Skip to main content

Member introduction: Danny

Image
By


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. 🦡

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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

By
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...
Post a Comment
Read more

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

By
 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 ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Live report! the pillows "RETURN TO THIRD MOVEMENT! Vol.4" at Duo MUSIC EXCHANGE in Shibuya (Oct.8th 2022)

By
October 8th was the beginning of the pillows' latest tour; the next in their series revisiting past albums, performing them in their entirety, "Return to third movement! Vol 4". Vol.4 features the albums Penalty Life and Good Dreams, which are both nearing 20 years old. About 20 years ago, I pre-ordered both of these albums and going to the tours was only a dream. I'm thrilled to have been able to attend the reproduction tour.  duo MUSIC EXCHANGE is among a cluster of live venues in Shibuya. Before the show started, the music playing in the venue was from the album "America Give Up" by Howler. The original Penalty Life tour had special BGM of covers made by each member of the pillows. I wished they had played these again for the reproduction tour, but I knew it was unlikely. Those were, by the way: Mister Popcorn by Glay (covered by Sawao Yamanaka) Road Movie by Mr.Children (covered by Sawao Yamanaka) Oyasuminasai by Aiko (covered by Sawao Yamanaka) Not Sati...
Post a Comment
Read more