This page is meant exclusively for non-Japanese speaking music lovers who are lucky enough to come across eastern youth, who have recently set up yet another indy label "Hadashi-no Ongaku sha (Barefoot Music co.)", parting with their own "Sakamoto Shoten" and their labelmates fOUL (on hiatus since 2005).
Their latest pre-album release, "Futten 36°C" (Boiling Point: 36°C) will come on 24/10/2007. The song is coupled with "Ippunkan" a cover of CockC'nell, legendary early Indie band. Its cover is an art work by Ishida Tetsuya (1973-2005).
Their previous full-length "365-step blues" was released on 03/08/2006 in Japan. 365-step BLUES? Not 365-step MARCH, that hyper-cheerful Japanese trad-pop enka, that goes "one step a day, three in three days, three steps forward and then two steps back (no arithmetic please)"? No. We are not in the sixties. There is no such thing like THE Japanese marching tirelessly toward economic prosperity. Just as elsewhere on the globe, you have only individuals knee deep in their respective blues around here. Check up the Five One Inc. site for its US release. A singalong page for those who got it. And a link for those who wonder what (or who) inspired Yoshino-san to write the song "the reddened back". An English TV program that features Mr. Taniguchi interview, too. If you are a manga fan, try Yuunagi-no Machi, Sakura-no Kuni (A Hiroshima girl's post-war story in Japanese). Versions in French , Le Pays des Cerisiers, and in English, The Town of Evening Calm; The Country of Cherry Blossoms are also available.
Toys Factory released a DVD title, Eastern Youth Archives 1997-2001. I added a page in which I personally introduce EY video clips included in the Toys DVD. Hope the Region Code (2) and the video format (NTSC) are no barriers.
In 2002 eastern youth released a split album with Cursive. The CDs were pressed in the US and are available at a normal US price outside Japan. A US/Japan Tour was to follow to support the release, but due to a collapsed lung the two bands were split. While curive singer Tim Kasher was under medical care in Salt Lake City, eastern youth survived their tour in an unairconditioned van across the desert.
After one album release each from both bands, they joined to resume their tour on the other side of the continent. The latest eastern youth album was available in the US by then. The band and their eqipment came back home intact after their tour van got capsized near Denver.
All the lyrics to the eastern youth songs in the split CD are, as usual, sung in Japanese and printed in Japanese. For those who do not read the language but all the same want to sing any of the songs, or at least part of it, here are romanized lyrics. Five One Inc. relased their latest CD "Soko-kara Nani-ga Mieru-ka" or "What can you see from your place" with translated lyrics, which is useless for singalong.
Apart from them, of all the contents of this web site, following are the only pages without language barriers. All other pages require a Japanese-enabled browser. Real-player users are warned that some pages have a sound file embedded.
