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April 26, 2024
 

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FUZZY LOGIC

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."
Japan Times
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.
Japan Times
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.
Japan Times
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.
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.
Japan Times
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.
Japan Times
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.
Japan Times
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.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Jun 6, 2008
Monster mash
Explosion, the livehouse in Kagurazaka, central Tokyo, must have been named with nights like this in mind. Billy Trash, who's covered in blood, has discarded his double bass and stripped to his tiny, gonad-garroting Batman underpants. He charges into the crowd, pouring water over his head, then smothers himself in shampoo. The mixture of suds and blood turns him into the Pink Goo Monster from Planet Rock. He then dives to the rough concrete floor, and on his well-soaped chest slides torpedolike from one side of the venue to the other as fans hop out of his way. When the music stops, he briefly flashes his penis to the crowd and exits stage right.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Apr 25, 2008
Set the controls to quirk factor 10
After listening to Tokyo Pinsalocks' brilliant new minialbum "Planet Rita," it's frightening to think that the trio — bassist Hisayo, singer Naoko and drummer Reiko — almost sold their soul to the devil, and not the rock 'n' roll one at that, which would be cool. No, in a bid to get famous they almost sold themselves to the far darker evil of mainstream J-pop. And they're honest to admit loitering at that dangerous crossroads . . . and tough enough to say they don't regret it either.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Nov 16, 2007
Kyoto's Ultra-man in bedroom revolution
"Shotgun Blues" is the latest track off Hidenori Fujiwara's turbo-charged musical conveyor-belt of rock 'n' roll madness, and it's a blast of bluesy punk that sounds like Kings of Leon being chain-whipped by Iggy Pop in a dark alley.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Jun 1, 2007
On the lamb in Amsterdam
The band plays. And they rock. They've got two guitarists — that's not new. And two drummers, which is pretty cool.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Apr 27, 2007
Melt-Banana take aim again
'It was my first time to kill so it affected me a lot," says Melt-Banana's vocalist Yako, before breaking into a cackle befitting a Shakespearean witch. "But it wasn't a cute bambi. It was a big deer. You told us about (the Sex Pistols song) 'Who Killed Bambi.' It's you who made us keep thinking about the bambi incident."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Jan 19, 2007
Interview with some vampires
Thwack! Fists are flying. Is Faris "Rotter" Badwan about to take another one on the chin? The Horrors' singer has been punched on a London street by a thuggish chav who took offense at his Victorian dandy look and he's also been attacked on stage at a Halloween gig in New York. And now the eminently punchable Rotter is on the receiving end of a bunch of screaming Japanese teenagers. He's penned in. There seems no escape. But there's no blood or bruises this time as Horrorsmania descends upon Harajuku.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Sep 1, 2006
Fun for all the family
Looking at all the music festivals this summer, Rock In Japan is a trip to detox heaven. It arrives in early August, a week after my favorite fest -- Fuji Rock -- but, unlike the mud, mountains and madness of Fuji, it's a place where you can take your kids, your mum and grandad, too. Everybody laps up the sun, the good vibes and the music.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Jun 29, 2006
Shonen Knife cuts the cake
I recently caught up with guitarist/vocalist Naoko from Shonen Knife, arguably the most famous Japanese band in the world, as they celebrate their 25th anniversary this year.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Jun 23, 2006
Beasts of burden
Seems like a sennin is in town. This mythical Japanese being has supernatural powers -- he can fly, ride clouds and make the winds blow. And he's certainly whipping up a storm in Kyoto. A gale is battering the city and there's something of a musical hurricane blowing in the small rock bar Uh-La-La in the Saiin district.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Mar 10, 2006
Romancing, not stoned
I've got four High Teens in my apartment, one of them is unconscious on my futon, and "romance" will ultimately be on the agenda. But please hesitate from rushing to the nearest koban and filing a report because, I promise you, this story does not involve drugs and underage sex. (I'm saving that for a later column.)
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Dec 9, 2005
Drumming up an apocalypse
Afrirampo are a whacked-out crackpot girl duo just out of their teens from Osaka, which is famous for its out-there noise-rock scene.
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Sep 11, 2005
Here comes the naughty and the nice
Antony and the Johnsons (who?, I hear you say) may have won the Mercury Music Prize last Tuesday, but when the far more prestigious Fuzzy Logic awards are announced at the end of this year then the two bands profiled here are going to be in the running to get at least a gong apiece. Falsies on Heat must be hot favorites for Best New Band of 2005, while veterans The Pebbles -- who formed in 1992 -- seem to have taken on a new supercharged lease on life over the last 12 months and could easily take first prize in the Most Improved Band category.
'So hot you can't breathe': Extreme heat hits the Philippines
A pedestrian cools himself with a folding hand fan as he waits for a ride along a road in Manila on Wednesday, as extreme heat hit the Philippines.
Over 40% of Japan's municipalities at risk of vanishing, study finds
Of 1,729 local municipalities nationwide, 744 have been identified as being at risk of disappearing.
Princess Aiko makes debut at imperial garden party
Princess Aiko attends an imperial garden party in Tokyo on Tuesday.
Yen inches closer to intervention point as BOJ meeting starts
The rate of the yen against the U.S. dollar is displayed in the trading room at foreign exchange brokerage Gaitame.com in Tokyo on Thursday.
'Sugar Baby Riri' gets nine-year prison term over romance scam
Mai Watanabe, who went by the moniker “Sugar Baby Riri,” dated older men and swindled them out of money by telling them fictitious heartbreaking stories about herself to gain their sympathy.
Tokyo's Koto Ward by-election a race unlike any other
Natsumi Sakai, the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan’s candidate and one of four female candidates running in the by-election, touts her experience as a cancer survivor and midwife as having prepared her to tackle issues that women currently face.
Kyotographie's strong 12th edition shines light into the margins
Yassine Alaoui Ismaili, who goes by Yoriyas, turned to photography, shooting motion while in motion himself, after an injury forced him to give up his career as a professional breakdancer.
For amateur sumo, a fresh start offers hope against time-wasting and gamesmanship
Wrestlers prepare for the start of a bout at the 2023 Sumo World Championships in Tokyo. Starting this month, placing one hand on the clay first is no longer allowed.
LDP veteran Nikai's youngest son expected to succeed him in Wakayama
Toshihiro Nikai, former secretary-general of the Liberal Democratic Party, announced in March that he would not run in the next Lower House election to take responsibility for the political funds scandal that rocked his party and his own faction.
New workers name Shohei Ohtani as 'dream boss' for two years running
Shohei Ohtani has been overwhelmingly voted as the “dream boss” for people who started working in April, according to a survey.

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