Small Fish, Big Pond

First Kayo leaving Polysics and now Etsuko leaving Shonen Knife; it’s just not shaping up as a good year for Japanese musicians.

The Shonen Knife lineup has changed quite a bit since they we’re opening for Nirvana back in the 90’s; Naoko (the lead singer) is the only original member left. However when I saw them when they toured the US a few years ago Naoko’s sister, Atsuko the other founding member played with them since she now lives in the US (might as well kick it with the old crew I guess). But when the came through the member that really stood out was their new drummer Etsuko, here’s the quote I made in my last.fm review of the show.

…I ended up totally being taken by the new permanent drummer Etsuko Nakanishi (total hottie) who was a wizard on the drums.

What a bummer, I hope she finds her way back to another band to put those drum skill to use. Plus it’s always comforting to know that somewhere in the world there is a Japanese hottie working herself into a sweat rocking out on a set of drums.

BTW: The picture at the top reminds me of the Little Drummer boy on Robot Chicken.
Caution Dragonball-Z and Akira spoofing.

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Ugh, I’m sick again. At least this time it’s a real flu and not from shitty mexican food from a cheap restaurant.

To tell you the truth it’s probably from going to the free Iron & Wine concert at the Galivan on Thursday (after the Rifftrax show, which was awesome!!). The Galivan plaza was packed shoulder to shoulder, the biggest I’ve seen this year and probably ever. I’m not a fan of Iron & Wine and this show confirmed that, but I do like going to big events to do some people watching. However it looks like this time it bit me in the ass, somebody there had a bug and it’s probably spreading like wildfire among the indie-yuppies of Salt Lake City now.

Anyway reading through some news today was an article in the Mainichi News that swine flu is approaching epidemic levels in Japan. The part that got me was this:

Between Aug. 3 and 9, when the average reached 0.99, the total number of infections in Japan was estimated to be over 60,000. There is a high possibility that the figure has been increasing since then.
…
Analysis by public health institutes across Japan has determined that roughly 80 percent of cases are swine flu cases. Most of the remaining cases are infections of the Hong Kong A strain. The National Institute of Infectious Diseases estimates that almost all of the people infected from July onwards have been infected with swine flu.

80% of the cases are swine flu! If that same stat holds true for America that mean I have a 4 in 5 chance of having swine flu!

Although I’m not too worried according to the CDC about 36,000 people in America die every year from flu-related causes. I’m not sure how many people have died nation wide from swine flu but considering how big of a deal the news makes when people become infected with it I think it’s still well below 36 thousand deaths. In which case I’m lucky to have swine flu, it’s less likely to kill me than the regular flu.

Anyway it seems to be hitting pretty hard in Japan too (not surprising how densely packed people are there). Maximum the Hormone had to cancel a few shows because the lead singer caught H1N1 (check’em out, it’s one of my favorite Japanese bands). And six of the thousands of AKB48 members have been stricken with the flu as well (they’re an Idol Group similar to Hello!Project).