Family Visit, plus Unknown Instructors placeholder

Currently in Maple Ridge, where my Uncle Alex (usually pronounced by my family as "Alec," a practice which I have adopted) is visiting from Nova Scotia. He's an exuberant fellow - a Celtic musician and an enthusiastic teller of Newfie jokes -- so for a change, family is trumping my chronicling of odd culture and Vancouver arts events. Took him to see John Fogerty at Deer Lake the other night, and am currently visiting him and my folks in Maple Ridge, without even a second thought about Koichi Makigami at the Powell Street festival, tho' it makes it the second time I've bailed on one of his Vancouver visits (sorry, Makigami-san!). One thing, though: I owe a brief note to those few Nerve Readers and Unknown Instructors fans who have actually visited my blog seeking the remainder of my Dan McGuire interview. It will be up in a few days, when I have the time to finish transcribing it, I promise. I think both poets and fans of Mike Watt, Joe Baiza, the Minutemen, and/or Saccharine Trust would find it very interesting - and there may be a bit of stuff on Iggy and the Stooges that didn't make it into the current issue of the Nerve.

By the way, if you haven't seen the current Nerve Magazine, or heard the new Unknown Instructors album, His Masters Voice - find a way to listen to the album that suits your conscience and find the new Nerve, since it features Watt, Baiza, and McGuire all in one. I like it a lot, and all the members I spoke to agree with me that it's a lot stronger than their previous venture. It's the first part of a two-part Watt-centric interview, to be followed next month by all Watt; I actually think this month's is the stronger month, tho'.

Oh, and while you're at it, there's also my review of the newest Jandek live album and a concert review of Tortoise (who suck) and Fond of Tigers (who don't), from when they played during the jazz festival.

That's all I can offer at the moment! (Oh, y'all know that the new Razorcake has my new Chris Walter interview in it, right? Alas, it's not so easy to find at the moment - I believe Scratch are all out).

Misheard Lyrics Japanese-style; in which I discover soramimi kashi

Bear with me for a moment, I need to set this up: since his name came up in a recent interview I did with Mike Watt - see the next two Nerves -- I've been readin' up on John Fogerty and considering seeing his Thursday show at Deer Lake Park. Not really my thing, but Watt also has me listening to Petra Haden's acapella cover version of the whole of The Who Sell Out, and I'm finding it utterly delightful, beyond what I could have imagined; it's been a long time since I was a Who-lovin' youth (or a CCR-lovin' youth), since both bands were kind of eclipsed and replaced by punk, for me, which made listening to the status quo kinda uncool, particularly since its representatives tended to beat punks up. Having set aside certain albums of my early youth, I am occasionally now delighted and surprised to discover that some of it still holds something for me. Hence Fogerty - might be an interesting event, actually. Or it might not.

ANYHOW, I was reading the Wikipedia entry on Fogerty, and there discovered that there is actually a name for misheard song lyrics (and such), the "mondegreen" (a whole archive of which, in the world of rock, can be found here). Apparently Fogerty, amused by a particular mishearing, sometimes now renders "There's a bad moon on the rise," in his song "Bad Moon Rising," as "There's a bathroom on the right" in concert. Amusing enough - and do explore the Wiki mondegreen entry linked above - but what really delighted me was learning, by following the links, about soramimi kashi - a related Japanese media pastime involving lyrics that, when misheard as Japanese, are very funny indeed. For instance: "You Give Me All I Need," by the Scorpions, sounds quite like "雪見オナニー" (yukimi onani) - or, "watching snow and masturbating."

This pleases me a great deal, as does the rendition of the Beatles "I Want to Hold Your Hand" as
"アホな放尿犯" (Aho na hōnyōhan), which translates into "Idiotic public urination" (something more common in Japan than Canada). Likable Japanese girlblog here on the topic, with some further links; the only really delightful ones I've bumped into thus far are from the Wikipedia article (For example, apparently Filippa Giordano's "Casta Diva" has a chours of "A noi volgi, a noi volgi," which to a Japanese can't but be heard as "あの イボ痔 あの イボ痔" (Ano iboji, ano iboji) - or "Um, I have hemorrhoids, um, I have hemorrhoids."

Anyone else got any good'uns?