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Ryukyu Beatles, not an insect, rather, it’s the name of an album
Yup, Richie here at Karakui.com is a pretty big fan of The Beatles and it’s pretty cool to see their music redone with an Okinawan twist. The group of this wonderful album are calling themselves “Soul Gakudan” and they’re none other than Toru Yonaha (sanshin, fue), Kazunari Uechi (taiko), Yoko Onaga (koto) and Natsuko Morita…
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It’s an all-Okinawan bon dance in Paia, Maui
I’ve heard about this all-Okinawan bon dance from Norman Kaneshiro sensei and it’s finally great to actually see footage of it (nifee to lyonashiro for uploading). Pretty cool stuff.
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Beni Arashiro featured on Dohzi-T’s latest single
I totally missed the release on this one but luckily caught their recent performance on Mステ and wow, what a cool song. The title of the song is “Mou Ichido…” by J-rap artist Dohzi-T and Okinawan-American singer Beni Arashiro (going by her first name, BENI, for this ‘featuring’ release). Although “Mou Ichido…” is Dohzi-T’s song,…
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Spring Kick Off Coupon Offer – CDJapan Blog
Our favorite online music store for both music and for videos from Japan and Okinawa is CDJapan and they have a ¥500 coupon offer for this spring. (In the past, if I’m not mistaken, these coupons were only available to returning customers who already have an account with the store.) What do you have to…
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YouTube: ORANGE RANGE’s ‘Kimi Station’ (PV)
ORANGE RANGE’s latest single “Kimi Station” — which is fantastic — was released less than a week ago and here’s the PV of it. I admire that they remain true to their roots in Okinawa and you’ll find that they often shoot their PVs on location there.
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3-4 Day Special: Kajadifuu Bushi
In celebration of Sanshin Day, March 4, I’m featuring a Ryūkyū Koten Ongaku (Ryūkyū classical music) song called “Kajadifū Bushi (かぎやで風節).” It has a bit of history for myself as the first song I learned on uta-sanshin from Katsumi Shinsato-sensei some fifteen years ago and I’ve been playing it ever since. Here’s a little background…
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TBSK: The next HY / HandMC?
Sorry about the abbreviations in the title folks but can you name all three bands? We’ll start with the popular indie band HY — since that’s what they go by — who are representing their hometown, Higashi Yakena, with pride. (Btw, it’s the band’s choice to remain indie.) Next is the uber-popular J-mixture band HIGH…
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Tutorial: Changing sanshin strings
Our second video tutorial! Yay! Today we go through changing those well-worn strings on your sanshin with brand new, curly-curly ones. Be sure to check out our growing (with two!) Video Page for more. 😉
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YouTube: Tink Tink’s ‘Hoshi no Sekai’
It’s always interesting to see new (well, relatively new) O-pop music and in this case it’s the song “Hoshi no Sekai” from the Rinken Teruya-produced duo tink tink. The song was released during the duo’s stint with the mega-hit label Avex (they’ve since returned home to Rinken Records with their latest album “Shiroi Natsu”). Apart…
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Tutorial: Tuning your sanshin, Part 1
When something gets requested here enough times, we’ll do our best to get it to you. So here it is, our first video tutorial on tuning your sanshin. Be sure to check out our “Tuning Your Sanshin” page for more info. I’ll also have it up for download — at a better quality than streaming…
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