Remember those old VHS video tapes that everybody had back in the eighties? Well, now some of those old VHS video tapes might be worth a bunch of money! That’s right! Some VHS tapes have now become valuable and collectable antiques selling for several thousand dollars!
What’s the Bad News?
The Bad News is that you or your mom or wife, or dumb boyfriend, dumped boxes of them into the garbage years ago… And you said, “OK!”
Arrrrrgggghhhhh!
Now, antique and collectable professionals and experts say that those VHS tapes are joining the ranks of vinyl records as valuable and rare collectibles and some of them have been getting sold for over ¥1,230,000! (That’s over $10,000 (USD)).
Arrrrrrgggghhhh! Again!
As the years went by and DVD’s became popular, VHS tapes have disappeared from the average household. Add to that the big retail chains going bankrupt and you have a massive amount of VHS tapes being dumped and ruined in land fills.
But VHS cassettes and boxes that are still in good shape can demand high prices. They have been gone and out of our existence for just long enough to inspire nostalgia.
David Jinks, a famous international collector of goods and antiques, said: ‘It’s time to learn the lesson of vinyl. Many old LPs and singles are now worth huge amounts of money.”
I once saw David Bowie’s “Man Who Sold the World” (The Orange Jacket) selling for over ¥4 million yen (That’s about $40,000 (USD)) at a store in Shinjuku! Today, some VHS video tapes are considered just as collectable as original records.
Even now, sometimes you can see piles of old VHS tapes being thrown out. There are probably few items more unwanted at the moment than old VHS video tapes. Many people probably have a boxful in the basement and they, of course, don’t have a working VHS machine (who does?)
Did you know that charity stores like Goodwill or Salvation Army and other second hand stores won’t even take the VHS tapes and machines for free? because nobody wants them!
But it is because they are being thrown out in the trash that they have become valuable.
Uh, you wouldn’t, by any chance have any old Betamax tapes or a Betamax player, would you?
They definitely will become expensive collectables in the future too… The question is, “Where we going to store all this stuff?”
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At Robot55 (ロボット・ゴー・ゴー) we make video productions for businesses and services and products, but we also pride ourselves on making videos for art and music. Our starting price is ¥70,000 and we are sure we can work out something that fits your budget. Oh, and we love making band videos too! Contact us! contact@robot55.jp
Kaijū is a Japanese word that literally translates to “monster,” and is used to refer to a genre of tokusatsu entertainment. Kaiju films usually showcase monsters of any form, usually attacking a major Japanese city or engaging another (or multiple) monster(s) in battle. Related terms include kaijū eiga, a film featuring giant monsters or a single monster; kaijin (referring to roughly humanoid monsters); and daikaiju (giant kaiju), specifically meaning the larger variety of monsters. Godzilla is an example of a daikaiju; others include Gamera, Mothra, Rodan, King Ghidorah, Mechagodzilla and Daimajin. The term ultra-kaiju is longhand for kaiju in the Ultra Series. Toho has produced a variety of Kaiju films over the years (many that featured Godzilla and Mothra) but other Japanese studios contributed to expanding the genre in Japan by producing Kaiju films and shows of their own.
Now you know the history, here’s a few of my early favorites.
Finally, today’s throw-away film. This is the missing link between the 1933 King Kong film and the 1954 Godzillafilm. Sorry I don’t have a trailer for this. This is the only remaining bits from that film.
At Robot55 we make video productions for businesses and services and products, but we also pride ourselves on making videos for art and music. Our starting price is ¥70,000 and we are sure we can work out something that fits your budget. Oh, and we love making band videos too! Contact us! contact@robot55.jp
There’s been so very many Japanese Concept Cars through the years that have never made it into production. I think they are the coolest designs. Here are a few selcted videos from the fabulous and crazy, Science Fiction universe of Japanese concept cars. Since the 1950s, all Japanese car manufacturers have been testing and designing cars that, if you saw them on the road, you’d think that it was something out of a Hollywood movie! Some of these designs are out of this world and full of imagination!
I’ve searched the internet and found some short videos of a few of my favorites. So if you like Science Fiction, and you like cars! Then this is a short trip for you!
If you want to see more, I’ll try to find more next week and present them for you. If you just want to see still photos (not as fun as some of these videos, I think) then check out: Japanese Concept Cars (www.japanese-concept-cars.com/category/lexus-concept-cars/).
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At Robot55 we make video productions for businesses and services and products, but we also pride ourselves on making videos for art and music. Our starting price is ¥70,000 and we are sure we can work out something that fits your budget. Oh, and we love making band videos too! Contact us! contact@robot55.jp
Well, folks, last night, the first episode of “Ninja Slayer From Animation” aired. Along with it, “The TV Show” had its debut.
ロボット・ゴー・ゴー, 格安, ビデオ制作, ビデオ編集,
I reckon I should give you a short report of the results. Well, according to the chief producer, the results were great. He said that more than 1/2 of the viewer remarks were negative and critical of the animation. That’s bad! No, that’s good, actually. Hundreds of thousands of comments were made and the worst thing that could happen is if people didn’t care enough to comment. You know what they say, “Love and Hate are two sides of the same coin.”
He also informed me that during the program, the topic that was #1 on the “Now trending” charts at Twitter was Ninja Slayer. It gets better! Not just #1, but Ninja Slayer From Animation related topics also were trending at #2, #3 and #4 at the same time! So, it’s kind of like the Beatles in the sixties when they had the Top 5 slots on the Billboard Pop Charts!
Ninja Slayer From Animation held the top 1 ~ 4 slots all at the same time! Wow!
Immediately after Ninja Slayer from Animation aired, the segment called, “The TV Show” aired. The TV Show is a short variety program that I created, wrote and produced along with Ken Nishikawa and Motoyoshi Tai.
“The TV Show” (ザ・TVショウ）features interviews with the musicians that make the theme music for Ninja Slayer from Animation. As far as “The TV Show” is concerned, the reaction was very good again! More than 50% of the comments were negative with many commentators saying they didn’t know who the artists were and they couldn’t figure out what “The TV Show” was all about.
I am very happy about that.
The TV Show is supposed to be a sort of “flow of consciousness.” We created it to intentionally make the viewer think, “What the heck is this?” The first time I watched Monty Python’s Flying Circus, in the mid 1970s, I thought, “What the heck is this?” I didn’t realize for the first 15 or 20 minutes that it was a comedy show. Duh! When I finally figured that out, I was hooked for life.
Here’s the trailer for the TV Show:
Unsurprisingly (at least to me) was the audience reaction to Mina Shirakawa, our co-host. She’s “Japan’s Sexiest Japanese Girl!” (I just made that up! Pretty funny, eh? Get it? “Japan’s Sexiest Japanese Girl”?! Ha! Ha! Ha! She is too!) That’s her in the bikini at the top of this page. She hit it big time on last night’s show. The viewer reaction was massive and they just loved her voluptuous, er,… boobs…er, boos….Boots! Yeah! Boots! That’s it!
They loved her boots!
You can watch next week’s episode on April 23, 2015 at 11 pm Japan Time on Niconico Douga for free (check your local time!) Here is the link to watch it: http://live.nicovideo.jp/watch/lv212629769
Of course, you can check back here for more photos and videos of Mina Shirakawa in the coming weeks!
And thanks so much to all of you for watching our program. We appreciate it!
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At Robot55 we make video productions for businesses and services and products, but we also pride ourselves on making videos for art and music. Our starting price is ¥70,000 and we are sure we can work out something that fits your budget. Oh, and we love making band videos too! Contact us! contact@robot55.jp
“I’ve always said, I thought the Sex Pistols was more Music Hall than anything else – because I think that really, more truths are said in humour than any other form.” – John Lydon (lead vocalist of the Sex Pistols)
“The Sex Pistols was a part of my life. Just a small part.” – Steve Jones (guitarist of the Sex Pistols)
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This is a story (mostly my very stretched imagination) about how a band named the Sex Pistols really affected my life, and still does, to this day.
It was mid-1977. I was a college student. I had very long hair. Just like all the other guys did.
The FM radio was filled with lame rock bands like the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Foreigner and Journey or disco music. Real rock and roll was long gone; Kiss and Aerosmith started doing ballads. I thought it should be against the law for heavy metal bands to do ballads. It sucked.
In my car, I had a dozen cassette tapes. Ten of them were David Bowie and the other two were T-Rex. I couldn’t really stand listening to anything else. Except a few radio shows I really liked. (I wrote about some of those shows here: The White Stripes Jack White and Me (A True Story) (robot55.jp/blog/jack-white-and-me-a-true-story/)
One day, bored (and stoned) as usual, I came home from college. And turned on the TV. There I saw a news report about a sick new rock and roll craze that was sweeping England; it was the punk rock craze.
It was freaky: kids with short spiky orange colored hair and girls and guys holding dog leashes and collars on their boyfriends and girlfriends – who dressed in similar black leather attire with a tinge of fashionable Nazi regalia.
I thought it was way cool.
As the announcer kept telling the viewers that this was a “sick and twisted trend” in UK music, I watched and thought, “This is great!”
Later I would go to the local record shop and ask for “Punk Rock.” The clerk, with a confused face, scowled and looked at me and said, “What’s that?” I told him it was a new kind of music that was popular in England and he pointed me to the import section. I didn’t know what I was looking for exactly; I only knew these people had short and messy hair. I filed through the imports and then came upon the Damned’s first album (the one where pumpkin pie is smeared all over their faces.) I turned the album over and look at the back and saw some of the guys I had seen on TV: One was dressed as Dracula, another was wearing a waitresses uniform.
This is it! I bought the record and took it home. From the first listen, I was hooked!
On November 1st, 1977, I went to Tower Records on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood and bought the first Sex Pistols album. November 1st is my birthday! What a great birthday present! I liked the Sex Pistols even more than the Damned!
I became a hard core punk rock fan. From then on, that’s all I listened to. I would go on to be a member in a one-hit wonder punk band and that was a turning point in my life.
To make a long story short, Punk Rock had changed my life and it set me up (for good or bad) as a person who wants to have fun doing what I like and to generally reject mass-consumerism and Pop-Music.
Fast forward many years later and, in 1996, the Sex Pistols who had broken up in 1977, had reunited and came to Japan. I had a chance (invitation) to go see them and perhaps interview them, but I didn’t. Just like my band, the punk movement of 1977 ~ 1980 was a great memory. I wanted to keep it that way. I wasn’t interested in seeing my past heroes as middle-aged fat punks.
I guess I should have gone, though.
A few years ago, Glen Matlock, the original bass guitarist for the Sex Pistols would come and tour Japan. He came to my radio station. I did go meet him then. I took my photo with him. See?
Glen Matlock and Mike Rogers in Tokyo. Feb. 4, 2014
I asked Glen Matlock that same day if he would allow us to make a promo video for his song, “Yeah Right.” He said, “OK!” So, with no planning and no pre-shooting planning meeting at the show, we shot this video. It was made taking video at his rehearsal and then shots of the live performance:
It was great fun and I’m glad I got to finally meet one of my heroes, Glen Matlock. Making his video was a dream come true.
Several months after that, famous photographer Sheila Rock came to Japan. Sheila Rock was the wife of famous music photographer, Chris Rock, and Sheila spent her youth taking photos of early UK punk greats like Generation X, the Clash and the Sex Pistols. Even though Johnny Rotten didn’t attend her event, I did, and I sat and talked with her and she even took my photo for me! I wrote about that in Sex Pistols, Clash, Gen X, Sheila Rock and Why We Sometimes Make Videos for Free! (robot55.jp/blog/sex-pistols-clash-gen-x-sheila-rock-and-why-we-sometimes-make-videos-for-free/) I think there’s a photo of me taken by the famous Sheila rock at that link, so please check it out.
Like I said, the Sex Pistols have greatly influenced my life even to this very day!
They taught me that it’s OK to be an individual and to not follow the crowds. They also taught me that in life, sometimes hype is bigger than reality.
I’ve used that idea and concept all my life since then. It has helped me greatly all my life.
Steve Jones said (quote at the top of this page): “The Sex Pistols was a part of my life. Just a small part.”
But, for me, the Sex Pistols were, and still are, a big part of my life.
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Actually, if you want to read a really true story of how I made successful ventures into the music business in Japan, by using ideas – hype and marketing techniques I learned from the Sex Pistols, please refer to: My Very Own Rock & Roll Swindle! How I Scammed the Music Business in Japan! (modernmarketingjapan.blogspot.jp/2012/04/my-very-own-rock-roll-swindle-how-i.html)
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At Robot55 we make video productions for businesses and services and products, but we also pride ourselves on making videos for art and music. Our starting price is ¥70,000 and we are sure we can work out something that fits your budget. Oh, and we love making band videos too! Contact us! contact@robot55.jp
Time once again for this week’s Top 3 New Artist Videos for the week of April 14, 2015. This week I want to show you my fave videos for the week. Of course, I play these artists and these songs on my regular weekly FM radio show, “What the Funday” on InterFM that is broadcast in Tokyo and Nagoya (and all over Japan on the Radiko.jp network. You can listen to that (if you are in Japan) here: http://radiko.jp/).
First up today is a band from Sheffield, England named, “Slow Down Tallahassee.” Slow Down Tallahassee are Nicola Coleman (vocals, harp, keyboards, bass), Claire Hill (vocals, keyboards, guitar, bass) and Richard Butterworth (guitar). They released their debut single in 2007 and it was entitled, “So Much For Love.” In 2008, they this fabulous single entitled, “The Beautiful Light” from the album of the same name.
But there, the trail goes cold. I can’t find any information about this band after 2011 so the trail has gone cold. But today’s track is too delicious to miss!
At #2 this week is Surfer Blood. Surfer Blood is an alternative rock band from West Palm Beach, Florida. Now they are independent, but used to be signed to Warner Bros. Records. The band has 4 members: John Paul Pitts (lead vocals/guitar), Thomas Fekete (guitar/backing vocals), Kevin Williams (bass guitar/backing vocals) and Tyler Schwarz (drums). The band was originally called Jabroni Sandwich.
Surfer Blood announced their 3rd album “1000 Palms” and that it would be released on May 12th, 2015. So we will be playing stuff from that for you for sure. But, until then, enjoy!
Next up, if you are twisted, you are gonna dig this. Baby Strange is a band from Glasgow that combine the classic punk rock of Ramones with Jesus and the Mary Chain and a surf guitar rock drive into killer tunes. They represent the forefront of a wave of great, fuzzed out and totally rocking guitar bands who who storm the charts… That is if the radio dares to play them. Which they won’t.
But we do here and on our radio show. This is awesome! The video is delightfully cheap and crappy! It’s perfect!
At Robot55 we make video productions for businesses and services and products, but we also pride ourselves on making videos for art and music. Our starting price is ¥70,000 and we are sure we can work out something that fits your budget. Oh, and we love making band videos too! Contact us! contact@robot55.jp
Gang! We just made the new video for Japan’s Hottest New Girl’s Group! Su Ko D Koi! These girl’s are fucking fantastic! Su凸ko D凹koi 「すっとこどっこい」. The song is called, “Busu” which means “Ugly.” Check it!
She sings、
“Ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly…. I know I am ugly….
But, I got a boyfriend and we have been going out.
But one day, out of the blue, he hit me for no reason.
I woke up in the hospital and he had his head in his hands.
Then he was gone….
But, I finally was able to realize that finally, he treated me like a woman!
At Robot55 we make video productions for businesses and services and products, but we also pride ourselves on making videos for art and music. Our starting price is ¥70,000 and we are sure we can work out something that fits your budget. Oh, and we love making band videos too! Contact us! contact@robot55.jp
Here’s this week’s episode of Stop-Motion Animations for April 11, 2015!
First up, is a guy named Lou Bunin. Lou Bunin was an American puppeteer, artist, and pioneer of stop-motion animation in the middle half of the twentieth century. He was a mural artist in Mexico City in 1926. There he created political- statement puppet shows using marionettes. Famed Italian photographer, model, actress, and revolutionary political activist Tina Modotti took many pictures of Bunin and his puppets and included them in her work, “The Hands of the Puppeteer.”
When he returned to the USA, Bunin created animated three-dimensional puppets to appear in the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. His 1943 political stop-motion satire, Bury the Axis, is also famous. Years later, Lou Bunin worked at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films where he created the stop-motion Prologue to the famed film, Ziegfeld Follies (MGM).
Later on, Bunin went on to create a feature length stop-motion animation film adaptation of Alice in Wonderland in 1949. The film starred Carol Marsh as a live-action Alice. It is quite well done. Walt Disney, though, prevented it from being widely released in the U.S., because Walt Disney feared it would compete with his 1951 animated version. To add insult to injury, the film was banned in Britain as Bunin’s Queen of Hearts was seen as unflattering to Queen Victoria. This film has been restored and shown at museums around the US, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. You can see the full feature length film here. Below is the trailer!
Next up is Arthur “Art” Clokey. You may not know the name, but if you ever watched American TV animations in the sixties, you know Art Clokey’s work. He is best known as the creator of the character Gumby in the well-known “The Adventures of Gumby.” When actor and comedian Eddie Murphy parodied Gumby in a skit on Saturday Night Live, the animation enjoyed a sort of revival. There was even a Gumby movie called, of course, “Gumby: The Movie.” Others who viewed Sunday morning animations know Clokey’s other extremely famous work, Davey and Goliath which was sponsored by the Lutheran Church in America.
Charles R. Bowers was a cartoonist as well as a slapstick comedian during the silent film and early “talkie” era in America.
Wikipedia says: “Charles R. Bowers was forgotten for decades and his name was absent from most histories of the Silent Era, although his work was enthusiastically reviewed by André Breton and a number of his contemporaries. As his surviving films have an inventiveness and surrealism which give them a freshness appealing to modern audiences, after his rediscovery his work has sometimes been placed in the “top tier” of silent film accomplishments (along with those of, for example, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd). In comic style, he probably modelled himself after both Harry Langdon and Buster Keaton and was known to the French as “Bricolo.”
This is very good and I think it is brilliant in concept!
Well that’s it for this week’s animations. I hope you enjoyed them! See you next week when we will probably try out some different types of animations! Stay Tuned!
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If you want to see more, click on one of the links below!
At Robot55 we make video productions for businesses and services and products, but we also pride ourselves on making videos for art and music. Our starting price is ¥70,000 and we are sure we can work out something that fits your budget. Contact us! contact@robot55.jp
