Weekly: Manga Kissaten

Well, this is sort of cool ... I'm eating pancakes and drinking coffee and watching War Of the World in a Takamatsu manga kissaten (a 24-hour rest station ... tons of comics, PCs, DVDs, free drinks, etc.)
So I decided to do an update from here!
Okay, so I was in Kyoto a few days ago, and I came across this cool new 12" by Mr. Comicstore called Theme Of Comics. Sort of in the same vein as like, Halfby and all those Second Royal dudes, but definitely a fun listen. There are tons of samples up on their website ...
Damnarms are this sort of hardcore group from Melbourne that's currently touring with Test Iscicles. They definitely have a similar sound ... a little rougher if anything, and less organized, but still pretty cool. Listen to two of their songs at their MySpace page. They shall be big.
I like these guys, the Mules ... bizarre psychedelic garage rock from Allston, Mass. ... all weird and distorted ... goofy vocals with a nice female touch. I dig the organ -- what is that? a Farfisa? Listen to their song Teenage Freak Girls.
And I guess I'll close this off with an obscure Escalator Records artist (awesome Tokyo-based record label whose roster includes Yukari Fresh and Cubismo Graffico): Caede. So far she's only got a CD single out, but it's cute and fresh and full of energy and fun like all these other Japanese releases I'm listening to now. Check out a samples of the first and second tracks.