Economy | ANALYSIS
Households to take hit from tax hike
by Tomoko Otake
The consumption tax increase will hit every household in Japan hard, with many people’s financial future hanging on whether their wages rise enough to offset the hike's impact.
Music Aug 14, 2013
Hard rock, J-pop rule Summer Sonic
by Patrick ST. Michel
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. “Thank-you for the warm reception,” he said sarcastically in Osaka on Saturday, in response to the ...
Music Aug 8, 2013
Marr's new message
by Shaun Curran
“What I’ve done is revert to type. I’ve gone back to my nature.” It has taken 26 years, but Johnny Marr is finally ready to embrace his past. It is a legacy of immense weight: The five years he spent as guitarist and co-songwriter ...
Music Aug 7, 2013
Cyndi Lauper is having a great year
by Jason Richards
Cyndi Lauper is at a loss for words. The musical icon, who turned 60 in June, has just been faced with the suggestion that her career is now hotter than it’s ever been. “I don’t know …” she says in her thick Queens, New ...
Music Aug 1, 2013
Linkin Park returns to Summer Sonic
by Jason Richards
Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park always starts his trips to Tokyo the same way. Jet-lagged and unable to sleep on the first night, the band’s founding member has made a ritual of hitting up the Tsukiji fish market around 4 a.m. for sushi and ...
Music | MONEY AND MUSIC Jul 3, 2013
Japan's festival industry is stuck in a fine kettle of fish
by Steve McClure
Are summer festivals killing Japan’s live-music market? Weird question, right? Hundreds of thousands of people shell out gobs of yen every summer to see an amazing array of domestic and international acts rock out at festivals up and down the Japanese archipelago. (Organizers say ...
Music Jun 7, 2013
From Björk to Kyary, festival season has arrived
by Mike Sunda
Summer means a lot of things in Japan: stifling heat and humidity, fireworks and the Bon holidays, nagashi-sōmen noodles and chilled barley tea. For music fans though, the season brings a different kind of to-do list: booking cheap train tickets in advance, stocking up ...
Music May 9, 2013
Bugg scores with working-class familiarities
by Shaun Curran
“I hadn’t been anywhere before last year, I’d hardly left England. And now I’m going to Japan. I never thought I’d be going to a place like that. I think it is going to blow my mind.” Jake Bugg is getting used to going ...
Music Aug 17, 2007
Girls have all the fun
by James Hadfield, Philip Brasor, and Daniel Robson
If there was a festival anthem to this year’s Summer Sonic, it was “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” The overflowing crowd at Cyndi Lauper’s Sunday set on the Sonic Stage was mostly made up of women who mouthed every word to her string of ...