Philip Brasor - The Japan Times

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Philip Brasor

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Dec 8, 2006

Arab Strap celebrate '10 years of tears' with sayonara tour

Pop artists tend to be identified by their musical stylings. But some, like Scottish duo Arab Strap, are associated more with specific themes.

Japan Times

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Dec 3, 2006

Your money's no object for Ishihara and his 'fourth son'

Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara is the most transparent politician in Japan, which is good in that transparency is always welcome in matters of public policy and Japanese politics is prominently lacking in it.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Dec 1, 2006

Tale of the tape

Tapes 'n Tapes, this year's designated Internet-sparked American indie band are, for the moment at least, enjoying their rocket trip to notoriety. Touring their butts off since self-releasing their debut album "The Loon" about a year ago, the Minneapolis-based quartet have already achieved a certain...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Nov 26, 2006

Time to sink or swim for TV fish pundit Sakana

In September, the TV personality known as Sakana-kun was appointed to the position of guest assistant professor by the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology.

CULTURE / Music

Nov 24, 2006

Shack ". . . the Corner of Miles and Gil"

Michael Head, leader of Liverpool's early 1980s alt-pop hopefuls The Pale Fountains, formed Shack with his brother John in the late '80s. After a run of bad luck with a studio fire in 1991 and a record co. bankruptcy, they almost called it quits. Shack's music lacked the Fountains' frantic tunefulness,...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Nov 19, 2006

Looking for the right kind of love for fragile teens

Some people may react to the current bullying issue with an acute feeling of deja vu. Didn't we go through this back in the 1980s? And didn't we address it in the '90s when teachers and administrators rejected the old thinking that kids were bullied for a reason and instead acknowledged them as victims...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Nov 17, 2006

Despite a resurgence of progressive rock (Battles, Elysian Fields, Porcupine Tree), few groups worth their effects pedals would cop to the term, mainly because most artists hate being pigeon-holed.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Nov 12, 2006

Cameron Diaz presses all the right buttons for SoftBank

For some insight into the ruckus that SoftBank kicked up when it relaunched its mobile phone service with a zero-yen-per-call plan, check out its new ads and compare them with the competition's. NTT DoCoMo's ads showcase no less than seven famous personalities (eight if you count female comedy duo Othello...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Nov 10, 2006

Pop singer Lily Allen is lucky that she lives in England, where hype about the latest musical thing spreads faster than a California wildfire. Famous for having launched her career by offering radio-ready songs from her MySpace Web page, the 21-year-old has an advantage over her peers in that she seemed...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Nov 5, 2006

Radio rivals are a turn off by playing it safe

In the United States, media critics bemoan the homogenization of FM radio, which has become dominated by a handful of corporations dictating what music is played. Meanwhile, AM radio is considered the exclusive domain of the right wing, filled with talk shows that badger so-called Middle America into...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Nov 3, 2006

Singer beats the boys at their own dirty games

Peaches emerges from the Creston Hotel in Tokyo's youth mecca of Shibuya dressed in a gold one-piece swimsuit, black stockings, silver thigh-high platform boots and a black cape with the Judas Priest logo on the back. Her eyes are rimmed with thick black mascara and there's a silver lightning bolt painted...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Oct 29, 2006

Children's welfare in the doghouse

This past week the nation was shocked by the news of yet another small child who died at the hands of abusive and negligent adults.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Oct 22, 2006

Plea to a TV comic: Take on the big boys and take on politics

To Hikari Ota, c/o Titan Talent Agency.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Oct 15, 2006

Abe might not have Koizumi's hair and flair, but he's got a girl

During the recently closed Koizumi Era, the media was mostly silent about the former prime minister's marital status and lack of female companionship.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Oct 13, 2006

'New York freaks me out!'

With the development of the Internet, indie musicians could finally make do without the benefit of a large organization behind them. Even so, it wasn't until the Philadelphia/Brooklyn-based quintet Clap Your Hands Say Yeah released their self-titled debut album in the summer of 2005 that the Net's full...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Oct 8, 2006

Getting real in the way you dress with grass-roots fashion in Japan

In the movie "The Devil Wears Prada," which opens in Japan next month, an imperious fashion magazine editor played by Meryl Streep upbraids her new assistant, who has dared to snicker at a cerulean belt that the editor is considering for an ensemble. With withering condenscension, the editor somehow...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Oct 1, 2006

Stars strive to be normal guys . . . and you buy it

During the 1980s bubble era it was almost obscene how much money Japanese companies overspent on things they didn't really need. In the media world, this extravagance was manifested in the hiring of foreign celebrities to appear in TV commercials.

Japan Times

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Sep 24, 2006

Paternity suits brought by moms symptoms of family registry law

If the celebration over the birth of Prince Hisahito has proved anything, it's that "Who's your daddy?" is one of the most important questions in Japan.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Sep 17, 2006

Struggling to put the brakes on the culture of drunk driving

What makes a crime more heinous than another? We usually think it has to do with intention. Murder, which implies pre-meditation, is more seriously punished than manslaughter, which implies lack of premeditation.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Sep 14, 2006

People of one voice

Michael Franti seemed to be everywhere at the 2003 Fuji Rock Festival, and since he stands as tall as a volleyball player and sports long dreads, it was impossible to miss him.

You can often see generations of families enjoying performances together at Fuji Rock Festival.

Japan’s summer music festivals are feeling the heat in more ways than one

Akiko Trush says her experience with the neurological disorder dystonia left her feeling like she wanted to chop her own hand off.

The neurological disorder that 'kills culture'

By Tomoko Otake

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