Patrick St. Michel - The Japan Times

November 21, 2024

Today's print edition

Subscribe for more access

Meta

Twitter

Patrick St. Michel

Patrick St. Michel is a Tokyo-based writer with a focus on Japanese music. He runs the blog Make Believe Melodies, which has focused on Japanese independent music since 2009. Besides The Japan Times, he also contributes to MTV 81 and The Atlantic.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Aug 14, 2013

Hard rock, J-pop rule Summer Sonic

Veteran Japanese rockers Mr. Children attracted so many fans to this year's edition of the Summer Sonic music festival that they made Smashing Pumpkins' frontman Billy Corgan upset.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Aug 14, 2013

Namie Amuro "Feel"

The age of the J-pop diva has long passed, those halcyon days of Whitney Houston-inspired vocals and million-unit-moving singles. The female entertainers from this period have recently coped by embracing American trends. Kumi Koda struck Oricon Single Chart gold last year with "Go To the Top," which...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Aug 14, 2013

Smany "komoriuta"

Netlabel culture in Japan — referring to Web-only music labels that distribute tunes online, usually for free — has been around long enough to develop its own set of minor celebrities and "star" imprints. Bunkai-Kei has become one of the most popular of these Internet institutions, and its latest...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Jul 17, 2013

DJ Miso Shiru and MC Gohan raps and roasts on 'Mother's Food'

A gig doesn't double as dinner, but at DJ Miso Shiru and MC Gohan's shows there's a good chance food will be involved. Besides a hip-hop set, the audience can sometimes participate in cooking demonstrations.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Jul 17, 2013

Kyary Pamyu Pamyu "Nanda Collection"

"Am I an adult? Or am I a kid?" sings Kyary Pamyu Pamyu on "Furisodation," a song about the Harajuku blogger-turned-model-turned-pop-star turning 20 earlier this year. That's the question that looms over all of her sophomore album, "Nanda Collection."

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Jul 17, 2013

Slow Beach "Lover Lover"

Slow Beach is somewhat of a supergroup in Tokyo's indie-rock scene. The group finds Dai Ogasawara, founder of twee-leaning netlabel Ano(t)raks, hooking up with producer Kai Takahashi, who is responsible for some of the most interesting electronic compositions of the year, including a chilled-out remix...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Jul 3, 2013

Homecomings' harmonies help them stand out in a twee herd

All a university really needs to get its students to come out to an event is the promise of free food.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Jun 20, 2013

The title of miwa's first two releases, "Guitarissimo" and "Guitarium," seemingly announced her musical niche. Those top-selling albums (her debut made her the first Japanese performer born in the 1990s to take the Oricon album chart's top spot) revolved around guitar, in the form of frantic rock numbers...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Jun 20, 2013

May.e "Mattiola"

Thousands of people have uploaded videos of themselves to YouTube playing acoustic covers of well-known songs. Armed with a guitar, a voice and dreams of viral stardom, the covers tackle everything from contemporary pop to hip-hop, and more often than not are done with an ironic nod to the viewer.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

May 23, 2013

Guitarist Dustin Wong brings singer Takako Minekawa out on a 'Toropical' journey

Guitarist Dustin Wong hesitates for a split second. It's a pause that would go unnoticed during most other sets, but Wong has spent the last 40 minutes seemingly in a trance while playing guitar and looping the notes via an array of pedals in front of him. The flurry of interlocking sounds he's produced...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

May 16, 2013

Noah × Sela "Split EP"

Over the course of its six-year existence, Flau Records has carved out an identity as a record label offering intimate music. The actual sonic styles of the artists represented by the acts signed to the border-hopping imprint differ — some make proper songs, some just produce beats, and sometimes there...

CULTURE / Music

Apr 18, 2013

Kis-My-Ft2 "Good Ikuze!" (Avex Trax)

Odds are, Japan Times reader, that you do not like Kis-My-Ft2. Maybe you've been unable to escape the bleating "Wanna Beeee!!!" while out strolling in Shibuya, or maybe they lost you at, "From the people who brought you SMAP and Arashi!" So this review should be quick, right? A nice hatchet job with...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Apr 18, 2013

i-fls "Diary of Spectre" (self-release)

The first song I ever made — and I'm willing to wager many who graduated high school in the mid 2000s share this experience — was using Apple's GarageBand, a software application that lets people make music on their computers. "I made a killer techno track last night, dude," I overheard one classmate...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Mar 28, 2013

April: Karl Hyde to headline SonarSound

The next month features a great mix of concerts for all sorts of live-music fans. Several long-running bands visit Japan in April, as do some of the most hyped-up young outfits in the world today. Whether you like apocalyptic postrock or Swedish indie rock, the next 30 days have you covered.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Mar 21, 2013

Japan needs to rebrand for SXSW

The purpose of the South By Southwest (SXSW) Music Conference and Festival in Austin, Texas, is for musicians to woo new fans and industry insiders. The five-day festival, though, hasn't been about bands for a while — it's about brands.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Mar 21, 2013

Various Artists "Upwards and Onwards" (Ano(t)raks)

Fledgling online-only label Ano(t)raks takes a somewhat needless risk with their second compilation album, "Upwards and Onwards." Founded late last year, Ano(t)raks highlighted bedroom-made indie-pop, a style defined by simple guitar playing and equally basic lyrics about love. Indie-pop has been going...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Mar 21, 2013

NMB48 "Teppen Totande!" (Laugh Out Loud Records)

Contrary to popular hemming and hawing, the big problem with Oricon chart-dominating act AKB48 isn't their music. Their discography certainly contains misfires, but producer Yasushi Akimoto and company can pen great material for the dozens-strong group. Last year, they boasted two of the best songs in...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Mar 7, 2013

There's no battering the Tempura Kidz spirit

The members of Tempura Kidz have danced in front of thousands of strangers at sold-out venues across Japan, including Tokyo's famed Budokan and the Summer Sonic festival. Yet on a Thursday night in a Harajuku office building, the teenage quintet is nervous.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Mar 7, 2013

Ram Rider to take his energetic electronic music and glow-in-the-dark antics to Los Angeles

Music producer Ram Rider's first encounter with any sort of computer came when, during the 1980s his parents bought something called an MSX while he was in elementary school. He would plug the early home computer into a TV and fiddle around with the various programs. That's how he got into making his...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Feb 28, 2013

March: Grimes, Andy Stott head east and west

March means the (eventual) return of nice weather, so you no longer have to bundle up or stay indoors cursing the cold world beyond your apartment. And as the climate warms up, for those in need of more incentive to venture outside, there are several great gigs going down across the country.

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.

A boom for business tourism in Japan?

By Kathryn Wortley

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

SWCC keeps changing with keyword ‘new challenges’

SWCC keeps changing with keyword ‘new challenges’

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER

international-reports