Simon Bartz - The Japan Times

CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC

May 23, 2004

Violence is in, pop-pickers. You've seen those pictures of those troops whooping it up in Iraqi jails. Violence is clearly fun. It's cool. It basically rocks! Just ask Bush and Rumsfeld. They kicked the whole thing off.

CULTURE / Art

May 5, 2004

Suffering for her r'n'r art

Rock 'n' roll is an extreme sport and can seriously damage your health. Just ask Eri Shibata, who's fast becoming one of Japan's most celebrated "rock chicks." At a bar in Shibuya she pulls back the collar of her blouse to reveal a 10-cm scar running down from the nape of her neck.

CULTURE / Music

Mar 7, 2004

Various artists: "Sex: Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die"

Kings Road was the trendiest street in London in the early '70s and Sex was the coolest shop on it. Owned by Malcolm McLaren and stocked with clothes designed by then-girlfriend Vivienne Westwood, Sex sold S&M gear and tops that spelled out "P-E-R-V" and "R-O-C-K" in chicken bones. And in one corner sat this amazing jukebox.

CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC

Feb 29, 2004

Street fighting men in the funhouse

"I saw your review about my band I was so disgusted with your review They'll say you're right and I'm not right But I'm OK 'cos it's nothing to me." The Gimmies -- "Dirty Trick"

CULTURE / Music

Feb 29, 2004

More hot licks of raw power

The Foxys have got more than just dirty, raw, fast-as-hell rhythm and blues music in common with The Gimmies. They also throw stuff at journalists. But this time I was minding my own business when Saitama-based singer/guitarist Ryo Hashida collided with my table at a show and sent my beer flying over me. He later apologized and gave me a copy of their home-burned self-titled debut mini-album.

CULTURE / Music

Feb 18, 2004

Unpeeling Melt-Banana

Melt-Banana are one of the most popular Japanese bands in Europe and the United States, and there's two reasons for this: 1) They play more shows abroad than any other Japan-based band; and 2) They are one of Japan's most original-sounding bands, who, although highly experimental, make quality music you can actually listen to. Since they formed 10 years back their legion of admirers has mushroomed worldwide and now they're more famous than ever. American indie-music gurus Steve Albini and Jim O'Rourke have engineered or mixed Melt-Banana albums, legendary BBC DJ John Peel is a massive fan, and they've opened shows for Slipknot, The Melvins, Neurosis and a host of other foreign bands touring Japan.

Features

Feb 15, 2004

Lap up a taste of the good times

"I'm going to be in tears before the end of all this. I just know it," says Heidy, fluttering her mascara-clad eyes.

CULTURE / Music

Jan 21, 2004

Where the rock girls are . . . By SIMON BARTZ

In "Kill Bill," Japanese garage-rockers The 5.6.7.8's dripped cool as the blood splashed. But that was just a scratch on the surface of a thriving girl-band scene. Here we dig deeper to give you the chick picks of 2004.

CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC

Dec 14, 2003

Toasting the top of 2003's pop

It's been a fantastic 12 months for rock 'n' roll. Any of the top 10 albums listed here could easily have taken the No. 1 spot in a different year. Buy (or burn) them all. The only surprise was that, bar Kings of Leon, none of the new garage-rock upstarts hitching a lift on "The White Strokes" bandwagon managed to deliver a truly great album, but that was more than compensated for by the post-punk revival led by bands like The Rapture and The Kills.

CULTURE / Music

Nov 30, 2003

Listening post: Live

D4 succinctly sum up their musical manifesto in the title of the first track of their debut album. It's called "Rock 'n' roll Motherf**ker" and, when you consider the album, "6Twenty," also includes cover versions of originals by Guitar Wolf and Johnny Thunders, you can guess at the extent of the aural bombardment you're gonna get at their upcoming Japan shows.

CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC

Nov 16, 2003

The new house band chez Tarantino

I feel like I'm in a "Kill Bill" outtake and I guess that's exactly what the three cool chicks I'm with intend. They lead me down a Nishi-Ogikubo side street and up a darkened staircase. At the top is a pair of doors and the handles are bolted-on samurai swords.

CULTURE / Music

Oct 19, 2003

Grooves guaranteed to take you higher

Audio Active are Japan's most controversial band and also it's bravest. With each new album release they flip the bird in the face of the authorities. It's like they're asking for a showdown.

CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC

Oct 5, 2003

Fun at Asagiri is as easy as ichi, ni, san

It's 9 a.m. and the gentle rolling piano intonations of the Rajio Taiso theme start up. A man stands at the foot of a hill on a small raised platform and begins the count: "Ichi, ni, san, shi . . ." The hill is covered with tents from which several thousand people slowly emerge. They twist sideways, bend down and stretch up -- obeying the commands of our PE instructor this sunny Sunday morning in the foothills of Mount Fuji.

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Sep 10, 2003

Asagiri Jam

I'm gonna tell you a secret. It involves time travel. It's like this: There's a portal. Like a wormhole. And it opens up in the foothills of Mount Fuji in September. You just got to know the right place and the right time. This year the portal opens at 10 a.m. on Sept. 27 at a place called Asagiri. You may pass through dense mountain fog, but keep going to be rewarded. Remember you're in a movie penned by someone like Charlie Kaufman.

CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC

Sep 7, 2003

Boiled alive . . . all for rock 'n' roll

It's hitting 40 degrees in the concrete badlands of Odaiba and the asphalt beneath our feet is attaining the viscosity of quicksand. We wanna run for cover, but this stuff sucks at your sneakers and makes the beer tent slower to get to. The only sea breeze today is the cocktail mixed by the bartender, but if we don't finish our drink within five minutes it's lukewarm. We knock 'em back. But instead of getting merry, we stagger round with a premature hangover, aka sunstroke. It's been a crap summer but today the sun is making up for lost time. It's out to kill us. And before the day's over there will be at least one death at this year's "Rock 'n' Roll Summit."

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Aug 13, 2003

Gonna Vamp

A "vamp" is a woman who seduces or beguiles by using feminine charms, according to my dictionary. It's also the name of a new magazine that promotes underground Japanese bands, preferably if the band members are equipped with guitars, boobs and cute pouts rather than guitars, biceps and bad chat-up lines.

CULTURE / Music

Aug 3, 2003

Joe Strummer: here for eternity

Joe Strummer headlined Fuji Rock Festival this year. On all three days. He was everywhere. Since his tragic death at age 50 in December, the former Clash frontman has been deified by his army of Japanese fans: A shrine was built at the festival where you could place flowers or a can of beer. Before the music started on the Green Stage Friday, Joe's two daughters thanked his fans, rock photographer Bob Gruen eulogized Joe and a letter from Joe's wife was read out.

CULTURE / Music

Jul 16, 2003

Selling their souls

Are you ready for the devil's music? Well, at this summer's music festivals you haven't got a hope in hell of escaping from it. It's been called garage rock, but a better brand name might be beelzebub bop. It's the big new thing right now, but its roots go back to the likes of bluesman Robert Johnson -- to when he sold his soul to Satan at the side of the road and kick-started rock'n'roll.

CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC

Jul 6, 2003

A last taste of Honey

It might be the right time for the 54 Nude Honeys, but it's the wrong place and they've decided to do something about it. In September, they're jumping on a plane and decamping to New York, where the American music-media have stepped into line with their British brethren and realized that the current garage-rock revival is the kind of shot in the arm that rock 'n' roll has desperately needed since the demise of Kurt Cobain. And, unlike in the pathetic, punklite-loving Japanese press, the U.S. music media are devoting column inches to inform the kids about it.

CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC

Jun 1, 2003

You gotta walk the walk, talk the talk

DJ Seen does have tales to tell. After I get all five members of Pico System to play a game in which they have to decide what kind of animal each of the others is most like (this does, believe me, occasionally yield some illuminating responses), Seen is voted a cheetah. Maybe it's got something to do with his catlike fury as he goes about scratching up records on the turntable, or maybe it's the way he lets his speedy napalm-like beats run wild, but vocalist Kimihiko Mabuchi says, "He's the craziest member. He's always jumping on things, especially girls. There are many stories about him."

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