sparkly!

So I’d always kind of wondered where these pictures of Ju-ken came from; I know they were on his blog and were from the Super Soul Sessions with Brian Setzer/Hotei/Char, but didn’t know what he was playing that needed that sort of bass with sparkles and flames:

Poking at Google wondering if Brian Setzer was involved with Hotei’s album Monster Drive (answer: no, possibly was supposed to be originally and Hotei did a rockabilly album anyway) led to youtube, which led to this from the Brian Setzer only part of the Super Soul Sessions (Rock this Town and Fishnet Stockings):

I’d assumed Setzer took his own band along for his parts (Back Streets of Tokyo on one of the music shows used his band, though they may have been touring in Japan at that time). I was wrong; he used Ju-ken and Shue (酒井愁), and there’s actually a short bass solo near the end. Despite being the first billed, he only had three songs on his own (and two Setzer vs Hotei and four Setzer vs Hotei vs Char, along with nine Hotei and seven Hotei vs Char; I’m not sure what the distribution of compositions for the vs parts are), so it makes some sense that he didn’t bring his whole band over and that they just used the same backup band for the whole thing (there was also a Japanese keyboard player in the other parts; I’m too lazy to go back and figure out who he was).

Ju-ken looks like he’s enjoying himself; on a long-gone blog entry (with a picture of an autographed T-shirt), he said something like that this was something he’d always remember and he was happy (or maybe honored or maybe both) to have the opportunity to play with these people. I wish I could remember what he said about that bass; I’m fairly sure he doesn’t own it (not in his gear, and probably too expensive to buy and not use regularly), but don’t know whether it was the company or a specific person who loaned it to him. On the King DoubleBass Japanese site, there are a couple of pictures of a similar bass; I don’t think it’s a standard finish (they do sparkles and flames and sparkly flames, but a yellow bass with sparkles and red flames doesn’t seem to be a standard option). He used to link to the site, and was actually mentioned on it, but they don’t seem to have anywhere for artists on the Japanese site any more (and it’s all flash, so archive.org is useless, and the base template for their site looks awfully familiar).

I think I’m going to have to get this DVD eventually. Random fangirl-ness on its own is not enough to justify the cost, but I like Hotei and have fond memories of the Stray Cats and like what I’ve heard of Char, but I’d been hesitant because the reviews on amazon.jp were generally negative (and my Japanese is not good enough to be sure why), but a few clips from the televised version finally made their way onto youtube and I want to see more.