Member introduction: Danny

Well, I guess it’s appropriate to kick things off with an introduction.👋

My name is Danny and I am the founder of Japan Jukebox. I have been interested in Japanese culture and music my entire life.

Before Japan Jukebox, I hosted a Shoutcast station called “Mafu Japan” which I started sometime around the mid 2000s. One day, I was very surprised when someone told me that they had heard a Japanese radio program on KRVS. It turned out to be a show called “Rock Japan” and I became a regular listener.

Rock Japan was short lived, and when it ended abruptly, I decided to give conventional radio a shot for myself. I guess the rest is history.📻

Since Japanese music has long been a part of my everyday life, continuing to do the show for many years isn’t an issue. I’m always on the lookout for new artists and staying up to date with my favorites.

I have several favorites, but my absolute favorite is a band called “the pillows”. I buy everything they release, wear their t-shirts, try to go to as many of their concerts as possible, etc. I can guarantee you that I will be posting about the pillows a lot on this blog.😀

When I started the show, I was living in Lafayette, Louisiana. In 2016, I moved to Japan permanently. 🗾

The culture in Japan is completely different, but I enjoy the change in pace.

Besides Japanese music, I enjoy aimlessly wandering Japan, cooking and trying new foods, translation, gadgets, video games (especially Nintendo and Mega Man), non-Japanese music, turntables, and so on.

I’ll try to post interesting things here. 🦡

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The end of Japan Jukebox

I've neglected this blog for a while, but have been wanting to revive it. I guess the first thing I should address is the ending of our radio show Japan Jukebox, though it is long-overdue. We ran Japan Jukebox from about (over?) 10 years with a new episode every week. It was a labor of love for us, because Japanese music has never been just a "hobby". It has been part of our lives for as long as we can remember. I enjoyed sharing my favorite music and finding a lot of new bands to share on the radio, but the weekly process was pretty overwhelming. It was rare that we would have episodes queued up for broadcast. It was almost always week by week, with the episodes finished and uploaded in the 11th hour. And of course life happens. I have gotten married, had children, become busy with work, etc. With less time to focus on Japan Jukebox, I couldn't guarantee the quality of the show. So, a while back, I limited my role. Without Zach and my brother Cody, the show would ha...

Live report! "Scrappy Travelling for Miles Tour 2023" NINE MILES & Kaminarigumo + Yoshiaki Manabe

On July 14th, Cody and I attended Kaminarigumo's & Yoshiaki Manabe's "Scrappy Travelling for Miles Tour 2023" at Koenji HIGH. This was a particularly special show, because it featured the very first live performance of Yoshiaki Manabe's (from the pillows) "NINE MILES" solo project. For this new incarnation of NINE MILES, Keiji Ueno from Kaminarigumo takes charge of the vocals. Ghoma (also Kaminarigumo) provides keyboard. To start off, I'll write about how the return of NINE MILES and the album "Into the light again" came to be. The revival of NINE MILES started in early 2023 when Yoshiaki Manabe was asked to join Kaminarigumo's summer tour as the support guitarist. Manabe thought it would be an interesting idea to play as NINE MILES as an opening act, and asked the other members if they'd like to do it. He thought it would be nice to have a tour t-shirt for the occasion, so he asked his bandmate from the pillows Sawao Yamanaka ...

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of Losing Lawson's Campaign

From May 9th, the Lawson convenience stores in Japan started their promotion for the upcoming, anticipated sequel to 2017's Breath of the Wild, "The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom". The campaign included various Zelda themed food items, as well as snacks. Arguably though, the most attractive feature of the campaign is(was?) the lottery. I tried nearly all of it, so I'll write about it here. First up, the food items. The biggest charm about the Lawson Zelda collaboration food is that they are named as if they had been crafted in the game. I was most excited to try the "spicy pepper" version of the popular "Karaagekun" series. It has a nice level of spiciness; more so than any other versions of Karaagekun that I have tried. "Beast meat curry bread". Tasted basically like standard Japanese curry pan, but a very good one! I popped it in the toaster for a couple minutes and it was delicious. "Goron Spice dry-curry onigiri". Y...

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