Category: J-Rock

4-Piece Rock Band Girls Or Boys

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(via Twitter)

From Okinawa ✔️. Cool band name ✔️. Music widely available ✔️.

We’ve seen our share of cool indie rock bands come out of Okinawa (one of our favorites was/is cat bears — but where have you gone⁉️) and one of them (green note coaster had their big break winning the theme song contest for the World Uchinānchu Festival — BTW, you can still download the song here). So this time we’re here to introduce Girls Or Boys a 4-piece rock band that checks all of our indie rock boxes. The band’s 2nd single, “Soubaku” is available on all streaming platforms and on their YouTube channel. They’re good and we’re looking forward to hearing more from them.

HoRookies’s 2nd Album “Focus” Release Party on YouTube

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via Twitter

HoRookies recently released their 2nd album “Focus” at the beginning of the month and held a release party for it on YouTube. They announced that it’s now available on YouTube as an archive so if you missed the livestream or just want to watch it again, here’s your chance! By the way, if you haven’t added “Focus” to your library, it’s definitely worth a listen.

What at lazz (@Whatatlazz)

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What at lazz’s “snowdrop”

Rock band What at lazz recently performed a special live at Legend Sports Heroes Okinawa and Nema Ui loved it!

The 4-member band (ワトラズ) formed in April 2018 in Okinawa and features female-vocalist Kyon, Yoshinii on guitar, Masshii on bass, and Takkun on drums. Okinawa has a rich history of rock bands and fairly recent bands with female singers are seven oops, FLiP, and Stereopony. To date, What a lazz has only released singles and I’m happy to say that all are available on Apple Music! Here’s a link to their latest single Slashing Symphony. The song (Start Dash) Ui mentioned in her tweet is unreleased and looks to be included in their upcoming album.

Follow What a lazz on Twitter and subscribe to their YouTube channel.

Suzuhana Yuko (Wagakki Band) Plays Asadoya Yunta

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Suzuhana Yuko, the vocalist of the Japanese folk rock band Wagakki Band, recently shared on her YouTube channel that she’s a fan of the sanshin and Okinawan folk music. She performs Asadoya Yunta and talks a bit about how she came upon the instrument and her love of Okinawa. In the video’s description, she writes in English (probably for her worldwide audience) of how the sanshin is not the same as the shamisen that’s used in her band’s music. Maybe we’ll one day see an original Okinawan folk pop/rock song on a future album of Wagakki Band like The Boom’s Shima Uta and Heiwa no Ryuka from the Southern All Stars.

Fuzzy Control & DREAMS COME TRUE

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One great thing to come out of Fuzzy Control‘s joining DCT records (DREAMS COME TRUE‘s indie record label) is the collaborative songs between the two bands and the latest is called “Sono Saki e,” featured in the 4th season of the J-drama “Kyumei Byoto 24 Ji.” Very catchy song and SATOKO rocks the drums!

Connection to Okinawa: Fuzzy Control’s vocalist/guitarist, JUON, was born in Okinawa.

“A.A.Aiyaiya,A.A!” is the band’s first single under the DCT records label and it—as well as its music video—are currently available on iTunes (link opens iTunes).