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April 30, 2025
 

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CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Sep 5, 2001
Space Shower
By Suzannah Tartan
Space Shower TV, the homegrown version of music television, has been instrumental in promoting what might be best called Japanese pop, as opposed to J-pop. These groups may not make the upper reaches of the chart -- they are either too raw or too offbeat -- but they are also too accessible or too popular...
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Sep 5, 2001
Nils Petter Molvaer: 'Solid Ether'
By Philip Brasor
Being a respected regional musician has its good points and its not so good points. Nils Petter Molvaer, who was born in 1960 and raised on an island off the northwest coast of Norway, eventually made his way to Oslo in the early '80s and became the most acclaimed trumpeter in the city's burgeoning jazz...
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Sep 5, 2001
The Strokes: 'Is This It'
By Simon Bartz
Let's put our hands up and admit it, right. We are all sick of the aging rap-rock racket of Limp Bizkit and their ilk, the punk-lite of Blink-182, etc. and the overblown histrionics of mainstream British rock. We need a feisty new band to kick down the door, spray the establishment with aural bullets...
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Sep 5, 2001
Tierney Sutton: 'Blue in Green'
By Michael Pronko
Jazz vocalist Tierney Sutton's second release, "Blue in Green," is a stunning tribute to pianist Bill Evans. Evans, one of the most influential pianists of the past 50 years, expanded the rhythmic and harmonic possibilities of jazz. Evans also knew how to play to both a general audience and other musicians,...
CULTURE / Music
Sep 2, 2001
Foot-stompin', heart-stoppin' stuff
By Michael Pronko
Carlinhos Brown is a phenomenon. Since the 1996 release of the highly acclaimed "Alfagamabetizado," he has been a prominent figure on the world music scene and compared to everyone from Prince, for his intriguing mix of musical styles, to Bob Marley, for his charismatic stage presence. At his show Aug....
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Sep 2, 2001
Baba's back and he wants your head
By Simon Bartz
Four men on stage, stripped to the waist, dripping with sweat, belting out demented rock 'n' roll that sounds like The Stooges jamming with The Doors, and fronted by the craziest, most charismatic singer you will ever lay eyes on. God, if only it was always like this.
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Aug 29, 2001
Roxy Music
By Suzannah Tartan
If any band personified the decadence of the '70s, it was Roxy Music. Singer Bryan Ferry epitomized the dissolute lounge lizard made handsome by a glib tongue and good fashion sense. The band's torch-song pop, poised on the periphery of disco and New Wave, chronicled the underbelly of the good life:...
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Aug 29, 2001
Marshall Crenshaw
By Philip Brasor
With its encyclopedic array of early rock 'n' roll hooks and a spare guitar sound that anyone could duplicate, Marshall Crenshaw's eponymous 1982 debut was the perfect primer, the kind of record mainstream acts could plunder for material to plug into the already ebbing New Wave. The fact that the record...
CULTURE / Music
Aug 29, 2001
Boy Bands II Men Bands
By Philip Brasor
On July 9, the day after the Backstreet Boys announced on MTV that their tattooed bad-boy member A.J. McLean was entering a rehabilitation facility for "alcohol and depression," advertisements appeared in the Japanese dailies announcing the Boys' Japan dome tour in November. Tickets, however, would not...
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Aug 29, 2001
Charlie Haden: 'Nocturne'
By Michael Pronko
Bolero is the Latin American equivalent of ballads -- slow, romantic, mid-tempo and loaded with sentimentality. As such, it is a style of music more suited to dancers moving cheek-to-cheek by candlelight than to a cutting-edge improvisational jazz artist. But on his latest release on the Gitanes label,...
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Aug 29, 2001
Sizzla: 'Black History'
By Simon Bartz
This, I believe, is Sizzla's 16th album since his 1995 debut, although forgive me if I've missed one or two in my calculation, as we're talking about a reggae artist so prolific that, this year alone, we're looking at the possibility of four new albums.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Aug 26, 2001
Between Sonic rock and a hard place
By Suzannah Tartan
At first glance, the biggest thing happening in Makuhari last weekend was the sale at the local outlet mall. No banners. No bullhorns. No hype. Just a silent, eerie cityscape of hotels and empty family restaurants. In short, there was nothing to indicate that Summer Sonic, Japan's second-biggest music...
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami
A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
Counting the reasons why there are so few American cars in Japan
Tesla's store in Tokyo's Shibuya district. While sales of American cars in Japan appear to be shrinking, Tesla's presence in the country is growing.
Shohei Ohtani's example could change Japan's views on paternity leave
Shohei Ohtani and Mamiko Tanaka announced the birth of their first child on April 19.
Nearly half of workers in Japan engage in ‘quiet quitting’
"Quiet quitting" is most common among the younger generation, with 46.7% of respondents to a survey in their 20s identifying with the practice, reflecting a less-motivated workforce more focused on work-life balance.
China seizes disputed reef near key Philippine military outpost
China Coast Guard officers unfurl a national flag on Sandy Cay reef, near the Philippine-held Thitu Island, in disputed waters of the South China Sea this month in this screen shot taken from Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.
Shohei Ohtani's example could change Japan's views on paternity leave
Shohei Ohtani and Mamiko Tanaka announced the birth of their first child on April 19.
Counting the reasons why there are so few American cars in Japan
Tesla's store in Tokyo's Shibuya district. While sales of American cars in Japan appear to be shrinking, Tesla's presence in the country is growing.
Nearly half of workers in Japan engage in ‘quiet quitting’
"Quiet quitting" is most common among the younger generation, with 46.7% of respondents to a survey in their 20s identifying with the practice, reflecting a less-motivated workforce more focused on work-life balance.
U.S. secretary of the navy weighs ‘dual-use’ shipbuilding with Japan
John Phelan at a Senate confirmation hearing for U.S. secretary of the navy in Washington in February
Expo '25 gives the world a masterclass in mascots
2025 Osaka Expo mascot Myaku-Myaku dances on the stage during the event's official opening ceremony on April 12.

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

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A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami
By Alex K.T. Martin

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