I’ve signed us up for yet another silly music website. We are well on our way to domination.

Several weeks ago I went to a show at Kobe’s Otoya and slipped a CD into the back pocket of one JP DuQuette, music writer for free English language magazine Japanzine. The wind told me that it watched one sleepless night, as his wandering hand drifted unbidden to the pile of dirty laundry in the corner and came across the hard plastic shell of a compact disc. Hunched over his desk, half-delirious and staring sightlessly into the darkness, eyes bloodshot and headphones clamped firmly to his skull, Hidari’s music poured directly into his soul, rejuvenating and uplifting his tired body from within. Throwing his chair back with a crash, he leapt and twirled, feet scarcely touching the floor. When at last he crawled back under his sheets, grinning madly and humming to himself, it was nearly dawn. The next day, however, sleep-deprived and cursing himself and his insomnia, he had almost completely forgotten the transcendent euphoria of the previous night.

And then he sat down to review Hidari No Shippo and hammered out this spite-filled passage:

If you (like me) have spent countless nights pining the death of dreamy alt-electronica act Supercar, you’ve probably been looking for the next big thing in the genre. Look no further, cause Kobe’s Hidari is here.

You know, I think the wind is a fucking liar.

Read the rest of the interview here.

The first album from Striped Records, the official record label of Sannomiya’s heppest alcohol distribution center Tulip Hat (run by Hidari member Daisuke) was released on the 14th.

The album includes tracks from Tissue, BLONDnewHALF, valva, and Hori Yuuji, as well as two previously unreleased songs from your most favoritest band ever, Hidari.

Now available in the store.

You’re going to be there, right?

Last Thursday we played at a venue in Kyoto. During sound check, after one song, the MTR we use for our prerecorded sounds suddenly stopped playing anything. We reset it, perplexed, and then it asked us if we wanted to format the memory card. Oops.

We reset it again, same result. All the data was gone, so we played an impromptu acoustic show which probably turned out okay. I noticed that the mixer was also acting extremely strangely, with dead spots on the pan pots and insane popping whenever I switched inputs. After testing it upstairs to make sure I hadn’t just broken it somehow, it was pretty clear that it was an electrical problem, probably from the hodgepodge of daisy-chained extension cords and the fact that the mixer was plugged directly into the house system through some weird board, and not through direct boxes as usual, so the most likely suspect was a ground loop. My theory is that the memory card got zapped that way.

Lessons learned:

• Always use a DI box.
• Always bring a backup, preferably several.
• I can get a plastic ball through the hole in a kick drum head in only two tries.

By the way, if anyone can put us in touch with these people, we are extremely interested in touring with them.

Mr. Z, proprietor of nerdy music blog and mecca Hipster, Please! has at long last released his latest compilation album - Old Nerdy Bastard.

The album is a veritable fudgeload of remixes and mashups of all stripes. Featured on the album are such nerdcore rappists as MC Frontalot, YT Cracker, MC Hawking and Optimus Rhyme, as well as internet rockers The Grammar Club and Brad Sucks and a bunch of wizard people. Probably the most out-of-place is a track by some band called Hidari, remixed by one Glenn Case and featuring Justin Bacon and Atsuko Nishimura on backup vocals. Actually, it doesn’t fit within the traditional remix mold, so we might have to coin the term ‘demix’ to describe it. Which has probably already been coined. Fiddlesticks.

Download the whole album for free at hipsterplease.com.

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