Simon Bartz - The Japan Times

CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC

Feb 26, 2010

Merpeoples bewitch; The Party's . . . party

Four cute young women clad in ghostly white robes prance around in a forest holding twigs: No, it's not an outtake from the classic 1973 pagan spookfest "The Wicker Man." Yes, it is the excellent video for the Merpeoples' spankingly sublime song "Sherman."

CULTURE / Music

Jan 29, 2010

Mad, bad and surreal to know

Long, long ago . . . in a distant age . . . there was no karaoke (cue twang of shamisen and cymbal flutter).

CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC

Jan 22, 2010

Sweat to a girl riot; soak up Gypsy jazz

"What's that smell in here?" I ask The Harpy's in the dressing room of the livehouse Motion, which lies at the butt end of the sleazy Kabukicho entertainment area in Tokyo's central Shinjuku district.

CULTURE / Film

Oct 30, 2009

Downtown Tokyo's fiery love

"Deep in the Valley," which was made in downtown Tokyo and appears to have had a budget of ¥5 plus, probably, a box of persimmons for all involved (random gifts are very downtown), is an accident. And I mean that in a good, romantic way.

CULTURE / Film / SHORT TAKES

Oct 23, 2009

Astro Boy

Director: David Bowers

LIFE / Travel

Oct 11, 2009

Sankeien: Great love in a garden almost grows

Miho leans out over the Lotus Pond to get a good photo of one of the bright-red flowers when the camera slips out of her hand. Standing next to her, I instinctively lean forward, stretch out my hand (my reflexes, even if I say so myself, are very good) and pluck the camera out of the air with ease.

CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC

Mar 27, 2009

Guitar Wolf return to silence the lambs

"We've come back and we're going to attack your planet with humongous love," says Seiji (that's Mr. Guitar Wolf himself) as he downs vegetable juice at a Jonathan's family restuarant near Yoga Station in western Tokyo.

LIFE / Travel / FREEWHEELIN' ACROSS JAPAN

Mar 22, 2009

A rose among roots on Awajishima

I'm bent over double, throwing up water I've just drunk. I can't keep anything down.

CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC

Feb 27, 2009

True icon of indie

The Wedding Present's latest album, "El Rey," is one of the best records I've heard over the last few years and has also been widely lauded in the British music media. Criminally, it has not been picked up for distribution in Japan. But you'll be able to hear the new songs at the band's upcoming Japan shows (their first here since 1993), and, if you're smart, you'll get on the Net now and buy it.

LIFE / Travel / FREEWHEELIN' ACROSS JAPAN

Feb 8, 2009

Storming the keep of Himeji Castle

"What are your three favorite things about Himeji Castle," I ask my guide, Ayumi Miyazaki, an elegant middle-aged lady, as we slurp down tempura soba in the dungeons of Himeji Station in Hyogo Prefecture, prior to walking the 15 minutes up the main drag to the town's famous fortress.

LIFE / Travel / FREEWHEELIN' ACROSS JAPAN

Feb 8, 2009

Storming the keep of Himeji Castle

"What are your three favorite things about Himeji Castle," I ask my guide, Ayumi Miyazaki, an elegant middle-aged lady, as we slurp down tempura soba in the dungeons of Himeji Station in Hyogo Prefecture, prior to walking the 15 minutes up the main drag to the town's famous fortress.

CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC

Jan 16, 2009

School's out

Matilda isn't waltzing. She's sprinting toward me outside Shinsaibashi Station in Osaka with the speed of a Jamaican Olympian chewing cheetah gonads. A meter from me she screams "Simon!" and takes a flying leap, so I instinctively reach out and I'm holding this tiny 18-year-old in my arms like she's a newborn baby.

CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC

Jan 16, 2009

School's out

Matilda isn't waltzing. She's sprinting toward me outside Shinsaibashi Station in Osaka with the speed of a Jamaican Olympian chewing cheetah gonads. A meter from me she screams "Simon!" and takes a flying leap, so I instinctively reach out and I'm holding this tiny 18-year-old in my arms like she's a newborn baby.

LIFE / Travel / FREEWHEELIN' ACROSS JAPAN

Jan 4, 2009

It's Astro Boy to the rescue

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No such luck. It's just another humongous dark-gray cloud and it's spitting at me. "Hey!" I scream, waving my fist in the air at the darkening sky. "Leave me alone, you big gray bully!"

CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC

Oct 17, 2008

Meet a band 35,000 years in the making

When The Cro-Magnons played at this year's Fuji Rock Festival, you could have sworn the Big Quake had hit, with its epicenter at the main Green Stage. The ground shook, minor tsunami were recorded in the streams running through the site and squirrels fell unconscious from trees as about 15,000 punters jumped in unison to one of Japan's most popular rock 'n' roll bands belting out one fiery pop-punk gem after another.

LIFE / Travel / FREEWHEELIN' ACROSS JAPAN

Sep 12, 2008

He rides and he rides (and survives)

It's so hot, I've stripped down to my Y-fronts and with sweat dripping into my eyes and obscuring my vision I cycle east from my hotel near Sawara Station in Katori, Chiba Prefecture, along a path that runs beside the vast Tone River to my destination: Katori Shrine. It was built in 1700, is dedicated to Futsunushi, the god of swords and lightning, and is the principal Katori shrine in a nationwide network of several hundred. I'm looking for a riverside torii, which indicates where to head away from the river. In the distance I see it and accelerate toward my first goal, only to find it's a mooring station. This happens repeatedly until I think I'm hallucinating. Maybe I am — heat, hangover, exhaustion — but finally, after about an hour, I arrive at the simple wooden torii.

LIFE / Travel / FREEWHEELIN' ACROSS JAPAN

Aug 29, 2008

The naked and the (almost) dead

The feast of fish being delivered to our table is fit for the Emperor, as is the price of the room I'm eating it in at Inubosaki Kanko hotel in Choshi, a small seaside town in northeastern Chiba Prefecture. But I'm not complaining about forking out ¥36,000 for one night as it's the biggest and best room here — a field of tatami that a whole stable of sumo wrestlers could fit snugly upon, and not so much an ocean view as being virtually on the beach.

CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC

Jul 11, 2008

Sympathy for the Maries

All the boys are in their birthday suits and beautiful long-haired Ryohei Shima is mincing up toward me. Just think of a naked Mick Jagger — a 26-year-old one, that is — entering stage right on the set of a gay porn flick and you'll get the picture. Ryohei theatrically swivels his hips upon approach, and his smooth, perfectly formed buttocks fly inches past my face upon his landing in the hot tub beside me. He nestles up close, puts an arm around my shoulder, and with a twinkle in his eye, says: "Simon, this is good. Finally we can relax together." The yakuza gangster with full-body tattoos opposite doesn't bat an eyelid, while an octogenarian slowly eases himself down on the other side of me, quietly singing some traditional enka folk song.

CULTURE / Music

Jun 20, 2008

Babyshambles "Oh! What a Lovely Tour"

If Babyshambles frontman Pete Doherty farted out Britain's national anthem accompanied by a barking dog, I would fork out cash for it. Pete is not just a rock star — he's a religion.

CULTURE / Music

Jun 19, 2008

Kiyoshiro Imawano at Fuji Rock Festival

Legendary rip-roaring rocker Kiyoshiro Imawano — who bears the soul of Otis Redding and the flamboyance of Marc Bolan — hasn't had the best of times over the last few years. The keen cyclist first had his bicycle stolen, which seemed a threat to future Fuji Rock performances as he has been known to pedal up from Tokyo to the festival in distant Niigata Prefecture. Then, in 2006, the former R.C. Succession frontman had to cancel his show after discovering he had throat cancer. Happily, he returned to the stage at the end of last year, and his triumphant appearance as a headliner at this year's Fuji Rock Festival will be sure to fire a charged emotional response.

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