Valley Lodge: The Japanese Occupation

In fulfillment of the prophecy, I am reasonably excited to announce that the invasion of Japan by my hot rock band Valley Lodge is now officially underway. This Time Records, the premier power pop label of the Land of the Rising Sun, is totally re-releasing our debut album in Japan this fall. This version of the album will feature all-new artwork, including a 12-page full-color booklet and (I'm guessing) some Japanese writing on it in various places (I am particularly excited about this part. As anyone will tell you, Japanese writing looks really cool no matter what it says). Also, the Japanese version of the album will include three bonus tracks ("Comin' Around, "Barricade, and "My Baby"- all hits) that will also be appearing later this fall on our second obscure album to be released here in North America in some form or another we are still trying to figure out. That is the cover of our Japanese album above featuring lovely cover girl Gia Lashay in all her glory. You can get full details on our startling Japanese album here (you know, so you can see that I'm not making all this stuff up). It's all in Japanese though, so I don't understand a word of it. I'm hoping it's all good stuff though.

In other exciting Japanese news, my hot rock band Valley Lodge also has our song "Hanging On" featured on a Japanese power pop compilation called "OK! Powerpop 2," which- as slightly hinted at in the title- is a compilation of power pop music from all over the planet. Here is a page (mostly in Japanese) about the whole thing.

No word yet on whether Valley Lodge will be getting on plane and going to Japan to rock some Japanese people, but I sure hope so. Maybe we can play at that Budokan place or something. I wonder if every American band that plays there says "This next one is the first song on our new album!," kind of like how almost every band that came to Cleveland when I was growing up would yell "Hello, Cleveland" from the stage as if they were the first ones who ever thought of it. Some things never get old.

Dave Hill