[quote="Kaze no Mirai"]And is Manabe VERY surprised to see a few Nine Miles fans here?[/quote]

Kaze LOEV manabe.

[quote="Kaze no Mirai"]And is Manabe VERY surprised to see a few Nine Miles fans here?[/quote]

He is. Reggae, as you know, is VERY important to him on a personal level, and when someone shows up with one of his CDs and *obviously* has fallen in love with something he himself is totally in love with, damned if you can't see his eyes misting up...

He told me that his father is his biggest Nine Mile fan, and is pushing him to release the 3rd album. He's proud of that, too.


Man, sometimes I creep myself out- I feel like I shouldn't be posting some of this, but I just love these guys SO MUCH that I want everyone to see them the way I do. So many good things have come into my life just since I first heard the Pillows- as either a direct or indirect result- that I really think they are incredibly important in making the world we live in a better place.

Vladimir Putin once said that The Beatles had more to do with the fall of Communism than the Cold War did- the Russian kids simply could not help but ask themselves why, if Communism was so superior and the West was so hopelssly decadent, they weren't having fun like those English and American kids were having...

..in other words, it's very hard to argue against a culture that makes people happy through music. The Pillows, IMO, are inheriting that legacy of The Beatles- making "good music" that makes people happy when they hear it.

And somehow that gives me hope, in a world where otherwise I normally ascribe to the Bender dictum: "Kill All Humans". Manabe would rather it be "One Love"; Yamanaka reminds us that we have "One Life" and we'd better make the most of it.

Like I said: I Love These Guys....

ONE LOVE

Manabe is awesome.

And when I showed him the Nine Miles CD, he stared at it for a looong time smiling, eventually saying "thank you!" with a big smile on him.

Well, one thing I don't think you needed to tell us that they love the music they do, because a band as such shows so much heart towards it you can tell in their songs, interviews, music videos, even just the photos.

The pillows are really cool, but like all cool people they never will know just how cool they are.


(Also in defence of Penalty Life... I think they meant Anime is popular in america so an Anime Cover would be cool... actually I think they may have been right too... but I'm not sure because I think I may be too cynical.)

My ONLY objection to Penalty Life as a first US release is that you would have to have [i]already[/i]been a Pillows fan to get into it immediately. I thought that most people wouldn't pick up on it after the first listening. I didn't, and I love these guys. Now it sounds pretty good.

I was hoping they'd have a lot of FLCL stuff, but not because it was in FLCL- I mean, you couldn't expect anyone who had never seen Fooly Cooly to care about *that*- but because it was the music that was most successful at "grabbing" the listener in the first half-dozen notes. They don't call them "guitar hooks" for nothing. The FLCL director Tsurumaki apparently has the same ear I do, because he definitely cherry-picked Pillows albums for the grabbers.

I mean, Runner's High, the title track: have you EVER heard a drum intro so instantly hypnotic? And then the guitars splashing in fat and crisp?

Come on. You KNOW that would have killed ANYWHERE. And when you add Hybrid Rainbow, Instant Music, Funny Bunny, Blues Drive Monster, One Life- how could that NOT go platinum in the states?

[quote="Lepton"]I mean, Runner's High, the title track: have you EVER heard a drum intro so instantly hypnotic? And then the guitars splashing in fat and crisp?

Come on. You KNOW that would have killed ANYWHERE. And when you add Hybrid Rainbow, Instant Music, Funny Bunny, Blues Drive Monster, One Life- how could that NOT go platinum in the states?[/quote]

That's exactly what I think of when I listen to the pillows. Their music (specifically the LB/HB/RH trio) really go past "Oh man, this is really really good" into "how is it possible not to love this?"

And really, it's not some complex formula. What, we have Shin keeping a good beat. Sawao singing in a major key. Manabe doing very euphonous, clean, and sweet lead lines. Jun comes in with some root notes, and the occasional addictive-like-crack bassline (THR, Funny Bunny, Sleepy Head).

The result is genuinely energetic and happy music. And then there's the entire slightly "rougher" side, which is just as amazing. I'm talking Biscuit Hammer, Come Down, Advice, Stalker...

Ugh. That really reminds me, I have to talk to someone from Seattle's 103.7 The Mountain (specializing in new and old "adult rock"). I think they'd really appreciate the pillows.

I'm thinking...6 songs total. Probably: One Life, Hybrid Rainbow, Blues Drive Monster, Shiroi, Beautiful Picture, Skeleton Liar. Just off the top of my head.

Yeah, exactly. It's simple music with good flow- I've NEVER heard a bad transition- a bad change- in Pillows music.

They find the sweet spot and don't let go. Manabe has a delicious sense of graceful musicality in his lead lines- he's a modest guy, and you can feel him playing with the "less is more" concept sometimes, and then he pulls off a baroque aerial ballet like Swanky Street or Lesser Hamster...and you realize he's just singing through the instrument, totally cosmic, totally enraptured, like you see him when you single-frame the concert DVDs....

...and you wonder at the sort of mind and soul that has those thoughts and feels those things, and how he can just let it flow out like that.....

I don't know. It's just very OPEN music, and I can feel it open me up, too.

And I need it every day.

[quote="GoldenRhino"]
That's exactly what I think of when I listen to the pillows. Their music (specifically the LB/HB/RH trio) really go past "Oh man, this is really really good" into "how is it possible not to love this?"
[/quote]

I know what you mean... (well I think I do...) but music is one of those things were it is just difficult to understand other people's opinions on.. I guess I'm use to liking music different from most that it makes me kind of void of any negitive opinion to almost any music a person likes, even if I don't like it.

So I guess what I want to say is that even though it feels crazy to not like the pillows, but people like different kinds of music. I'm sure some people only enjoy the sound of scratchings on chalk boards for music, so meh...

(*chuckle*) yeah, it's true. I mean, I have to admit it: If someone *doesn't* like the Pillows, I start thinking there's something [i]wrong[/i] with them...

...is that [i]so[/i] bad? *Bwa hah ha!!!*

Everything is too big for them. They had some big guitars in the 50's.

SY: “The portions are too big!”

[quote="Bell02"][quote="GoldenRhino"]
That's exactly what I think of when I listen to the pillows. Their music (specifically the LB/HB/RH trio) really go past "Oh man, this is really really good" into "how is it possible not to love this?"
[/quote][/quote]

Yeah, I kinda feel guilty for admitting it, but I found out about the pillows by watching FLCL.

Some of you guys make it seem like a dirty sin, because it's "FLCL" and stuff, but you've just got to admit the songs on those three albums are frickin' amazing (some of their most amazingest bestest stuff yet ftw), and FLCL took the best of those albums.

It's not such a bad thing when you can appreciate those songs, even if they are from FLCL. But seriously: One Life, Funny Bunny, Hybrid Rainbow, Instant Music, Crazy Sunshine... Can you blame someone for wanting to find out who made those songs? (Note: Rhetorical question.)

IMO, those three albums fit so well together and rock so hard, it doesn't really matter if someone gets introduced to the pillows from FLCL.

[quote="Bell02"]
Yeah, I kinda feel guilty for admitting it, but I found out about the pillows by watching FLCL.[/quote]

I still remember when I first heard the pillows. It was at Fanime 2002. I wanted to see what FLCL was I walked in on the battle scene in episode 5. Blues Drive Monster was playing and it fit so well. Right then and there, I pledged my allegiance to the pillows. I don't feel any shame of finding the pillows out through FLCL. I feel fortunate to have followed that urge to check out FLCL.

Yeah. Seriously, that battle scene is unbelievable, and with Blues Drive Monster in the background it was... just kickass. Then after the battle they play Little Busters, don't they?

Anyway, after I heard Little Busters I was like, "I gotta find out who sings this." I paid attention to the credits, and sure enough:

*Kanji "Ride on Shooting Star" *More Kanji*
*Kanji* : the pillows *Kanji*
*Kanji* the pillows etc.

So that's how I found out. Did a search for 'em and found their songs. This was back in like 2003 though.

At least I can say that I've gone past their FLCL-only stuff. I sadly don't own any of their CD's (1. Can't afford it. B. No credit card 4. No job.) Trust me though, if I had the cash and stuff I'd so totally be buying their stuff left and right. So... don't hate me for not having any of their merchandise! >.<

[quote="Blank"]Yeah, I kinda feel guilty for admitting it, but I found out about the pillows by watching FLCL.

Some of you guys make it seem like a dirty sin, because it's "FLCL" and stuff, but you've just got to admit the songs on those three albums are frickin' amazing (some of their most amazingest bestest stuff yet ftw), and FLCL took the best of those albums.[/quote]

bah. probably 99% of us would have never heard of the pillows if not for flcl.

see the other [url=http://pirouzu.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=481&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=405]discussion[/url].

we dont mind if you found out about the pillows through FLCL.

however.

we mind if you're one of those idiots who is constantly spouting "ride on shooting star! RO REAH! im a little buster! flame is the best song ever!"

all the kids who never bothered looking into what other work they've done, and always call them "that band from flcl"



having heard at LEAST please mr. lostman is a prerequisite for not getting tortured off this forum.