Japan's urban rock festival gets more urban every year, at least musically. Headliner Jay-Z, husband of last year's headliner, Beyonce, and the richest rapper in the world, hasn't visited Japan often, especially since he came out of retirement in 2006. He and Stevie Wonder ...
PLASTICS: Rising Sun Rock Festival
With their rudimentary synths, wiry guitar hooks, dazzling fashion and the insane barked vocals of Chica Sato and Hajime Tachibana, Plastics were Japan's quintessential late 1970s new-wave band, finding fans in contemporaries Devo and The B-52's. Their re-formation comes as neo wave and nu ...
Fukuoka's Yui has been turning out chart-toppers since releasing her 2006 major-label debut, "From Me to You," while still in her teens. The Avril Lavigne-esque songwriter's new disc, "Holidays in the Sun," will drop July 14 and she'll showcase it at Rock in Japan. ...
YUJI OHNO & LUPINTIC FIVE: The Monterey Jazz Festival in Noto
For more than 30 years, the opening notes of the score for "Lupin The Third" have come to signify the anime and the music's composer, pianist Yuji Ohno. Expect the theme song to pop up during the rollicking, up-tempo set by Yuji Ohno & ...
Tokyo-grown punk-ska heavies Oi-Skall Mates make their second, back-to-back appearance at the beachside Festa de Rama, now in its sixth year. The band hasn't released a new album in five years (they insist it'll happen this year), but they toured Hawaii last year and ...
If you had told Glaswegian band Mogwai when they formed in the mid-1990s that they would end up headlining a dance music festival, they would have laughed in your face. But over the years Metamorphose has evolved from a festival representing electronic music that ...
SEIJI OZAWA: Saito Kinen Festival Matsumoto
The Saito Kinen Festival Matsumoto will be world- renowned conductor Seiji Ozawa's first performance since January, following his diagnosis with esophageal cancer. Thanks to prompt treatment, the maestro is due to recover in time for the annual music event that he founded in 1992. ...
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 ...
