I received an email notification from CDJapan today informing me that Shiina Ringo will be putting out a new concert DVD! It is called “Ringo EXPO 08  DVD” and will feature footage from concert she held late last year. Here is their official info:

“Ringo Shiina/Ringo EXPO 08  DVD

4619 yen US$51/90.48  Release Date:2009/03/11
Description:Live DVD release from Ringo Shiina featuring footage of live performance “(Nama) Ringo EXPO 08 – 10 Shunen Kinen Sai -” at Saitama Super Arena on November 30, 2008. Features selected songs from her debut album to latest album including unreleased songs. Played with orchestra, band, and more for 68 people total. Features plenty to see such as daring stage design, varied costumes, footage, and dancers.

bonus:10th anniversary “Manajiri” box, 10th anniversary sticker, “Mikan no Kawa” musical score,”

I’m really excited for this. I am a sucker for visuals so I’m glad that they mention the “daring stage design” and “varied costumes” but I’m more excited about all the performers. “Orchestra, band, and more for 68 people total” = one hell of a concert! Here are two images I found of the concert that will give you a taste of the crazy visuals:

I really like both pictures and the first one just looks wild! It reminds me of her outfit in the salle de bain video.

Also, if you haven’t seen them yet, here are a couple of videos of the other performances she appeared in last year. Both are with Tokyo Jihen.

Rising Rock Festival:

Society of Citizens:

Enjoy!!

The Last Shadow Puppets just put out a digital single and it was quite the little package! It is called My Mistakes Were Made for You which had already appeared on their first album but it’s the B-sides that make the package. At first, I was a little disappointed because the two new songs were on different packages, one was on the vinyl (which I have no way of playing) and the other was on CD. The digital release has both new songs AND a live performance of an old one AND four acoustic versions of their old songs. I was quite surprised to see the acoustic ones since they will not appear in any of the physical releases. However, the digital release will also have a physical release but only in the US. It’s due out November 4th.

This is the tracklist for the various versions:

• CD RUG 309CD and digital

1. “My Mistakes Were Made for You” – 3.04
2. “Separate and Ever Deadly” (live from New Theatre, Oxford) – 2.58
3. “My Little Red Book” (live from New Theatre, Oxford) (David/Bacharach) – 2.42

• 7″ RUG 309

1. Side A “My Mistakes Were Made for You” – 3.04
2. Side B “Paris Summer” (Guest vocals by Alison Mosshart, (live from The Olympia, Paris) (Hazlewood) – 3.38

• 7″ RUG 309X

1. Side A “My Mistakes Were Made for You” – 3.04
2. Side B “Separate and Ever Deadly” (Live from New Theatre, Oxford) – 2.58

• EP (US only)

1. “My Mistakes Were Made for You” – 3.04
2. “Separate and Ever Deadly” (live from New Theatre, Oxford) – 2.58
3. “Paris Summer” – featuring Alison Mosshart (live from the Olympia, Paris) (Hazlewood) – 3.38
4. “My Little Red Book” (live from New Theatre, Oxford) (David/Bacharach) – 2.42
5. “The Age of the Understatement” (acoustic)
6. “Standing Next to Me” (acoustic)
7. “The Meeting Place” (acoustic)
8. “My Mistakes Were Made tor You” (acoustic)

(source= Wikipedia)

For this single, they recorded a music video for the title track. It’s a cool video, not much happens, it’s mainly Alex walking around and you see Miles leaning on a car and playing guitar. They do show the girl of the song a few times. The ambiance and the visuals are really well done and makes it worth watching (not to mention the great song!). You can see it here:

The first B side is a live version of Separate but Ever Deadly. The arrangement is a bit different but the most notable change is that the duo swap vocals in the intro of the song. Usually, Miles is the one who sings the whole intro but half way through, Turner takes over. It’s fun hearing him sing it because he tries to imitate Miles’ forceful vocal style.

The next song is Paris Summer, a cover of a Nancy Sinatra song. This was also a live recording and was a duet sung by Miles and joined by Alisson from The Kills. I was surprised by how well she could sing since she doesn’t do this kind of more traditional singing on The Kills. It is a great cover, they completely covered the vintage feel but revamped it for our times.

The third song is called My Little Red Book which was written by Burth Bacharach and Hal David in the ’60s (I think). This one is so catchy, the guitar riff is so cool and the whole song has a fast tempo that is so refreshing compared with their other songs. It sounds a bit darker than the original and the vocals are really fun. The lyrics are very cool but the way Miles sings them is really funny. It is a faster tempo and his style of singing puts a lot more emphasis and stress on words so it’s fun hearing him try a song like this. He does a pretty good job, too, especially since it was live.

The rest of the songs are the acoustic ones. It seems that these were the ones that were recorded during the acoustic set they had put up videos for to promote the album. It’s really cool to get them on mp3, though, I wish more bands would release acoustic versions of their songs.

All in all, it’s a great single although I’m not keen on releasing singles after we already heard it on the album. Head over to your iTunes, Zune Marketplace, or other online store and pick up this digital single!

I’m sorry for the lack of updating, I’ve just been really busy this summer. Anyway, here are a few wallpapers I made of Final Fantasy XII scans I had.  The widescreen and non-widescreen versions are in this zip file:

Sendspace link

Here are thumbnails:

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Enjoy!

There are a couple of videos up on Youtube now where she performs three songs with new arrangements. The songs are Honnou, Ishiki and Yume no Ato.  Also, part of SOIL&PIMP SESSIONS are the guys playing behind her but I’m not sure. The songs are in a laid back jazzy style. It’s nice to see her performing again! I can’t wait til we get to see her performances in August! Here are the videos (they also have high quality versions available so make sure to click on that!):

Honnou:

Yume no Ato:

Ishiki:

Today I received my copy of Shiina Ringo’s 10th year anniversary B-sides and rarities compilation Watashi to Houden. I had ordered the limited edition version and it comes in awesome packaging. The whole thing is a thick sort of cardboard, very solid feeling. There is no jewel case here. The cover  has the picture of Ringo without any words so it looks really cool. This is the cover:

Here is the album tracklist:

Tracklist (Disc 1)

1. Suberidai
2. Unconditional Love
3. Remote Controller
4. Memai
5. Rinne Highlight
6. Aozora
7. Toki ga Bousou Suru
8. Sigma (Σ)
9. Tokyo no Hito
10. 17
11. Kimi no Hitomi ni Koi Shiteru

Tracklist (Disc 2)

1. Mellow
2. Fukou Jiman
3. So Cold
4. Aisaika no Choushoku
5. Sid to Hakuchuumu
6. Ishiki ~Sengo Saidaikyuu no Boufuuu Kennai Kashou~
7. Meisai ~Sengo Saidaikyuu no Boufuuu Kennai Kashou~
8. la salle de bain
9. Karisome Otome (HITOKUCHIZAKA ver.)
10. Sakuran (ONKIO ver.)
11. Ichijiku no Hana

When you open it up, you are greeted with another picture of Ringo and you find that the booklet is glued onto the case.  This is what you see:

I like the picture of her but I don’t like that it’s much like the picture on the cover except that she doesn’t have her weapon. As you can see, the booklet doesn’t have anything on the cover, and the inside is all grey but it has several different pseudo-blueprint electric designs all over it that are white. There are no pictures of Ringo in the booklet which equals =(.

The back cover of the case is pretty interesting. It shows a blueprint of a tazer and has the album, copyright, and publisher information pointing to different pieces of the tazer as if they are what make it up. It got a little laugh out of this bit. They also show a hand holding what looks like a pair of lips (weird). Here it is:

The first press also came with some concert information and a pretty cool sticker. It was cut out in the triangle shape that it is, but you can hardly see the shape in this scan of it:

The CDs were slipped into the sides of the package, one on the front side and one on the back side. They were in a soft, plastic bag-like sleeve and had nice designs. Here is an image of a sleeved and a naked CD:

As for the music, all the tracks have been released before in one shape or another. I was a little disappointed because the Ishiki and Meisai tracks had different subtitles for them so I thought they might be new arrangements but they are not. If there are any changes, they are subtle (I haven’t compared the versions yet but nothing sounds too new). However, there was one surprise. Disc two is listed as having 11 songs on the back of the album, but when you pop it in, there are actually 14! I was surprised when I saw it and was expecting new songs or something but they weren’t =(. They are just the three songs on the 3rd disc of Ze-chyou Syuu. Still, a nice surprise, I guess.  So if you haven’t bought any of her singles, this is a great chance to get them all in one, great package. Although, I think first press might be sold out in most places so I don’t know how nice the regular packaging is but at least is has a great collection of songs on them which is the most important part!

Doing my part in this 10th anniversary of the great musician, I made this wallpaper using the album cover. There is a widescreen and a regular screen version:

Now let’s just all pray that she releases a new solo album this year!

These are a bunch of wallpapers of the Japanese musician, Mika Nakashima. I made them from images from her Sirens photo book. She was dressed up as some sort of angel in one of them and just glamorous in the other two outfits. I really like the pictures, there weren’t too many of them but most of them were wallpaper material =). I made them in both widescreen and regular screen sizes as usual. I put them all (both sizes) in one zip file. You can get it here:

Sendspace:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/mnrf9j

Here are thumbnails of them before you download:

Love it~

I finally got around to starting this! The spring semester ended in early May but it wasn’t until now that I was able to free up some time to start a blog. I will try to keep this thing updated properly so check back often!

Here’s to the first wallpaper post of the blog!!

It’s only a few, varied wallpapers for now. I’ll usually be coming with batches of a similar subject in the future. There will be both widescreen and non-widescreen versions of each wallpaper.

First up is a couple of Ayumi Hamasaki ones I made. I’m not sure if the second one really works but I wanted to use the image that is on the left but I didn’t want to have it on it’s own since most people keep their icons on the left side of their screen. I think it’s a bit cluttered but it’s pretty =).

Widescreen:

Non-Widescreen:

Widescreen:

Non-Widescreen:

Next up is a Final Fantasy wallpaper. This one features Cloud and is from the Advent Children movie. I remember I got a really high quality scan of this from, I believe, AnimePaper a long time ago and recently found it on my hardrive.

Widescreen:

Non-Widescreen:

Last but most definitely not least is my favorite musician, Shiina Ringo. This is from a screen capture I took of the Just Can’t Help It! concert. I had to blow it up from a small image (you’d think DVD would have awesome resolution) and did my best to make it presentable.

Widescreen:

Non-Widescreen:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!