Enfants Terribles | Sound Messe Osaka 2026

 

MORAL CONSTIPATION the Short.  

The making of the music was discussed in the last Blog. It is all about the vocal meaning...

The comment on it from an old Jazz Muso colleague, TOM: 

"You're certainly moving in to a new era, with your music & lyrics fit. Well done!"

Which is as good as an old musical cartoonist can expect! 😎

Music is just a Hobby, and I am still so new to song writing, even if I sang in school.

Sound Messe Osaka 2026 

Out to ATC HALL today for the Messe, which is actually a Guitar Show. Acoustic/ Electric and Accessories  like pedals/ amps with a lot of artist performances on several stages and in some of the booths.  

I am not particularly interested in those performances and have no idea who most of the artists are. Seemed to me last year that many of the attendees where just there for the performances.  Or is that just where the most seats are to take a rest?

Cosplaying today as an oldman. 😁

I have ZERO interest in Acoustic Guitars and will not even walk through that part of the exhibit.  

It opens at 11AM, but I have to leave home at 9:30AM to get there by then as it is by the water at Osaka bay.  Reason to get there when it opens is to try and get one of the 35 tickets for the 3 guitarists gig in Shisaibashi's MUSIC BAR M from 7:30PM that evening. That was the deal in 2024 to get in. Maybe can just buy at the venue tonight? Not sure now...

That will make it a very long day for me. I expect to crash at my son's apartment for awhile between the Messe and Bar Show, if I get a ticket.  It is also expected to be 29°C, so a long hot day. Not sure I will last. 

People involved with metal guitarist TOKYO METAL CITY were promoting a bunch of his shirt and hat merchandise . I wasn't interested in getting any of that, but could have made a hat for myself at the same POD place. Like this:  

May do that for the next event, but I do have cards and stickers to give away. Having a hat would make identifying me a bit easier. Maybe that doesn't matter at all.

Just strange that way I guess... 😆

UPDATE: 2026/5/18 

Attended the event. Much good, but also some that isn't.

2 minutes of  what I went for:

The ELECTRIC GUITAR HALL is mostly the ceiling as Japan privacy means I don't want to show people in it. The noise is ridicules as people playing through amplifiers in the booths can't hear themselves, so it gets louder and louder.  Many "old style" guitarists need the volume to play and feel it.  Guitar/pedal booths need Amp sims and headphones, the same way it is in the PEDAL exhibit area, and the way the German Guitar Show did it this year. They put guitar amps in another location all together.

Fender/ Gibson don't bother with the show. They made their own stores, the way BOSE did to sell  their poor audio gear, so customers could not A/B compare to a better product next to it.

There are so many talented guitarists about! Guitar is also such a big thing in Japan.  

Seems to me, that Sound Messe is all about low quantity, quality handmade products.  Few well known names.  Almost COMIKET (self published comics) or WONDER FESTIVAL (models & garage kits) in scope. 

The highlight for me though was the event put on at MUSIC BAR M.  Brilliantly MC'ed by TOKYO METAL CITY with BABI (Mr. Ishida of Zanshin Instruments, Zanshin Records).

Kelly Simonz is awesome. He seems to be very influenced by Yngwie Malmsteen, and I don't know why I had never heard of him till attending last years Sound Messe Osaka. 

Luke came down with flu and blues playing Akihiro took his place at the last minute. 

TOKYO METAL CITY, as well as being the brilliant MC and interviewer finished the evening. His SANDBLASTER is in the video above.  But unfortunately, I had to leave to get home after only 2 of his tracks.  Seems the event finished over an hour after I left.  These kind of events aren't targeted at those near 70 and over with a long train ride home😂.  

I wish TOKYO METAL CITY all the best making his way on the path he has chosen.

I managed to give away a few of my stickers, and even got one in return from ZAKKsan, THE NEXT SOUND.

And after thinking about it for a day or so, these, THE HOT WATER TRADE:

And one in Japanese, お湯売:

Some exhibitors know what they are doing, actually trying to get customers to like them and have them try/ buy their  product.  BUT not all are like that and some musical instrument companies and staff are just Chimpira (チンピラ)🤬 . 

And, just to show how true that thought is, FENDER comes out attacking the Guitar Industry.

TIM PIERCE ( was an LA SESSION player) drawing the same conclusion as everyone else. FENDER is killing themselves in this legal attack, and showing their real problem is they don't make good guitars anymore...

In the late 1980s YAMAHA tried to stop even the originators of samplers from manufacturing and selling their systems. Showed me how really broken the patent system is.  YAMAHA would see a demo on an instrument, make a patent on the tech they saw with a trivial improvement,  then tried to use that to attack other manufactures.  

THE DX-7 was an amazing instrument back in the day, but aren't really relevant to anyone but fan boys and girls.

FREAK GUITAR LAB JAPAN

One of the main reasons for me to go to Sound Messe was to see how Mattias's Made in Japan guitars were going.  I had been interested in buying his Made in Sweden 7 string till I was told it was 900,000yen! 

Units closer to production were on display at Sound Messe Osaka May 2026.  I expect their release later this year.  I was told price to be around 380,000yen.  And they will not have True Temperament Frets as that would make them even more expensive.

In 2025 when I was looking at the first prototype (made by dragonfly) and thinking to myself "that body shape isn't cool", Mattias came up behind me and said, "we are working on making a better Super Strat Shape!" .  He read my mind.  

So they are a much nicer looking guitar now.  But that price is high and it doesn't have true temperament frets, even if the true temperament fret improvement is far too subtle for the way I play guitar to notice. 

What isn't mentioned much is true temperament are for STANDARD E tuning, but support down tuning all the strings.  Not going to help in Open G or C or whatever strange tunning you may want to try though. 

Seems to me they are marketing that to someone who would pay that because it is a low volume, limited edition, Mattias ( an awesome musician and great guy!) product, rather than buy a similarly spec'd Ibanez for 1/3 ~ 1/2  the price.  Japan does have lots of collectors. 

Note that Tokyo Metal City played a FREAK GUITAR LAB Made In Japan guitar during his set in the video above...

There is this thing though where you can judge someone's character from how they treat the waiters and waitresses and such people. Even possible customers.  If they aren't treated with respect, you know you can't trust them.   Something I don't forget...

My Best Pick

¥323,400 for the bottom fixed bridge, headless, multiscale, 7 string Strandberg, is "my pick" for current best guitar.  BUT, as a retired hobbyist synths & guitarist for 50 years, I still feel like a beginner that can't justify cost/ benefit of it🥴

Was a professional inventor/ designer/ programmer/ manager in the electronic musical instrument industry for 25 years (before changing to safety/ training/ medical things), but only ever an amateur musician. No one cares what I release.  Been a "pro" (as in getting paid) cartoonist for 25 years though, hence I feel more comfortable describing myself now as a Musical Cartoonist 😎.  The careful/ cheap Scotsman  in me I think 🤔

Enfants Terribles

Was out to Nakanoshima Museum Of Art for the Enfants Terribles exhibition of 3 local artists on Tuesday.  

It is Yanobe Kenji with his Space Cats, ATOM HEAD suit and such that was the attraction to me though.  Even got a 500yen SPACE CAT from a BANDAI Gashapon Machine outside the museum shop, rather than the  30cm tall Orange SPACE CAT artists figure of the 3m tall one that guards the outside of the Museum going for 49000yen! 

Was a nice warm fine day. This is the best time of year

Love the whimsical pop art ness of Kenji's work. 

It isn't that far out to Nakanoshima, and I only walked around for about 90 minutes total, but came home and slept for an hour or so, I was that tired.  This getting old and needing Grandpa naps is very true, and a concern for me. Managing my energy  seems to be getting more important as the weeks go by.

I can see how going out far just gets way too much trouble as you age. 

映像研には手を出すな！Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!

The bluray arrived and this was the first time for me to see that a US region disc would not play in a Japanese player, despite being "the same region".   So used a different player...

The interactions between the 3 main characters, each with a skill & a social disability,  PRODUCER, DIRECTOR/ CONCEPT ARTIST and ANIMATOR are utterly glorious.  

The issues are EXACTLY the same designing and building anything, and I have been all these rolls in my engineering career.  All real world issues discussed, but about Animation Production here.  

I can see why Elvis Costello, 3 years my senior, a musician, also loved it too. 

What a glorious thing Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! is. 

What Retired People Found

YouTube has shown me so many of these recently. I don't watch many, but found many of the same things myself.  

- Not having to go to an office and deal with problems and the people, and the commute is such a huge relief.  No performance reviews or dealing with arseholes. The stress from your life vanishes. 

- Looking inward, not money or promotion or those types of external goals, makes you release what is really important to you.  

- Sometimes not achieving anything at all in a day is great too.

- So much of the advice thrown out in the world has been by loud extraverts, that does not apply at all to the rest of us.  

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology  KYOTO JAPAN

Venus Photobombed: Home Studio Vocals

 

How quick the American Artemis II fly around the moon with a brilliant diverse crew of 4 is old news, and this is a very different take on it!

A variation of a previous track with the drums and rhythm guitar taken out and made more ambient I did about 4 weeks ago that I hadn't posted.

Started a new track, and used an earlier version in the music+comic on my JBASS with Wilde pickups

I then went back and am extending the track with lyrics. Up to version 5 now and still not happy with the lyrics and how it fits together.  

My Process:

I write some lyric. 

Sing it. 

Come back and sing it with more feeling. 

Listen to it on repeat for awhile, then decide I don't like some things in it. 

I change a part. 

Keep a line or 2 of the lyrics  and write some other lyric. 

Repeat until I am really sick of the track.  

All rather trial and error for me in this case, as I don't want it to be too much of a downer.  Making something more uplifting, but with criticism is hard.  The first few versions had "THE Moral Constipation", but removing THE makes it simpler and easier to follow what is being said. 

Been asking GEMINI AI for variations of lyric phrases I have written. I have used a word or 2 it suggests, but it generally goes in a different direction than I am after.  Is nice to have an assistant and someone to bounce stuff off, even if it makes me ignore its suggestions as it makes me come up with something more appropriate my self. 

I am just using the first microphone I ever bought now. An SM58 clone in a kit with a mic stand. A dynamic with a built in pop filter  that doesn't pick up any room tone in my tiny, 2 tatami mat, un-acoustically treated studio/ office. It doesn't pick up any sound that isn't directly in front of it. It is plugged into a Mackie 402VLZ4 mixer.

I triple tracked the vocals with COMPRESSOR -> EQ -> DE-ESSER chain plugins.  

EQ can make a significant difference in the sound.

Having the right mix of the backing tracks, at the right volumes is so important for being able to sing and get the pitch right and expression when recording. The vocal recording mix is NOTHING like the track mix!

I do have a "better" Audio Technica AT-2020 condenser microphone in a shock mount with pop filter and back absorption,  but I don't use it any more.  I found it ringy and resonant between 1~2 Khz with my voice, and it just picks up the room tone and noises, even if "brighter, open and airy" . 

So a "better" microphone doesn't always mean "better" under all situations.

The current, version 7.

Could the mix be better? No doubt.

The signing could have more emotion and have harmonies too, but for all of the 5 people that will hear it once, non of that matters. I just have to be happy enough with it myself.

Moral Constipation: AI, Environmental Issues. Politics. Racism. Fascism. Vaccines. Energy. The odd war or two. A long list of things filled with disinformation...

But, society and diplomacy needs "white" lies to function. The universal answer to the question:

 "Does my butt look big in this?" is "No! Darling you look wonderful".

It is now the state of the world that the majority of charities are now FOR PROFIT, where  maybe 10%  of donations end up with those needing it.  Most just ends up in the organizations executives pockets.

I had a manager that retired and his wife did too. She was skilled at administration/ accounting and thought she should help the world at a charity, so she contacted the most well known organizations. They all told her "we only need people out door knocking and getting donations", and when she discovered what was really going on...

Learnt of Chuffed dot org this morning, with a comment on a music post of mine about donate to save the children. Chuffed itself isn't even classified as a charity, but is involved in raising money. So same as Spotify?  I wonder how close their business model is to Spotify with their approach to paying musicians?  These places talk about $XX Millions paid out, but on what income, and on what %of income is that?  If there isn't any transparency, it may as well be a scam, and go find a place that is transparent and not mostly doing it for themselves.  

Other Things

Golden Week is over for many so I can start going out again. The crowding will be back to normal. The views of the short posted 8:30AM Saturday were really poor though, only a single digit.

Resident Alien came to Netflix May 1 and I am onto season 2 already. Alan makes the show.

Volume 19 of Five Star Stories will be released tomorrow, May 10. It has been going for 40 years. I am sure he must be sick of it by now. I know I would be.

Sound Messe Osaka is next weekend and I need to prebuy my ticket as it is all SMARTPHONE digital ticket entry this time. That is how the FREAK KITCHEN and ASTERSIM concerts were last year so I have been through the process.

Mattias IA Eklundh will not be here this year though, so I don't have a clinic to spend the day in. Not sure how long I can spend looking at guitar gear I don't need. The best thing about last year was the people I met, and that is the reason to go this year and hope I bump into them, and meet new folks (that maybe OI follow up on social media with).

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology  KYOTO JAPAN

COVERS MY WAY | GOLDEN WEEK Holidays

 

Golden Week is one of the long Japanese Holidays, that means I stay home to avoid the crowds. Make music + comics and consider doing something in one of our other hobbies.

Did this COVERS MY WAY  MUSIC+COMIC, reusing a music cover I used previously, this morning.  I don't do many covers, and consider the time better spent making something original, that I own and can do whatever I want with. 

But when I do "do" a cover, I don't try and copy the original very closely. A sound alike in my style is what I am after.  Metal guitar tones, power chords and monophonic lines is what I will do.

Not all think the way I do though.

I was reading something about customers playing popular riffs in a music shop and shop staff demanding it be played exactly like the original or not at all.  I guess with a lack of imagination like that, working in a music store is all they maybe able to manage  and may not move on to doing something striking themselves. 

I don't consider myself much of a musician though, and all I do is rather simple. Musical Cartoonist is apt. I do want to do original stuff though, and consider this STORY SHAPED BEATS to be one I like most recently.  

It has an unusual word salad approach to lyrics as well as the song structure itself and the arrangement of synths and heavy guitars.  I like it! 

I was watching a video The Problem with Music | The Aspiration Expectation.  

That video is a love letter to doing what you like to do and not worrying about what anyone else thinks, or even being good at it!  

I agree with everything he goes on about.  What is it about making music that many think, unlike for example building a spaceship model, you need to try and be making a living from it and your doing something wrong if you haven't joined all the composers organizations, created a record label, pay all the fees to register all the music you make and release it professionally?

Making this ALIENS: SULACO spaceship model here is also one of my other hobbies.   

It has been made with the proper tools, and painted with an Airbrush, and so looks pretty good. Still just a hobby though, even if done to an almost "professional level".

I even did this more pro original design for my own multi media productions. 

So, my own original music is probably some of the least professional stuff I do!

 

Expect the Bluray of Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! to arrive at the end of the week.  It is an award winning "kids" anime, and was interested to see Elis Costello write this in THE GUARDIAN about it after watching it with his son:

A Japanese series about three girls negotiating petty school bureaucracy to protect their anime club. Each girl balances a skill with a social burden: 

the first, painfully shy but brilliantly imaginative; 

the second, easy in her fame as teenage lifestyle-model; 

the third, a cynical and almost sinister presence, is the business brain and necessary politician. 

Each episode uses different layers of animation as the girls’ creations leap from the page into their life. The series in total is a tutorial about every component of film production, from storyboard to sound design. It also has a very cool theme song.

Elis Costello went on to collaborate with the duo in the Theme Song:

As used in Anime:

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology  KYOTO JAPAN

Musical Instrument Innovation

Music+Comic on Musical Instrument Innovations that haven’t really gone anywhere. This is just 3, but there are many others. Roger Linn’s LinnInstrument touch sensitive grid keyboard and  Lumatones isomorphic keyboard too. I am sure they have some ardent fans really into them, but a very niche product.

I was involved in the development of the A-50/80, the first Roland Polyphonic after-touch midi keyboard controllers. I learnt from that how conservative musicians are.  Polyphonic after-touch isn’t something that any body used then.  Roland didn’t bother with Polyphonic after-touch since.  It isn’t something pianists can use, and it is they that loved the A-80s heavy piano keyboard. 

The A-50 with the semi weighted keyboard, I think, was more appropriate to take advantage of a synthesizer that supported  Polyphonic after-touch, but few did.  

The JANKO Keyboard layout, even though invented around 1887, is new to me. It just addresses the issues of different keys need different finger arrangements for chords and scales. It is just a modification of the existing 12 keys in an octave key layout, which I see as an advantage. But if you already play the piano, it is irrelevant. I find the idea really interesting though.  But I also realize I only write in 2 different keys, and my stuff is mostly multiple monophonic lines and 2 note power chords. It was interesting to watch the Hans Zimmer documentary and hear him talk about that is what he does too. 

The keyboard keys can be arranged in different ways, but they just look different. Like this hex arrangement with 2 connected pads per note. This project has the cad and production files available.

Would such a keyboard inspire new things? I think it might…

Way back in 1984/1985 the firmware guy developing the SynthAxe firmware from the UK was in the Fairlight Instruments offices in Sydney for a week or so and I got to try the SynthAxe for all of 10 minutes. In that time, I couldn’t play it as it was just all too different from the technique I knew.  

If I had one that would probably have changed, but at 10,000 British pounds in 1985, that wasn’t going to happen, and they stopped manufacturing in 1988. Some 200 produced. I was never interested in any Roland guitar synthesizer.  

Other things

It is the GOLDEN WEEK holidays here. Being retired, that just means stay home more to avoid the crowds, but as the forecast is also mostly rain, I would be doing that anyway. 

I have yet to get to the Nakanoshima Art Museum, as I wasn’t up to it last Tuesday before Golden Week started. Just didn’t sleep at all the night before I was to go. So will get to it after the holidays are over now.

I have a few music playlists and DJ mixes I made that I listen to when out and about, and the one I play more than anything else is of my own music. Things from the Assorted Bits albums. I think it is because they have that mix of Sequencers/ Synths and Heavy Guitar I love. More so than John Carpenter Albums.  

Band MISEX guitarist Kevin Stanton and keyboardist Murray Burns did the Beyond 2000 music in the 1980s. I always loved that and this must still be a significant influence on me still:

That makes me realize how rewarding making those bits of music have been. Make the music you want to hear. Make the Art you want to see. Make the comics you want to read. Write the articles you want to read. I can hear my music on repeat a lot and not get sick of it. I don’t go back and look at my other art often at all though. 

All just a grandfather entertaining myself with his hobbies. No professional musician, and consider what I do compositionally very unsophisticated, but I like that. I like many of my MUSIC+COMICS too when they actually say something.  

But how many more similar to what I have already done do I want to do?  I ask my self that often recently.

In the last 6+ years since coming back to Japan as a retired old guy, I have spent each year or so doing “a project” pretty constantly, while doing background tasks like Japanese study, studying/reading manga and recording my own music.  Been so busy I don’t know how I ever had time for a fulltime job.

Been thinking I should do another multi-page comic project. I am most interested in NON-FICTION stories. A mix of TOPGEAR and AMERICAN SPLENDOR isn’t far off.  It has to be a subject that means something to me. I can reuse existing characters, as I know how they talk and think already, and maybe add some new ones too? 

But on what theme?

It hasn’t come to me yet. Really don’t need to rush, and something will eventually.

It is May 1st as I write this. 2026 will be half over in no time. Wife and I are in our late 60s now. Just chatting earlier about how we spent 19 years in Australia, and that time went past in the blink of an eye. We may have about the same years left, maybe more, maybe less  ourselves and that will go in a flash too.  That makes you think...

The thing have to be so careful about now is the energy I have each day. Conserving that each day to get the most out of a day isn't something I considered when younger.

Really heavy rain so far today, so putting this up now rather than tomorrow. I want to go out for a walk to clear my head and think and will do that early tomorrow instead of posting this.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology  KYOTO JAPAN

Looking Out The Window

 

Short version of this track and comic, as that seems to be what the algorithm demands and at 49 seconds is still way more than the 18 seconds "best duration".  Just hate all that short attention span is king stuff.

Just wanted to make the vocal sound a significant part in this. Even if the lyrics don't say as much as they could, I wanted to not make it negative. An uplifting vocal sound helps, I think. I should have done more than one take on the melodic guitar, as it is just the default thing I seem to do without thinking at the moment, and it could have been a bit different, even though I love the sound and ending on a high note.

So much happening out in the world that I have no control over. Natural and man made disasters, but also the beauty of Cherry Blossoms.  Not all bad, but it is way too easy to be all negative and be taken down by the News Media that thrives on it.  Hate that current US Administration actions have such a big impact on the us in the rest of the world with their PROJECT 2025 in full swing. The Christian Nationals/ Evangelicals behind that, reject Jesus's teachings on helping the poor and down trodden, calling all that stuff WOKE and BAD, seem to be actually some type of OLD TESTIMENT Jewish Authoritarian cult focused on Israel.  

Project Hail Mary was such a breath of fresh air for not being a downer. 

And YouTube Analytics for the first 37 minutes shows the SHORT's tap being algorithmically turned off after 30 minutes. To never be exposed to the world again...

Other Things

Finished Lucifer. Loved the jokes and musical numbers in this series. Not impressed with how a main character was treated in the final episode, and wonder why writers would do that to a beloved character, but loved the whole series.  Never saw SMALLVILLE and so didn’t get the jokes in Lucifer related to that main actor having a significant part in Lucifer.

QUEENS GAMBIT is fascinating. It is a fictional story about a chess prodigy, based on a 1983 American novel by Walter Tevis, but Netflix did get sued by a lady chess champion. 

Truth stranger then fiction probably, and the cost of a gift.  THE NEW YORKER said "the most satisfying show on television".  One of them, I would say.

Interesting to me the Chica Umino MARCH COMES IN LIKE A LION manga since 2007, has a young orphaned boy Shogi prodigy with problems and also has much on masters Shogi games as well. 

Nakanoshima Art Museum has an event starting today I will probably visit next Tuesday (as it is closed Monday unless a public holiday), and should be a fine day.  The works of 3 modern artists,

Yanobe Kenji and his SPACE CATS being the one I became interested in a couple of years ago after seeing his SPACE CAT guardian out front of the Museum.

I go to such exhibitions to be inspired for my own art creation in some way. 

SOUND MESSE in Osaka will be different this year without Mattias IA Eklundh there, but know other attending there now anyway.  I will be going on the Saturday May 16th, which has a chance of being less crowded than a Sunday here.  Will take ear protection this time. The electric guitar room was so loud in the afternoon with all booths trying to be heard over all the others. 

Heard there will be some event organized by Kogalashi Sound Magic for the Saturday night, probably downtown Osaka, but yet to hear what it will be. Not sure I care to go to a  M響 (M HIBIKI,  M ECHO,  that is a group jam), which is what Tokyo Metal City (東京メタルシティ) seems to regularly do.    Will see. 

Tokyo Metal City  made a joke post on X about the difference between ROCK and METAL where "metal doesn't have a vibe trying to be popular, and has dragons".  So I added a comment:

Recently found out about  映像研には手を出すな  ( Eizōken ni wa Te o Dasu na! Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! )  and ordered the Bluray. Three school girls wanting to make an animated film as a school activity club.  Reminds me a bit of the look of Chibi Maruko Chan, but it is said to be a master class in all aspects of animation production.  

I have no interest in doing real animation though, far too time consuming even using MOHO, but maybe help inspire me in the direction to go with another multipage COMIC, or something. 

After doing my Heavy Metal Garage and In The Next Dimension I have had no drive or idea on another comic. Will this change I wonder?

And in the good news department, it seems that I am finally recovered from all the small medical procedures I started in January.  😊  So I don't have to worry about the WAITING ROOM BLITZ of getting an online reservation number at EXACTLY 8:30AM and rushing off to Shijo Station Kyoto any time soon again, OR the almost 2,000yen return train costs OR the discomfort of the procedures.  

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology  KYOTO JAPAN