Patrick St. Michel is a Tokyo-based writer with a focus on Japanese music. He runs the blog Make Believe Melodies, which has focused on Japanese independent music since 2009. Besides The Japan Times, he also contributes to MTV 81 and The Atlantic.
For Patrick St. Michel's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Untouchable Toffee opened its first store in Hamamatsu back in 2013, but the candy company didn't launch a second branch until late last year when it settled in the hipper neighborhood of Harajuku. The smaller outpost (4-26-5 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo) serves up five varieties of ...
Idol group AKB48 elicits extreme reactions from people. The unit has nurtured a rabid fanbase who are willing to buy multiple copies of a single CD to show their devotion. On the other hand, critics despise the group's brand of by-the-book pop and the ...
The neighborhood of Omotesando already has a surplus of trendy pancake, chocolate and sugared-up popcorn shops. But the area became even sweeter with the opening last Saturday of Monarch Cupcake (3-24-5 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo; www.monarchcupcake.com). Founded by British-born Furva Saleem, the speciality shop, which is being ...
Confectionary chain Fujiya Co. has added a little pop to their macaron selection with the introduction of a Sparkling Macaron set (¥500) featuring three soda-flavored sweets. The trio of cola, ramune (soda) and lemon squash flavors come with a creamy center of crackling candies to ...
The crowd at the sold-out Liquidroom show furiously pumps glowsticks shaped like green onions in time with the beat coming out of the venue's sound system. They scream when three young women appear, and the energy only grows as the first song of the ...
Those living in Japan know that when it comes to Oktoberfest, dates aren't much of a consideration. Past Oktoberfests have run anywhere between April and October. If April can't come soon enough, though, Seven-Eleven has you covered. The konbini (convenience store) is the only place to ...
Tokyo boasts plenty of Belgian culinary spots, from beer bars to chocolate shops. Chef Bart Sablon even points out that there is a Belgian waffle store right around the corner from Pommeke, a recently opened operation where the 39-year-old works as executive chef. "That's ...
The New York borough of Brooklyn has been a hotbed of culinary trends over the past decade. And now Japan's Mister Donut wants to cash in on the city's brand of cool. Launched as Brooklyn D&D, this new "donut and danish" hybrid (¥194) comes in ...
Seiho Hayakawa and Takuma Hosokawa think modern pop music is "grotesque," but that's exactly how they wanted the debut album by their band Sugar's Campaign to sound. "We grew up in the 1980s and '90s," says Hayakawa, who also records solo under his first name, ...
Smany "Polyphenic" (Bunkai-kei records) Last year, netlabel Bunkai-Kei records made a big deal about singer Smany's debut album "komoriuta." It released a video trailer for it, along with calling up some of the more prominent names in Japan's online-music scene to remix songs from it. ...
