of the forgettable “music” that is released today:

• Black Sabbath “Seventh Star” 
  
• Ozzy Osbourne “The Ultimate Sin”

• Metallica “Master Of Puppets“

• Van Halen “5150“

• Judas Priest “Turbo”

• AC/DC “Who Made Who“

• Savatage “Fight For The Rock“

• Loudness “Lightning Strikes“

• Great White “Shot In The Dark“

• Iron Maiden “Somewhere In Time“

• W.A.S.P. “Inside The Electric Circus“

• KiLLeR DWaRfS “Stand Tall“

Have you heard any of these albums? What do you think of them?
As for me, even though they’re twenty-five years old now…and nearly every one of these bands have better albums in their catalog (except Metallica—“Master Of Puppets” is legend!…these albums still stand the test of time!

Most of my life in Japan

Today is 2010 October 17.
I came to Japan on 1990 October 17. Twenty years ago.
I was 20 years old when I came to Tokyo…so I’ve now lived half of my life here. Starting tomorrow, I will have been in Japan for “most of my life”.

Time goes by so fast.

In 2008 on this date I wrote a post that compared some of the differences between Japan in 1990 and Japan today.
Click here to read it.

Today is also the anniversary of the day that Yoshihiro Hattori was shot to death in America because he went to the wrong house by mistake on his way to a Halloween party.
Last year I wrote a post on the seventeenth anniversary of his death.
Click here to read a bit about his story in the post I wrote last year.

I can’t believe I’ve already been in Japan for twenty years. October 1990 doesn’t seem that long ago.
Unless that is, you look at I list of the music and movies that were released in 1990!
I checked on Wikipedia…and twenty years seems much longer now that I realized that in 1990 Macaulay Culkin was a cute kid and “Home Alone” was a new movie!

The top-ten movies of 1990 were:
1. “Ghost“…This movie was pretty good, I think.
2. “Home Alone“…This was one funny…but all the sequels (some with different actors in the lead role) were ridiculous.
3. “Pretty Woman”
4. “Dances With Wolves”
5. “Total Recall“…I like action and suspense movies, but this one was mediocre.
6. “Back To The Future Part III“…This is an excellent trilogy. Of course the first one was the best, but the two sequels were good too.
7. “Die Hard 2: Die Harder“…The four “Die Hard” movies are among my all-time favorites—and I recently heard that they’ll will be making “Part 5” soon. I hope so!
8. “Presumed Innocent“…Harrison Ford is a great actor who has starred in many excellent films!
9. “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles“…I knew about this comic book because in the liner notes of the excellent 1986 “Master Of Puppets” album by the heavy metal band Metallica it has in the “Thank you” list, among other things, “sushi, Absolut Vodka, Alka Seltzer, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles“.
Metallica is cool, this movie isn’t.

As a sidenote, there’s a similar story with the metal band Anthrax. On their 1987 “Among The Living” album there is a song titled “I Am The Law“. In the album’s liner notes it says that the song is inspired by the “Judge Dredd” comics. In 1995, Sylvester Stallone starred in a terrible movie adaptation of this comic series.

But I digress. Back to the list.

10. “Kindergarten Cop”

I was going to include a list of the music albums that were released in October 1990, too. But I’ve either never heard of most of the bands on that list or they’re albums by bands that I can’t tolerate.
There were a couple good albums released the time I came to Japan in October 1990:

“No Prayer For The Dying” by Iron Maiden

And the “Led Zeppelin box set“.

Today…

Today was my youngest two daughters’ 運動会 (Sports Day Event) at their Junior High School.
It was originally scheduled for last Saturday, but was postponed until today because it rained last Saturday. (I wrote about it on an earlier post. Click here to read it.)

I wasn’t able to attend their 運動会 (Sports Day Event) because I had to work…but my wife went and videotaped it. So I’ll be able to watch it.

Today is also the 20th anniversary of the 六四天安門事件 (4 June 1989 Tiananmen Square protests) in 天安門広場 (Tiananmen Square) in China.

Tiananmen Square protest of 1989

And tomorrow will be my oldest daughter’s High School 運動会 (Sports Day event).

Also tomorrow is the 57th birthday of Nicko McBrain.
Certainly you know that Nicko McBrain is the drummer for the British heavy metal band Iron Maiden!

Iron Maiden's "Eddie" mascot.

Music Promotion Videos

I mentioned some of my favorite rock ‘n roll albums on an earlier post (Click here to read it).

Here are some of my music videos to some great songs:

KISS “I Love It Loud”

Megadeth “Symphony Of Destruction”

Ozzy Osbourne “Gets Me Through”

Quiet Riot “Cum On Feel The Noize”

Metallica “Nothing Else Matters”

Jackyl “I Stand Alone”

The Japanese band Loudness “This Lonely Heart”

Twisted Sister “We’re Not Gonna Take It”

Judas Priest “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’”

AC/DC “Thunderstruck”

Lordi “Would You Love A Monsterman?”

Scorpions “Rock You Like A Hurricane”

Skid Row “Youth Gone Wild”

A Japanese band named RIZE “Name”

Def Leppard “Rock Of Ages”

Monkey Majik and 吉田兄弟 “Change”

Jackyl