Showing posts with label The Music Revolution Starts Here. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Music Revolution Starts Here. Show all posts

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Police Start Shooting Protestors in Spain w/Rubber Bullets- Still Not News in Japan

Astounding. The peaceful demonstrations in Spain are over. The people have begun beating people and shooting them with rubber bullets. As usual, Japanese news is eerily silent on the matter. What's going on here? 
THE CLASH - REVOLUTION ROCK
Google reports that the government has sent in police in Barcelona with truncheons and they are beating peaceful demonstrators and shooting them with rubber bullets. Google reports:


BARCELONA — Spanish police fired rubber bullets and swung truncheons to disperse anti-crisis protesters in a Barcelona square Friday as cleaning crews cleared their tent camp.
Catalan police in anti-riot gear moved in after about 50 protesters sat down on the street to block a convoy of cleaning trucks leaving the Plaza de Cataluna square with remnants of the encampment.
Police, some with plastic shields, were shown on television dragging protesters along the street and swiping with truncheons at activists, who had been chanting: "They shall not pass."

An AFP reporter at the scene saw rubber bullets fired.
The protest blockade was broken up within minutes but about 100 protesters regrouped in the square. They were surrounded by two police cordons blocking hundreds more people from entering from nearby roads.
Demonstrators chanted: "The people, united, will never be defeated!" and "No to violence!"
Cleaning crews with 10 lorries dismantled the last of the tents under police surveillance. Later, police left the square and let thousands of demonstrators flood in.
By the evening, at least 5,000 people were in the square protesting against the police intervention, some having put up tents. A dozen police vehicles were in streets leading to the square.
"What happened today was awful but it is a warning" for the country's leadership, said Ramon Deltran, 50, a psychiatrist.
I predict that this situation is going to seriously escalate and, like I wrote on May 21 in Massive Anti-Government Protests in Spain Spreading to Italy! No Mention at all in Japanese Press, the exact same thing is going on now! 
Ultimately, unemployment, taxes and austerity measures have caused these huge demonstrations that are, as one protester said, "... against the criminal behavior of the central bankers and IMF. Taking tax money from the people and giving it to rich bankers have finally made the people take to the streets...."

Yet, this news is nowhere to be found in the Japanese news services in English or in Japanese.

I predict that this demonstration in Spain will collapse the Spanish government.
There's no way unemployment or the situation with government debt, which will lead to higher taxes and more austerity measures in Spain is going to go away anytime soon, so these demonstrations are going to go on. The government, by taking a heavy hand are just escalating the situation. They are toast.
But, once again, not a word about it in the Japanese press! I checked both Yahoo! Japan and NHK and cannot find any mention of this news!
Here's a screen capture of NHK news site:
Quick translation from top to bottom:

Anti-Nuclear Demonstrations Prompting Closure of Nuke Plants



President Expected in Poland
Tourism promotion delegation sent to China
U.S. envoy continuing investigation of food shortages in North Korea 
Honda in Canada leaks personal information
The state of the last shuttle maintenance announced
"The strange quiet of territorial negotiations"
Syrian crackdown as police fire at protesters
Democratization and  assistance in the Middle East
Massive demonstrations protesting the army in Egypt
U.S. Secretary of State visits Pakistan

......Nothing about police shooting people with rubber bullets in Barcelona Spain. How about Yahoo! Japan?

Well, what do you know!? Yahoo! Japan does come through and has a story about Barcelona! (Marked in red)... Yippee... Er, well, not exactly about demonstrations and the police rousting people out like the Nazi Gestapo, but about how some soccer team from Barcelona won a soccer championship for the fourth time beating Manchester United..... .....Yawn!

Unemployment in Spain is the highest in the EU at over 21%, the entire country is about to go bankrupt and these stupid people care about who wins some professional sports title? Are you kidding me? Morons. 

Who was it that wrote something about "Bread and Circuses for the masses"

Thursday, July 29, 2010

George Williams: The Music Revolution Starts Here

By Mike in Tokyo Rogers

Yesterday, I had the chance to visit George Williams and check out his very cool studio in Tokyo where he records shows for his blog / video blog, "The Music Revolution Starts Here." What a fantastic and extremely cool set-up he has.

George Williams at the Yakult Swallows' Jingu Baseball stadium

At The Music Revolution Starts Here, George introduces many of his extremely famous Japanese musician friends and the site is totally Indie and underground music. It's way cool and there's nothing like it anywhere else in Japan. You can see this completely new and ground-breaking way to promote music and do your very own TV right here.

The reason why I mention George and his web site is that I think he is setting records for unique users to his site. Get this: The site started on July 15th. Yesterday was not quite 2 weeks and The Music Revolution Starts here web page has been averaging just over 1,100 visitors a day! That's incredible!

Of course George Williams is on TV and radio all the time but he is also a whiz-kid at utilizing Social Media to promote his work which is updated daily.

You can follow George's Twitter here (great place to study up on Japanese!): http://twitter.com/kungfugeorge
Pick here: http://naver.jp/kungfugeorge
Facebook here:

He's got a bunch of other Social Media and things he does like Mixi and others (search on YouTube and U-Stream) but those URL's escape me now (I'm sure you can find them all on Facebook or on his web site).

At his web site he has tabs for Music, English, Cooking, Variety and Schedule (I don't know exactly what that last one is all about!) and he records new content every night. Last night's show featured Japanese rock star Ken Lloyd from Oblivion Dust (they sold millions of records in Japan); and more recently, "Fake."

See pirated version's of Oblivion Dust on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rnzuhCs9vE&feature=related (parental warning on this one!)

Fake? "Just Like Billy": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNJfUyVByP4

(Check these out while you can cause they are not supposed to be there... The record label are real assholes!)

Ken Lloyd is very famous and popular with the girls and, of course, he - as well as all his friend's - are big fans of mine... Ken (bless his heart) constantly begs for my autograph.

George Williams' The Music Revolution Starts Here getting over 1,000 visitors a day (with many of the visits coming from Europe and Russia) has to be some kind of record for a new blog. Someone from Google confirm that for me, willya?

Anyhow, George Williams and The Music Revolution Starts Here are definitely happening!

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Keywords: Indie, Indie Music, George Williams, English, Cooking, Pick, Japan, Twitter, U-Stream, Variety, Schedule, Mixi, YouTube, The Music Revolution Starts Here, Oblivion Dust, Japanese, Ken Lloyd, Fake?, TV, Jingu, Yakult Swallows, underground music, Japanese rock star, Music, Social Media, Facebook, Record label, assholes, record label assholes

Friday, July 23, 2010

Using U-Stream to Promote Real Time Concerts

By Mike in Tokyo Rogers

The big summer concerts in Japan are having a hard time selling tickets... In fact, from what I hear (and I have excellent sources) ticket sales for Fuji Rock and Summer Sonic are dismal at best.

The word on the street is that ticket sales for any shows are bad but there is one ticket that is impossible to get as all four shows are completely sold out!

George Williams at GG10 July 21, 2010 (photo by Yoji Kawada)

Four four days this week, Music On! TV and host George Williams have held the 9th annual "GG" concert series this year at Shibuya Ax and this is the hottest ticket in Tokyo.

GG10, as this year's shows are called, have a logical, well-planned lineup (see line up here) - along with a crowd pleasing ticket price of ¥4,200 (about $45 USD). This blows Summer Sonic out of the water! Summer Sonic has a artist lineup that probably pleases no one (Who in the hell wants to pay ¥29,800 (about $320!) to see Offspring open for Jay-Z?)

On the other hand... It might be better than going to the other side of Japan and spending over ¥82,000 ($900 USD) to go see Fuji Schlock where a bunch of geriatric old folks relive the crap music of the late 60's and early 70's...

Not only did the Music on! TV folks do a superb job of lining up a killer roster of artists, they promoted the shows well and they were sold out long ago.

Eat your hearts out Creative Man and Smash!

On top of this, I was extremely impressed as to how George Williams used his own Internet media page, "The Music Revolution Starts Here" to promote the shows real-time and give us updates using Social Media such as, Pick, Twitter, blogs, YouTube, and U-Stream. See George's The Music Revolution Starts Here, er, to go to that page click this entire sentence....

So, while all of Japan withers in this economic slump, George Williams and Music On TV sell out four shows in a row... They used a great mix of old media and Internet to sell the tickets and the great line-up gave them killer credibility. Sorry, Summer Sonic, but no one wants to pay to see Taylor Swift open for Stevie Wonder... Jeez! What a lame-o line up!..

I wonder why companies like Creative Man don't understand the simple concept of "Credibility is hard to get. It is even harder to buy"?

On top of this, George Williams uses the Internet and Social Media to give the concert goers - as well as the unlucky folks -who wanted to get tickets but couldn't - a chance to see what's going on back stage! Wow!

That's not just cool... That's intelligent business!

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Keywords: The Music Revolution Starts Here, Tokyo, Pick, Twitter, U-Stream, Social Media, Summer Sonic, Music On! TV, Stevie Wonder, YouTube, blog, blogs, Internet, Japan, Taylor Swift, Jay-Z, Offspring, Fuji Rock

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Marketing Japan: George Williams Launches "The Music Revolution Starts Here"

By Mike in Tokyo Rogers


Besides being on of the hardest working and hottest media stars in Japan today, George Williams is a ground-breaking leader in new media in Japan. He blows away the others by simply getting off his rear, getting to it, and just plain "getting it!"


Today we have blogs, video blogs like U-Stream and Youtube; we also have tons of SNS and Social Media tools like Twitter, Pick, Facebook, Mixi (in Japan), Linkedin, etc. On top of this, Yahoo and Google keep coming out with new and fascinating ways to "wow!" us... (Not to mention Apple and their iPads and iPhones!) On top of all this... Just when you were thinking, "What are they going to do next to top this?" Along comes a guy out of nowhere and "wows!" the Internet with his own original and expressive ideas.

George Williams has single handedly raised the bar on Internet blogging, vlogging and internet multi- media with his new site called "The Music Revolution Starts Here" at wwwgeorgewilliams.jp.


You have just got to check this out!  "The Music Revolution Starts Here" and features George with many of his super star Japanese musician friends (like regular guest Koji Kurumatani or Yuhi from Hof Dylan, to name but a few) talking (and playing) music... Music that you cannot hear anywhere else in Japan.

Not only that, George's web site also has something for everybody! You want to learn how to cook? Sure! The site has that too (George's fans will know that George co-hosts a wildly popular cooking show with famous cookery writer Kurihara Harumi). George gives us a cooking lesson once a week.


How about free English lessons? Yep. Got that! George makes a weekly English lesson for you too! And, of course, there's tons of music videos to watch too!

But even if you miss the live broadcast of the music, cooking or English you can easily watch back issues with the mere click of a button! No need to record your favorite show! They record it for you!

The Music Revolution Starts Here was launched last night, July 19th, 2010 at 12 midnight, so it is still a work in progress, but looking at the site, you wouldn't know it. It looks like it's been running for a long time.

This sort of multi-media solution to Internet marketing, PR and promotion is being experimented with (on the fly) in the west, but, from my knowledge, George Williams is the very first person in Japan to delve head first into this exciting new media form...

I'm expecting even bigger and even more "Wow!" products and services from George Williams and his team in the future. But today, we George Williams and his The Music Revolution Starts Here and it is a gas!

...Of course, it's all FREE!

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For More on George Williams:

Go to George's: The Music Revolution Starts Here
Go to George's: Music On! TV "George's Garage"
Go to George's: NHK Your Japanese Kitchen
Go to George's: Tokyo FM "Docomo Love Family"
Go to George's: InterFM Bam!
George Williams on Wikipedia (Japanese / 日本語)

See George Williams' bio and contact here.

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Keywords:
Google, Tokyo FM, cooking, promotion, Harumi Kurihara, video blogs, music, InterFM, Internet, PR, Internet marketing, Youtube, Linkedin, blogs, SNS, George Williams, Bam!, The Music Revolution Starts Here, Hof Dylan, NHK Your Japanese Kitchen, Mixi, Social Media, Pick, iPhone, U-Stream, Japan, Music On! TV, Yahoo, Mike Rogers, Twitter, Apple, iPad, Docomo Love Family, English, Koji Kurumatani, Facebook, Mike in Tokyo Rogers, George's Garage, Yuhi, services, products
 
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