WPRB Princeton 103.3 FM

New Jersey's Only Radio Station

WPRB is a community-supported, freeform radio station. Our FM signal (103.3) serves central New Jersey, Philadelphia, eastern PA and the northern tip of Delaware. We reach a global audience at wprb.com.

DoublePlusGood

Jan 19, 2023 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM

Music

With Lizbot

A tangy mélange of modern classical composition, rock in opposition, and songs of petition on a free-form mission

Tribute to Yukihiro Takahashi of YMO + other Japanese synth pop & experimental music

Tribute to the late Yukihiro Takahashi of Yellow Magic Orchestra, founding member, drummer & vocalist of Doubleplusgood favorite, the pioneering electronic/synth band, YMO, who passed away on January 11th at the age of 70,

as well as his solo work and work with Sadista Mika Band + other Japanese electronic/experimental bands & some new music and other goodies!

5:02 PM		Yellow Magic Orchestra 1000 Knives BGM Alfa 1981
5:07 PM		Miharu Koshi Chichi to Pisutoru Miharu Koshi Chichi to Pisutoru Fun House 1991
5:13 PM		Yellow Magic Orchestra Cue Takahashi, Hosono BGM Alfa 1981 4th studio album. The title stands for "Background music". Produced by YMO member Haruomi Hosono, the grandson of Masabumi Hosono, the only Japanese passenger and survivor of the sinking of RMS Titanic.
5:17 PM		Yellow Magic Orchestra Mad Pierrot Hosono Yellow Magic Orchestra Alfa 1978
5:21 PM		Yellow Magic Orchestra Behind the Mask Sakamoto Solid State Survivor Alfa 1979 In the early 1980s, producer Quincy Jones brought the song to the attention of American pop singer Michael Jackson, who rewrote Mosdell's lyrics and added an accompanying melody. The Jackson version was planned for inclusion on his 1982 album Thriller, but was dropped following legal disputes. Since then, artists including Greg Phillinganes, Eric Clapton, and The Human League have recorded versions based on Jackson's updated version.
5:25 PM		Marta Mist Godspeed, Little Doodle N Eyes Like Pools Sounds In Silence 2022
5:30 PM		Set Break: ---------------------------------------------------- Lizbot dons 1000 knives
5:30 PM		Yellow Magic Orchestra Simoon Yellow Magic Orchestra Alfa 1978
5:37 PM		Ruins Alone Glaschzenck Tatsuya Yoshida Ruins Alone SKiN GRAFT 2015 Japanese musician; drummer and composer who is the only consistent member of the experimental/zeuhl prog duo Ruins. He is normally accompanied by a bassist, but in this album he is alone
5:40 PM		Melt-Banana Free the Bee Yasuko Onuki Teeny Shiny AZAP 2000 formed around 1991/1992 by singer Yasuko Onuki. They run their own A-Zap Records label.
5:44 PM		Aki Tsuyuko Solitary Tiger Aki Tsuyuko Aki Tsuyuko’s Room in Commend Commend Here 2020 experimental Japanese electronic organ and piano composer
5:50 PM		Set Break: ----------------------------------------------------
5:50 PM		Shizuka 狂気の真珠 (Madness Pearl) Lunatic Pearl An'Archives 2022 Mid-90s Tokyo underground psych
5:55 PM		Vajra Before The Snow Falls, Falling Leaves Have No Meaning Tsugaru Psychedelic Speed Freaks 1995 Featuring Keiji Haino, Mikami Kan, Toshiaki Ishizuka
5:57 PM		Michiyo Yagi Rouge Michiyo Yagi Seventeen Zipangu 2005 Japanese koto player, composer, and singer
6:00 PM		Ryuichi Sakamoto & Cornelius Thatness and Thereness - Cornelius Remodel Ryuichi Sakamoto N A Tribute to Ryuichi Sakamoto - To the Moon and Back V/A Milan 2022 written by Ryuichi Sakamoto, a founding member of YMO, reimagined by Japanese guitarist, musician, audio/video artist Keigo Oyamada, AKA Cornelius
6:03 PM		After Dinner A Man of Marble (feat. Haco) Haco Souvenir Cassette (feat. Haco) Zero Records 1988 After Dinner is the project of Japanese singer, composer, multi-instrumentalist and sound artist Haco, from Kobe.
6:06 PM		Lucrecia Dalt Atemporal Lucrecia Dalt R N ¡Ay! RVNG Intl. 2022
6:09 PM		Taken By Trees Caroline Good Bye N Another Year - EP Rough Trade 2022 solo project by former lead singer of The Concretes.
6:12 PM		Yellow Magic Orchestra Tong Poo Sakamoto Yellow Magic Orchestra Alfa 1978 "Tong Poo" translates to "East Wind". Debut album
6:14 PM		Set Break: ---------------------------------------------------- Lizbot hops on cubes, Q-bert style
6:18 PM		Colourbox Tarantula (12" Version 1) Colourbox - 12" Singles (Remastered) 4AD 2012 Formed in 1982 by brothers Martyn and Steven Young, drawing from rock, dub and funk influences, as well as movie dialogue samples.
6:24 PM		キリンジ Bluff Spirit We Love Katamari AKA Kirinji
6:30 PM		Ruins Alone Equesspaldho Tatsuya Yoshida Ruins Alone SKiN GRAFT 2015
6:33 PM		Les Rita Mitsouko Hip Kit Marc & Robert Because Music 1988 Pop group formed by Fred Chichin and Catherine Ringer in 1980, here accompanied by Russell Mael of Sparks!
6:38 PM		Yellow Magic Orchestra Firecracker Yellow Magic Orchestra Alfa 1978 Debut
6:43 PM		Yellow Magic Orchestra Kimi ni, mune kyun Takashi Matsumoto Naughty Boys Alfa 1983 Kimi ni, mune kyun = "A holiday affair". Uwaki na bokura = "Naughty boys". 6th studio album
6:48 PM		Miharu Koshi Capricious Salad Parallelisme Pick Up Records 1984
6:50 PM		Yellow Magic Orchestra Rydeen Yukihiro Takahashi Solid State Survivor Alfa 1979 One of the late Yukihiro Takahashi's most beloved (and my favorite) YMO compositions! 2nd studio album. This song straight-up gallops!
6:55 PM		Takako Minekawa Maxi On! Maxi On! EP Emperor Norton 2000
6:58 PM		Ryuichi Sakamoto Plastic Bamboo Ryuichi Sakamoto Thousand Knives - EP Nippon Columbia Co., Ltd. / NIPPONOPHONE 1978
6:58 PM		Set Break: ---------------------------------------------------- Lizbot feasts on a capricious salad
7:07 PM		Ryuichi Sakamoto the end of europe Ryuichi Sakamoto B-2 Unit Alfa 1980
7:12 PM		Kahimi Karie Blue Orb Specialothers Victor 2007 Japanese Shibuya-kei artist Mari Hiki, stage name Kahimi Karie, who began her career as a music photographer in Japan. Her then-boyfriend, Keigo Oyamada (aka Cornelius) asked her to sing for his friend's record label. Karie quickly gained success, especially on the hyper-trendy Shibuya-ku scene (the fashionable Tokyo hub and area also associated with the musical talents of Pizzicato Five, Fantastic Plastic Machine, Maki Nomiya and Cornelius, amongst others). The Shibuya-kei sub-genre was heavily influenced by YMO
7:17 PM		Yellow Magic Orchestra Neue Tanz Technodelic Alfa 1981
7:22 PM		Yukihiro Takahashi Something In The Air Yukihiro Takahashi Neuromatic (2021 Yoshinori Sunahara Remastering) Sony Music Direct (Japan) Inc. 1981
7:26 PM		Yukihiro Takahashi Sayonara Yukihiro Takahashi What, Me Worry? Alfa 1982
7:32 PM		Yellow Magic Orchestra Day Tripper Lennon–McCartney Solid State Survivor Alfa 1979 my favorite cover of this song! An absolute banger!
7:35 PM		Pizzicato Five One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten Barbie Dolls Darlin' Of Discothèque Readymade Records 1999 duo of Maki Nomiya and Yasuharu Konishi
7:39 PM		Yukihiro Takahashi Grand Espoir Yukihiro Takahashi Neuromantic Alfa 1981 3rd solo album. "It was always night Under a moon full enough to burst It had to be night Her hips just like a moon"
7:44 PM		Yellow Magic Orchestra Key Takahashi, Hosono Technodelic Alfa 1981
7:49 PM		Yukihiro Takahashi All You've Got To Do Yukihiro Takahashi What, Me Worry? Yen Records 1982 (すぐそこにある Sugu Soko ni Aru)
7:52 PM		Sadistic Mika Band Time Machine K. Kazuhiko / T. Matsuyama Sadistic Mika Band Harvest 1974 with precussion by Yukihiro Takahashi
7:59 PM		Set Break: ---------------------------------------------------- Lizbot invades the Blue Orb and demands sautéed green beans
8:00 PM		Yukihiro Takahashi Futari No Kage Ni What, Me Worry? Yen Records 1982

Chat is archived.

TRIBUTE TO Yukihiro Takahashi!!!

Lizbot, was waiting for someone to do this tribute, thanks!!

Hi DSM! I'm so glad you are here for it!

@DSM - His death wasn't announced (or at least I wasn't made aware of it) until Friday the 13th, the day after my show last week, so I've been waiting all week to do this!

I'm going to be interspersing other Japanese electronic pop/experimental artists throughout

..both contemporaries, artists who worked with him, and those influenced by him

Hello Lizbot and the crew!

Hi Number 6! Happy to see you hereQ

Accidentally mystery "Q"!

Q = question...or maybe Q from Bond

This is true!

I like the plan for this evening Lizbot!

Hey Number 6!

Q from Star Trek?

Wasn't there a Q bomb also?

@DTO - Oooh, that too!

Q*bert

The Grand Duchy of Fenwick.

@DSM - Me as well! I love YMO and off-shoots!

@DSM - ah, yes, how could I forget Q-Bert! or CUE-bert, as per this song on now!

Q-Bert was one of the better sprite designs of my Atari console days, pre-Nintendo. At least he had that distinctive tubular snout to distinguish him from the other pixel blobs!

I used to play Qbert at the roller rink, it was the only place around that had Qbert, even tho we had a really killer arcade in the mall in town.

It had that roller ball control, and I'd always accidentally take poor Qbert over the edge

@ Lizbot- Did you get to watch The Lathe of Heaven yet?

@DSM - I had a home version of it. My go-to game at my local roller-rink in Cherry Hill, NJ was Rampage and I always played Lizzie the Lizard since she shared my name!

omg I LOVED Rampage!! I was always the werewolf. I got it for NES, but it wasn't quite the same

@Number 6 - Not yet, but I'm glad you told me about it! It's been added to my list since last week, but I KNOW I won't get to it until after Sundance Film Fest online, which starts this coming week!

@DSM - You'd think I'd have bought it for NES, but because my best friend had it, AND I could play it at the rink, I never bought a copy myself. I absolutely loved it, though! I probably would've selected the wolf since I liked wolves more than lizards, but I had to go with a fellow Liz!

@ Lizbot- It's the most requested PBS movie of all time, I think, so that should be a good impulse to watch it.

@number 6 - Oh wow! All the more reason to check it out! I really gotta queue it up at a time my husband is available too because he loves that book and quotes it a lot and he never saw the movie either!

Nice sounding tribute, Alice Wonderland Bot

Hi Ossy! Thanks!

Feeling gamey too, especially N64

@Ossy - Oh yes, get ready for a LOT more of that today! So many artists I'm playing today directly influenced Japanese 8-bit and beyond game soundtrack composers, or composed early console game soundtracks themselves!

Saw MB a few years ago at spaghetti warehouse…absolutely loudest show I have ever attended

Hi Carlos Ramone! I first saw MB at the Khyber for the Charlie tour decades ago and it was insane!

Your ears must still be ringing from that!!

@Carlos Ramone - I've since seen them several times, most memorably at the old original location of Vox Populi, where a member of another band on the bill that night took it upon themselves to hang from the rafters above everyone's heads during melt-banana's set!

New Cornelius, yes please!

@DSM - I'm always happy to see what Cornelius is up to!

Hello Wes! I heard, but this is gonna be an all YMO/Takahashi/Japanese electronic and related bands show today!

@Carlos Ramone - Haha, yes! But it was a lot of fun! I think it was when they had just come out with the 13 Hedgehogs compilation and were giving out free hedgehog pins, which I still have! But those melt-banana Vox Populi shows blend together in my memory!

MB was way ahead of their time…I recall seeing them wearing masks many many years ago

Is this whole ep songs off that Colin Blunstone solo record? They do a good job with the two I've heard now

@Carlos Ramone - haha, in this Colourbox song "Tarantula" there's a line "I wear a mask so falsely now"! Yeah, in Japan and Asia in general there is more mask wearing long before the pandemic and also fun artistic masks like the ones I saw at the Shofuso House & Gardens Cherry Blossom Festival in Fairmount Park several years ago where one of the visiting Japanese bands dressed as fox demons from traditional Japanese yokai mythology!

The Cherry Blossom Festival at Shofuso House & Gardens in Fairmount Park is one of my favorite annual early springtime events and is FINALLY coming BACK for the first time since the pandemic began! This April 2023!

@DSM - Which EP are you referring to? I missed that comment getting ready to go on mic last breaK!

Porch fest is one of my fave spring things to attend..

Lizbot, the Taken By Trees, I looked it up and it is indeed all Colin Blunstone/Zombies covers! Pretty neat.

@Carlos Ramone - Which one?! There are SO MANY now! The first that comes to mind and the one I've attended the most is the West Philly one, which many friends' bands have performed at &/or hosted bands on their porches, but now I've been to the Collingswood one a couple times, and there's a Princeton one and it seems the concept of porchfest has been exploding the past few years! It's a great thing, I love the concept!

@DSM - Yes! It's Victoria Lena Bergsman from Stockholm covering his songs!

Hi Lizbot and everyone!

Hi Rob!

Not to be the frequent bearer of sad news, but David Crosby has passed https://variety.com/2023/music/news/david-crosby-dead-dies-byrds-crosby-stills-nash-1235495467/

@LIZ. West Philly one ..Son went To Ithaca college and they had a good one going 9n there also

@Rob from Maryland - It feels like there have been more musician deaths than usual in the past couple of weeks. This has been a tribute to Yellow Magic Orchestra co-founder and drummer/vocalist Yukihiro Takahashi, who died on 1/11/23, + other related electronic music/pop, mostly from Japan today, so no Crosby on today's program, but Wes mentioned Crosby's passing earlier in the chat

@Rob from Maryland - When I see you here I think of bird songs, and I almost played "I'll Just Go Birdwatching" by Japanese experimental band After Dinner earlier in the program, but went with a different track by them, A Man of Marble, instead.

@Wes - Notice this song has Sparks content, since I know you like to keep track of my Sparks and XTC playing!

@Carlos Ramone - I love the West Philly one! We always make a day of it. Some of the sidewalks become impassable!

@Lizbot, I think you are right about musician deaths :-(

I am here for your Takahashi tribute

@Rob from Maryland - Glad you tuned in!

@Lizbot, I'll listen to "I'll Just Go Birdwatching" when your show is over

@ROb - he passed away the day before my show last week, but it wasn't really announced until that friday

@Rob from Maryland - Good plan! I will probably play that one on a future bird-themed program! I've done that theme before but not in many years, and there are far more than enough great bird-themed songs (and maybe some ACTUAL bird songs...maybe from my own birds!) to make many many hours of that theme!

I missed Tong Poo :(

This kinda sounds music from the Chai Kingdom in Super Mario Land!

A lot of video game music from the time derived inspiration from YMO, Ossy! Their influence was far reaching, even decades later.

Awesome spectacular very much, Tandy!

Hello TAndy - There's more YMO goodness to come!

That's one of the reasons why I regard YMO as one of the most important electronic music productions to have existed, having also given inspiration for ZUN's music for his Touhou games.

@TAndy - DEFINITELY! You can hear the YMO influence so strongly in the early Japanese video game soundtrack compositions!

@Ossy / TAndy - Back in the early 2000s I had ongoing discussions with Dino Lionetti of the Philly chiptune band Chromolodeon about how we need to make a documentary happen about those early Japanese video game composers, but thankfully someone eventually made that happen!

This sounds like R2D2 a bit.

The origin of a lot of the musical composition and techniques that Japanese producers use is still a huge unknown to me. The chord progressions used, the synths, everything to do with how they handle melodies has always been so different compared to western producers and I could never figure out why. I've asked this same question in CJ's chat.

@Lizbot, I'd love to hear your bird-themed program! Might I mention this song, (Swet Shop Boys - Birding) that I only learned about this week? It raps and rhymes all sorts of birds. They seem to have picked up a field guide or two and poured over it. The fan video cracks me up too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-e6mU7bR_Q

EXTREME JAM 🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨

This is a super-rad composition by the late Yukihiro Takahashi! I SO WISH I could've seen them live in London in 2008!!! I was in London that year for Sparks' 21 Nights fest and IF ONLY the YMO show could've happened the same stretch of time! A DREAM show!

Makin me wanna play Mega Man 2 rn

@ROb from Maryland - oh nice! I gotta check that one out after the show!

@DSM - haha, totally!

You can tell this one is written by the DRUMMER! Such a galloping beat!

love a good gallop, shuffle

Apparently Dragon Ball Z paid homage to the title track on this album with the song "Solid State Scouter" as the theme song of the 1990 television special Dragon Ball Z: Bardock – The Father of Goku.

There used to be an AWESOME animated music video to this Takako Minekawa "Maxi On!" song on the early 2000s art collective website "Milky Elephant," which was one of my favorite websites in my 20s, but it's hard to find much from that site anymore. The video is occasionally uploaded to YouTube. It features the dreamlike world of a floating elephant-girl!

Requesting Solid State Scouter 👁️👁️

Solid State Scouter is legendary fire and so is Bardock himself. They gave him more depth in the Dragon Ball Super manga, Granola saga

And great Akira revealed Goku and Raditz's mother, Gine long ago!

I got knifes by the thousand / I’m coming to your house and / I’ll slice up all your veggies / make a nice stir-fry

(to be rapped over this song)

@TAndy - haha, I'll see what I can do! I got a lot more than 51 minutes of music queued up! I WISH I had a 4+ hour show today!

Some days you just need a Nimbus cloud.

@Ossy - haha, I love the name Granola Saga! Sounds like a breakfast odyssey!

Hi Rofflestomp!

Yes I’m millennial with the cutlery / Sell you 1000 knifes so you can cut with me

No pressure, Lizbot!

Hi George! - mmm, you are in my house...where is my promised stir-fry? I assume it will be on the table, warmed and awaiting me just as I get off air!

Hi Lizbot, good evening folks.

And be a Cocoa girl, Liz! https://i.pinimg.com/474x/29/76/3f/29763fb7930155c5b1a53350ceb97af7.jpg

If you want spaghetti w/ sauce, string beans and lupini beans like we had, I can make some more

This track right here 😳

@George - yOu got yr CutCo pitch all ready to go!

My girlfriend is back in the States from China and I have no idea what I had for dinner this last week, but string beans were involved at some point.

@George - eh, doesn't appeal to me as much as either stir-fry or a capricious salad a la Miharu Koshi

Ambrosia salad with porn snouts mmmmm

Pork. I'm keeping the typo.

Chop-chop-chop-chop!!

I feel like Neue Tanz in particular influenced the band Yello to make "Oh Yeah," which didn't come out 'til '85

@TAndy - haha!

@Rofflestomp - mmm, I have string beans downstairs, unless my husband finished them. His go-to Chinese take-out dish is string beans in brown sauce

There's a Wang Chung song that must have been influenced by this as well

Everyone always compares Yukihiro Takahashi's voice to Bryan Ferry, and I can definitely hear that, esp on this track, though at times he sounds more like Bowie

@DSM - likely

@TAndy - You will have to make a fantastical cookbook that includes Miharu Koshi's "capricious salad" and yr "Ambrosia salad with porn snouts"!

My capricious salad has clown parts and bad juju scattered throughout it

Thanks for this show!

"Revolting, it got everyone out of my house on Christmas so I could have the damn night to myself" - New York Times

are porn snouts similar to porn crumpets?

Absolutely do not EVER confuse the two, they are separate dishes. Putting porn crumpets in ambrosia will make the crumpets angry and you will have to put your knife set to good use

@DSM - One can only guess. I think the snouts are main course and the crumpets are more of an After Dinner treat...(get it? After Dinner (Haco's band we heard earlier tonight?...okay,i'll stop!)

Hello Jason! Thank you for tuning in!

@TAndy - haha, perfect review! Reminds me of that Chieftains song from their Christmas album "The Bells of Dublin," which is a holiday mainstay in my house, "St. Stephen's Day Murders" with Elvis Costello guesting on vocals (also written by him and Chieftains founder Paddy Moloney, who also died recently, in 2022.) In the song, the adults kick the kids outta the house by telling them to go hunt a wren on St. Stephen's Day (Dec 26th), which is an actual tradition in Ireland!

I'm guessing that song was made before the idea of a TV room to entertain the kids was a thing heheheh

That version of Daytripper is Slaytripper

@George - TRUTH

Expecting some Sadistic Mika Band.

@George - You are a truth-sayer and soothsayer

DTO - It's coming

@TAndy - Well it was the 80s, so that existed, but I think they wanted to preserve the time-honored, originally pagan, tradition of tormenting wrens in the name of parental peace and hangover recovery!

🙃

Anyone familiar with singer/pianist Yoeko Kurahashi? I find her utterly incomprehensible yet utterly fascinating.

Hi Ted! Thanks for listening! I see one album in the mid-90s from her but I am unfamiliar. I gotta check her out, sounds intriguing!

You got 'Yoko' from Discogs - this is 'Yoeko', started in 2000 and mysteriously retired in 2008

The suspense is killing me

@Ted - hmmm, yeah there are often misspellings and alternate spellings on Discogs, esp with International artists, so I was guessing the same person, but I will have to dig deeper for this Yoeko!

倉橋ヨエコ This will clear it up!

@DTO - You gotta enter a Time Machine, jump back to the past, and then jump ahead to 2 1/2 minutes from now and you will hear some Sadistic Mika

Thanks, Ted!

Saving the best for last? ☺️

BOT! 🤖

Hello jimbooo!

DTO is smashing tea cups rn

@DTO - I hope you just stepped outta yr time machine to 1974 for this track

SMASH ☕️

@DSM - ha!

🙏🏼

Thanks for this show Lizbot, twas fantastic! Thanks Yukihiro Takahashi!

This show has been fantastic!

Thanks, Jimboo!

Thx, DSM!

Thank you Lizbot!

Yeah what he said

Thanks, TAndy!

Thanks for hanging and listening, everyone!

This funk is monstrous 🧟

Ikr

Spectacular awesome very much, Liz!

Thanks for a great show! Over already.:(

Thanks for this tribute show, @Lizbot!

BCNU!

Thanks for listening, Rob!

Thanks OSsy!

Thanks number 6!

@jimboo - haha, true!

Thanks for listening DTO !

Hopefully see you all here next Thursday!

I hope no other artists I love die in the meantime!