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July 12, 2025
 

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James Hadfield
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 6, 2010
Thoughts on Fuji — Dirty Projectors, Ozomatli, !!! and Yeasayer
Dave Longstreth, Dirty Projectors You mentioned during your show that it felt pretty early to be rocking out . . .
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / A SCORCHING SUMMER SCHEDULE
Jul 2, 2010
Fuji Rock Festival: Atoms For Peace
It sounded like a practical joke at first: Radiohead's Thom Yorke starting a band with frat-funk bassist Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers? But after a string of successful dates in the United States, including California's Coachella Festival, it's clear that Atoms for Peace mean business — and know...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 25, 2010
Asian Kung-Fu Generation "Magic Disk"
When The Japan Times asked a bunch of musicians last December to name the most influential Japanese artist from the past decade, Asian Kung-Fu Generation's Masafumi Goto went for Shutoku Mukai. It was a telling, if not particularly surprising, choice. Goto and Co. were quick to pick up the baton from...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 12, 2010
DJ Yogurt & Koyas: "Chill Out"
British dance duo The KLF birthed a monster with their 1990 album "Chill Out." A 44-minute ambient collage that mixed snatches of the group's own material with field recordings and samples of Elvis, throat singers and Fleetwood Mac, it would become the de facto comedown soundtrack for a generation of...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 5, 2010
Shibusashirazu Orchestra set to sprawl
Things got off to a memorable start at England's Glastonbury Festival in 2002. Revelers were roused from their tents on the first morning to find the main Pyramid Stage overrun by a 40-strong Japanese big band, complete with costumed performance artists, butoh and go-go dancers. The late radio DJ John...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 29, 2010
Tomori "Utagoe no Minato"
Would it be premature to hail this as the best early-Showa period album of 2010? Osaka duo Tomari's debut album pays little heed to the stylistic advances of the past half-century, turning instead to the music of prewar Japan for inspiration. It's a sound that the band describes as kakuu no kayou (literally,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 13, 2009
Warp Records hits the big 2-0
Sheffield has come on a long way over the past 20 years. England's one-time "City of Steel" was, in the dying days of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's era, a pretty grim place to be, its factories shuttered and its high streets desolate. Today, it presents a cleaner, more affluent — and, some might...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 31, 2009
Running around the many stages
If you want to get a sense of the sprawling possibilities at Fuji Rock, just look at Rafven's schedule. The former street band from Gothenburg, Sweden, managed to play no less than nine times during the festival, bringing their exuberant brand of gypsy-style revelry to a string of different stages both...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 17, 2009
Dick El Demasiado
Dick El Demasiado is, by his own admission, an impostor. Born Dick Verdult in the Netherlands in 1954, the musician and media artist has become a pivotal figure on Argentina's experimental music scene thanks to an elaborate hoax.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 10, 2009
Amami Total Solar Eclipse Festival
It's a promoter's nightmare: an event which must be held in one of the most remote parts of the country, where the centerpiece occurs on a weekday morning, with no chance of rescheduling. Then again, when you're talking about the longest total solar eclipse of the century, certain concessions must be...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 3, 2009
Sheena Ringo
Following Sheena Ringo can be a frustrating business. Her third album, 2003's "Karuki Zamen Kuri no Hana" ("Lime, Semen, Chestnut Blossoms"), ranks as one of the most wildly ambitious pop records of the past decade, which made it all the more confounding when she ditched her solo career the following...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 26, 2009
TsuShiMaMiRe "A, Umi da"
"You're pretty stinky, aren't you? Well, I'm gonna love you anyway," sings TsuShiMaMiRe's guitarist/vocalist Mari on "Mike Smell Kunkun." It takes a brief moment to realize that she's talking to her microphone, not some hygienically challenged boyfriend.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 29, 2009
Brahman
You might expect a band named after the Sanskrit term for "absolute reality" to be a bit, well, pretentious. But if their moniker is evocative of patchouli, long beards and even longer guitar solos, Brahman's music remains firmly grounded.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 20, 2009
Ego-Wrappin' and The Gossip of Jaxx "Ego-Wrappin' and The Gossip of Jaxx"
When Ego-Wrappin' performed on Asahi TV's "Music Station" show in July last year, singer Yoshie Nakano started their set by planting a kiss right on the camera lens, leaving a smudge of lipstick behind. It was the kind of insouciant gesture that the band do well: While their fusion of jazz, rock and...
CULTURE / Music
Feb 20, 2009
Ego-Wrappin' and The Gossip of Jaxx "Ego-Wrappin' and The Gossip of Jaxx"
When Ego-Wrappin' performed on Asahi TV's "Music Station" show in July last year, singer Yoshie Nakano started their set by planting a kiss right on the camera lens, leaving a smudge of lipstick behind. It was the kind of insouciant gesture that the band do well: While their fusion of jazz, rock and...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 30, 2009
Talking Teriyaki with J-hop's biggest export
While attending boarding school in Boston in the mid 1990s, Seiji Kameyama used to play hip-hop CDs that he'd brought back from Japan to his friends.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 30, 2009
Mass of the Fermenting Dregs "World is Yours"
The release of Mass of the Fermenting Dregs' self-titled debut this time last year marked them out as a band to watch. The Kobe-based three-piece (known to fans as Masudore) betrayed a rare knack for melding pop sensibilities with the aural assault of the best postrock. The fact they are all girls didn't...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 12, 2008
The Fireman "Electric Arguments"
Nearly four decades after ending his songwriting partnership with John Lennon, Paul McCartney still hasn't tired of insisting that he was the more experimental of the two. Just last month, he announced that he was hoping to finally release "Carnival of Light," the "lost" avant-garde piece that The Beatles...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 14, 2008
Zazen Boys
At 35, Shutoku Mukai is practically the elder statesman of Japanese indie rock. The guitarist and singer, whose nerdy demeanor suggests an off-duty salaryman rather than a rock star, has been behind some of the most abrasive and inventive music to make a dent in Japan's pop charts during the past 10...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 31, 2008
Club tricks and treats for Halloween
With Halloween falling on a Friday this year, there's a countrywide wealth of ghoulish fun on offer over the weekend — and even less excuse not to indulge in some serious sartorial inelegance and hit the town.
Tokyo hit by torrential rainfall at rush hour
People line up at Shibuya Station in Tokyo as they try to avoid the heavy rain on Thursday.
Foreign drivers in Japan to face tougher license conversion rules from October
According to the National Police Agency, there were 75,905 people who converted their foreign driver’s license to a Japanese one in 2024, up from 48,885 in 2019.
Chinese fighters came within 30 meters of Japanese spy aircraft, Tokyo says
A Chinese JH-7 fighter jet makes an near an Air Self-Defense Force YS-11EB surveillance aircraft over the East China Sea this week in this image released Thursday.
Air India crash report to offer peek into last seconds
Members of the Indian Army's engineering arm prepare to remove the wreckage of an Air India aircraft in Ahmedabad on June 14.
What Japanese politics could look like after Upper House election
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who heads the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (center) waves to attendees as he departs after delivering a campaign speech in Yokohama on Sunday.
New IG Arena set to dial down temperature at Nagoya Basho, in a good way
With IG Arena getting glowing early reviews as the Nagoya Basho’s replacement venue, it may be a while before fans wax nostalgic about the Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium.
Once a niche, anime is now mainstream content for Netflix and other streaming services
Though Netflix remains the dominant choice globally for anime viewers, Amazon Prime Video has also invested heavily in anime, steadily adding titles to their catalogue.
NGOs condemn rise in anti-immigrant rhetoric ahead of Upper House vote
Sanseito head Sohei Kamiya holds a board that reads "Japanese First" in Tokyo on July 2. In a joint statement on Tuesday, eight human rights nongovernmental organizations described the far-right party's stance as "hate speech."
Japanese dancers find a home abroad at Houston Ballet
“Giselle” lead Yuriko Kajiya (center), performing with Connor Walsh as Albrecht, is one of six Japanese dancers at Houston Ballet.
From the Abes to the Ohtanis: How siblings shape athletic development
Olympic judoka Uta Abe (second from left) and Hifumi Abe (second from right) with their brother Yuichiro (center) and their parents. “I’m always consciously trying to be a good older brother,” Yuichiro said.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji
By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Muji has been sustainable from the beginning
Muji has been sustainable from the beginning

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