Cinebeats & Let's Go J-Sound!

Websites of the Month (Nov. 2007)

Don't know how I stumbled across 'em, but these two sites are awesome and they just happen to be related:


http://jsound.blogsome.com/
"Adventures in Japanese Sound"


www.cinebeats.com
"Chronicling one woman's love affair with '60s & '70s cinema"

Call it a case of Hipster Boy meets Hipster Girl in San Francisco, where they share a love with all things related to Japanese film and music. Here's how the couple (pictured below) describe it on the Let's Go J-Sound website:

"In 1991 a guy (aka T3rtium Quid) and a girl (aka cinebeats) met and fell head-over-heels for each other. They spent much of their time from that day forward hanging out in San Francisco’s Japan Town and encouraging each other’s interest in things like Japanese music, movies, toys and food. This blog is a result of their 15 year relationship and their mutual love of music. You’ll find nothing but songs, videos and other various music related bits here. We hope you’ll enjoy exploring J-Sounds with a guy, his girl and their music collection."

Sounding Off
I knew I was in for something good when the first posting that greeted me on Let's Go J-Sound! was "The Face of Bibari Maeda." I had recently seen Hiroshi Teshigahara’s 1966 masterpiece Tanin no Kao (The Face of Another), which is part of Criterion's Three Films by Hiroshi Teshigahara DVD box set, and among the film's many weird scenes was a bar scene in which a Japanese woman sang a German drinking song. Well, it turns out this woman was none other than...Bibari Maeda (pictured at right)! And here was a whole article about her. She was apparently a halvsie - Japanese mother, American father - born in Canberra, Australia but raised in Kamakura, Japan. Though principally a singer, she had bit roles in films. Besides The Face of Another, she also appeared in Son of Godzilla (1967) and did voice work for the anime film Vampire Hunter D - Bloodlust.

J-Sounds Flickr Sets
But that's not all. Be sure to check out the Let's Go J-Sounds! Flickr link, too, because it's the best collection of '60s and '70s Japanese pop music pix you'll ever see, as witnessed in the sample below.


Sonny Chiba with The Peanuts

Beat Girl
Kimberly Lindbergs (below) is the auteur behind Cinebeats, "confessions of a cinephile."



For more on Ms. Kimberly, see the interview Detour Magazine conducted with her: "Meet and Greet: Cinebeats."

She told Detour Magazine that the name of her blog came about thusly: "The name Cinebeats sort of just came to me one night when I was watching Paul Naschy’s film Panic Beats. I love movies (Cine) and movie soundtracks (Beats), plus I’ve always liked old crime movies featuring wisecracking reporters who are “on the beat,” so I suppose I got some inspiration from old slang as well."

Her favorite films checklist includes Le Samourai (1967); Performance(1970); Contempt (1963); La Dolce Vita (1960); Hiroshima mon amour (1959); Blowup (1966); Danger Diabolik (1968); Modesty Blaise (1966); High and Low (1963); The Tenant (1976); The Innocents (1961); Youth of the Beast (1963); Blood and Roses (1960); The Brides of Dracula (1960); If…. (1968); 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968); Black Lizard (1968); The Face of Another (1966); The Collector (1965); The Italian Job (1969); Venus in Furs (1969); The 10th Victim (1965); The Misfits (1961); The Frightened Woman (1969); The Devils (1971); Jewel Thief (1967); and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966).

And she apparently loves Pizzicato Five (my fave Japanese group), so that makes her OK in my book - 'nuff said!

The first thing I saw on her site was her "DVD of the Week" review of the 1976 Japanese "roman porno" Tattooed Flower Vase, which I just seen on the shelves at Baltimore's best video store, Video Americain. This was a good sign, as it gave me all the info I needed to rent the film.

Cinebeats on Flickr
Be sure to check out the Cinebeats Flickr page, which has an impressive, high-res display of '60s and '70s movie posters, eiga, fashion, hairstyles, and Spanish macabro movie images.

And the Beat Goes On...
Kimberly also has a very snazzy looking MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/cinebeats

But there is so much more to be seen and heard and marveled at on these two sites than my prattling prose can convey. Like the beautiful images that accompany the informed text, the links to other cool film and music sites and blogs, etc. So stop reading this and go there. Now!