The song stuck in my head this week is “Precious Deal” by Tomoyasu Hotei. Most famous for the “Battle Without Honor or Humanity” theme from Kill Bill, he is a Japanese rock musician whose work spans many genres. Bombastic like O-ren Ishi’s theme song, more typical hard-edged rock like the song above, and my favorite cover of “Immigrant Song” by Led Zeppelin (which he did before Trent Reznor essentially copied it for the opening credits of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo remake).
Hotei is also an actor, and plays a role in one of my favorite revisionist samurai flicks, Samurai Fiction. Well worth a rental.
A great introduction to his music is the album Electric Samurai, a little play on Marc Bolan’s Electric Warrior album. It has the song from Kill Bill and Immigrant Song. Precious Deal, with its infectious riff, is on another album.
Thomas Pluck writes unflinching fiction with heart. His stories have appeared in Big Pulp, Needle, Stupefying Stories, The Utne Reader Burnt Bridge, [PANK] magazine, Crime Factory, Spinetingler, Beat to a Pulp, McSweeney's Internet Tendency and elsewhere. He edits the Lost Children charity anthologies to benefit PROTECT: The National Association to Protect Children, and writes 
"The Story of O Street" in Oh Sandy: An Anthology of Humor for a Serious Cause
"Kamikaze Death Burgers at the Ghost Town Cafe" in Feeding Kate
"Acapulcolypse" in Nightfalls: Notes from the End of the World
"The Rock Ridge Ringer" in Hills of Fire: Bare-Knuckle Yarns of Appalachia
"Train" in Shotgun Honey Presents: Both Barrels
"Garbage Man" in Beat to a Pulp: Superhero
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology (Amazon Kindle & Paperback)
It’s already sticking in my head even though it’s the first time I’ve heard it. I wonder why some music does that.
I bet there’s some science to it. But this one’s got it.