Philip Brasor - The Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Nov 20, 2002

Three tunes into his 2 1/2-hour extravaganza at Tokyo Dome on Nov. 11, Sir Paul McCartney introduced a "song that's never been played live until this year. The thing is, if you don't tour, then when you record a song, that's the last time you ever sing it." He then launched into the simple, unmistakable...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Nov 17, 2002

Media refuses to aim spotlight on prison life in Japan

At a news conference Nov. 12, Justice Minister Mayumi Moriyama apologized for an incident that occurred at Nagoya Prison in September, when five guards allegedly used excessive force on a prisoner, who subsequently spent three weeks in hospital. Moriyama told the press it wouldn't happen again. She also...

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Nov 13, 2002

"Tokyo: the Sex, the City, the Music"

Just what we need: another Japanese club-music compilation. I still get a lot of enjoyment out of the old "Dance 2 Noise" series, and the "Sushi 3003" collection is what I usually recommend to the uninitiated. However, "Sushi" came out in '96, and while even a cursory listen to "Tokyo: the Sex, the City,...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Nov 10, 2002

Ishihara could be spiked with his own barbs

Exactly a year ago in the weekly women's magazine Shukan Josei, Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara shot off a few of his patented provocative statements. His remarks about middle-aged women were particularly noteworthy. "Old ladies have proved to be the biggest obstacle to the progress of civilization," he...

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Nov 6, 2002

Mekons: "OOOH!"

Many bands will admit to being politically minded, but the Mekons are one of the few who put their politics ahead of their music. It's not so much that the band, formed by art students in Leeds, England, in the late '70s, want to advance an agenda, but rather that they believe art and commerce are inseparable...

CULTURE / Music

Nov 3, 2002

Shift into Lowe gear

Nick Lowe, who is coming to Japan this week, was supposed to tour here a year ago in support of his latest album, "The Convincer," but canceled because one of his regular backup musicians wasn't available.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Nov 3, 2002

Abductees watch fate unfold through TV

Fuji TV, the Asahi Shimbun and the Mainichi Shimbun received unanimous disapprobation for their Oct. 25 interview with Kim Hye Gyong, the 15-year-old daughter of Megumi Yokota, who was abducted by North Korean agents in 1977 at the age of 13 and is presumed dead. The three media companies apologized,...

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Oct 30, 2002

Pink

Alecia Moore, better known as Pink, was just another cog in the teen dance-pop machine when producer Daryl Simmons asked her to write a bridge for a song she was performing with a vocal group. The snippet impressed label honcho L.A. Reid enough to win her a solo contract, but not enough to allow her...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Oct 27, 2002

At last, a family cartoon playing it for real

Since virtually everyone has grown up in one, "family" is one of the few dramatic themes that can safely be called universal, even if no two families can ever be the same. Nevertheless, the popular arts, television in particular, are filled with families who are meant to represent all families.

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Oct 23, 2002

Rocket From the Crypt: "Live From Camp X-Ray"

John "Speedo" Reis' critical image is of a pop culture otaku who channeled his obsessions into decent rock 'n' roll that doesn't embarrass the artists it reveres. The name of his best-known group, Rocket From the Crypt, pays homage to both Rocket From the Tombs, the legendary Cleveland shock-rock group...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Oct 20, 2002

Turning into Japan's Everyman in a Nobel way

People who get selected to compete on Japanese trivia-based TV quiz shows are always getting asked questions about Japan's Nobel prizewinners. It's not as difficult as it sounds. Until two weeks ago, there were only 10 of them.

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Oct 17, 2002

Prince

The artist formerly known as the Artist Formerly Known as Prince has suddenly embarked on a world tour and will be in Japan in mid-November. You should be excited, though no one can blame you if you're not. Having spent most of the '90s trying to figure out what to call him as he dropped one multidisc...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Oct 13, 2002

Japanese will have babies when living is easy

In the middle of September, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry released a set of countermeasures to address the declining birthrate, which Chikara Sakaguchi -- the head of the ministry -- has said will "sink Japan" if it remains as low as it is.

CULTURE / Music

Oct 9, 2002

Nu-girls on the block

Last June, Newsweek spotted a species of American teenagers that it called Gamma Girls: high school females who are ambitious about their futures and smart about the dangers of sex and drugs. Rolling Stone more recently ran an article profiling college-age women who exert "control" over their bodies...

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Oct 9, 2002

Steve Earle: "Jerusalem"

The fuss over "John Walker's Blues," Steve Earle's look-see into the mind of the American Taliban, barely survived the actual release of the song a few weeks ago. John Walker Lindh, who is portrayed by Earle as a naive but well-meaning young idealist, has since tearfully owned up to his mistakes and...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Oct 6, 2002

When every channel is the same channel

Ever since the advent of that popular programming idea known as the "wide show" in the mid-1980s, so-called hard news and tabloid news have slowly merged into an alloy of informational reporting that defies easy categorization.

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Oct 2, 2002

Sparta

When the hyper art-punk band At the Drive In announced an indefinite sabbatical last year, the members amicably split into two groups.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Sep 29, 2002

When mourning makes straight talk taboo

The shock that accompanied the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, quickly turned into a mood of national mourning that continues to hang over the United States a year later. As a form of social behavior, mourning comes with its own protocol, and in this particular case attempts to place the attacks...

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Sep 25, 2002

Henri Salvador

This year's Festival Halou, Tokyo's annual offering of French pops, features Henri Salvador, who, at 85, certainly has some stories to tell. Born in French Guiana in 1917, Salvador moved to Paris as a young man, where he played guitar with Django Reinhardt and developed his own vocal style. In the '50s,...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Sep 22, 2002

The fallout of Japan's national energy policy

In Japan, Fumiko Kometani, the wife of American screenwriter Josh Greenfeld and mother of journalist Karl Taro Greenfeld, has a reputation for being a grouch. A longtime resident of the United States, she writes for a number of Japanese publications and very rarely has anything nice to say about either...

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