Voluntary Invasion album cover

Those of you who still have not heard this album, or who happened to have gotten a bad sound quality version of this album by accident, come get this poop anew.

While I made it so you can download every song for free, please know that it’d greatly help me keep going if you could pitch in a few cents or dollars for my soundwave entertainment.

Enjoy the poop and lemme know if you like it.
-Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

It has been unavailable online for quite some time due to its bad audio quality, due to “my bad” of a certain past band member who burned the master copy of the CD. The very original recording sounded great, but it got fucked up during the CD burning process handled by this certain cute member, to put it simple. It resulted in the widespread of this bad quality version of the album all over the fucking world, online and off. If you happened to have been one of the victims, my apologies. We lost a billion potential fans for this miserable accident. So God help us.

So, I pulled all the bad versions from the internet some long time ago, and now it’s time to put the good version up online. This is Sean(our original drummer) and Aki at their(or our) best, in my opinion. I dig this album, and hope you will too. It’s comin’. An’ it be bitchen.

Hugs,
-Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

PS. Our Website is going through maintenance of some sort. It might turn up weird from time to time for a while, so have fun looking at it.

It’s a 20-minute unedited improvised guitar solo doubled with yet another 20 minutes of guitar solo put together in the same song.

If you own VME’s album “Unacceptable Vegetable”, it’s kind of like what’s on “Free Head for a Free Ride”, but extended forever.

This song is dedicated to stoners and hippies.
If you’re into people like the late Hendrix, Grateful Dead, or electric Miles, you might find this enjoyable.

So, that’s enough of the mumbling.
You can stream, buy, or steal the song ONLY here and nowhere else:

http://voluntarymotherearth.bandcamp.com/

Check it out and lemme know if you like it. If you don’t, wait for the next Britney Spears album, I hear it’s amazing. As always, thanks for listening. It means everything to me.

Hugs,
-Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth
http://www.voluntarymotherearth.com/

So we came back to Japan safe and sound about 10 days ago, and are now taking a little break.

And while we’re on this nice little break, I found the time to move into a new place with a friend of mine. Purdy cozy n nice, eh?

And while we’re on this nice little break, I found the time to go see the Japan tour of the U.S. bands Eskimo Hunter, Ceremony, and Screen Vinyl Image who we played with in Philly on this past tour. A great night.

Bought their CD and T-shirt and pins.

After all the touring (which I’m paying for) and moving and purchasing stuff, currently I’m extra broke.
What can I say, musicians live to lose money!

And of course, after playing with/watching all these shoegazer bands, I started writing a shoegazer song myself, or my take on that particular style of music.

Speaking of my take, I had gotten inspiration for “Forgive My Penis” and “… and You Got My Penis Hurt” (both on “Unacceptable Vegetable” album, 2007, available on iTunes and CDBaby if you haven’t heard ‘em yet) from my friend’s garage rock band. These two songs are pretty emotional and catchy and with some garage dirt. But with my twisting and tweaking they somehow came out slightly crooked.

The aforementioned new shoegazer song, temporarily titled “Blowjobs are Only for Boyfriends” inspired by a certain sexy American female friend of mine somewhere in Midwest, which you might hear on our next album or tour, will surely appeal to your slightly crooked ears as well. Stay tuned.

Talk to ya next time.

Love,
Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

http://www.voluntarymotherearth.com/

If it wasn’t for Andrew the Greatest, we would have played for a couple of people. Thanks to the magnificent Andrew, we got to play for a dozen people. Thank you so much Andrew! And to his friends, thank you so much for coming!

It’s nice to be able to play for a non-drunk, all-age audience one in a while.
Special thanks goes to Mark at the Lemp for cooking eggplants and sweet potatoes for us!

Also, we’d like to thank Tim at KDHX 88.1fm for inviting us to record some songs for his show. Thanks Tim!

Hope to see you again next year!
Thanks for coming!

-Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

http://www.voluntarymotherearth.com

Not many people in the picture, but there were a lot more hanging around in the bar.
It was the funnest night. Yes, Chicago was the grand winner of this tour!

The sexy Beth, who had come to our last Chicago show in March, came back with a few friends. Tonight was, according to an email she had sent me, the day after her birthday. Happy Birthday, and Thank You Beth!

Next time you are in Chicago, go drink at Quenchers.

Thanks for coming!
See you next year!

Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

http://www.voluntarymotherearth.com/

Really nice people. It was great to meet them and play with them.
After the show, a nice man by the name of James came up to me to introduce himself with a bunch of Japanese candies. We had a nice little chat and he ended up letting us, or was forced to let us, stay at his nice house in the depth of North Carolina mountains. Thank you James!

We’d love to come back there on the next tour!

And today, we simply drove from Charlotte up to near Indianapolis, and now I’m writing this poop at a certain Motel 6. I hear a girl moaning, probably of pleasure, from next door… How beautiful.

We got two more shows and will be back to Japan.
See you at the next show!

-Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

http://www.voluntarymotherearth.com/

We drove 5 hours to get to this place, only to play for a 0-person audience. This night we made a staggering, magnificent, earth-shaking, 5 bucks. What a great night!

We started out our show with a 0-person audience. Very fucking cool. A really cool dude walked in during our third song and started rocking out BIG TIME by himself, shoutin, headbangin, moshpittin and all, all by himself.

We really appreciated this man and his “audience participation” which is hard to come by in a night like this. We really did. He was going nuts on us all on his own. He was having a blast and we loved him with all our hearts. Sadly, he was only to get kicked out by the bartender during the next song… We resumed to continue to play a show for nobody…

Looks like it’ll be a long time before we get to come down this way.

-Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

http://www.voluntarymotherearth.com/

We played with a killer L.A. band Graydon. Not only were they a killer band, everybody in the band was so cool with us we really appreciated it.

The handsome Ben, who came to see us last time we played D.C. came out to see us again. Thanks Ben, you rock!

Though we had a Monday turnout, we had a great time playing there.
See you on the next tour!

Too many pics, so no individual comments, but enjoy!

This was the first time for us to visit Philly. We love this city!

-Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

http://www.voluntarymotherearth.com/

Drove 8 hours and got to Philly!
Had a real Philly cheese steak. Trevor San who was classmates with our original drummer Sean back in Tokyo came out with sexy American ladies. Nice to see old friends.

Playing with killer touring bands like Ringo Deathstarr and Screen Vinyl Image is an honor, slightly tainted by the lack of human beings in the house, but that’s OK because Alex from Ringo Deathstarr counts as 10 people.

They’ll be touring in Japan next month. I’m there and you should be too.

Also the local band The Tweeds put on a great show. Thank you guys for letting this Oriental weirdness happen with you guys!

And for YOU, thank you for coming to see us tonight!

Hugs,
Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

http://www.voluntarymotherearth.com/

We drove from Long Island to Boston. Midway Cafe is a nice little cozy neighborhood bar in Jamaica Plain. My friend Miranda and her sexy friends came out to check us out, and we ended up checking them out instead, so to speak. Met some new Boston folks who had the ear to appreciate the type of noise we put out to the world.

Local bands Old New England Weather and Rick Berlin both treated us nicely and we were so very grateful. Thank you guys for playing with us, and hope you get laid tonight.

THANK YOU for coming to the show. We hope to see you again next time when the economy’s better.

Hugs,
Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

http://www.voluntarymotherearth.com/

Glad to be back in the good old New York.
Again we played at Fontana’s in Chinatown.

Bought some rice before the show, played a nice set, and went to stay at my friend Kondo’s house in Long Island. My friend from Texas Gabriel came out with his amigas hotties and his roomamigo dandio. Amigas hotties are good to see.

My friend Miranda drove all the way from Boston to catch this show. I love her with all my heart and other important organs in my body.

Thank YOU for coming to the show!
Hopefully we get to see a few more folks next time…

-Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

http://www.voluntarymotherearth.com/

We drove from the sexy Cortney and Lydia’s house in Buffalo NY all the way, in the rain and snow, to Wilmington Delaware. A smooth drive, exept we got stuck in a heavy traffic in Philly as expected. Unexpectedly, we, all three of us, needed to visit a bathroom, urgently. We held it tight for one long hour and finally I managed to got off the highway and went to some college campus and visited the bathroom of a 7-eleven across the street from this certain college campus. Good times.

Got to the venue and tonight we played with The Brains from Motreal Quebec, a local band, and Manitee from Italy. We played last for an audience consisted of those three bands. Wished to see a few more unsuspecting Delaware folks in there, but we had a good time nonetheless.

Thank you for coming to the show and buying our stuff.
We’ll be right back in the area on Sunday the 18th, at Khyber in Philly!

Today we’ll be attempting to rock New York City.
9am at Fontana’s on Lower East side Manhattan.
We’ll catch you there!

-Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

http://www.voluntarymotherearth.com/

Thank you for coming!
See you next time!

-Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

-Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

We got to the United States of American Cheese safe and sound, and Fajita and Sakura have just had their first taste of Chicago style pizza as a cheesy rite of passage.

We’ll kick off this tour tomorrow at MOJO’S in JAMESTOWN NEWYORK. See you soon!

PS
Thanks you for sending me all the sweet emails. We’re all looking forward to seeing you soon!

Hugs,
Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

http://www.voluntarymotherearth.com/

hugs,
-Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

So, the final tour schedule looks like this.
(There were some date/venue/city changes in the past month, but the below is final.)

13T Jamestown NY at Mojo’s
14W Buffalo NY at Nobody’s
15Th Wilmington DE at Mojo13
16F New York NY at Fontana’s
17Sat Boston MA at Midway
18Sun Philadelphia PA at Khyber
19M Washington DC at The Red and The Black
20T Chapel Hill NC at The Cave
21W Charlotte NC at Snug Harbor
22Th OFF
23F Chicago IL at Quenchers
24Sat St Louis MO at Lemp

-Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth
http://www.voluntarymotherearth.com/

Our last bass player Noriff Micky was honorably discharged from this madness last month. He needed some time on his own and he and the band are still on good terms with each other. We thank him for all the hard work he put into this group and wish him well.

Sakura Cherry-O will be playing shows with us starting the coming U.S. tour. He and the band are looking forward to seeing you then. He will be forced to accept the mighty old American cheese burger as THE way of life, by me. We’re totally excited to come play the U.S. again!

See you soon!
-Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

http://www.voluntarymotherearth.com/

Also, the Philly show… Honestly we don’t know what’s going on right now…
It was booked at Blockley Pourhouse, then the booker told me it was moved to Black Lodge, and now I can’t get ahold of the booker… We’ll see!

Other shows are as scheduled. No change (at least as far as I know).

Keep posted.

Right now listening to “Moonmadness” by the 70′s British band Camel. Great band. Great guitars. Love ‘em.

Hugs,
Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

http://www.voluntarymotherearth.com/

-Aki

October
13Tue Jamestown NY, Mojo’s
14Wed Buffalo NY, Nobody’s
15Thu Wilmington DE, Mojo13
16Fri New York NY, Fontana’s
17Sat Boston MA, Midway Cafe
18Sun Off
19Mon D.C., The Red and The Black
20Tue Philadelphia PA, Blockley
21Wed Charlotte NC, Snug Harbor
22Thu Cincinnati OH, Cup & Saucer Cafe
23Fri Chicago IL, Quenchers
24Sat St Louis MO, Lemp Theater

See you at the show!

-Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

Hugs,
-Aki

As it turned out, all of them are from the Boston show. I think these tracks captured the energy of our American shows pretty well. (In Japan, our typical gig is like playing for a funeral…)

There’s no editing or mixing or mastering, no nothing. Just the way we played and the way it was recorded to my portable recorder. All I did was lo-fiing them quite a bit when coverting them from Aiffs to MP3s.

Hope you dig my mediocre vocals, among other things that is.

Aki

See you soon,
Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

You can always visit this store from our main Website.
Hope you find one you like!

PS. Say, if you’d like to see YOUR Name, or Town, or Country, or the name of your first goldfish on the back of the shirt, just email me and let me know and I’ll custom make it for you. (But it’ll cost me much more to print on the back, so the price has to be adjusted accordingly… Or, say, if you wanna go cheap, you can just scribble it on the back of the shirt with a sharpy, maybe.)

See you soon!
Hugs,
Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

There were very few people in the audience and only half of them were paying any attention. Luckily though, we did meet a few nice folks at each place. If we ever decide to come back to the west coast, these few nice folks are the reason. Now, if you happen to be one of the very few who were at one of these shows. THANK YOU!!!!!!

On Day 17, we returned all the equipment and the car and flew from Chicago to Seattle, and rented all the gear and a car, again, and off to the venue. From all I had heard from the venue, it was supposed to be a big night. Well,,,, kinda…

On Day 18, we drove 5 hours to Eugene, Oregon. When we got there, the place was 70% full. By the time we started our set, ahh, what the fuck.

On Day 19, we drove 6 hours to Chico, California. When we got there, the place was empty. When we started, the place was empty. What the fuck. As soon as the first song is over, some guy comes up to me and says “Hey, can you turn down your guitar?” “Why am I even here?” was my question. What the fuck, was the answer.

On Day 20 we drove 12 hours back to Seattle, stayed in Days Inn and on next morning flew back to Japan.

So that was the end of our U.S. tour.
If you happen to be one of those Voluntary Mothers who came out to the show, bought our CDs and T-shirts, gave us a space to play in and stage to play on, let us sleep on their floor, shared the stage with us, booked us, ran the sound for us, fed us, signed up to Right Brain Club, gave us directions, shook hands with us, hugged us, talked to us, or gave me syphilis,

THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

I didn’t enjoy the fact that you gave me syphilis, honey, but I did enjoy the act that gave me syphilis.
But seriously, if you are one of the above-mentioned Voluntary Mothers, know that you are the reason why we keep on doing this stuff.

Hope to see you again soon!
Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

So we’re back to Chicago.
Before the show, we talked to this North Carolina band Hammer No More The Fingers. Really nice guys. We thoroughly enjoyed sharing the stage with all the crazy bands this night. Also Keith the sound man and Arunas the booking man both treated us very nicely. Thank you mucho-gracias much!

Gracias Chicago!

Here’re the pictures.

See you soon,
Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

Voted one of the best shows by the three of us. We really loved playing here. One of the reasons why we liked it so much was because here at Lemp, people come to listen, not to drink and get fucked up and do stupid things. This is probably my first time ever to play for an audience that includes high school students in the U.S.

Before the show this guy Andew came up to talk to us, and we found out that he was one of the viewers of my friend Jeremy Thorn’s YouTube episodes. Looks like Jeremy plugged our tour on his shows. Mucho gracias Jeremy Fucking Thorn! And of course, thank you so much Andrew!

After the show, we had a cute little conversation in Japanese with a cute little American girl named Natalie. Thanks Natalie!

We slept at the venue with another touring band Pterodactyl from New York, and went off to Chicago next morning. Thank you so very much Mark and everybody at Lemp!

Here’re some pictures.

See you again soon!
Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

Here’re the pictures.

See you soon,
Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

The audience was super nice and we had a blast playing there. One of the best audiences on this tour for shizzle. Being a weirdo’s band singing songs about things that are not really sexy, it’s always nice to see female members of the community in the audience actually listening to and enjoying what we’re doing. Thanks!

If you were at the show, browse through the pictures below and see if you can find yourself in one of them. If you do, just let us know which one is you. Hopefully we get to see you next time again!

So here’re the photos.

See you soon!
Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

New York’s a fascinating city and I hope someday I get to live here for a year or two when I’m rich, maybe in my next reincarnation, or something.

So here’re some pictures.

See you soon.
Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

On day 7, we just stayed at our motel in Jersey City all day long doing nothing. We were all too tired. The weird cooking shown below is by me. Ramen, cans of vegetables cooked in a motel toilet water and you get this. It didn’t taste like it came straight from hell, but it didn’t taste like it was delivered from heaven, either. I won’t make this again…

On day 8, we just drove around in Manhattan, which turned out to be pretty fun. It’s not easy to drive here for a person who learned to drive in a small town Texas, but the traffic is nice and disorganized, it’s grooving. We found a good parking spot near the club we had played at, then walked around town later in the afternoon.

At night we met up with my old friend Gabe and had a drink or two with his friends. Celebrating an Irish saint with a bunch of non-religious guys and a Jew and two non-Catholic Christians can only possibly happen in America, I think. But I’m pretty sure I’m wrong.

After that, we drove to Gabe’s secret shack in the depths of Brooklyn. He’s pretty much one of the only 10 white guys living in this neighborhood and I think it’s real neat.

So here’s them pictures.

I’ll be right back with you tomorrow.
Til then!

Hugs,
Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

When Curt from Anal Pudding sent me an email and said he could help us get a gig in this very small town in Western New York, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Now I know why the Buffalo musicians were raving about this little place. The bar staff was unusually band-friendly and everybody made us feel welcomed and appreciated unlike big city venues. This city kind of reminded me of my second home Denton TX. We all had a great great time playing here.
Thanks everybody!

It’s been 2 years since we played this venue, but thanks to Curt from Anal Pudding, we had a great time playing here again. A great lineup of weird bands. Nice to see Anal Pudding’s crazy set again, and the same soundman from 2 years ago. I wished I could have jammed with Peanut Brittle Satellite.

The morning after the show, the band went north to Niagara Falls and ate rice balls that I’d made. A great site to see. I took the wrong road about 4 times on the way and almost ended up in Canada. We didn’t enter into Canada, but got to see it from across the falls. Someday we’d love to go play there as well, rice balls and all.

First American show in 2 years for me. There was absolutely nobody in the house by the time we finished our second song. We decided to go home to bed… The only good part of the night was that the nice folks from the band before us stuck around and jammed with us for about 10 minutes. The band(Dark Lingo) was a Southern girl and a Southern man, both moved up here a few years ago, they tell me. Having lived in Texas for 5 years, I like good Southern folks with good Southern hearts. Man I wished to go play Texas on this tour…

We flew into Chicago yesterday safe and sound, well kind of…
Had a right of passage for the new drummer Fujita Fajita by
ordering a huge-ass 20-inch American pizza.

Cheese is good.

What can I say, cheese is good.

We’ll be driving to Pittsburgh today for the first show of this tour.
3/11 (Wed) Belvedere’s, Pittsburgh, 9pm

See you tonight!

-Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

US Tour staring this Tuesday.
See you soon!

Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

How are ya?

A new Voluntary Mother Earth album “Official Bootleg – U.S. Tour 2007″ will be released in two weeks, on the 11th of March. It’s a collection of the best (or funniest) 12 takes from our U.S. tour in 2007, including a “very special moment” with a very drunk and slightly rude woman somewhere in New Haven, Connecticut.

Here’s the track list on “Official Bootleg – U.S. Tour 2007″

1. Jeremy Thorn in the Concentration Camp 2007 (Denton TX, June 2nd)
2. Your Mother Is Only a Voluntary Mother (Washington DC, May 24th)
3. American Cheese (Boston MA, May 21st)
4. Give us a Tomato (Denton TX, June 2nd)
5. Valley Girl Forever (Boston MA, May 21st)
6. Just Another Nice Guy from the Orient (Nashville TN, May 29th)
7. I said, “Just Water, Please” and She Gave me Sprite (Houston TX, May 31st)
8. …and You Got My Penis Hurt/Forgive My Penis (Denton TX, June 2nd)
9. A Story of the Typical Week of a Starving Musician (Washington DC, May 24th)
10. Free Head for a Free Ride (Houston TX, May 31st)
11. A Good Tomato – feat. Sandra the drunk woman from hell (New Haven CT, May 22nd)

For the time being, it’ll be sold exclusively at our shows, for a “depression-kind-of” price.
Come grab a copy for your aural entertainment.

See you on the tour!
Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

Good news and bad news.

Good news is that,, a New York City Gig was added to our March U.S. tour!
Mar 15 2009 7:00P at Kenny’s Castaways.

The bad news is,,,
The Poland tour scheduled for May has been, unfortunately, canceled.
My apologies to those who have been waiting to see us live there in Poland. Hopefully we get to come play there someday!

Hugs,
Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

For detailed tour info, visit www.voluntarymotherearth.com/ .

See you soon.
-Aki

Recently added shows are:
14Sat DC @ The Red and The Black
24Tue St. Louis MO @ The Lemp

And the one that has been held but unfortunately not made it is:
13Fri NYC

For the complete tour schedule, visit
http://vmetour.wordpress.com.

See you soon!
Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

The reason?
To learn one of our songs can be much more work than learning a whole punk album, and he found out this fact a little too late…

Good news, we’ll sound much tighter than otherwise.

To me, a performing musician is just like a chef in a restaurant.
You can’t slack off for weeks on end and just one day wake up and somehow turn into a good chef, nor can you fuck up the amount of salt you put into your gravy by being too careless. Customers won’t dig it, neither will the manager. Gotta know the recipe by heart and work very hard to keep poop up.

So, that’s that. But you missed nothing.

Something you and I will miss, however, is the planned Germany tour in May.
It will be postponed to Autumn this year, if all goes well.

The reason?
Everyone involved with the planning worked very hard, but we decided that we want to do it MORE RIGHT.
So we’ll try and do it MORE RIGHT in the fall. Sorry if you expected us there in May, but we’ll come play our silly little music a little bit later. Hope to see you then!

That’s all for today.
Have a great weekend!

-Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

Come hear it and download it at: http://www.voluntarymotherearth.com/

It’s not Voluntary Mother Earth. It’s more like a crooked J.S. Bach.
I liked writing it, and hope you like listening to it just as much.

Thanks for your support this year.
Hope to see you next year on the tour!

Have a nice holiday season,
Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

It’s all in English and makes a concise yet fun read.
For your pastime reading, go to the review page of Losing Today’s nice-looking website.
Thank you for writing the review Richard Stokoe!

What else?
We’re planning a German tour for the beginning of May 2009, along with a U.S. tour for March and a Poland tour at the end of May. For more details, come to the new VME Tour Blog page that I just made a minute ago.

Hope to see you at the show!

Hugs,
Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

If you understand Polish, go check it out.
HERE: http://www.mrocznastrefa.webh.pl/recenzje-v.php#VOLUNTARY_MOTHER_EARTH-Unacceptable_Vegetable

Thank you Diovis for the review!

You have a nice weekend and we’ll see you soon
Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

Since we fucked up by asking an un-trustworthy son of a gun to join
us and found out he didn’t really exist, as least in our rehearsal
room, we’ve been looking for a better son of a gun.

And today we welcomed a guitar player named Masa Onodera into the
band as Communal Mother.

He’s a unique musician in that he went nearly deaf not once but twice
but survived. He says it’s so nice to be able to hear things.

Sometimes, or maybe often, we hear things we never wish to hear, but
I guess it’s worth it.

So, from today Voluntary Mother Earth will be a foursome again. We
will soon change our band name to “Tokyo Singles’ Club” for all the
band members have been single for a long mother-fucking time.

If you have the equivalent of 6 U.S. dollars left in your wallet,
make sure to get “Unacceptable Vegetable” MP3 album for the upcoming
holiday season.
Here: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/vme2

So , have a nice December and we’ll see you soon.

Hugs,
Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth
http://www.voluntarymotherearth.com/

This may or may not be the last Tokyo show for the first half of year 2009, as we have two big bank-account-crushing tours waiting for us overseas in March and May. So If you’re in the area this season, make sure to look forward to the next Britney Spears album.

No details in yet, but here’s the general idea of how it rolls.
Date: 1/13 Tue 2009
Place: Heaven’s Door, Tokyo. 10 min walk from Tokyu Den-en-toshi line “Sangenjaya” stn.
Time: Door opens around 6:30pm
Price: 2300 (incl. 1 drink)
Note: 4 other bands

Hope to see you there

Have a nice December.

Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

Here’s the link to the pictures.

Voluntary Mother Earth PhotoBucket Promo Photo Page

See you soon,
Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

Voluntary Mother Earth’s latest CD “Unacceptable Vegetable” was recently reviewed in Tarkus Magazine (issue #46) in Norway. If you understand Nowegian, check out their website and order a copy today to see what they have to say about our music.

Also the same album had been reviewed in iO Pages Magazine (issue # 81) in Netherland. Speak Dutch? Check out their website and get a copy today.

Voluntary Mother Earth TOURS 2009
We’re currently planning a US tour for March 2009, and an European tour for May 2009, as well as applying to various festivals for the next summer.

-VME’s “YOU CAN BOOK US TOO” Policy-
If you live in a musical community, no matter how small and no matter where it’s located on the planet Earth, and would like to see us live, AND if you are part of your local scene, or know the clubs/bars/bands in that scene, YOU can book us too.

Interested? Send me an email at voluntarymotherearth ( at ) gmail.com for details.

Other than that, we’ve started rehearsing new songs which we hope to record and present to you next year.

Voluntary Mother Earth (L to R: Akihiko Hayakawa(g,vo), Fujita Fajita(dr), Noriff Micky(b) )

Hope to see you on our next tour!

-Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth
-a Japan’s premier absurdist rock combo

We’ll be looking for new members.
If interested, let us know by email at:
voluntarymotherearth ( at ) gmail.com

Thanks and have a nice October!

-Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

This is going to be the first show with the new drummer Fujita Fajita.
Should be fun.

See you at the show!

Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

Check out this video clip from a couple of years ago of a guitar contest that he won.
Duran the BadAss on YouTube

In the meantime, we received a couple of new CD reviews from the U.S. and France.

VME CD Review on Orcasound (USA)

VME CD Review on NeoProg (France)

So that’s a bunch of good news for those who care about this weird little combo from the Orient.
Stay safe and see you soon!

Hugs,
Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

See you soon,
Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

http://www.arlequins.it/pagine/articoli/alfa/corpo.asp?ch=3889

Stay surreal and have an absurd week,
Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

More Communal Mothers to join us in time for our next tour and recording.

And here’re other pieces of insignificant information for ordinary people with busy lifestyle and a well-paying job.

1. Right Brain Club -Expansion
The Right Brain Club, a cute name for our free newsletter with special updates and free downloads, welcomed many new members in the past month, including but not limited to, nice folks from Indonesia, Israel, Russia, and many of them from Poland. We’d love to play in your country in near future, and your support will forever be appreciated by some lousy Oriental folks that we are.
So here’s to you. MUCHO GRACIAS!!!

2. Ready to Purchase our CD?
Save $10 from your next paycheck and purchase of copy of our latest album “Unacceptable Vegetable” and join all Voluntary Mothers scattered throughout the world.
To buy the album, go to CDBaby.com, or Apple iTunes, or Amazon.com, and other famous CD/MP3 stores online.

3. No? Then how about some free songs?
Or if $10 is too much at this moment, join Right Brain Club and get 5 songs for free. To join, simply go to http://www.voluntarymotherearth.com and use the simple sign-up form on the left side of the page.

In the meantime, more CD reviews in the U.S. and Europe are scheduled to come out soon.
Stay tuned!

Hugs,
Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth
http://www.voluntarymotherearth.com

Check it out on Radio SAR’s Website at
http://www.sar.pg.gda.pl/index1.php?dzial=news&view=kat&id=6

Thank you Adam for the review!

If things go well, we’d love to play in Poland sometime in near future.
Stay tuned!

Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

1. Review by Megan at Independent Clauses in USA

2. Review by Scott at Aural Innovations in USA

3. Review by Roland at Prog Rock Info in Germany

Want the CD or MP3?
Go to www.cdbaby.com/all/vme

Have an absurd week!
Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

It’ll be on the program called “Trojwymiar”, on the air from 6pm Polish time.

The DJ of the show is called Adam. We recenlt ran into each other
online and I asked him if he’d take a minute to check out our music.
Next thing you know, he’s so very cool to offer to play our songs.

If you live in Poland, make sure to tune in to http://www.radiosar.pl
at 6pm on Tuesday the 15th!

If you live elsewhere, I can’t read Polish, but it looks like you can
stream the station from the URL above as well.

Thank you Adam! Let’s all move to Poland!

(Above is the excerpt from V.M.E. Right Brain Club Newsletter. Wanna get our news and updates faster than everybody else? Join Right Brain Club at http://www.voluntarymotherearth.com!)

We’re currently holding auditions for a new drummer.
Hopefully we can introduce you to a new Voluntary Mother in a month or two.

After the new Mother joins, then we’ll start auditioning guitarists or keyboardists in place of Yuko, who left the band last fall.

In the meantime, eat a few more cheese burgers, and all will be well.

Talk to ya soon,
Aki

Hope you dig it as deep as deep south.
Let me know what you think.

Keep in touch!
-Aki

It’s Aki from Voluntary Mother Earth.

You know that sometimes I sing about The Penis, don’t you? If you didn’t, then I must ask you this,

“When’s the last time you heard a Japanese experimental rock band perfom a 12-inch-long Penis Duology?”

Probably never.

That’s why you should DOWNLOAD IT FOR FREE NOW and FEEL IT growing on your body!

So, Download “Penis Duology Pt.1 – Forgive My Penis” from Voluntary Mother Earth’s brand-new album “Unacceptable Vegetable” for FREE!
Come and ADD INCHES to YOUR PRIDE!

Here’s how, takes less than a minute. Faster than ramen. Simple. (Slower than when I was a teenager. But that’s a secret.)

1. Come to www.voluntarymotherearth.com. This is where you can stream MP3s of all songs on the album for free.

2. Join our “Right Brain Club” for FREE on the very same page.

3. Then, all of a sudden, you’ll get 5 FREE DOWNLOADS including the Penis song from 2 of our albums!

4. After you’ve added that another inch (by downloading), kindly forward this blog post to your friends. Just “Copy and Paste” this post into your email and let your friends know! You know at least 3 people that’ll appreciate a Free Penis Download, don’t you?

You never know if your friend’s friend’s friend’s brother’s wife was my best friend’s brother’s substitute math teacher who is extremely hot. God works in a mysterious way, they say.

So please kindly spread this post and see what happens. Heck, you can even email it to ALL of your friends!

Again, it’s all on www.voluntarymotherearth.com.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Hope you’ll enjoy our Penis Duology.

So, are you ready to ADD INCHES NOW?
Go add ‘em goddamn inches!

Hugs,
Aki
Voluntary Mother Earth
-eccentrock for those who refuse to conform!
www.myspace.com/voluntarymotherearth

P.S.
- Make sure you copy and paste this blog and send it to your friends NOW so they can download the music right from their computer, too!

-Are you a blogger? Feel free to copy and paste this post to your blog! Just mention it came from here, and all is good!

Now, go start adding INCHES on www.voluntarymotherearth.com!

A Happy New Year!

If you buy our new album “Unacceptable Vegetable” by the end of January 2008, you’ll get it for only $9.97. Don’t miss it!

Sound Samples of all songs on the album can be found at: www.cdbaby.com/cd/vme2

“Unacceptable Vegetable” – an album of 9 genre-crossing rock n’roll songs with wit and humor that will open up your third eye and make you burst out in the laugh of a lifetime.

If you love eclectic, genre-crossing rock bands like System of a Down, Tool, Incubus, The Mars Volta, and Primus, then you should definitely check out this album.

Here’re some testimonials from folks who already bought this album.

“I really dig the updated versions of Jeremy Thorn and Makes Me Wonder. It’s also badass how so many of the songs have a knee-jerk section where it’ll go from rock to a xylophone solo, stuff like that. One more thing, I almost crashed my car I was laughing so hard when you did that “OOH… OOH… OOO-EEE-OOOOH!” sound on one of the tracks. Great fuckin work man!”
-Chad McCanna, Los Angeles CA, USA

“I received Unacceptable Vegetable for x-mas. It’s one of those CD’s you can just hit play on and not touch again. Michael Jackson is tight!”
-Sam Respess, Denton TX, USA

“Hottest album in YEARS. It’s like riding a roller coaster backwards and slamming into the residence of Adam’s Family! And your parodies,,, I laughed my butt off!”
-Yoshikuni Tsuji, Tokyo, JAPAN

You can get the CD at: www.cdbaby.com/cd/vme2
Hope you have a nice steamy year.
-VME

Our New CD “Unacceptable Vegetable” is on its vegetable way to the USA right now. It will be available in a few weeks on an On-line CD store called www.cdbaby.com .

Here’re the tracks on this Album

Unacceptable Vegetable by Voluntary Mother Earth
1. Give us a Tomato
2. Free Head for a Free Ride
3. I said “Just Water, Please” and She Gave me Sprite
4. Valley Girl meets Angela and a Long Thin Person somewhere in the Orient
5. Jeremy Thorn 2007
6. A Story of the Typical Week of a Starving Musician
7. Makes Me Wonder
8. Forgive My Penis
9. …and You Got My Penis Hurt

50minutes of absurdities in total.

For our fans and friends in the US, Canada, and Mexico, CDBaby is the cheapest way to get the album. If you know fellow Voluntary Mothers near you, let them know about the release and make an order together so you and they can save the shipping fee.

For our fans and friends in Tokyo, the CD will be available at our concerts as well as by calling us and say “Hey!”.

For our fans and friends in other parts of the world, Digital Download of the full album will be available on Apple iTunes as well as on CD Baby in 1-2 months. Because the shipping fee to these areas can be expensive, we recommend Digital Download. HOWEVER, if you really want the hardcopy, there is another way to get it. Email us at voluntarymotherearth (at) gmail.com for more info.

Mucho Gracias and have a strange week,
-aki
Voluntary Mother Earth

We have a show coming up very soon!
Here’s the detail.

Date: Nov 22nd, thursday
Time: Door 6:00pm, Show 6:30pm
Place: Koenji 20000V, Tokyo (2 stops on Chuo-line from Shinjuku)
Price: 1500yen plus 500yen drink ticket
Other Bands: Shiro, Guringo, vwvw, off

Wanna reserve a ticket?
Hit us an email at: voluntarymotherearth (at) gmail.com
INCLUDE your name, and the number of tickets. That’s it!

We hope to see you all there!
-aki
Voluntary Mother Earth
www.voluntarymotherearth.com

Enjoy your read,
Aki

We have 2 announcements today.

1. New Album “Unacceptable Vegetable” Release Date

Please expect a little more delay. All I can say is “It should be out by the end of this year”

It has, basically, nine weird songs and maybe some bonus tracks from this year’s US tour.
Price will be somewhere around $15.

More details to come.

2. Shows in Japan

Three shows are booked for the rest of this year.

Nov. 22 (thu) Koenji 20000V, Tokyo JP
Open 6:00pm, Start 6:30pm
Ticket Price: 1500yen + 1 Drink 600yen
Other Bands: Shiro, Gringo, vwvw, off

*** *** ***
Dec.6 (thu) Shizu Sound Stream, Chiba JP
Ticket Price: 1400yen (incl. 1 Drink)
Other Details: TBA

*** *** ***
Dec. 11 (tue) Sangen-Jaya Heaven’s Door, Tokyo JP
Open 6:30pm, Start 7:00pm
Ticket Price: 1800yen + 1 Drink 500yen
Other Bands: TBA

*** *** ***

If you live in the Tokyo-area, we hope to see you at one of above shows.

Have a nice and absurd week,
Aki