Japan Live

Up a flight of stairs in a bland Shinjuku building is a Shrine to nerdy teenage living in the 80's, a Temple of Famicom, manga and ani...

Ore wa konna mon janai could enter a weird Japanese band names competition and go pretty far. It means “you ain't seen nothing of me ye...

I've just found out that Tokyo pop group Swinging Popsicle will be playing in Monterrey, Mexico (!!!) in early March! I'm tempted ...

Flipping through the TV channels the other day I stumbled upon a great documentary on, of all places, the NHK education channel (usually hom...

Do Buddhism and rock music mix? I pondered this question while watching bands rocking out under the serene gaze of a wooden Buddha statue on...

I've been listening to a lot of classical. Saturday, the NHK orchestra was performing one of my recent favorite pieces, Sibelius's 2...

2007 was a good year. #10. Texas Pandaa Days Maybe it's not the best idea to call this album one of my favorite of 2007 considering it c...

I'm putting together my top 10 favorite Japanese albums list for 2007, which should be done in the next few days. In the meantime... I ...

Mix Market is back! Well...actually, they returned to action at the end of 2006... But only in the last few months has this female vocal in...

I'm probably not the best guy to recommend where to buy Japanese music—99% of my CDs are purchased at the Tower Records in Shibuya... Bu...

Advantage Lucy has long had a devoted following, myself firmly in its ranks, and as I listened to them play their last show of the year at ...

It took me three laps around a dark bar alley in Sangenjyaya before I found the cafe I was looking for, called Rain on the Roof . A few more...

1. I've been getting into the music of pop-ska-rockers Mix Market , including their latest album, Shiawase no Elephant ('elephant o...

Does Asakusa Jinta + pro wrestling = an ideal Sunday evening? I wasn't sure, but an event featuring one of Japan's best bands as w...

I’m in LA—and reading the 50th issue of Giant Robot magazine here, I made a realization— Which is this: When I was growing up in LA, Japan,...

A few years ago I wrote a post that asked what ever happened to Teeny Frahoop, a brilliant girl rock band that disappeared after releasing ...

A tearful Tokyo evening: at Shibuya station a high school girl was consoling her weeping friend; further down a bawling tot was tugging at ...

If band names were accurate, Japan's Music From The Mars would be called something like Music From New York Circa 1974 because they ar...

My favorite J-music album so far this year is 4 Bonjour's Parties' debut effort, pigments drift down to the brook , a work that...

“You've come at exactly the wrong time!” Ian said to me as I stepped in late to the event he'd organized. “Right before this was a g...