Onban Kikou - Vol. 1 Ch. 3 - The Staggs Invasion

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Oh yeah, the rooftop performance is somewhat reminiscent of the Beatles ones, I guess? In interviews there's also some more background regarding these stories. Like when asked about this one, he talks about the Philippines being one of the countries where American (US) influence is more prominent which has made its even into music, while still being different. Like the way countries such as Japan are inspired by foreign music but there develops in a different way from the way it did in the original country. In that there's a difference between American and Japanese blues when it comes to the culture and how it ties to it, and what themes are prevalent and all that. That is sort of the story behind making this one. It's interesting stuff, I'll link the interviews in the general comment section of the manga. As I recall, all the plot stuff that gets mentioned is from the first three chapters or so.

It's also fun looking up the covers that have text in them. This one's on page 189.
 
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The Staggs seem to be a generalized late '60's band - the fashion is kind of all over the place. But I see now why the author decided to make up a group rather than using an existing one!

I have seen a couple of Eastern bootlegs of various types at the local shop - I suspect most I see here in the Midwestern US came from US GI's that were in Vietnam or stationed in Japan in the '70's, based on the jackets. They tend to be rather poor quality printing compared to the official releases, and the sound quality also always suffers. In some cases, multiple releases were grouped together - somewhere the shop has a 'Golden Hits of 1973' box set that's got a good bit of Japanese copy on the sleeves for the 10 included albums.

The style of guitar she has is called a 'Franken-strat' in some circles - there are no shortage of those floating around today that have been built with both authentic Fender parts and others. From the headstocks, both guitarists for the Staggs use Gibsons - the blond uses a hollow-body of some sort (maybe an ES 335?), while the dark-haired one uses a Les Paul. The bass player has a Fender Precision. The reel-to-reel tape machine recording during their playing looks legit (though where are the microphones?), but I'm puzzled by the wise hermit playing the tape back in the car in this era - that must have set him back a few bucks.

Thanks for the chapter, and the notes!
 
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Great chapter. So this author too is a fan of Tsuruta Kenji? Let us suffer silently together.
 
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I have seen a couple of Eastern bootlegs of various types at the local shop - I suspect most I see here in the Midwestern US came from US GI's that were in Vietnam or stationed in Japan in the '70's, based on the jackets. They tend to be rather poor quality printing compared to the official releases, and the sound quality also always suffers. In some cases, multiple releases were grouped together - somewhere the shop has a 'Golden Hits of 1973' box set that's got a good bit of Japanese copy on the sleeves for the 10 included albums.

The style of guitar she has is called a 'Franken-strat' in some circles - there are no shortage of those floating around today that have been built with both authentic Fender parts and others. From the headstocks, both guitarists for the Staggs use Gibsons - the blond uses a hollow-body of some sort (maybe an ES 335?), while the dark-haired one uses a Les Paul. The bass player has a Fender Precision. The reel-to-reel tape machine recording during their playing looks legit (though where are the microphones?), but I'm puzzled by the wise hermit playing the tape back in the car in this era - that must have set him back a few bucks.
Really interesting, thank you! Other than there being a Fender poster in the cover page, I didn't think to look into the guitar stuff (not like I would've known anyway). And coincidentally, the final chapter in volume 2 is set in postwar Japan and is about a couple into foreign music who can mostly get their records from the "black market", which consists mainly of old things pawned by American GIs from the military bases there. It's at the same time where the jump from 78rpm to LPs is made, so it also shows the advances in duration, materials and everything. Can't wait to get there too.
 

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