YMO Live on YouTube

YMO Technopolis Live on YouTube


YMO - 1000 Knives (Live) via hardy2006us.


Two Live YMO videos. I previously posted Technopolis and Rydeen here. I managed to upload Technopolis to YouTube, but for Rydeen I imediately got the vilation of terms message after upload. Guessing it's on a blacklist? Anyway, here's Technopolis and 1000 Knives. I have one more coming sent my way via Pete; I'm waiting for his permission to put it up on YouTube. As soon as I do, I'll put up a post.

YMO

Two great YMO performances from the early 80s. Analog synth heaven.

YMO Technopolis Live


YMO Day Tripper Live


Update (reworded and prompted from the comments below, thanks CM!):
I heard about YMO in the 80s, but never followed up until recently. They were somewhat known. However, the guy in the yellow suit playing the majority of leads and getting a fair amount of camera action is Ryuichi Sakamoto. Do a search for him and you will find a LOT of stuff he has done including the soundtrack to The Last Emperor. He worked with David Sylvian of Japan fame, Iggy Pop, Thomas Dolby, David Byrne (whom he co wrote the score for The Last Emperor), Bootsy Collins, and Tony Williams. He is an artist's artist, so to speak. He has an amazing body of work. See http://launch.yahoo.com/ar-262586-bio--Ryuichi-Sakamoto for more.

Another bio: http://www.sonyclassical.com/artists/sakamoto/adbio.html
Official Ryuichi Sakamoto Website: http://www.sitesakamoto.com/
Wikipedia on Ryuichi Sakamoto: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryuichi_Sakamoto
Wikipedia on YMO: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YMO

Update (via comments. Thanks Ron!):
"I've been a fan of YMO for some time now. If you want to see what the other two are up to (Yukihiro Takahashi and Haruomi Hosono), do a search for band called Sketch Show. The are on Mr. Hosono's label, Daisyworld. The have 3-4 disks out, and a DVD of a live performance. Excellent stuff -- highly recommended."

YMO Live

YMO - Behind The Mask (Live 1979)
Re-Uploaded on Sep 11, 2009 YMO**

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YMO TECHNOPOLIS & RYDEEN Covers by MIOSUKE1

自宅でＹＭＯ/TECHNOPOLIS　Synth編
Uploaded on May 1, 2010 MIOSUKE1·11 videos

坂本教授に憧れてシンセサイザーやってます。
ドラムばかりやっているのでたまには「ＶＯＣＯ」らないと。
当時を振り返り教授も言ってますが、音色チェンジがとにかく忙しいです。
プログラムチェンジをあらかじめ打ち込みすれば楽なのですが、
当時の教授に倣ってそれはしません。
ミスタッチはご愛嬌(^^ゞ

Googlish:
We are doing synthesizer and longing for Professor Sakamoto.
That there is no "VOCO" from once in a while because it is doing just drum.
Professor says that recalls, but the tone change is busy anyway.
I would easy if you driving in advance a program change,
It does not do it by following the professor at the time.
Amiability Misutatchi is (^ ^ Isuzu

自宅でＹＭＯ/RYDEEN　Synth編
Uploaded on May 1, 2010

坂本教授に憧れてシンセサイザーやってます。
間奏のＳＥ音が偶然それっぽく作れたのでＧ・Ｗを利用してＵＰしました。
どうでしょうか、それっぽく聞こえますでしょうか。
また、ストリングス音をＰＯＬＹＭＯＯＧらしく聞こえるようにペダルでフィルターの抑­揚をつけてます。
ミスタッチはご愛嬌(^^ゞ

Googlish:
We are doing synthesizer and longing for Professor Sakamoto.
The UP was using the G · W so make it like it accidentally SE sound of interlude.
But what, or would you hear it like it.
We also put the intonation of the filter with the pedal to sound like a POLYMOOG the strings sound.
Amiability Misutatchi is (^ ^ Isuzu

Ryuichi Sakamoto Has Passed Away

via @KorgUSA

"We are deeply saddened to hear about the passing of Ryuichi Sakamoto. He was a trailblazing composer and producer who scored films such as the 'Last Emperor' and 'The Revenant' to name a few. He was a pioneer of electronic pop music by founding the 'Yellow Magic Orchestra' which produced hits on synthesizers and sequencers in the 70s and 80s. He will be missed 😔"

Indeed. He created magic.

Two of my favorites below.

via Wikipedia:

"Ryuichi Sakamoto (坂本 龍一[a], Sakamoto Ryūichi, January 17, 1952 – March 28, 2023) was a Japanese composer, record producer, and actor who pursued a diverse range of styles as a solo artist and as a member of Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO). With his bandmates Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi, Sakamoto influenced and pioneered a number of electronic music genres.

Sakamoto began his career while at university in the 1970s as a session musician, producer, and arranger. His first major success came in 1978 as co-founder of YMO. He concurrently pursued a solo career, releasing the experimental electronic fusion album Thousand Knives in 1978. Two years later, he released the album B-2 Unit. It included the track "Riot in Lagos", which was significant in the development of electro and hip hop music. He went on to produce more solo records, and collaborate with many international artists, David Sylvian, Carsten Nicolai, Youssou N'Dour, and Fennesz among them. Sakamoto composed music for the opening ceremony of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, and his composition "Energy Flow" (1999) was the first instrumental number-one single in Japan's Oricon charts history.

As a film-score composer, Sakamoto won an Oscar, a BAFTA, a Grammy, and 2 Golden Globe Awards. Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983) marked his debut as both an actor and a film-score composer; its main theme was adapted into the single "Forbidden Colours" which became an international hit. His most successful work as a film composer was The Last Emperor (1987), after which he continued earning accolades composing for films such as The Sheltering Sky (1990), Little Buddha (1993), and The Revenant (2015). On occasion, Sakamoto also worked as a composer and a scenario writer on anime and video games. In 2009, he was awarded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the Ministry of Culture of France for his contributions to music."
Ryuichi Sakamoto - Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence

video upload by Decca Records

"Official music video for Ryuichi Sakamoto's 'Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence'."

YMO Technopolis Live

video upload by matrixsynth

松武秀樹＆MMO on Stage1 @ Synth Festa Osaka 2013

Published on Nov 30, 2013 nicolai maruhama·94 videos

"We had a special stage on Synth Festa Osaka 2013.　（２３rd Nov. Dee Hall）
Our synth Master Hideki Matsutake joined this event and moog IIIc was operated.
Worth to see!

1. Behind the Mask / YMO
2. Technopolis / YMO

Applied JASRAC

nicolai maruhama

* The priest in the middle of the song Technopolis : Gotoh Showgen."

松武秀樹＆MMO on Stage2 @ Synth Festa Osaka 2013

Published on Dec 3, 2013 nicolai maruhama·95 videos

1.Tong Poo / YMO
2. Rydeen

---

Hideki Matsutake on Moog modular. Via Wikipedia:

"Hideki Matsutake (born August 12, 1951 in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan) is a Japanese composer, arranger, and computer programmer. He is known for his pioneering work in electronic music and particularly music programming, as the assistant of Isao Tomita during the early 1970s and as the "fourth member" of the band Yellow Magic Orchestra during the late 1970s to early 1980s.[1]

Through his participation in the session recording of Ryuichi Sakamoto's 1978 album Thousand Knives, he joined the recordings of Yellow Magic Orchestra during 1978-1982 as their sound programmer, to become known as "the fourth member" of the group. In 1981, he formed a unit of his own under the name Logic System, which released its latest album in 2008. He also continued to take part in solo activities by YMO members such as Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi beyond the group's breakup in 1983. He was also a member of the video game music group Akihabara Electric Circus in 1988[2] and composed music for the 1996 video game Guardian Heroes.[3] Today, Matsutake is also Chairman of Japan Synthesizer Programmers Association (JSPA)..."

1986 Music & Electronics Magazine Cassette

via Pea Hicks of http://optigan.com/
"i stumbled across this old cassette i picked up somewhere, thought you might like to post it on the blog. it goes along with the first issue of a very obscure music tech rag from the mid-80s called "Music & Electronics" magazine. it was published by the same folks that brought you "99'er" and "Home Computer" magazines. It may not have survived past its first issue, as I've never actually seen a copy and a google search brings up nothing.

anyway, i only have the tape, which features musical examples to go along with the magazine articles. synths include Casio CZ-101, Yamaha DX7, Roland TR-707, etc. note that the first couple minutes of side b were recorded over by the previous owner, so i just faded in after the missing bit.

would be great to hear if anyone out there has a copy of the magazine itself!"


Update: Note the reference to "Techno Bach" at 32:15. According to wikipedia, "The first recorded use of the word techno, in reference to a genre of music, was in 1988." Yes, this is not Techno techno, but interesting. I wonder when the term "Techno" was first used in reference to any music.

If anyone out there has more info feel free to comment or send me an email and I'll updated the post.

Update:

via pea in the comments:
"YMO, "Technopolis," 1979
Kraftwerk, "Techno-Pop," 1986
the terms "techno-pop" and "techno-rock" were definitely in use before Kraftwerk's usage, though."

via electric454 in the comments:
"the b side of the Buggles single Clean, Clean from 1980 was a song called Technopop"

via Jim W on AH:
"In 1978 I co-founded Tekno Tunes indie label, Tekno Town Studio (Northampton, MA), and Tekno Tours booking. We booked acts as diverse as Buddy Rich, DNA, The Slits, Pere Ubu, & WKGB among others. The music I wrote & played from 77 - 83 as The Scientific Americans was described as " techno punk" by several major publications.

So far I haven't found an earlier instance, so for now I claim naming rights for techno as a musical genre. Actually, my music partner, Craig O'Donnell (author of Cool MAC Sounds) came up with it. We used it constantly for 5 years."

via C.R. in the comments: "The song "Techno City" is from 1984.

I think that's the first use of "techno" in the sense of techno music."

ROLAND SVC-350 ANALOG VOCODER With Original Manual

Note: Auction links are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.

via this auction

"This an almost mint roland svc350 vocoder. Not much to say about these other than they have been used on many classic tunes. For an idea of what it sounds like out of the box (provided you feed it a nice signal from a string machine or analog synth) think of Laurie Anderson- O' superman, Freestyle -don't stop the rock, and YMO- Technopolis to name a few. Functions perfect and sounds beautiful. comes with original owners manual in mint condition..."

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YMO Technopolis Live - 3 Years of MATRIXSYNTH

YouTube via matrixsynth.

OK, it's the day after my official three year anniversary on the blog. I wasn't going to mention anything but I figure why not. As for this video. Someone just commented on how it was their favorite. I of course watched it again and realized how good it was. I also noticed that out of 34,470 hits on the video, only 35 came from this site. I usually get a heck of a lot more, but I realize this is because I put up this post back in August of 2006. The obvious observation is I have a heck of a lot more visitors today versus back then so people are missing a LOT of old content. My recommendation is to visit the archives every now and then, but... there was an article I read on the guy that is credited with starting blogs and he gave a few rules on what a blog should be. First, posts should be very short, two they should capture and send people to other sites, and three you should actually post the same content more than once! I used to have a rule that I only post things once. I'm not about to go crazy posting things I already put up, but considering what a "blog should be," I'll be putting stuff up that I might have put up in the past (like this video) should it strike me. If you've seen it already, just ignore it and appreciate that others are now enjoying it as well.

As for numbers, this is post #17,087, the site has had over 2,958,261 visits, 880,569 visitors and over 5,253,505 pageviews. We have not yet conquered the world. Click the world map image below. The green countries have visited MATRIXSYNTH. A bit crazy when you think of it, especially when you consider Iraq and Afghanistan. Anyone into synths there have my utmost respect. Thank you and of course thanks to everyone else that has visited. The white countries however, have not yet visited! I'm guessing either I'm banned in those countries or internet access is of course very sparse. Not sure what the North Koreans have against me though... they do have a kick ass website. Anyway... to those of you that appreciate the site and to those of you that have contributed, THANK YOU!!! I've mentioned it privately to a few people but my goal is to have somewhere for people to be able to reflect on what was coming through the synth waves in this day and age. The site is a repository of everything synth, every day from the inception of this site until I finally stop posting. I'm hoping this will be an interesting look back in time 30, 40, 60+ years from now. It's far from perfect, but IT IS a slice in "synth time." Whether you appreciate it or not, it exists and will continue to exist. To those that support the site: you get it, you know who you are, and THANK YOU.

Rydeen

YouTube via tm19661015

"データを整理してたらこんなん出てきました。アップするつもりで撮ったのではありませんが・・・アップしました。下手糞でごめーんね。ちなみにPCは
penⅢで超古いです 現在はcore i7-920でProphet-600/YAMAHA CS-10/MOTU MIDI Exp128/BEHRINGERなどの機材も増えました。"

And the original:

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Roland SH-32 synthesizer/ YMO 東風 and technopolis / debussy and bach

Published on Feb 2, 2020 HAGIWO modular synthesizer channel

"My first time impression.

0:00 東風(tong poo)/yellow magic orchestra
0:25 Air on the G string BWV1068/ J.S.Bach
1:19 technopolis/yellow magic orchestra
2:08 Clair de Lune/Debussy
2:39 八重の桜/坂本龍一(ryuichi sakamoto)
3:13 黄土高原/坂本龍一(ryuichi sakamoto)
3:47 behind the mask / michael jackson or YMO or ric clapton

Analog model synthesizer."

BEHIND THE MASK ～ TECHNOPOLIS ～ RYDEEN (YMO copy)

YouTube via KM65536.

"2009/07/24. Prophet-5、VP-330、etc."

YMO posts