Vocal/Bass: Nanba Akihiro
Guitar/Vocal: Yokoyama Ken
Drums: Tsuneoka Akira

Getting your own credit/debit card is such a joy. There’s that liberty to finally do some online shopping in privacy. When I finally got one while moving onto college, I knew what to order.

As shown in the image, my first purchase with a personal card was three albums by Hi-Standard, an older punk band from Japan. Yeah, I will be honest here. This was really my first purchase whereas all the other music I had the past were in digital form. Of course, I’m really hoping to expand my collections from here on out. You people go ahead and stack your shelves with figurines or whatever. I’ll stick to creating a library of actual music from Japan.

Anyway, Hi-Standard is an old band as I said so it has some influential status in Japan’s underground scene. It’s currently inactive, but has never officially declared disbanding. They’re also famous for creating an indie label, which now sponsors other amazing bands such as Hawaiian6.

Now, I would like to give one advice when sampling Hi-Standard because I had the same mistake. Don’t judge the band from what you hear from individual songs. It turns out that Hi-Standard is a very genuine punk band. It follows the tradition of album with lots of tracks, but songs that barely last for one minute on average. To get the real feel of the band, it’s rather impossible than to listen to a whole album in full. That’s how they really shine. Making the Road is a good album to start off with.

Disregarding my beliefs though, I went ahead and uploaded short samples as usual. My Sweet Dog is probably the song that is still strong as a stand alone though. Just don’t miss it as it’s a hilarious song. Well, make it the only hilarious song on my entire playlist.

Dear My Friends

My Sweet Dog

No Heroes