[quote="Marekenshin"]The guy from Guided by Voices, Robert Pollard, is even more prolific. It's still incredibly impressive though, for sure. Keep in mind, he also did that Casablancas album as well![/quote]
Just took a peep over at Pollard's Wiki and holy cow! How's his success rate, though, on a scale of Buckethead to Omar Rodriguez-Lopez to The Cro-Magnons to golden age Pillows?
[quote="Mafu"]It's not too crazy, actually. By the time the new one comes out, it will be almost a full year between releases. One year between albums used to be pretty standard for them.

But Sawao has gotta be pretty inspired. The new FLCL is coming out, a gold medalist Olympian is giving them free publicity, he's doing CASABLANCA, etc. Ousama ni nare is gonna be dope. [/quote]
I suppose the somewhat extended ~2 year gaps between [i]Trial[/i], [i]Moondust[/i] and [i]Stroll and Roll[/i] were probably due to the time taken up by Sawao and Manabe's solo careers as well as the [i]Never Ending Story[/i] anniversary stuff, but I honestly just thought that The Pillows were slowing down slightly after so many years of putting out album after album, year after year. Hence, Sawao's writing output coming back to such a prolific level after doing running on the album-every-two-years schedule seemed pretty crazy to me. Glad to have been proven wrong about Sawao running out of steam!

And by any standards, I'd say that two albums within the space of one year is ALWAYS insane (unless either or both are terrible, although I trust The Pillows to come out with records that score at least a 6/10).

Unrelated random Pillows thought: hoping The Pillows find their way onto vinyl sometime in the future. A vinyl box set of all their albums incl. compilations like [i]Another Morning, Another Pillows[/i] and [i]Rock Stock[/i] would be cool, though undoubtedly depressingly expensive (so then, maybe 2+ box sets released with adequate buffer time between them would be preferable so that people's wallets can recover).

Pollard's most recent solo album I checked out was really solid - give it a peep and see for yourself: http://www.qthemusic.com/9978/robert-po ... ten-guide/
I'd also highly recommend Earthquake Glue, Half-Smiles of the Decomposed, and Do the Collapse, from his Guided by Voices albums.

Back to the pillows, though, Sawao actually spoke a little in a video interview about Stroll and Roll of how he felt that looking back on the past few years, they hadn't really changed things up as much from album to album as he would like, and so he tried to shake things up more this time (roughly along those lines). Maybe that realization and determination helped spark a renewed sense of creativity in him?

[quote="Marekenshin"]Back to the pillows, though, Sawao actually spoke a little in a video interview about Stroll and Roll of how he felt that looking back on the past few years, they hadn't really changed things up as much from album to album as he would like, and so he tried to shake things up more this time (roughly along those lines). Maybe that realization and determination helped spark a renewed sense of creativity in him? [/quote]
Possibly, and I suppose we'll be getting just that with [i]Nook in the Brain[/i] (i.e. a bit of a "shake-up"). Wonder if such shifts will continue with the next few releases (although I did think there was actually already a fair amount of shifting going on from [i]Horn Again[/i] to [i]Trial[/i] to [i]Moondust[/i]), and if so, it'll be really interesting to see where the band goes.

Unrelated: watching that moment in [i]Delicious Bump Tour in USA[/i] where Sawao talks about how everything in America is big and everything in Japan is small. A classic moment in Pillows history; right up there with "Sawao gets mad at stage-diver".

Old news but for all you Beatles fans out there, I found this [url=http://www.hmv.co.jp/news/article/908190087]article[/url] where Manabe discussed on his favorite Beatles song. There's also other band members and solo artists that have been interviewed on what their favorite Beatles songs are: http://www.hmv.co.jp/news/article/907290096

Great pick from Manabe (not gonna spoil it for those who haven't clicked the article)! Sorta can't believe it says "Pee" at the top, though; didn't know anybody still called him by that name in 2009, including himself.

Aaah I love that so much! I wonder if he understands the lyrics. I know he speaks some English, and there are no doubt many Japanese translations of the Beatles' lyrics. A weird thought considering many of us have come to appreciate the pillows' work more through translations.

Anybody know if The Pillows indulge in the practice of overdubbing live recordings, specifically those featured on their live DVDs/Blu-rays? Please help me to kill the illusion of perfection surrounding this band.

They run the audio through some sound production, for certain, but I strongly doubt they overdub. You can hear occasional (rare) guitar flubs and vocal notes not quite nailing it on various DVDs throughout the careers.

I was fortunate enough to recently get a chance to listen to some bootleg audio of one of the concerts on DVD to compare and can absolutely confirm that Sawao's singing doesn't need to be touched up, at the least.

If you dig back a few years, there's plenty of less than great Sawao singing at live shows. I mean, compared to earlier days and now. He really went through a rough period.

I'm inclined to characterise that as an awkward middle period between the fading of punk rock energy levels as a musician surpasses their youth (for Sawao, and probably the rest of The Pillows as well, that was around 2001, I guess?), and the achievement of solidity as the musician reaches middle age (2009 or 2010, perhaps). That is, not having enough energy to back up a less than ideal level of precision in playing. But the band have become unbelievable performers in recent years, especially Sawao as a vocalist; that's part of why I wanted to ask whether they overdub their lives.

chgu, I totally agree - but I think that it was more bad singing in terms of the tone and less in terms of missing notes. He went from awful singing in the back of your throat to okay yelly singing to awful singing through his nose back to okay yelly singing, and then stayed there and refined it lol.

It is of course possible that they retouch his voice for the DVDs, but considering we still get that awful tone in the dvds of the appropriate period and how good he's become at singing in the last 5 or so years, I doubt they do much beyond your general studio production for any recording. If they do autotune/melodyne his notes closer to perfection, he's not far enough off pitch to really hear it imo...but the vocals/instruments are definitely from the actual shows and not overdubbed.

[quote="Marekenshin"]chgu, I totally agree - but I think that it was more bad singing in terms of the tone and less in terms of missing notes.[/quote]
Ha ha, I actually gotta agree with that distinction. Like you'll hear him sing a note and it won't be "wrong" per se but you'll be like "uhhh is that really how you're gonna deliver that?"

[quote="dimsim3478"][quote="Marekenshin"]chgu, I totally agree - but I think that it was more bad singing in terms of the tone and less in terms of missing notes.[/quote]
Ha ha, I actually gotta agree with that distinction. Like you'll hear him sing a note and it won't be "wrong" per se but you'll be like "uhhh is that really how you're gonna deliver that?"[/quote]

That's been a major sticking point with me, re: new pillows music (studio and live). The timbre of Sawao's voice sounds so awkward and strained when the song (in moments or as a whole), [i]really [/i]doesn't call for it. imo

[quote="Marekenshin"]If they do autotune/melodyne his notes closer to perfection, he's not far enough off pitch to really hear it imo...but the vocals/instruments are definitely from the actual shows and not overdubbed.[/quote]
So I know this wasn't from a live recording (presumably), but did we ever come to a consensus on whether or not they autotuned his vocals on FUTURE? (And/or Diary of Amnesia, for that matter.) I recall Tidus was pretty certain he could hear pitch correction, but it was so subtle that I was having a hard time distinguishing it, personally.