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December 22, 2024
 

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Simon Bartz
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
May 15, 2002
The Black Dog
I can feel the beast closing in, feel it out there making its moves. I'm standing in the center of this dingy apartment listening to the intense howl of the pre-attack silence, too scared to turn on the lights. I bolt the door. I screw shut the windows. I nail down the toilet seat. You never know from...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
May 8, 2002
The Hives: 'Your New Favourite Band'
Reviews don't get much simpler than this. Get in front of your computer, type in The Hives and download their single "Hate to Say I Told You So." Listen to it once and The Hives will be "your new favorite band." That's 40 words. 'Nuff said. . . . Oh, so you want a proper review?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
May 5, 2002
Wire's London Nite: Let it be a lesson to you
Tokyo has one of the best underground rock 'n' roll live scenes in the world, with dozens of superb bands, but the club scene -- if you like dancing to loud guitar music until dawn -- has been in a coma for the past five years.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 5, 2002
Girl, you'll be Madonna soon
It's no surprise that the mums have turned out in force to chaperone their kids at Britney Spears' show at Tokyo Dome: They've seen her recent, more raunchy videos, witnessed her fondling a huge snake during her performance at the MTV video awards and noticed that on her third and latest album, "Britney,"...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
May 1, 2002
Golden Syrup Lovers: 'Hue'
Remember what British guitar-pop was like in the '80s. No? Exactly. Because it was all totally forgettable apart from The Smiths (who were gods and thus an exception).
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
May 1, 2002
Antipop Consortium: 'Arrhythmia'
'Disturb the equilibrium" has been Antipop Consortium's credo since they formed five years back, and their second album, "Arrhythmia," is another welcome one-finger salute to hip-hop's pop mainstream.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Apr 10, 2002
Helicoid 0222MB
Helicoid 0222MB is a robot created and operated by three chicks from Osaka. Their ultimate goal is not to make this fantasy robot rid Japan of evil bands like Snail Ramp and Bump of Chicken, but simply to make it dance. Ho-hum.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Apr 7, 2002
Straight Kabukicho, on the rocks, please
Kabukicho: the land of quick fixes, whether they be edible, audible, watchable . . . Just about any -able is doable in this hallowed den of iniquity.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 3, 2002
Slipknot unmasked!
For a big guy, the evil-looking Clown from the band Slipknot can move pretty fast. In a flash he leaps out of his seat, lunges at me with a stiletto blade and plunges it into my chest. "Nothing else means anything to me," he snarls, his face inches away from mine, his eyes burrowing to the back of my...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 3, 2002
Mommy, can we go out and play dying tonight?
Tomoko, 18, from Yokohama, and Yui, 18, from Osaka
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Mar 27, 2002
O-Ne: '2624'
I ask Tokyo duo O-Ne why their long-awaited debut album is called "2624." Is that a combination of the ages of the two chicks in the band? Is that when the world's gonna finally end? Or is that the black-market price in pounds sterling for a ticket to see England whip the ass of Argentina in the upcoming...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Mar 20, 2002
Lee 'Scratch' Perry: 'Jamaican e.t.'
Lee "Scratch" Perry has been stumbling along the very fine line between eccentricity and insanity for more than 30 years, and his latest album, "Jamaican e.t.," is one of his most mind-scrambling yet.
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Mar 13, 2002
Trail of Dead: 'Source Tags & Codes'
At last year's Summersonic festival, Texas four-piece . . . And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead gave us the best, and most incendiary, live performance Japan saw all year. They ended a phenomenal show by trashing every piece of equipment on stage -- even the drum kit was hurled into the mosh pit...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Mar 6, 2002
The Cooper Temple Clause: 'See This Through and Leave'
Every year at the Fuji Rock Festival there comes a time when you've reached the point of sonic overload. You're searching for a place for a quiet lie-down when you stumble into a field and are aurally ambushed by a band you've never heard of that blows your head off. Last year, the psychedelic punk-rock...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Mar 3, 2002
Wolves in wolves' clothing
How Guitar Wolf is still going after 15 years of unadulterated sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll madness is a miracle. It's not like they're cashed-up like Keith Richards and can hit an exclusive Swiss clinic to have their blood replaced with that of fresh virgins every other week.
CULTURE / Music
Feb 24, 2002
The Strokes: Was that it?
The Strokes, ever heard of them? They're a bunch of rich kids from New York who like the street. Too drunk to skateboard, they stride round in their vintage clothes, take loads of drugs, chase chicks and make music. Last year, they released "Is This It," the greatest debut album since Oasis' "Definitely...
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Feb 20, 2002
Supersnazz
Supersnazz's 1998 album, "Diode City," must feel like a bit of an albatross for the band. The 19-song punk-pop classic is so awesome that if you locked Supersnazz in a studio for 10 years and held a gun to their heads, they'd be unlikely to better it. On their latest album, "Rock-O-Matic," they don't...
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Feb 20, 2002
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Last year, The Strokes and White Stripes were placed in a rocket of hype and blasted into superstardom. The media -- me included -- bludgeoned you into thinking they were the hippest bands in the universe and should be name-dropped at every opportunity if you wanted to be cool. Thankfully, they made...
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Feb 3, 2002
Makes perfect pop sense to me . . .
Beat Crusaders must have overheard one of those critics a couple of years back saying "comedy is the new rock 'n' roll" and taken it literally, for what you get at their gigs is tons of cheap stand-up comic banter sandwiched between immensely hummable pop hymns. Remember the speedy guitar pop of The...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jan 30, 2002
Electric Soft Parade: 'Holes in the Wall'
Electric Soft Parade have been heralded by much of the British music press as the best of a bunch of bands that currently make up what some call the nu-acoustic movement, which includes the whining of bands like Elbow, Starsailor and Coldplay.
Freed anti-whaling campaigner Paul Watson arrives in France
U.S.-Canadian anti-whaling environmental activist Paul Watson, who was released from prison in Greenland's capital Nuuk after five months in detention, arrives with Lamya Essemlali, president of Sea Shepherd France, at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Roissy-en-France, near Paris, on Friday.
Nippon Steel alleges undue White House influence on doomed deal review
U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the economy at the Brookings Institution in Washington on Dec. 10.
Record 78% of people in Japan feel anxious, government survey finds
The public opinion survey on people's lives, conducted by the Cabinet Office, found that 28.1% of respondents think that their standard of living is at a lower-middle level among the general public — the highest percentage to give that response in 35 years.
Police raided suspect's home to arrest him after fatal Kitakyushu stabbing
Broken window glass is seen at Masanori Hirabaru's house in Kitakyushu's Kokuraminami Ward.
Taiwan lawmakers brawl over bills that would 'damage democracy'
Lawmakers from the Democratic Progressive Party and opposition party Kuomintang brawl in parliament in Taipei on Friday.
Casual workouts, cool living, ‘complete’ food: Japan’s health trends of 2024
In 2024, efficiency trumped effort among Japan's fitness-focused aspirants.
The mighty Mekong River's growing plastic problem
A group of elephant keepers in Chiang Saen, Thailand, remove plastic waste from the Ruak River, a tributary of the Mekong River, as a pair of Asian elephants bathe behind them.
Japanese officials inspect Yokota Air Base over PFAS concerns
The Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo in September 2019. An inspection of the base by Japanese government officials on Friday came amid public pressure to investigate suspected links between the use of PFAS-containing firefighting foam by the U.S. base and contamination of soil and groundwater in western Tokyo.
Crime numbers rise in Japan for second straight year
A police officer stands in front of the residence of a man alleged to have stabbed two junior high school students in Kitakyushu.
A year of Oscar wins and a quiet push for diversity
Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Evil Does Not Exist,” released in Japanese theaters in April, sharply dramatizes the clash between rural and urban values. The film won five awards at the 2023 Venice Film Festival, including the second-place Silver Lion prize.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Yasuyuki Yoshida stirs a brew in a fermentation tank at his brewery in Hakusan.
The quake that shook Noto's sake brewing tradition
By Alex K.T. Martin

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