That’s right. We are finally a four-piece band again.

Last month I went and scouted a keyboard player at my friend’s wedding, and our bassist went and scouted a new drummer someplace online. What’s great about the new guys is that they both understand and treasure humor, which is the basis of the basis of this band.

More details to come soon.

Big hugs,
Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

Out this weekend!

Here’s all the poop you need to know about this album before it’s out.

Voluntary Mother Earth “Village Avant-Garde” album cover: by Gypsy

Village Avant-Garde / Voluntary Mother Earth

Track Listing

1. Prelude to Cheeseburger Baby
2. Cheeseburger Baby
3. Anal Dungeon Suite (in dedication to the Buffalo, NY band Anal Pudding)
- Pt.1: Discovery of Anal Dungeon
- Pt.2: Ritual Dance of the Anal Witch
- Pt.3: Anal Abduction
4. Blowjobs Are For Boyfriends
5. Beef Ruined
6. The Haiku*
7. Indian in North Texas
8. Just Another Nice Guy From The Orient (2010 ver.)
- Pt.1: Just Another Nice Guy From The Orient
- Pt.2: The Return of the Indian in North Texas
9. This Is It**
- Pt.1: Addiction
- Pt.2: Killing Floor

Voluntary Mothers at the time of this recording were;
Akihiko Hayakawa on all instruments played or programed

All Music/Words/Arrangements scientifically prepared by Akihiko Hayakawa,

except for; *words to this piece are randomly selected selection of Haiku and other traditional Japanese mumblings, and **the last three minutes of this tune being a quote from “Killing Floor” by the great Chester Arthur Burnett better known as Howlin’ Wolf.

Performed/Programed by Akihiko Hayakawa
Recorded/Edited/Mixed/Mastered by Akihiko Hayakawa

through the many sleepless nights and sleepy days
from December 2009 to May 2010
at Voluntary Mother Studio(Yokohama, Tokyo, Japan),
and Sound Studio U-Be(Yokohama, Japan)

- “Rock n roll in 21st century is all about doing it cheap” (from Anal Dungeon)
Total Recording Budget for This Album: 80 bucks. (9,000Yen)

Cover Art: Gypsy
Photos: Taichi Hashizume

——

Aigh, that’s what you need to know for now.
Hope you enjoy the album.
Again, it’ll be out THIS WEEKEND!!!

Spread the cheese,
Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

Hi Voluntary Mothers from all around the globe.

Our new album “Village Avant-Garde” will be available for you to download sometime over the weekend of July 9th to 11th, depending on your location on this planet.

For the time being, it will only be available on our Bandcamp page, which you can get to by clicking on the “MUSIC” tab on this website.

I’ll try to upload the album cover here sometime this week.

The band are excited to finally be able to release this poop.
Be the first to download this album in your city, country, and continent.

Aigh, talk to ya soon.

Spread the Cheese,
Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

Last Samurai?

Maybe so.

Here are some photos from the session de samurai last week.

One of these will be used as back cover of the album when it’s released as CD.

This photo session was so fun the photographer and I are now thinking about sequels to this.
A Last Samurai photograph series.

The album cover art is done, and this weekend my friends and I will be shooting a video for the song “Cheeseburger Baby” which will be the single off the new album.

If you liked this post, please hit the button on top of the post to retweet. That’d help us greatly.

Aigh,
talk to you soon.

Keep it absurd.
Hugs,
Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

Here it is. A home video-esque sample trailer for VME’s upcoming album “Village Avant-Garde”, due out next month. You can get a very basic idea of what this album smells like. All shot here in Tokyo with a bunch of my friends. Some parts of it are from the Samurai photo shoot from last week that I talked about here on this page.

It’s home-made for my friends and Voluntary Mothers all around the world to have a taste of my home. Not for the masses, but please enjoy the hand-made-on-a-budget feel of this video.

A “real” music video for one of the songs off the album coming up in a few weeks.

Hugs,
Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

That’s right. Tomorrow I’ll turn into a samurai.

A photographer friend of mine will be shooting some new photos of me in a pseudo-samurai outfit, one of which I’m hoping to use as the back cover of the new album. We’re planning of going to a neighborhood shrine and get some Oriental-looking photos.

Also recently I’ve been back in touch with our last tour bass player Sakura-man, and talking of getting the new music out there here in Japan. Gotta get back in shape.

So when the fuck am I going to get this new album?
is what I’ve been hearing from some of you Voluntary Mothers.
It’s coming early next month, most likely as a download-only album, in the style of last Radiohead album.

Talk to ya soon.

hugs,
Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

So it’s been a week since the upcoming VME album was mastered. What the hell are you waiting for, just release it! is what I’d say if I was a fan.

Right now, I’m taking care of the business side of the album. Yes, the boring Gawd-I-don’t-wanna-do-this side of the deal. Since I’m my own manager, I have to tell the musician half of me to just hang on for a while while the manager half of me thinks up ways to go about promoting this album so that it’ll reach as many pairs of ears around the globe as possible.

The cover art is on its way and a few new cool photos are scheduled to be shot next week. A few videos are in the making for some of the songs off the album, and they involve a whole lot of cheeseburgers.

So, it’ll be another few weeks before everything is all aligned and ready to go. Hang on!

Hugs,
Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

Yes, that’s right.
The piece of news you’ve been looking for for the past 2 years and a half.

A new Voluntary Mother Earth album “Space Elephant” (working title) was mastered just now and is ready for you to absorb into the right hemisphere of your brain.

Man, it took me forever to get this done. But it’s done. And it’s done tight.

More news coming soon.

Much love,
Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

Well, sort of.

As I wrote in my last post, I finally managed to start working on the mix of “Cheeseburger Baby” (America’s Favorite) a few days back.

Got the first verse and the mid section mixed, and I’ll get down to the latter half of the song and the prelude tomorrow, and hopefully it’ll get done sometime during this weekend. Yes, I’m spending a whole week just for the mixing of one song. Call me crazy, and you might be right.

Music aside,,,
Since I’ve moved recently I have to hand in some paperwork to the local government office. So today I went back to Yokohama to fill out a move-out form.

On my way there, I stopped at Shibuya, Tokyo, which is like Tokyo’s equivalent of Times Square, New York, except nastier and more plastic and with full of shit music blasting out of every fucking store and huge screen mounted on buildings and loud speaker in street corners. (3 years ago it was all Sean Kingston’s “Beautiful Girls”, and our then-drummer Sean and I used to have good laughs poking fun at this particular piece of noise, busting out this little tune in the middle of our songs at rehearsals. God bless Seans. Both of ‘em)

Anyhow, I stopped by there and got a few second-hand CDs. For those of you who somehow are curious about what the fuck I’m listening to right now, here they are, except I haven’t listened to ‘em juschet.

As you can see, they are two Radioheads and a Thom Yorke, and a Kraftwerk. I got into Radiohead last year. It takes me a long time before I have enough balls to purchase recordings of bands that are still around. I’m mostly strictly religiously a dead-person-music/disbanded-band-music kind of guy.

Yes, I still buy CDs, but almost only used ones. I like to own stuff. I don’t like owning something intangible like a downloaded MP3. MP3’s not even stuff. Just give me some stuff. I want STUFF!
It ain’t no stuff if you can’t touch it, and you can’t own it if it ain’t no stuff. Stuff’s good.

But at the same time, I can’t afford to keep buying $25-30 albums (which is the standard price of albums sold in Japan).

Out of this particular circumstance, I developed a habit of buying old CDs and records. These days lots of people seem to like digital download and it’s cool. It just ain’t my cuppa tea.

While in Shibuya, I also picked this thing up. I’m a big fan of Krishna and Indian art.

Aigh, so that’s what I’m up to.
Still not Dre, but taking my time to perfect my mix, nonetheless.
What are you up to?

Hugs,
Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

Finally got it under control!
A whole weekend taken!

So I just spent this whole weekend prepping to mix this song called Cheeseburger Baby. It had so many tracks it literally took 10 minutes just to load. So I waited.

I start to move things around, turning on effects and cutting out noise, and all of a sudden, after about 3 minutes of work, it freezes and erase all the 3-minute work.

I try to reopen the file and it wouldn’t open. So I restart my Mac, cool it down, and attempt to repeat all of the above.

That was my Friday evening and the whole Saturday… Oh how I love my life!

So today, which is Sunday, I trimmed some unimportant parts off the mix, cut off some effects, combined some tracks into one which I didn’t want to do if I didn’t have to, erased a bunch of tracks which I didn’t really want to do, and FINALLY lightened it up enough for it to load in 3 minutes and to not freeze or crash.

And I started the mix from the scratch just about an hour ago. And now I got this poop.

I spent my whole weekend waiting, and FINALLY I get to start to get it started. And it’s sounding fucking great.

PS. Last night I was so immensely frustrated I had to make onion rings. And a lot of em. Here they are. I got a heartburn.

Aigh, time to go.
Talk to ya later.

BIG Hugs,
Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth