Vault 35

I am listening to Tomoyasu Hotei cover an instrumental from Vangelis' Bladerunner soundtrack. It is part of a new DVD my wife picked up in Japan along with our new region 2 DVD player. I believe Hotei is once again in the Budokan on this one and he covers instrumentals from a variety of composers. Tomoyasu Hotei is the most successful rock star Japan has ever produced. He has a dedicated following lasting almost 30 years--definitely not a product of the idol system. This guy is the real thing. He is a master guitarist on the same level as David Gilmour of Pink Floyd, Carlos Santana, and Eddie Van Halen. He has a sting of some ten or more albums that are platinum sellers in Asia and Europe. His work can be heard in the American film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. He performs some of the instumental guitar solos during some of the hallucination scenes. He also writes and sings all of his own lyrics. His voice and style are not at all like those of so many contemporary girly-boy Japanese pop stars. Hotei's voice is low and dirty and aggressive and his guitar playing is amazingly tight--and he isn't physically pretty either. In fact, his face is sometimes downright scary--pitted with acne scars and and mad as hell. His live shows can be absolutely maniacal one second and romantically sensitive the next. He attacks every topic and issue the idol girly-boys are afraid to touch. He is often at war with the Japanese news media and he wins every time because he is a no BS rock hero.