Philip Brasor - The Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Jun 6, 2001

Lord knows, it ain't easy Call it the Happy Meal effect, but what used to be considered "bonus" is now taken for granted. The multiple-stage gimmick offers more of a festival atmosphere, but if you go for the music you will eventually have to choose, and sometimes it ain't easy.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Jun 3, 2001

It's all about manners (cough, gasp), not health

It's not surprising that the local media glossed over the World Health Organization's 14th annual World No Tobacco Day last Thursday. The government, a member in good standing of the United Nations and a conscientious contributor to its causes, didn't start preparing a seminar to mark the occasion until May 15.

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

May 30, 2001

'Lovers Leap': Dan Bryk

In art, confession treads a fine line between catharsis and showing off. A subset of current punk bands like Wheatus and Blink 182 utilizes the geek mode to comment on classic macho-rock poses, but since they have nothing original to say (girls ignore you at school? figure it out), geekiness turns out to be just as much of a pose.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

May 27, 2001

Cosmetics companies give themselves a makeover

Truth in advertising has never been a strong concept in Japan, but no one flouts it as boldly as the cosmetics industry, which is understandable, since makeup itself is a form of deception. One company's antiwrinkle cream is said to "prevent aging," an obvious impossibility, while the manufacturer of a particular "skin whitening" (bihaku) lotion claims that it "checks the growth of melanin cells," which means, theoretically, that the lotion is messing with the genetic structure of those cells. Even if this were desirable (melanin cells grow for a reason), only a doctor could prescribe such treatment.

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

May 23, 2001

'Cassidy': Luke Sutherland

The fringes of hip-hop that line the frayed fabric of British club music have lately become tangled up in the nascent European postrock scene, a development that has resulted in an expanded instrumental pallette taking over where machines previously ruled. Luke Sutherland, the restless, thoughtful multi-instrumentalist and novelist who led Glasgow's premiere psychedelic band Long Fin Killie, doesn't claim hip-hop as his metier and master, but the music he produces under the banner of Bows moves back from trip-hop and drum 'n' bass toward the more primitive, patchwork style of early U.K. house musicians.

CULTURE / Music

May 20, 2001

Is you is or is you ain't . . . ?

Stephen Malkmus, formally known as SM, formally known as that tall, skinny guy who knows more neat metal guitar riffs than anyone in Stockton, Calif., was the leader by default of Amerindie's greatest band, Pavement, which called it quits last fall after a year of waffling.

CULTURE / Music

May 16, 2001

The Sonig circuit

Back in 1960 when he was a strapping egghead of 31, Karlheinz Stockhausen, the father of taped electronic music, had a vision: Every major city in the world would build an auditorium for the appreciation of "space music." Stockhausen's prediction was simply the optimistic ramblings of an intellectual who had everything to gain by the prediction coming true, so I wouldn't blame him for Hawkwind.

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

May 16, 2001

'Gainsbourg Forever': Serge Gainsbourg

Serge Gainsbourg died on March 2, 1991, a month shy of his 63rd birthday. Though characterized as a womanizing alcoholic, the iconoclastic Frenchman always thought of himself as a homely little Jewish piano player who never asked to be a star, but as long as he was one then you had to accept him for what he was.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

May 13, 2001

Public participation aids media more than police

Prior to Thursday's arrest of a suspect in the April 30 murder of a 19-year-old woman in Asakusa, hundreds of people had called the police with information. The majority of these calls were not made until several days after the murder, when police found some items that they believe the killer discarded while fleeing the crime.

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

May 9, 2001

'Movimento': Madredeus

The musical form fado takes off from the Portuguese concept of saudade, or "yearning," which dwells on things that are lost: a mother, a sweetheart, home. However, the music of Madredeus, Portugal's most popular group, has always contained an element of hopefulness, a yearning for things still possible.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

May 6, 2001

Funny hair beats dark blue suits and bad teeth

One can gauge the emotions now churning through certain portions of the Liberal Democratic Party by a tearful comment made by a member of the Hashimoto faction following the unveiling of a memorial statue of the late Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi in Okinawa last week. The politician was not crying over the loss of a comrade but rather over the mess that his death has caused. If Obuchi hadn't died, "he'd still be prime minister" and we wouldn't have that spoilsport Junichiro Koizumi in the driver's seat right now.

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

May 2, 2001

'The Facts of Life': Black Box Recorder

Artists who harbor ambitions that outstrip their talent often try to pre-empt accusations of pretentiousness by hiding behind surface ironies. Luke Haines called his first rock band the Auteurs, thus placing quotation marks around whatever they produced, which was mostly literary-minded rock descended from the Bowie-Reed school of decadent narcissism.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Apr 29, 2001

No frills, no thrills: the hottest trend in retailing

The news that the discount department store chain Jusco made money last year while its two perennial competitors sank deeper into the red was met with surprise by the media. One can get a handle on how the press views the former underdog by reading this week's Aera, in which it describes the three-way rivalry as one between "excellence" (Ito-Yokado), "charisma" (Daiei) and "a wishy-washy image" (Jusco).

CULTURE / Film

Apr 25, 2001

Hidden Gems

'Straight-to-video" is a term that carries a stigma, and deservedly so. So much of what emerges without theatrical release is either slasher, sleaze or sly made-for-TV imitations of a bigger-budgeted film (e.g., "Asteroid," released just prior to "Armageddon"). But here in Japan there is a surprisingly large number of decent films that never make it onto the theatrical circuit for a variety of reasons -- lack of easily bankable star-power and overbooked screens being the two most common.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Apr 22, 2001

All together now: Let's all shill for Universal!

Before Universal Studios Japan opened on March 31, media commentators were asking why the new Hollywood theme park wasn't called Universal Studios Osaka. After all, Tokyo Disneyland isn't called Japan Disneyland. Here's the punch line: If they called it Universal Studios Osaka, the acronym would be USO, which means "lie" in Japanese.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Apr 15, 2001

Style as something you buy rather than cultivate

I always leaf through Katei Gaho in my dentist's waiting room. In fact, it's the only place I've ever had a chance to peruse it. Printed on the heaviest glossy paper money can buy, the magazine is more notable for its heft than its content, which is beautifully photographed clothing and household goods for the discriminating okusan. The reason I never see it anywhere else is because the kind of women it targets -- rich Japanese wives with huge houses and refined tastes -- are the kind of women I don't know.

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Apr 11, 2001

Emmylou Harris' 'Spyboy'

Emmylou Harris left one subsidiary of Warner Bros. (Asylum) in the mid-'90s before being picked up by another (Nonesuch) last year. During those five years she released an excellent but overlooked album with Linda Ronstadt and toured the world with a three-piece band called Spyboy (named after the jester that leads a Mardi Gras parade), perfecting the darker folk-rock sound she and producer Daniel Lanois developed for 1995's "Wrecking Ball," an album of heavy-weather atmospherics and glum songs.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Apr 8, 2001

When leaders meet the press head-on

U.S. President George W. Bush's announcement that he will no longer hold "formal" press conferences in the East Room of the White House was met with derision and shrugs by the American press. On Salon.com, Gary Kamiya accused Bush of fleeing reporters "with his larynx between his legs," while Helen Thomas, the so-called dean of White House correspondents, told the same magazine that she can understand Bush's decision because he "does much better when he's relaxed, and he's not so relaxed in press conferences."

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Apr 4, 2001

Gorillaz

As half of Handsome Boy Modeling School, producer Dan "the Automator" Nakamura watched Prince Paul receive most of the laurels, and though Deltronic 3030 would have been nothing without him, it was assumed to be the baby of rapper Del Tha Funky Homosapien. So, of course, Blurmeister Damon Albarn is considered the leader of Gorillaz -- a project that morphed from Deltronic with most of the same members (Del, Dan, Damon, DJ Kid Koala) -- simply because he commands the largest fan base.

CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES

Apr 4, 2001

The Royal Crown Revue

The neo-swing boom was shorter than the original swing era, which, according to experts, lasted only as long as World War II did. Nothing so momentous accompanied the '90s explosion of zoot suits and horn sections, which may be why it sounds so empty of ideas. Big bands with "daddy" in their names, like Cherry Poppin' Daddies and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy (playing in Harajuku on Sunday, by the way), sound OK until you compare them to a true original like Keely Smith, who at the age of 69 just released an album of reconfigured classics from her youth that not only blows away every under-40 hepcat presently honking away on either coast, but rocks harder than a lot of recent punk.

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