Tomoyasu Hotei?
 

Having been introduced to this artist on the bad-ass track on the Kill Bill sountrack, I was wondering if anybody had any of his other music? How much does does it sound like the track on the soundtrack? It looks like he has a best-of cd, but any of his music will carry a hefty price tag ($30-40) because it is an import.

The <i>Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas</i> soundtrack features several songs by him.

http://www.ebay.com/

There's none on right now. But check in from time-to-time. You should be able to pick them up for $10-$15 each.

The track on Kill Bill was cool. But I downloaded a songs on Kazaa, but am not terribly impressed.

He did a cover of John Lennon's "Merry X-mas" on Steve Vai's first Merry Axemas album which is brilliant. Other than that and the song from Kill Bill I haven't heard that much from him.

Yes, you can nab most of his CDs on EBAY pretty cheap. I know, because I picked up 6 that way just last week. :) I was turned on to him through the Playstation music rhythm game "Stolen Song," which features not only a bunch of his music but Hotei himself who you can sorta interact with (the game uses Full Motion Video to play out the story). The game's also notable for coming with a virtual guitar pick which you use to strum along with Hotei on several songs. Anyway, I really dug most of the music in the game and didn't realize until a bit later that he was responsible for my favorite Kill Bill track.

Having said all that, after listening to the CDs I just got, I realize that most of his instrumental stuff is incredible....but when he adds vocals it's very 80s cheese rock. Many of his songs feature english choruses like "Boys Be Ambitious" and "Captain Rock" and the like, which I'd say is a bit of a required taste. His CDs are also hit and miss, some being techno-ish, some New Wave. Songs also range from rock, to baroque ("Bara To Ame"), to French whimsy ("Deja Vu in Paris"), to Spanish techno flamenco ("Circus")...weird stuff.

The good news is he has a new CD of just instrumentals coming out in a few weeks in Japan, which includes 3 versions of the Kill Bill song "Battle Without Honor or Humanity." It's available here:
http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/detailview.html?KEY=TOCT-25355

So yeah. Some of his stuff is really good. Much of it is pretty unique. Songs like "Poison" and "Inohita Moyasitukusu Tamenomono" are examples of what I think his better stuff sounds like. He also did an interesting version of Led Zeppelin's "The Immigrant Song." I recommend grabbing one of his GuitarRhythm CDs (he has several) which are exclusively rock, or the CD "Tomoyasu Hotei - Greatest Hits 1990-1999" which has some great tracks. Just be prepared for some wince-inducing tunes with poorly worded English vocals sprinkled throughout. :)

He was also in a band called Boowy for a long time, but I haven't checked out their stuff yet.

Thanks for all the information guys. I will check out eBay and see if I can get some stuff cheap. That instrumental cd sounds more along the lines of what I would like.