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November 24, 2024
 

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Suzannah Tartan
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
May 12, 2000
Ascendancy of ska-core captured on compilation
With the latest releases by Kemuri, Snailramp and Potshot turning up in the record charts, ska-core has emerged from the underground. Ska-core has thrived through a network of small clubs and indie record labels across Japan much like its musical cousin, mellowcore. (Members of Snailramp run one of the...
CULTURE / Music
May 9, 2000
They call it 'avant-pop,' but hum along if you like
Pop aficionados often feel the need to be apologetic. Few would would openly admit to preferring those early bouncy Beatles singles to the Fab Four's more musically adventurous output of later years, or to having danced around the living room to "La Vida Loca." Even the shiny surfaces of Cornelius are...
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Apr 14, 2000
Communing with Kerouac
Spoken word, the increasingly hip combination of poetry and music, has never really cut it in Tokyo. While New York, Chicago and London boast regular spoken-word club nights and poetry slams, one of Tokyo's few regular events is the Johnbull-sponsored event dubbed Bookworm.
CULTURE / Music
Mar 31, 2000
Evolution of grunge and the cutting edge of simian style
It used to be that a band had to be dead and buried for a good decade before popping up in interviews and liner notes as an "influence." Not anymore. Though Kurt Cobain has been dead less than 10 years, the reverberations of the Seattle sound are beginning to be felt in Tokyo's live houses, most especially...
CULTURE / Music
Mar 17, 2000
Catching up with pop auteur Shuntaro Okino
Pastoral retreats generally do not seem conducive to the production of great pop music. Even the Band's extended stays in Woodstock were more about bacchanalian revelry than quiet contemplation. Sensuous hooks and driving beats seem to relate more to the rough and tumble urban world than to any serene...
CULTURE / Music
Mar 3, 2000
Don't believe the hype, just cue up the record
You can tell because it's become a staple of boy bands and television commercials, selling everything from hair dryers to soft drinks. Even the least offensive manifestations of hip hop's mainstream acceptance, Dragon Ash, has all the substance of white bread.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Mar 2, 2000
Harajuku tea shop kicks that Seattle habit
Serene and calm, Saikolee Tsukamoto's piano project, "Museum of Plate," is music to kick back and relax to. With a dollop of Erik Satie and a hint of ambient electronica of the gentlest kind, her latest album "Saon (Music for Tea)" is, as the name implies, inspired by tea drinking. Listen to the record...
CULTURE / Music
Feb 18, 2000
The journey begins in Calexico
Concept albums are notoriously fiendish undertakings. Most often they are an embarrassment, the sort of thing that artists blush about and PR reps write off as youthful indulgence.
CULTURE / Music
Feb 4, 2000
Rescuing abandoned electones from a grim fate
The electone, better known as the home organ, might recall memories of drunken uncles playing shambolic versions of Christmas songs, or upwardly mobile parents forcing a bit of culture down junior's throat. In many family homes, it is a dust-gathering fixture, a hulking monument to the musically dasai....
CULTURE / Music
Jan 21, 2000
Fashion segueing into sound
A special guest at a Ryuichi Sakamoto concert summons a host of international possibilities -- David Sylvian or Bowie, perhaps? Instead, the audience at Sakamoto's recent Christmas concert got designer Yohji Yamamoto clutching an acoustic guitar. Yamamoto's foray into music (he has recorded with rootsy...
CULTURE / Music
Jan 7, 2000
Japan's cultural underground exposed in edgy new guide
The slow days of winter are upon us, making an evening on the couch with a good book or tune more enticing than the sweaty confines of a live house or club. As folks slowly stream back into town from the New Year's holidays, there isn't a lot happening in the first few weeks of January anyway, so kick...
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Nov 26, 1999
Salon Music goes back to basics, but still way ahead of the curve
One of the great curiosities of the Japanese music scene is the tendency to eat up the latest indie rock innovations from the U.K. or U.S., leaving home-grown talent unknown and uncelebrated.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Oct 15, 1999
Tell JB to get a new bag -- this girl's got her own funk
Takako Minekawa is a sound nerd.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Sep 17, 1999
Chari Chari's evergreen sound
The term legend is often used lightly in music journalism. Kaoru Inoue, known as Chari Chari, is one of the few Tokyo DJs who could reasonably be called legendary.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Aug 20, 1999
Meanies: '10% weird,' 90 percent addictive
There are certain shambolic punk rock moments, usually involving beer or hard spirits, when an otherwise imbecilic song becomes an anthem. In a drunken haze, the driving force of the Buzzcocks' "Orgasm Addict," G.G. Allin's "Expose Yourself to Kids" or anything by the Ramones rises to the level of "The...
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Aug 6, 1999
Number Girl's gotta have it
If Tokyo's live houses have provided little in the way of new musical inspiration recently, the provinces have picked up the slack with a vengeance. Sapporo's burgeoning hip-hop scene has produced new rap heroes the Blue Herb, while Kyoto, with DJs 1945 and Nobukazu Takemura, is becoming the home of...
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Jul 23, 1999
Under the sway of Petty Booka
Picture this: Two girls, cousins, growing up in the lush, tropical paradise of Hawaii, learn the ukulele at their father's knee. Singing the old, mournful island love songs with their mother, harmony and melody come as naturally as the hula.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Jul 9, 1999
'Showa 64' puts reverse spin on club scene
With his goatee and finely pointed ears, James Vyner has a puckish quality that makes it difficult to imagine him, bewigged, in Her Majesty's court. In an alternative life, yes, Vyner was a barrister.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Jun 25, 1999
J rockers want free Tibet, wherever that is
"Tibet . . . hmm . . . it's a foreign country, I know that," mused one young man.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Jun 11, 1999
When did originality go out of focus?
Hiromix, the person credited with the current popularity of "girl" photographers, has thus far lived a charmed life: After stints as a "serious" artist, a band leader and, most recently, a mayonnaise spokeswoman, she has restyled herself as a singer-songwriter with the release of her new record "Hiromix...
Japan approves ¥21.9 trillion stimulus plan
The policy chiefs of the Democratic Party for the People, Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito — Makoto Hamaguchi (left), Itsunori Onodera (center) and Mitsunari Okamoto — shake hands after reaching an agreement on an economic stimulus package on Wednesday.
Tokyo Metro’s overseas efforts begin in earnest with London deal
Tokyo Metro will soon have a role in the running of London's Elizabeth Line, a major train route serving the U.K.’s capital city and environs.
Saitama court bans demonstrations over anti-Kurd hate speech
Kurdish people in Japan in 2015. A court injunction has banned acts that defame the Japan Kurdish Cultural Association and are disrespectful, such as putting up banner flags or handing out fliers with hate speech like “Refugees should go back to their home countries.”
China reinstates visa-free travel for Japanese nationals
Beijing Daxing International Airport
U.S. aircraft carrier returns to Japan carrying navy’s ‘most capable fighter’
U.S. 7th Fleet Commander Vice Adm. Fred Kacher speaks to reporters shortly after the arrival of aircraft carrier USS George Washington at Yokosuka naval base in Kanagawa Prefecture on Friday.
Shohei Ohtani wins National League MVP award
Shohei Ohtani celebrates after hitting a three-run home run against the Padres during the National League Division Series at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles last month.
The slow-burn success of ‘A Samurai in Time’
A 19th-century warrior gets struck by lightning and wakes to find himself in 21st-century Kyoto in Junichi Yasuda’s surprise hit “A Samurai in Time.”
Around a quarter of Japan married couples in their 20s met through dating apps
A survey released by an organization promoting “Good Couples Day” shows that 24% of couples in their 20s met their marriage partner through a dating app.
'Tokyo Swindlers': Get deep into the minds of real estate con artists
In Ko Shinjo's "Tokyo Swindlers," a group of con artists manipulates real estate giants into falsified deals within the highly competitive, quick market.
Japan, U.K. and Italy discuss inviting more countries to joint fighter project
A new concept model of a next-generation fighter jet to be jointly developed by Japan, Britain and Italy is on display in Farnborough, Hampshire, in July.

Podcast

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

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