electric samurai

the other day i saw a rerun of jon stewart that featured a bit involving a guy from the gadget-lust blog gizmodo (linked at right). which really is a clickable wonderland of techie toys ... such as this item about the forthcoming rock tamashii air-guitar pick. there are four varieties, and each plays a different pair of classic rock tunes -- the better to help you hone your invisible technique.

the choices are:

* aerosmith's "walk this way" and tomoyasu hotei's "banbiina"

* the stones' "satisfaction" and deep purple's "highway star"

* lenny kravitz's "are you gonna go my way" and t-rex's "20th century boy"

* jet's "are you gonna be my girl" and green day's "american idiot"

they are cool-looking little things. this is the t-rex one:



these pairings, however, seem somewhat random to me, a non-guitarist, but then ... who even knows what tomoyasu hotei's "banbiina" sounds like? well, actually, a whole lotta japanese fans, apparently. now, there's an interesting pop star (pictured above in a sort of neo-mod stylee, but he seems to have many guises, or perhaps just many phases, as he's been around a long time). at six-foot-three, he's like the japanese marilyn manson, without the makeup and other unnatural appliances. his song "battle without honor or humanity" is in transformers, and it was also in kill bill. in fact he's played/worked with a lot of musicians from around the world, from ofra haza to david bowie to hugh cornwall of the stranglers and many more. he even covered john lennon's "happy xmas (war is over)" for some holiday-axegrinder album also featuring jeff beck and joe perry. (and i nicked the title of one of his many, many albums for this blog entry title.) which makes him quite a well-rounded fellow, doesn't it?