Philip Brasor - The Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Mar 21, 2004

Nothing lost in translation of mum music

It's important to say the band's name correctly: mum, which is always written without an initial capital letter, is pronounced "moom." The band itself is from Iceland, and the name has no meaning.

CULTURE / Music

Mar 14, 2004

The evening still young for Rickie Lee

In the CD booklet of her new album, Ani DiFranco says that "art is activism" and therefore it's pointless to try and distinguish them in terms of their effect on each other. But political engagement can often have a stultifying effect on an artist's work. It's easy to fall back on platitudes when trying...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Mar 14, 2004

The twisted terminology in Japan's marriage system

The so-called culture wars that have reignited in the United States over the legitimacy of gay marriage may influence this year's presidential election despite a general feeling that there are more important issues. The problem with gay marriage as a social issue is that both sides work against their...

CULTURE / Music

Mar 7, 2004

Frank McComb: "The Truth Volume One"

One of the unremarked aspects of the current '70s soul revival is that many of its practitioners haven't paid their dues. Alicia Keys was barely out of high school before she got a recording contract, and Maxwell spent more time in the penthouse listening to Marvin than he did at the club imitating...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Mar 7, 2004

Levitation, drug claims and, er, melons blur reality in Asahara trial

The sarin attack on the Tokyo subway system that the religious cult Aum Shinrikyo carried out exactly nine years ago this month is often cited as the first mass terrorist strike against civilians, and like al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, Aum's former guru Shoko Asahara is accepted as the mastermind...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Feb 29, 2004

Takahashi faces uphill struggle in race for gold

As the Summer Olympic Games in Athens approach, the media have begun to speculate on Japan's medal chances. Such speculation tends to become more desperate with each passing Olympics because the number of medals Japan brings home has steadily dropped since 1964 while the size of the media itself has...

CULTURE / Music

Feb 22, 2004

Legends keep it visceral and current

Colin Newman of the English punk band Wire uses the words "interesting" and "energy" a lot when he talks about music. "Interesting" can often be a backhanded compliment, but Newman uses it literally because he tends to approach pop as an intellectual endeavor.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Feb 22, 2004

A first step to understanding the homeless

The mayor of Kawasaki, Takao Abe, is currently under attack from a group of city residents who don't want a planned homeless shelter put in their neighborhood. Last month, Abe rejected the residents' request for a meeting to hear his explanation of why a disused chemical factory in the Tsutsumine district...

CULTURE / Music

Feb 22, 2004

Burnside Project

Over the past decade, the term "indie pop" has come to be associated with a certain sound and rhythm built around strummed guitars minus effects, artless vocals and songs that are personal without being revealing. This sound was born in living rooms and developed in small clubs, not recording studios,...

CULTURE / Music

Feb 15, 2004

John Vanderslice: "Cellar Door"

Because he runs his own small analog recording studio in San Francisco, singer-songwriter John Vanderslice is better equipped to record his songs exactly the way he wants them to be recorded. His first three CDs were concept albums, and his latest, "Cellar Door," may very well be a concept album, too,...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Feb 15, 2004

Politicians score D-minus for education claims

The American media's resurgent interest in U.S. President George Bush's service as a fighter pilot in the Texas Air National Guard in the early '70s might seem opportunistic given its timing. The controversy over whether or not Bush fulfilled his obligation to the Guard -- records show unaccounted for...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Feb 8, 2004

Who needs actors when you've got SMAP?

Last summer's Nippon TV scandal, in which a producer admitted he'd bribed monitor families into watching his program, has compromised the Japanese ratings system, but no matter how skeptically you regard such numbers the ratings performance of the pop group SMAP during the first month of the new year...

CULTURE / Music

Feb 1, 2004

Black Eyed Peas

It's important to remember that the Black Eyed Peas, a self-described "old school" rap group, started out as a break-dancing collective at a time and in a place where break-dancing was considered corny. In Los Angeles in 1992, if you weren't a "gangsta" you were sort of ignored, which is why Eazy-E,...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Feb 1, 2004

Entertaining the idea of surrogate mums

Last week, the health ministry decided not to recommend revisions to current guidelines regarding fertility treatments. This disappointed the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which has been advocating the legalization of such controversial procedures as the use of surrogate mothers because they say they...

CULTURE / Music

Jan 25, 2004

Embracing the beauty and the beast

The Chicago band Califone and Tucson-based singer-songwriter Howe Gelb will be coming to Japan next month to do a club tour together. Both artists record for the same Chicago indie, Thrill Jockey, which has a licensing deal with the Japanese company Headz, and they both happen to have time to kill in...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Jan 25, 2004

Japan's culture dictates: Thou shalt eat meat

On Jan. 15, the animal rights organization, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, announced that CBS had refused to accept a 30-second TV spot from the group for the network's Feb. 1 Super Bowl broadcast. CBS explained that its policy is not to accept "advocacy advertisements." PETA, which would...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Jan 18, 2004

'Losing dog' believers are barking up the wrong tree

In last week's column I mentioned that the media now likes to divide people and things into winners and losers (kachigumi, makegumi). This device is mainly used for economic-related matters, but it has trickled down into other social spheres.

CULTURE / Music

Jan 18, 2004

On a mission for the future of funk

Coming up with a technical definition for funk isn't easy, but New York Times critic Jon Pareles did a pretty good job in his review of a Nov. 2003 concert by the New Orleans band Galactic. Stating that the "discipline of funk [is] the repetition and deliberate space that give the music its solidity...

CULTURE / Music

Jan 18, 2004

Dirtbombs

You could make a case that Detroit's Gories, who released their first album in 1989, prefigured the garage-rock revival, but then you could make an equally strong case that they simply were hangovers from an earlier garage-rock movement. Either way, you wouldn't necessarily say that the bassless trio,...

CULTURE / Music

Jan 11, 2004

Belle & Sebastion

Certainly the most interesting commercial success story to emerge from the British indie scene in the '90s was Glasgow's Belle & Sebastian, which contains neither a Belle nor a Sebastian but a shy singer-songwriter named Stuart Murdoch and a consortium of close friends. They garnered a dedicated underground...

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