Writer and indie music scene person, based in Tokyo. Author of Quit Your Band! Musical Notes from the Japanese Underground (Awai Books, 2016) / バンドやめようぜ！ (Ele-king books, 2017) and owner of Call And Response Records.
Three days in a row DJing at Koenji Uptown Records this past weekend. Just went with all party bangers from the years 1978-1983 for my short set on Sunday night. No more gigs for a while now and kind of looking forward to the break.
Second DJ gig of the weekend last night. The theme was for each DJ to only play music by one artist (including solo and side projects). I chose Stereolab and, since it was only 30 minutes, leaned on the pop side rather than going hard into all the Nurse With Wound stuff (much as I'd have liked to):
Opposite here. My wife (Japanese) loves watching teenage boys suffer emotionally, but hates seeing pictures of rats, so could only handle Ratatouille when pitched as the closest stupid American pop culture could get to Evangelion.
A friend had a "Who Killed Brian Jones?" murder mystery birthday party tonight, so in my swinging London criminal guise of DJ Ronnie Cray Cray I played two sets about murder, death, cops and crimes to keep her vibe up on this special day. (My hip-hop game was too weak to even touch that rich seam).
Much as I love the potholed chaos of the Japanese music scene, though, I'm looking forward to visiting the UK again soon, partly for the exotic thrill of seeing thousands of people watching the same weird music together at End of the Road rather than lurking in groups of 6 or so in a Tokyo basement.
A frustrating but also kind of cool thing about Japanese indie music is that you could ask ten knowledgable people for their top 50 releases of the year and there'd be absolutely zero crossover. Like, the artists on one person's list would be completely unknown to the people making the other nine.
Fascists plan to target Gya Williams Immigration Solicitors in Bristol on Wednesday 7th August as part of a co-ordinated nationwide attack against immigration solicitors and support services.
Join Bristol Against Hate, 7pm sharp at Gya Williams Immigration, West Street, BS2 0BL
Bristol, let's go!
For the release party of her album "Fake California Forcefield" last night, Tokyo DIY pop singer Cyber Cherry projected Chunking Express on a loop and asked the DJs to incorporate some of their own phantasms of the imaginary land of California into their sets. Naturally I went hard on the theme.
It's such a missed opportunity that none of those American settler towns called things like Disappointment, Ennui, or Annihilation ended up becoming major global cities. You have to go down to the 100,000 population range to get funny ones like Sparks and Sugar Land and even then it's slim pickings.
I see the Japanese right wing have completely lost their shit over Kraftwerk’s set the other day. From the look of it mostly of tediously predictable “Oh, so you criticise nuclear power but you make music with electricity. Innnnteresting…” grade idiocy. The banality of stupidity.
A couple of people have said to me this week that Turnstile should like what my label’s boys Tropical Death would sound like if they practiced more, so looking forward to seeing if that’s bullshit.
Kim Gordon is the most uncompromising act of Fuji Rock. Easily alienated and drove away half the crowd gathered to see her, who’d apparently forgotten anything about what Sonic Youth were like. She proudly kicked all sorts of ass.
Fontaines D.C. next. Saw them at End of the Road 4 years ago and thought they were OK but not blown away. I’m kind of expecting them to be a moment at Fuji Rock though. Their sound, vibe etc. is something the Red Marquee in particular has been waiting for this year.
Gonna make a point on this last day of accosting and saying ”cool t-shirt” to anyone I see who’s wearing a cool but unexpected t-shirt. Got off to a strong start with the guy in the OMD shirt. If you’re at Fuji Rock now and wearing, say, a Brainiac t-shirt, be warned: I might praise you.
Over on the new bands stage outside the main arena, I just caught a band with the slightly dubious name of Nikoん. A bit emotional for my taste, especially after 90 minutes of Kraftwerk, but they had this interesting, mathy, June of 44-ish side to them as well. Can see Tricot fans digging it.
Way too much to say about Kraftwerk in such a small space but I’ll point out that they covered the theme from Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence in tribute to Ryuichi Sakamoto, before launching into their version of Radioactivity that Sakamoto wrote additional Japanese lyrics for.
Spent most of today recharging my failing body but back and ready for some more rock’n’roll action courtesy of (checks notes) Beth Gibbons and Kraftwerk?
