Philip Brasor - The Japan Times

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Jun 1, 2003

Travel or reality show? A bit of both and neither

The TV Tokyo series, "Inaka ni Tomaro" ("Let's Spend the Night in the Countryside"; Sunday 7 p.m.), which started several months ago, is categorized as a travel show, but its appeal is similar to that which characterizes reality shows, namely the spectacle of people placed in real-life situations that...

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

May 28, 2003

Arab Strap: "Monday at the Hug and Pint"

The Scottish duo Arab Strap are the poet laureates of alcohol-induced sexual torpor. Vocalist Aidan Moffatt's slurred, sotto voce ramblings about unpretty girls picked up in seedy bars and bedded in a haze of beer and E would normally be an acquired taste, but in the U.K. the group's songs have graced...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

May 25, 2003

Time to examine different approaches toward education

The eradication of illiteracy throughout the world is an ongoing endeavor and a noble one. However, in countries where the vast majority of the population can now read and write, those populations did not, as the German poet-essayist Hans Magnus Enzensberger once said, learn to do so "because they felt...

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

May 21, 2003

Mira Calix: "Shimskitta"

The music of Mira Calix -- Chantal Passamonte to her friends and family back in Durban, South Africa -- is neither composed nor produced on a computer, though it sounds as if it was. Having burnished her ambient techno style at Warp Records, England's premier "laptop-music" label where she worked in...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

May 18, 2003

Tama-chan's secret link to white-robed cultists

You have to hand it to Tama-chan. The superstar bearded seal has caused some lively public discussion about important social issues. Because of Tama-chan, people have started talking about the disgusting state of the country's rivers, the cavalierly cruel treatment of animals, the impact that rubber-stamped...

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

May 14, 2003

New Pornographers: "Mass Romantic"

In the liner notes of the New Pornographers' debut album, "Mass Romantic," the anonymous band member who wrote them betrays confidence that the record is a good one while continually confessing that most of the details -- such as who played what on which track -- are not clear. The album was recorded...

CULTURE / Music

May 14, 2003

Grrrls grrrls grrrls

A few weeks ago, Courtney Love placed an ad in the Village Voice for a new set of backing musicians. She not unreasonably specified that they had to be able to play their instruments. Not just that, but they had to be female. And not just female -- but "goddesses."

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

May 11, 2003

Bailing the banks while letting the debtors die

Reportedly, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry has decided to address suicide, which has becomes something of an epidemic over the past decade as the economy continues its skid into the void.

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

May 7, 2003

Banda Bassotti

A prominent critic once called the Clash "the only band that mattered," a comment that went beyond appreciation of the band's punk sound and acknowledged its radical political outlook.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

May 4, 2003

The Great Sasuke faces up to political reality

Two recent news items prompted an interesting digression in Asahi Shimbun's unattributed "Tensei Jingo" column April 23. Making initially veiled references to Lower House lawmaker Kenshiro Matsunami's alleged links with underworld figures and the election last month of professional wrestler the Great...

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Apr 30, 2003

Matthew Sweet: "Kimi ga Suki * Life"

When applied to pop musicians, the term "big in Japan" tends to be pejorative, as if Japanese fans were less discriminating than those in the rest of the world. The only way to dispel the condescension inherent in the term is by example.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Apr 27, 2003

Life is one big show -- at least for Mino

On April 18, TV Asahi premiered a new quiz show called "Thumbs Up," hosted by Monta Mino. Until this show, Asahi was the only commercial network that hadn't hired Mino to helm a regular series, which means the gruff emcee is now approaching omnipresence. He hosts eight prime-time programs a week in addition...

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Apr 23, 2003

The Kills

The critical lowdown on The Kills includes the belief that the band would not have attracted the attention it has if it weren't for The White Stripes, since The Kills are also a boy-girl duo who play blues-based loud rock. But couldn't the opposite be just as true? It sounds impossible, since the Stripes...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Apr 20, 2003

Looting the media for the best frontline news

Every Japanese TV network has female anchors, but Nippon TV seems to use more women in their news shows than any other. It was also the only commercial Japanese network to have a female "embed" reporting from Iraq. Since there weren't too many embedded women reporters in the first place, she naturally...

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Apr 16, 2003

Tibet Freedom Concert

The fall of Baghdad happened so quickly that no one had time to come up with an antiwar song that spoke to our doubts and fears and resentments of the military-industrial complex. No "Masters of War," not even a "Fixin' to Die Rag."

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Apr 13, 2003

Matsui, Matsui . . . and a little more Matsui

Because of coverage of the invasion of Iraq, it feels as if we're being spared the all-Matsui-all-the-time media blitz we were promised last fall when the former Yomiuri Giants slugger, Hideki Matsui, signed with the New York Yankees. We aren't. Matsui madness is everywhere, but because the war has engaged...

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Apr 9, 2003

Blood Brothers: "Burn Piano Island, Burn"

Though "Burn Piano Island, Burn," the third album by Seattle's Blood Brothers, has been hailed by headbangers as the first hard rock record in a while that will actually scare parents to death, its real value is in the way it reconfigures hardcore for fans who've become bored with hardcore's predictability....

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Apr 6, 2003

Selfishness and greed motor the American Dream

Watching the war in Iraq from the vantage point of Japan, you don't get as much of the propaganda-like white noise that accompanies the coverage if you're watching it from the United States or the Middle East. But that doesn't mean you get less information.

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Apr 2, 2003

Yo La Tengo: "Summer Sun"

The first thing people notice about any record is its title. "Summer Sun," the latest offering by Yo La Tengo, might appear to be a collection of bright pop singles. Indeed, the band has covered the Beach Boys in the past and always includes original pop songs on their records amid the ambient experimentation...

CULTURE / Music

Mar 30, 2003

Setting music free on the open road

While major record labels battle Internet file-sharing to preserve the sanctity of music delivery media (CDs and whatever the hell will take their place), major artists challenge their contracts and less-than-major artists avoid the "entertainment industry" altogether. The consequence of technological...

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