Philip Brasor - The Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

May 30, 2004

These days, when inspiration strikes, musicians can utitilze the flexibility and affordability of home-recording technology. Polly Jean Harvey, whose songs are the aural equivalent of manic-depressive episodes, goes the whole DIY hog on her latest album, not only playing all the instruments (except drums)...

CULTURE / Music

May 23, 2004

Challenger

When Al Burian and Dave Laney disbanded Milemarker several years ago, they left a curious legacy. With a lineup that went from three to five and back again whenever the wind changed, the band became notorious for never doing the same thing twice. Though fundamentally a hardcore punk band, Milemarker...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

May 23, 2004

Foreign markets fail to grasp soul of anime

If, as many people claim, Japanese pop culture is sweeping the globe, then anime is the hand that wields the broom. A number of recent big-budget Japanese animated features, including Mamoru Oishii's "Innocence," currently in competition at Cannes, have attracted funding from Hollywood without the usual...

CULTURE / Music

May 16, 2004

Avril under the skin of consumers

Walking out of Shibuya Station on May 12, you couldn't help but be aware that Avril Lavigne's second album, "Under My Skin," had just gone on sale. There she was, belting out her new single, "Don't Tell Me," up there on the big screen above the 109 Building. Tsutaya had a booth set up with Avril's kohl-eyed...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

May 16, 2004

Shooting politicians in a barrel more fun than addressing pension problem

In the past two weeks the pension scandal that has touched so many lawmakers has progressed from a political embarrassment to pure farce. The offered reason for regret is that the people's "trust in politics" has been damaged, a suggestion that's risible even under normal circumstances.

CULTURE / Music

May 16, 2004

Farmers Market

CULTURE / Music

May 9, 2004

Joanna Newsom: "The Milk-Eyed Mender"

In pop, romance poetry and childlike sopranos go together like milk and cookies, and are often just as cloyingly sweet. From Joni Mitchell to Bjork, the ethereal method always sounds like a teenage girl with a crush on Byron. Joanna Newsom, who grew up in rural California, springs from this mold fully...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

May 9, 2004

If only divorces were scripted by TV writers

It's easier to get a divorce in Japan than anywhere else in the world. If both parties agree, all they have to do is affix their seals to a document and their union is instantly dissolved -- no trial separation period, no grounds, no mess.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

May 2, 2004

Japan welcomes students, but you might end up majoring in crime

The controversy over the increase in crimes committed by foreigners in Japan is centered mainly on appearances and interpretation. The National Police Agency's use of statistics to show that "foreign crime" is on the rise has given the agency license to initiate policies that many people, both Japanese...

CULTURE / Music

May 2, 2004

Mary J. Blige

Four years ago, the queen of hip-hop soul said she was through with drama, but Mary J. Blige without drama is like rain without water: No major R&B artist who emerged in the '90s has plumbed her own psychological depths so effectively without embarrassing herself. What she probably meant was that it's...

CULTURE / Music

Apr 25, 2004

Bob Dylan: "Live 1964: Concert at Philharmonic Hall"

The striking thing about the latest addition to the "Bootleg Series" is the realization that four years into his career Bob Dylan was still a callow youth. The concert took place Halloween night, 1964, a year after the Kennedy assassination, nine months after The Beatles conquered America, but a year...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Apr 25, 2004

Shame lies with government and media over Iraq hostage crisis

Last week, the Asahi Shimbun ran an opinion piece by writer Genichiro Takahashi that was in the form of an advice column. The anonymous advice-seeker professed to having suffered the same fate as the three Japanese hostages who returned from Iraq to a chorus of derision. After all I went through, said...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Apr 18, 2004

Media favors Al-Jazeera over government

In his new book, "The Unconquerable World," Jonathan Schell explains how "people's war" came to be the dominant form of international conflict in the nuclear age. People's war subordinates all aspects of warfare to politics, because only through politics can the strength of the people be harnessed to...

CULTURE / Music

Apr 18, 2004

"C'mon Miracle": Mirah

Wielding the purest voice of anyone on the Pacific Northwest indie scene, Mirah Yom Tov Zeitlyn has become the token female singer-songwriter on Calvin Johnson's proudly lo-fi K Records label, and is probably more famous for her work with Phil Elvrum's psych-pop band The Microphones than she is for her...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Apr 11, 2004

Chosuke Ikariya: the professional amateur

In his autobiography, Chosuke Ikariya, who died two weeks ago at the age of 72, mentions that when he won a Japan Academy Award in 1999 for his performance in "Odoru Daisosasen (Bayside Shakedown)" he felt guilty because he had never taken acting that seriously. It sounds like the requisite modesty of...

CULTURE / Music

Apr 11, 2004

Stereolab

With their Francophone vocalist and doctrinaire allegiance to analog synthesizers, Stereolab tread a fine line between arty brilliance and frothy silliness. The Marxist proselytizers who emerged on their early albums have evolved into lounge aesthetes who still know a rock tune when they play it. Tim...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Apr 4, 2004

A responsible attitude needed toward 'privacy'

Everybody knows what they mean when they say "privacy," but when it's used in a legal context the word turns squishy and slippery. For instance, it's difficult to grasp why Barbra Streisand sued a photographer last year for invasion of privacy because her estate appeared in two aerial pictures he took...

CULTURE / Music

Apr 4, 2004

Dead Kennedys: "Live at the Deaf Club"

March 1979. The relatively benign Jimmy Carter was in the White House, the Zen-liberal Jerry Brown, Jr., in Sacramento. It may have been over-reaching of San Francisco's most stridently political hardcore band, The Dead Kennedys, to characterize the West Coast as a Nazi police state in "California Uber...

CULTURE / Music

Mar 28, 2004

Missy Elliott

What becomes a legend most? In Missy Elliott's case, it's not the minimal beats, which were revolutionary before their time, or the effortless wordplay that sticks to the roof of your brain, but rather an attitude that cuts straight through the usual hip-hop nonsense and speaks directly to her audience....

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Mar 28, 2004

Freedom is flagging in Japan's public-school system

Few people are probably aware that the national flags of many countries are not, strictly speaking, national flags. There is no law, for example, that designates the Union Jack as the national flag of the U.K. In most countries, the national flag and national anthem are defined, as such, by custom rather...

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