Tag - frf

 
 

FRF

Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 17, 2005
The lights, guitars, action of Go! Team
Film commonly relies on music to add emotional impact. However, with The Go! Team, who hail from Brighton, England, it works the other way around. Early singles were flush with action and near-cinematic thrills, all guitar squalls and percussive thrust, with soaring horn lines that burst through your speakers. The Go! Team's debut album, "Thunder, Lightning Strike," even ends with the jubilant aftertaste of a summer blockbuster, harmonica and symphonic swells reminding of us of heroes high-fiving as the credits roll.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 10, 2003
State of the rock nation, in 35-min. bites
Since they took place on successive weekends, it's difficult not to compare this year's editions of the Fuji Rock Festival and Summer Sonic, so let's do it. Fuji is bucolic where SS is urban. Fuji's vibe is communal and free-spirited, while the SS vibe is commercial and controlling. Fuji is populated by hippies-at-heart, while SS attracts 22-year-olds.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 3, 2003
Getting down and dirty at Fuji Rock
Mix earth with rain and thousands of people, and you get a big muddy mess. But, rain or shine (and it did a little), the key ingredient is music. Philip Brasor, Simon Bartz and Mark Thompson indulged in FRF '03.
CULTURE / Music
Aug 3, 2003
Michael Franti: a man for all stages
Michael Franti was the man of the festival, the one artist who embodied the spirit of Fuji Rock better than anyone else. As tall as a basketball player and sporting wild dreads that reach the middle of his back, he was seen everywhere -- dancing with the crowd at the Talib Kweli show, hanging out backstage at the Red Marquee during The Music's set, checking out the food stalls, doing some disco karaoke at the Net Cafe -- all in his famously bare feet, which must have walked through a lot of mud this weekend. Franti started out in the San Francisco Bay Area hip-hop collective The Beatnigs, which eventually morphed into the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 16, 2003
Fuji's hipper hop
Despite its immense popularity in Japan, hip-hop has until recently suffered from poor representation at summer music events. The Fuji Rock Festival seems keen to make up for lost time this year, augmenting the usual legion of club-oriented DJs with a veritable roll call of some of today's most innovative hip-hop artists. Better yet, the bulk of the roster performs on the fest's opening day, July 25.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 29, 2003
The poetry and power of rock 'n' roll
For an artist as personal as Patti Smith, who once told an interviewer that it wasn't difficult to leave "the limelight and the applause" at the height of her popularity as a rock singer to become a full-time wife and mother, she certainly seems to derive a great deal of spiritual sustenance from direct contact with people.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Aug 26, 2001
Between Sonic rock and a hard place
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 extravaganza, was taking off, except for the small clusters of festival-goers navigating a maze of overpasses and pavement.
CULTURE / Music
Aug 6, 2000
Fuji Rock fest hits its stride
After only four years, it might seem premature to subtitle the Fuji Rock Festival a "summer classic," but the event's institutional status was boosted this year by the fact that it was held at the same location as it was the year before. The Naeba Ski Resort was never the organizers' first choice -- as the name implies, it was supposed to be held within spitting distance of Mount Fuji -- but politically the Mount Fuji area has proved too difficult for the Glastonbury-like prerogatives that the organizers envision. For better or worse, Naeba seems to be the permanent home.
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Aug 13, 1999
Fuji Rock Underworld more than a Blur
Big bag of cheese 'n' mushroom sandwiches: yummy. Bottle of tequila: check. Crate of Yebisu beer: yup. Jump in the Devilmobile and find the city seems to never end, but after three hours on petrol and beer our ears are popping as we spiral up the backside of a mountain near Naeba in Niigata Prefecture on oxygen and tequila and reach out for heaven via the Fuji Rock Festival.

Longform

Rows of irises resemble a rice field at the Peter Walker-designed Toyota Municipal Museum of Art.
The 'outsiders' creating some of Japan's greenest spaces