Legendary composer/producer Money Mark talks to AJ about recording with Atarashii Gakko! AG chat #17 

Ha. Thanks, that would be cool :)

@@AndrewHartley looking forward to seeing your vlogg from the upcoming Chicago concert with AG

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it. I hope to do a part 2.

Oh they were going to break through and grow somewhere as a boost, but it has turned up to be very beneficial to them, they way that their hook up with Money Mark turned out. I mean, it just opens up their repertoire that much further. They really seem to be growing and expanding in a very pleasant, intelligent way. I mean, they're performing all the time, and at such a high level of physicality. And there's genre shifting, but it's all connected, all freedom loving and halfway punk. They've done some risky things, but that is what keeps them fresh. They change but they also maintain. They master and expand and repeat.

Nice detail, thanks!

That's a great image, thanks. I remember they played Beastie Boys songs (including Intergalactic) at the DC show too!

@@AndrewHartley Glad to hear that, seems like the audio engineer team traveling with them had the same idea for many other tours!

Excellent!

Thanks for that thoughtful comment. It's so important for young people to see role models who look like them. That didn't used to happen much for Asian kids in the US, so I'm glad bands like AG! are getting some real attention here. Cheers!

Thanks! Interviewing AG themselves would be pretty cool, though I don't think my language skills are enough to get into a real depth with them. I'd need help :)

Excellent. Thanks. Yes, seeing them live changes everything :) Cheers!

Right? :)

Thanks, Len. He was an easy guest to talk to, and incredibly generous with his time. Hopefully we'll get to do a follow up some day :) And yes to an Australia tour. Fingers crossed!

That's great to hear. Thanks! And beware the toilet ghost :)

Thanks! Yeah, I think their breakout over the last 15 months or so has been remarkable. They seemed shocked by the energy and engagement of the US fans last year too. And like a certain other Japanese band, I think they take heart from foreign fans singing along :)

Cool right?

@@AndrewHartley No idea why my comments on my other account keep disappearing on this page here, but this is (a shortened version of) what else I wanted to add: Very happy to hear you'll be at the Chicago show. Hope I can say hi to you then. I'm also hoping you will do a review of the Sheena Ringo collab.

Thank you. Yeah, this was a nice boost. He's a fixer even for my channel (or my attitude to it)!

Glad you enjoyed it!

Me too!

we live in hope

Glad you enjoyed it!

That's so cool! Thanks :)

Thanks! A party 2 isn't guaranteed, but we're talking about it.MM is so busy and I'm trying to be respectful of his time...

I haven't gotten to see them in person, yet, but look forward to doing so. In any case, I have found it quite astonishing if you slow down their videos to about .75%, you can see extra movements that you missed at full speed. Then you move the speed back up and watch it in real time and it is insane how quickly they move.

Thanks man. You may be right about this being the only MM interview on AG! I kind of thought it would get more attention, to be honest, but mine is a pretty niche corner of the internet 😬Appreciate the comment!

I think he had something of that spirit already, which is why he worked so well with them, but I know he responded to what they were all about, yes.

Glad you enjoyed it!

Yes, I liked it a lot. Very Suzuka heavy, of course, but it was good to see the rest of the group supporting her in the video. Thanks!

Glad you enjoyed it!

You bet!

The fishing analogy is a good one, I think. Thanks for that and the comment generally!

Glad you enjoyed it!

Right? I've been doing the same.

Check Your Head isn't only my favorite Beastie Boys album, it's one of my all-time favorite albums as well. Love this interview so much. Thank you for doing this, Andrew.

That's very kind of you. Thanks!

He's awesome, isn't he?

Yes he is and so are you. Thank you both for supporting AG.

Yeah, if anyone can set that up, that would be good ;)

Glad you liked it!

Ha! Yeah, they love to play up the mystery. All part of the fun.

Thanks!

It would be wonderful if I could meet them, of course, but that's a long shot :)

どういたしまして！

Thanks.

Ha! I have lived in Japan and go back a lot (and my wife is Japanese American) but I don't think my Japanese is good enough to have a really nuanced conversation about serious issues, if that opportunity were to come up. It would be nice to try, however.

​@@AndrewHartley Then how are you understanding their lyrics? You seem to know that many of their songs, especially those written by Yonkey, deal with very serious social issues. Yet it's impossible to derive their intended meanings from the sanitized English subtitles. I lived in Japan 1989-2002, my wife is Japanese, my two sons were born there, my eldest returning to Tokyo for work - yet I struggle to deconstruct many of AG's verses and often have to turn to my Japanese family for help. I watched your very good analysis of Otona Blue. Though I believe your interpretation misses their message (you're looking through the POV of a middle-age western man), it was obvious you understood that the lyrics consist of a stream of the most delightfully filthy euphemisms. Someone must have provided a detailed explanation of those euphemisms, because you couldn't get them from subtitles, google translator, or genius.com.

@@destinationsunnyside250 Yeah, good question. I ask around a lot when I don't feel I have a handle on what's being said (and sometimes even when I do because I'm not always right, of course). But it's tricky. Japanese, as you know, is such an elusive, ambiguous, and punny language that it's hard to get a grasp of it without being immersed in the culture of the moment as well as the region. I know I miss things (esp. in something like that Otona Buru video I made when there was no meaningful English discussion of the song or the band at that time). But yes, I talk to my family a lot, and to Japanese fans, and even a few scholars (I've dragooned a few Japanese Shakespeare scholars to help me from time to time :) ) as well as pillaging online translation resources. The other thing, of course, is that being a native speaker doesn't necessarily make you a good critic/analyst no matter what the language is (speaking as a literature professor), or we would all agree on the meaning of every English song, poem, novel, play etc. Lately I've seen some hot takes of AG! songs that were clearly wrong and based entirely on a highly subjective reading of a single word or phrase which turned out not to be the case. So yeah, not easy, and always a work in progress. Thanks for the comment.

@@AndrewHartley Are Shakespeare scholars in Japan eager to spend their time translating Atarashii Gakko songs? Understanding Japanese lyrics becomes even more difficult when songwriters like Yonkey enjoy playing with the ambiguity and homophonous nature of the language - a song with a definitive interpretation is not considered as interesting. But that's why I can enjoy your analysis and still disagree with your interpretations. Your Otona Blue analysis, for example, doesn't really make sense within the context of Japan. I agree the song is a coming of age story, but coming of age in a society where the age of consent is 13, where one of the most popular men's magazines is essentially playboy with models in school uniforms, where Joshi Kousei cafes and Papakatsu Apps are accepted vehicles for child prostitootion. If you take the POV of the girls, it's not about schoolgirls frustrated because they don't know how to act mature, it's about schoolgirls who know how to act more childish to seduce "soft" Japanese men. There's a verse at the end of the chorus that's usually translated "I've yet to bloom though I still pretend to" but I think a more accurate reading should be the other way "I remain an innocent bud though I know how to be a woman". It's this kind of ambiguity that makes Japanese lyrics so beautiful. If the ambiguity didn't exist then Otona Blue would be 4 Japanese school girls singing Wet Ass P*ssy.

@@destinationsunnyside250 Yeah, I don't really disagree with any of that. The crucial thing about semantic ambiguity is not that an art object can mean different things to different readers but that it can mean multiple things simultaneously to a single reader: both/and rather than either/or. That said, the important thing is that they wield the power of their sexuality on their terms. That seems crucial to the song and to their world view. Many of their songs are dotted with issues of body image and with the hentai gaze of the culture you describe, a culture which wants to reduce them to objects of one-sided desire. We see this in the fan base too sometimes, I'm afraid. As to Japanese scholars talking pop culture, no, they aren't usually quick to do that and are sometimes baffled by why I want to, academia in Japan generally being quite traditional in its attitude to what art is worthy of study and what the nature of that study should be. That's not to say that they don't enjoy the music or find it interesting. It's just generally not on their radar as literature or theatre scholars. I also have a friend locally who is a prominent translator of contemporary Japanese fiction so he's another resource who I introduced to AG! :)

Glad you enjoyed it!

Glad you enjoyed it!

My pleasure!

I think so too!

多くのバンドがそうであるように）本番前にはヴォーカルトレーニングや発声練習に時間を割いていると思うが、そう、彼女は自分の声を守り続けるべきだ。

As it turned out recently, Suzuka is a friend of the Japanese singer Ado, I think she adopted some screaming techniques from Ado.

それは興味深い。フォーエバー・シスターズ』が彼らの新しいレパートリーの一部であることを嬉しく思う理由のひとつでもある。新鮮で軽やかな感じがする。