How are things going Mare?
When is the dead line?

Hahaha...

...

Hahahaha

Broken finger, I ain't writing shit right now, I'm focusing on other junk.

Any questions you guys want answered hardcore, post them here; I'm sending my list of questions tomorrow and hoping I can get them answered in time (should have done this a long time ago, but I've been dealing with a lot of shit this semester).

All of the things I want to know can be combined into one question, which you probably already have in your list. Are the old unreleased tracks like [i]Futures[/i] ever going to see the light of day? I'd like to know if there's some kind of legal issue with the label that's keeping Sawao from releasing them, or if he dosen't feel they're worth releasing.

Could a list of questions you'll already ask be posted? I'm curious.

Any plans for playing in Europe?
(I know they have plans. . .)
When will they go to Europe?

Hmmm, maybe it's better to ask: What are your plans of playing outside Japan?

What do you think about today's music? Where do you see yourselves in it in terms of style, popularity, and influence?

Man, I'm such a derp at college, but it turns out Princeton's secret for such a high graduation rate is that you can still graduate even with getting your thesis in late (this shit is ridiculous and everyone has issues with getting it done well/on time as far as I've seen). I'm going to take some more time with this, and will worry about sending in the questions at the start of next week rather than today, lol.

So far I'm planning to ask them about:

Future plans for touring outside of Japan (when/where, Europe, USA, etc)
Unreleased tracks/live footage (when will we get them, does King records/other labels own the rights to them, or what?)
Better use of YouTube to reach the fans, whether through the official pillows channel or just a personal channel
Engrish usage in recent times (gonna have to be careful how I phrase this, can't just say "Dear Sawao, you suck at English now, please work harder or stop; probably going to simply ask if there is a planned reason behind the decreasing clarity as compared to previous tracks like Subhuman or if it's a production issue or what)
Does Sawao still have his old guitars? Which guitars does he like to use in studio the most/how often does he use various instruments, or does he mainly use his current guitar for everything?
What is each member's favorite contemporary (currently recording/touring) musician/band?
What is each member's absolute all-time favorite musician/band? (we know Manabe's already, but I don't ever really recall hearing what Sawao's all-time favorite was, just a lot of different influences and whatnot)
Most members among the English fan community (lol nearly all of them) think that the pillows' best music was in the period from PML through HB; what album is each member's favorite in terms of music? In terms of production/sound? (This one would probably get either nixed by the label or THE NEWEST ALBUM IS MY FAVORITE'd maybe lol)

Not a huge list of questions, but a lot of the friggin' reading and shit I've been doing for this has practically fallen out of my head with all the other schoolwork and worries I've been dealing with, lol.

How about asking about their equipment in the early days, from Pantomime to Living Field. What amps & pedals, I could never figure out what Sunn amp Manabe had in 90s MY LIFE. What brand were the ES guitars Manabe and Sawao used, and the goldtop deluxe Manabe had around Living Field. What strings and gauge do they use. What was the pickup they put in the neck position of their Tele's.

Is Sawao still a MOD? Emphasize early 90s live videos release, let them know pretty much all of us what that. Is there a full version PV of Ame Ni Utaeba.

[quote="Marekenshin"]Engrish usage in recent times (gonna have to be careful how I phrase this, can't just say "Dear Sawao, you suck at English now, please work harder or stop; probably going to simply ask if there is a planned reason behind the decreasing clarity as compared to previous tracks like Subhuman or if it's a production issue or what)[/quote]

Be careful if you ask him that question, I think anybody would get ticked off if you asked that question of them.

[quote="TJWX5"]How about asking about their equipment in the early days, from Pantomime to Living Field. What amps & pedals, I could never figure out what Sunn amp Manabe had in 90s MY LIFE. What brand were the ES guitars Manabe and Sawao used, and the goldtop deluxe Manabe had around Living Field. What strings and gauge do they use. What was the pickup they put in the neck position of their Tele's.[/quote]

I think it's a bit unreasonable to expect him to remember what pickups were in their guitars 20 years ago. The ES-335 that Sawao used on Tiny Boat and some live stuff was a Gibson, you can see it clearly in the behind the scenes footage on the Walkin' On The Spiral DVD. You can see the one manabe is playing in the Daydream Wonder PV pretty clearly and it's either a Gibson or an ESP.

Manabe uses that Goldtop with the mini-humbuckers in the live version of Girlfriend and i'm pretty sure that was a Gibson too. Have to watch it again to be sure.

[quote="Marekenshin"]
Engrish usage in recent times (gonna have to be careful how I phrase this, can't just say "Dear Sawao, you suck at English now, please work harder or stop; probably going to simply ask if there is a planned reason behind the decreasing clarity as compared to previous tracks like Subhuman or if it's a production issue or what)[/quote]

Yes, this NEEDS to be asked. I know some people want to give Sawao a free pass just because it's not his native language, but really... as an artist who truly wants to reach out to his fans in the West, and has with several tours, why bastardize the language? There's no real nice way to ask it I suppose, but I hope you figure out some way to ease it on him.

Also, a followup question to the worldwide touring part... maybe ask something about if the US will get expanded setlists. Maybe something like:

the pillows have toured the USA 4 times so far. However, only a small fraction of the band's expansive discography has been played. Do you think American fans will get to see more material outside of the FLCL and newest amterial?

I know the answer may be "it's what's popular", but I don't see the harm in asking. May let him know there is demand for hearing these songs played.

Just ask him generally about his approach to the English language in music. That, as native English speakers, we are interested in the differences between how we speak and understand the language and how he presents the language. Ask if his priority is to improve access to western audiences, or if his use of English is intended to appeal primarily to Japanese audiences. Note that many of his uses of the English language are not necessarily coherent to western audiences - perhaps ask if these deviations from conventional English make more sense to a Japanese audience. Give him examples of songs that make sense to us as native speakers of English, and compare them to newer offerings that do not - and ask how his approach to the English lyrics of these songs may have changed over time.

This is not only a tactful way to present your query, but you'll likely get a far more academic and therefore useful response than if you were to ask, "SAWAO, Y U NO SPEAK GOOD ENGRISH!?" No matter how nicely you phrase [i]that[/i] question, you probably won't get much of a useful response - except perhaps to satisfy our own curiosity.

Ask him if he owns any demos of his songs and if he would ever release them. How many PV's have they made and which were never released.

[quote="MrkJulio"]Ask him if he owns any demos of his songs and if he would ever release them. How many PV's have they made and which were never released.[/quote]

Actually, this is a pretty good question, Mare. Maybe have him expand on it. Ask him what the demoing process is. Does he record the songs on his own, and then present them to the band to add stuff in, i.e. a guitar solo? That'd actually make me want to ask him who writes the guitar solos for all the songs. It would seem it's all Manabe, but the writing credits to ever song is always Sawao Yamanaka. It'd be interesting to know how much input the other members get on how a song develops.