News

The new album, MAGIC, is set to be released in a few weeks, which inevitably meant we were in for the sample treatment. On the official band site, samples of every song are now available and they are sounding brilliant. There seem to be no shortage of hard rock tunes, either.

Check out those samples here, but that isn’t all. One month ago (as Tobias reported here), B’z were on bayfm78 to play back some songs from the new album and talk about their career. That radio show is now available online with no region restriction. (The stream is only available until December 31st, 2009) You can hear several songs from the new album in streaming quality as well as listen to Tak & Koshi on the station’s designated subsite. The songs featured are the Introduction, TINY DROPS, and the titular track, MAGIC.

Not much else to note on the new album front aside from a bit of information coming out about the CD+DVD edition. The backstage documentary included in that edition has a runtime of 67 minutes, so see if that factors into which edition you decide to purchase.

MAGIC will be released on November 18th in both a CD edition and a CD+DVD special edition, for 2940 Yen and 3780 Yen respectively.

Update: Apparently, the show proved so popular that it was viewed online 10,000 times within the first day of being uploaded.

News

We originally planned to post this back when it was first announced, but now that the samples are out, it’ll be a much more interesting news bit.

Eric Martin, who most of you will recognize as the vocalist and chief lyricist for Tak’s supergroup project back in 2004, TMG (as well as the frontman of Mr. Big), has another “Mr. Vocalist” collection coming out. Martin has been recording covers of predominantly Japanese songs for cover collections (aimed entirely at the Japanese market, as you may expect) for three albums now.

Well, the latest one is focused on the upcoming quintessential holiday of Christmas, and you know it wouldn’t be a music Christmas without a certain B’z song.

The tracklisting is as follows:

01. Christmas Eve
02. Winter Song
03. Itsuka no Merry Christmas (English Version)
04. Christmas Carol no koro ni ha
05. Shiroi Koibito-tachi
06. Silent Eve
07. Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence
08. Koibito-tachi no Christmas
09. Happy Xmas (War Is Over)
10. Last Christmas
11. Do They Know It’s Christmas?
12. White Christmas

As denoted above, Eric Martin’s cover of Itsuka no Merry Christmas by our favorite band will be an English cover. After quite a bit of a wait, you can finally hear a sample of it here.

Mr. Vocalist X’Mas is to be released on November 11th, the same day as Slash’s SAHARA single featuring Koshi on vocals.

For those eager to grab a copy of this CD, here are the places you can order it at:

Order at: http://www.CDJapan.co.jp
Order at: http://www.yesasia.com/us/
Order at: http://www.yesasia.com/global/

News

Bayfm is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a special broadcast in Japan today. The first two hours, Koshi and Tak talked with the moderator about music and other things. It was a so-called “B’z Special”. Here comes the surprising part: “Kirei na Namida” from the MY LONELY TOWN single has been aired as well as the tracks “Introduction”, “DIVE”, “TINY DROPS” and “MAGIC” from their upcoming album “MAGIC”.

Koshi Inaba News

Slash, former guitarist of the famous band Guns N’ Roses, has announced that he has been working with Koshi Inaba on a collaboration track, which will be featured on his new solo album slated for a February 2010 release. The track is called “SAHARA”.

Prior to the release of the album, a single will be released exclusively in Japan on November 11th. It will feature the track “SAHARA” featuring Koshi Inaba and a second track called “Paradise City” which features Fergie from Black Eyed Peas as well as the hip hop group Cypress Hill.

As I have no idea how famous Slash is in Japan, I think that the single is released to make him known in Japan, especially now that Koshi Inaba is featured on one track, a lot of die-hard fans of B’z will order that single.

CD Details

• Name: SAHARA~Feat. Koshi Inaba / Paradise City~Feat. Fergie & Cypress Hill
• Type: Single
• Number of Tracks: 2
• Release: November 11th, 2009
• Price: 1200 Yen (tax excl./$10/8€)

Preorder at CDJapan

News

Way to go there, guys! This has not been announced on the official website at the time of this posting.(Update: Now on official site as well) I just read it on a japanese blog, who read it in a newspaper this morning.

So yeah, 17th album “MAGIC”. It’s going to be out November 18th, 2009 (I told you so! November!). The Limited Edition comes with bonus documentary footage as well as live footage from SHOWCASE 2009 and SUMMER SONIC 2009. The bonus DVD is entitled “Magical Backstage Tour 2009”.

Limited Edition Price: 3780 Yen (tax incl.)
Regular Edition Price: 2940 Yen (tax incl.)

Tracklisting:

01. Introduction
02. DIVE
03. Time Flies
04. MY LONELY TOWN
05. long time no see
06. Ichibu to Zenbu
07. PRAY
08. MAGIC
09. Mayday!
10. TINY DROPS
11. Dare ni mo ienee
12. Yume no Naka de Aimashou
13. Freedom Train

B’z LIVE-GYM 2010 “Ain’t no magic”

Schedule

January 14, 2010 — Aomori Civic Cultural Hall
January 15, 2010 — Odate Shimin Bunkakaikan
January 17, 2010 — Sendai Sunplaza Hall
January 19, 2010 — Fukushima-ken Bunka Center
January 22, 2010 — Asahikawa Shimin Bunkakaikan
January 24, 2010 — Hokkaido Kousei Nenkin Kaikan
January 26, 2010 — Hakodate Shimin Kaikan

February 12th, 2010 — Fukuoka Yahoo Japan! Dome
February 13th, 2010 — Fukuoka Yahoo Japan! Dome
February 17th, 2010 — Nagoya Dome
February 19th, 2010 — Nagoya Dome
February 20th, 2010 — Nagoya Dome
February 24th, 2010 — Kyocera Dome Osaka
February 26th, 2010 — Kyocera Dome Osaka
February 27th, 2010 — Kyocera Dome Osaka
March 3rd, 2010 — Tokyo Dome
March 4th, 2010 — Tokyo Dome
March 6th, 2010 — Tokyo Dome
March 7th, 2010 — Tokyo Dome

News

Happy birthday B’z!

B’z debuted on September 21, 1988 and this is now their 21st year since their debut. Keep going B’z!!

I was hoping for a major announcement being made today, but unfortunately Japan is celebrating the Respect-for-the-Aged Day (敬老の日; keirou no hi) today, and on September 23rd, Japan will celebrate Autumnal Equinox (秋分の日; shuubun no hi), so there won’t be any updates until holidays are over on September 24th. September 22 is also a holiday because it’s in between two holidays.

Anyway, let’s hope for some big news this week, and don’t forget Koshi Inaba’s birthday on September 23rd!!

Cheers,
Tobias aka “Arthuro”
OFF THE LOCK Webmaster