Koshi Inaba News

A full video for one of the new Koshi Inaba & Stevie Salas collaborations has now been made available on the pair’s YouTube channel. The song “AISHI-AISARE” (Love, Be Loved) is set to be included on their album CHUBBY GROOVE, due for release on January 18, 2016. You can pre-order the album at the usual places: [YesAsia] [CDJapan] [Amazon Japan]. Their joint tour CHUBBY GROOVE TOUR 2017 kicks off January 25 and runs through a showing in Nagoya on February 20.

Additionally, another short music video for fellow album song 「Kunou no Hate no Sore mo Kotae no Hitotsu」 (What Lies At the End of Sorrow Is Also An Answer) has been uploaded and can be streamed below as well:

Feature

Given the rising popularity of lyric videos in today’s internet music culture, we decided to try our hand at creating one featuring a B’z song as official promotion for the recent North American releases. The song we decided to work with was the English tune “Love Bomb“, itself being a new rendition of the 2005 Japanese single “Ai no Bakudan“.

(Update for 2017—This edition of the song was previously released in 2012 as part of the band’s debut English album but was recently delisted from international iTunes stores with the coming of the new year. A similar delisting followed after five years of availability for the band’s 2007 International EP. It bears noting that “Into Free -Dangan-” remains available worldwide as a single.)

As a bonus: You can also now download a collection of eight custom wallpapers inspired by this project right here. Each wallpaper was created for a resolution of 1920×1080 but should scale nicely to any widescreen resolution.

News

We at OFF THE LOCK wish everyone a happy new year! Per usual, B’z have released a message for their fanclub members to celebrate the beginning of a new year. It appears that this year we’ll be able to look forward to a new B’z album! But first, Tak and Koshi will be embarking on their solo collaboration projects. On September 21st, 2017, B’z will celebrate their 29th anniversary since their formation in 1988, and enter their 30th year as a band. For sure, preparations for the 30th anniversary Pleasure 2018 tour are already underway and will be announced around that time.

Check out the subtitled video below for more details!

Tak Matsumoto News

Just before the new year, an overseas performance has been announced for Tak Matsumoto’s and Daniel Ho’s “Tak Matsumoto & Daniel Ho LIVE! 2017 -Electric Island, Acoustic Sea-” tour. The show will be at the Blue Note Hawaii on March 19th. There are performances scheduled at 6:30PM and 9PM HST. Tickets are available through TicketWeb. Be sure to get your ticket early!

In other news, the logo and members of supporting band have been announced for the tour. Keyboardist Akira Onozuka and guitarist Yoshinobu Ohga will be joined by Randy Drake on drums and Steve Billman on bass. Both have been performing on stage with Daniel Ho in the past.

Keyboards: Akira Onozuka
Guitar: Yoshinobu Ohga
Drums: Randy Drake
Bass: Steve Billman