[BOOK REVIEW] Sushi & Stromgitarre [part 1 of ?]

[BrenGun 2261]

 

A Visual Roadbook by Steff Astan

 

Steff the crazy motherf*cker guy from Germany who did bring a lot of Japanese bands to Europe, mainly to Germany.
However also other countries such as France, Netherlands and Poland.

The tours where always crazy; less “free time” and crazy on the road to be on time for the next gig or getting an airplane.

Steff describes every event in his own words, from what he remembers;  Most things are written different from the truth, but it's still very near the truth and some stories are also mega funny. You also will learn why he and Kiwamu have such good relationship and how bands sometimes break their own ROAD to FAME.
Steff even did tour with Korean pop bands, who didn't differ much from the Japanese bands.

 

Sushi & Stromgitarre is a book you should read if you visited a lot of Steff concerts or if you simply want to read a story of a person who did tour a lot with Japanese rock bands.

However, there is one problem, you should be able to understand German on a high level to understand this book. The book isn’t written in little kiddo’s language, well it’s actually a book for adults, because yes also the topic “porno” in Japan and “Drugs” in Japan have their own topics in the book.

 

Sometimes Steff words are a bit chaotic written, going from a topic to a different topic, not mention all Staff and then suddenly a Staff name plops up out of nothing. And such of vague “need to read the sentence again” feelings happen while reading it.

 

If you didn’t bought the book yet, here is a preview of the book. It’s the price worth and you will laugh a lot while reading this book.

 

My review of the book will be in parts and the start of my review will be the Kiwamu story followed by a few other favorites.
I will tell you in short about what Steff wrote - But I will write that in a different part...

For now please enjoy the trailer of the book -
 

 

 

© 2017 by Verlag Stefan Mensing

Erstauflage (limitierte Photobuch-Edition)

Hardcover
Full color
204 page
Size: 21×21

Language: German

Official Facebook
Official Instagram
Official website

 

[chemicalpictures 1888]

Now that's Interesting! If it ever gets an english translation, I'll pick up one

[platy 3018]

I'll second that, I'd read it if it ever got translated. Although that seems unlikely... 

[doombox 4421]

I wish I read German to check this out. I love insider tell-alls like this. 

[fitear1590 2414]

Finally, my German knowledge has some use for my Japanese music interest??

Edited January 18, 2018 by fitear1590

[BrenGun 2261]

11 minutes ago, fitear1590 said:

Finally, my German knowledge has some use for my Japanese music interest??

100%

German isn't my motherlanguage.

but I am glad that I do understand it almost perfectly.

 

___

inside the book is written that translating is forbidden,

however I will write some nice summaries of each chapter.

So that you guys still know a bit of the stories inside.  (。-∀-)

 

and who knows if this is a good hit, that Steff ever comes up with an English translation.

[fitear1590 2414]

4 hours ago, BrenGun said:

inside the book is written that translating is forbidden

Really?! That's a strange policy. I've never heard of that.

[BrenGun 2261]

On 1/19/2018 at 4:12 AM, fitear1590 said:

Really?! That's a strange policy. I've never heard of that.

Well, ttanslating is always forbidden. because afterall you translate something copyrighted.

 

thats also a reason why publishers dislike scanlations a lot. because they cannot make money out of it themselves if someone doing the job for free.

 

but not everybody cares... aka with lyrics. (but some artist dislike anything around it, in Japan lyrics are copyrighted sharing in Kanji is much not liked by everyone)

 

 

 

[BrenGun 2261]

REVIEW PART 2 - I'll finish up this at an later moment -
 

Spoiler

 

STEFF start the book on page 6-7 with a nice introduction about himself.  How he came to the name of ASTAN and why he did start it all. 
On page 8 Steff talks about tattoos and Közi 

 

 

On page 18 of the book, Steff tells you about his first gig with BLOOD.  Even on that first gig, Kiwamu didn't want to on stage because he didn't like that "Steff" also would sell merchandise. He made a big crazy fuzz about a totebag. But too bad for Kiwamu, he signed a contract which was written that Steff also could sell whatever he wanted. Which is fair enough?
Also  the concert a "girl" grabbed, Kiwamu at somewhere where the sun doesn't shine. And kiwamu seemed to enjoy it, because it triggered him to do some BoyLove service on Fu-Ki. 

 

On page 26~30 of the book, Steff tells the first story about Calmando Qual, he describes the CQ guys as we know them, we discover when he bought his GREEN NISSAN car. And he tells the story about that Japanese people totally know nothing of the WW2 war, since Hibiki wanted to dress fully in a NAZI costume. (Costume can be seen in the ANTI-FLAG video).  The concerts they played where fully loved by most people who watched them.  also he tells about the MV videos he did shoot and that Hibiki and Kenka discovered the XXX CM's on the TV which you can see endless at the night.  

 

On page 30 of the book, The Kiwamu story continues, Steff did bring BLOOD another time to Europe. Steff tells you why he called Kiwamu "KOI" and that Kiwamu broke a Guitar amp from him. And Kiwamu said some nice "words" towards Steff in his angry mood. 

 

 

 

 

[Seelentau 884]

On 19.1.2018 at 4:12 AM, fitear1590 said:

Really?! That's a strange policy. I've never heard of that.

That's probably because it's not true.