Music Jan 30, 2020
by Jordan Allen
Stiff Little Fingers bring "Inflammable Material" to Tokyo for two shows, letting fans hear the album, which deals with Northern Ireland's 'troubles,' in its entirety.
Music Oct 15, 2019
A boy no longer, 'Kid' Reid has come of age
by J.J. O'Donoghue
Duncan Reid, formerly of British punk group The Boys, brings his latest band to Japan for a series of high-energy live shows
Music May 1, 2019
The Outcasts: Forty years after their debut, Japan finally beckons
by J.J. O'Donoghue
For a small country, Northern Ireland has produced a lot of punk. Similar to Fukushima Prefecture in size and population, this corner of the U.K. gave rise to acts such as The Undertones, Stiff Little Fingers, Rudi, Protex, and The Outcasts in the 1970s, at ...
Music Feb 28, 2019
Gang of Four's fluctuating degrees of animosity, 40 years on
by Shaun Curran
British post-punk pioneers Gang of Four didn't come to Japan until 2005, nearly 30 years after the band formed. If guitarist Andy Gill had his way, it would have happened a lot sooner. "I clearly remember a conversation in the '80s about going to ...
Music / CD Reviews | LISTENING POST Feb 13, 2019
Chai's 'Punk' is an irrepressibly upbeat victory lap
by James Hadfield
For a band that made its name by bucking kawaii conventions, Chai can be awfully cute. On its second album, misleadingly titled "Punk," the quartet takes the giddy sugar-rush of 2017's "Pink" and distills it into a mixture so potent, it should probably come ...
Film / Reviews Jun 27, 2018
'Punk Samurai Slash Down': An audacious adaptation that may look better on paper
by James Hadfield
One of the frequent complaints lodged against the Japanese film industry is that producers are reluctant to bankroll anything that isn't based on an existing novel, manga or TV series. There's a lot of truth in the criticism, but not every screen adaptation of ...
Music Apr 10, 2018
'I can only speak my own truth': Otoboke Beaver rocks tunes not politics
by Patrick St. Michel
More than 100,000 people are expected to attend this month's Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in the Southern California desert. While heavyweight North American pop stars such as Beyonce and The Weeknd are grabbing the most attention, the lineup also features dozens of ...
Film Mar 13, 2018
The films and the fury of punk moviemaker Gakuryu Ishii
by Daisuke Kikuchi
Last year's release of "Blade Runner 2049" and this year's Netflix series "Altered Carbon" have rekindled interest in the futuristic cyberpunk aesthetic, though those works were decidedly more "cyber" and less "punk." Punk is meant to be raw, gritty — easily identifiable as do-it-yourself. The ...
Music Aug 17, 2017
Nuclear issues aren't a problem for Hiroshima's punk acts — politics are
by Peter Chordas
"Adults are stupid," says Shinji Okoda, who is better known in Hiroshima as "Guy," the vocalist for hardcore punk band Origin of M and owner of Disk Shop Misery and Bloodsucker Records. At 52, he certainly appears to have some authority in the matter. Just ...
People | WHY DID YOU LEAVE JAPAN? Apr 22, 2017
Tsubasa Watanabe: Model mixes punk with fashion on the runways of New York
by Daniel Morales
At her first test shoot in Los Angeles, Tsubasa Watanabe was surprised by the outfit the photographer was asking her to wear: Hanging from the fingers of his outstretched hand was a pair of thong underwear. "This is the outfit?" she asked. "Yup," he answered. "Ok," she ...
Film Feb 8, 2017
Punk: How cinema ignored something so loud
by Giovanni Fazio
Once upon a time, Hollywood was good at co-opting and selling youth culture. When rock 'n' roll and biker gangs came along in the 1950s, the studios came up with generational totems like "Blackboard Jungle" and "The Wild Ones." Beatlemania spawned "A Hard Days ...
Music Feb 5, 2017
Never Again celebrates 20 years with a punk round robin
by Peter Chordas
In the shadow of Hiroshima's Atomic Bomb Dome, where dimly-lit music venues sit atop the ashes of a former atomic wasteland, the spirit of punk clings like stale smoke after a bar show. One of its champions is Never Again which, on Jan. 28, celebrated ...