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May 03, 2024
 

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PLAY BUTTON

CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Dec 23, 2001
Buffalo Daughter: A new addition to the family
Being in a band is like being married to more than one person simultaneously. And like any married couple, bands have their own special neuroses. The dysfunctions of any given group are compounded by long hours in the hothouse confines of a studio and even longer hours on the road.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Dec 16, 2001
Japan gets into the swing of things
The swing revival never really got going in Japan. Maybe it was an age thing. Though Japanese young people cotton on to nearly every American trend, swing wasn't quite a product of youth culture. Instead, it was championed by folks who listened to Nirvana or the Red Hot Chili Peppers as teenagers and are now slipping into their late 20s and early 30s and jumping and jiving to the likes of Brian Setzer and Squirrel Nut Zippers.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Nov 25, 2001
Where the twains meet and swing
Certain musical phrases, combinations of notes, chord changes and rhythms appear consistently in the folk music of Hungary, Turkey and China.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Oct 28, 2001
A rough guide to the indies
Japan's indie music scene is a fractured miasma of competing and collaborating subgenres. The sheer number of bands is, as anyone who has looked at Pia's live house listings recently, overwhelming. Like a fan searching for a hidden venue in the twisted back streets of Shimokitazawa or Koenji, you can easily get lost.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Sep 23, 2001
Hip-hop takes responsibility
Once upon a time, hip-hop reflected -- and reflected upon -- the urban experience: It was another black art form akin to jazz. These days, its purpose appears to be to give suburban white teenagers a vicarious thrill. In the commercially driven dichotomy of contemporary hip-hop, the gangstas and their ilk too often subsume those artists still creating vigorous, transformative sounds.
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 / PLAY BUTTON
Jul 22, 2001
Bourbon Street comes to town
If seen on the street, minus their sousaphones and trombones, the guys from the Black Bottom Brass Band would look like any of the other slightly hip types that wander around Shibuya or America-mura. A guess about their musical tastes would probably run toward some obscure DJ or indie rock's flavor of the month.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Jun 24, 2001
Singing the body electric
The only body parts usually involved in house music are the twirling fingers of the producer, tweaking samples with a twist of knob or dial, or the swaying, sweaty bodies grooving to the finished product on the dance floor.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
May 27, 2001
Going at it the hard way, while playing with the mix
Selfridges, one of London's poshest department stores, looks more Shibuya than Oxford Street these days. As part of London's Japan 2001 Festival, the store has made itself into a Japanese-style depaato, complete with elevator girls and counters piled high with azuki bean sweets and twee stationery goods.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Apr 22, 2001
Real block-rocking beats
With dance music gaining more of a presence on the charts and more play on many people's CD players, rhythm rather than melody is supreme. Granted, much of it -- from fey pop to dance crossovers -- is soulless. It is mechanical, not just in the way it is produced, but also in the way it sounds.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Mar 30, 2001
Nighttime is the right time for the music of Tomovsky
Tomoyuki Ohki's pseudonym, Tomovsky, may have been inspired by the Russian masters of classical music, but his musical lineage is pure -- albeit twisted -- pop: equal parts John Lennon and Syd Barrett.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Mar 2, 2001
Dub Squad takes a journey into time
Dub is easily identified but difficult to define. Is it a style, a genre, or an approach to sound?
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Feb 16, 2001
Keeping it pure and personal
There are people who have character and there are people who are characters. Coppe, the coolest musician you've never heard of, is both.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Feb 2, 2001
Tokyo's Milk gets in touch with rock's feminine side
Remodeled, remixed and rereleased, this week's Play Button checks back to see what some previously covered subjects are up to.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Jan 19, 2001
An 'islander' finds poetry in the soundtrack of life
Mention the word "art" to the average Japanese pop musician and the response is likely to be a roll of the eyes, a sharp intake of breath and a lot of mumbling.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Dec 22, 2000
The Captain reaches down deep into his inner funk
Funk usually brings to mind a heaving beat, thick, slapping bass lines and fashions straight out of "Shaft."
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Dec 8, 2000
Hanayo's gift wrapped in seductive complexity
With her mix of artifice, artistic discipline and sexual promise, no traditional figure is more ambiguous than the geisha.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Nov 24, 2000
From the underground up
Ryoji, the charismatic frontman and mastermind behind skacore group Potshot, has the impossibly skinny, graceful physique of a true rock star. Think Mick Jagger in 1969 or Kurt Cobain 20 years later: the ugly duckling reborn through the grace of a power chord.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Nov 10, 2000
Kobe's FBI investigates improvisation
Improvisation is a tricky business. In mediocre hands, it is interminable at best, masturbatory at worst. But with skilled practitioners, improvisation becomes the haute couture of the music world, each piece tailored on the spot to a particular confluence of musicians, audience, time and place.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Oct 27, 2000
'Soul music' comes naturally to OOIOO
Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth once described her position as a woman between two boys with guitars as like being in the center of a circle jerk. Yoshimi P-We, the Boredoms' minxy drummer, could probably relate. As the rhythm section for the Boredoms' musical onslaught, she is at ground zero between both Eye Yamataka's vocal hysteria and Seiichi Yamamoto's guitar histrionics.
Weak yen fattens tourist wallets in Japan
People visit the Ameya Yokocho market in Tokyo's Ueno district during the Golden Week holiday on Tuesday.
Biden calls ally Japan ‘xenophobic’ along with rivals China and Russia
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks in Syracuse, New York, on April 25.
Number of vacant homes in Japan hits record high of 9 million
A vacant house in Tokyo is seen demolished in January 2020.
Saudi Arabia steps up Gaza-related arrests as Israel ties edge closer
The arrests for Gaza-related posts indicate Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s regime will take a hard line against citizens not toeing the line when it comes to normalizing ties with Israel.
'So hot you can't breathe': Extreme heat hits the Philippines
A pedestrian cools himself with a folding hand fan as he waits for a ride along a road in Manila on Wednesday, as extreme heat hit the Philippines.
Kishida sets sights on energy and climate in South America trip
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will use a policy speech in Sao Paulo to set out his vision for ties between Japan and South America, almost 10 years after former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe advocated for stronger ties between the two in the same city.
Yellow sand allergy: A health issue made worse by climate change
A screenshot of the Meteorological Agency's satellite image of clouds and yellow sand (in pink) on Sunday.
Climate change, chalky grains and the risks for Japan’s rice farmers
A farmer plants seedlings in Satsumasendai, Kagoshima Prefecture. Japan’s self sufficiency rate for rice is nearly 100%, compared with 38% for food overall, on a calorie basis.
Japan wants you to spend more with ‘luxury tourism’
Performers play a traditional drum unique to Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, in the prefectural capital of Kanazawa on March 16 to mark the extension of the Hokuriku Shinkansen line to Tsuruga Station in Fukui Prefecture.
Theaster Gates’ ambitious ‘Afro-Mingei’ brings Black Chicago to Tokyo
Theaster Gates' “A Heavenly Chord” lines up church pews before seven speakers and a Hammond B3 organ, a type of electric organ prevalent in Black American churches.

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