Japan Live

#10. Murmur The Afternoon of the Marble Design Japanese guitar pop is alive and well! That's the conclusion I reach when listening to th...

For the past few years Japan has been going through a comedy boom that has given birth to a slew of comedians as TV personalities, some of t...

FYI, here's a nice, brief New York Times profile piece on the Koenji music scene. All those tiny yakitori joints and pubs do indeed loo...

Sometimes a song is so good you don't even need to know what the words mean. I love Elis Regina, though I only know a handful of Portuge...

Amagasaki isn't the first destination you'd think of when planning a trip to Japan. Right next to Osaka to the west, it's an ind...

Every year, on November 26, advantage Lucy, Vasallo Crab 75 and other bands gather together for a musical event called Munekyun Arpeggio , w...

After seeing Japanese-German indie pop band Miniskirt for the first time in years last night, I was exploring the Web and unearthed this br...

I was supposed to see Mix Market and a promising young band from Aichi prefecture called SpecialThanks tonight in Yokohama, but I got comp...

Very sadly, I missed advantage Lucy's 'one man' album-release show at the Que on the 24th, but the next night's gig at the ...

Spangle call Lilli line told me in an interview a few years ago that their next album will be something that challenges the listener and ex...

Commenter san told me about this Halcali video for their song "Girigiri Surf-Rider" and I thought it was the greatest thing and ...

Do the Japanese have a unique ability to enjoy the singing of autumn insects? It's something people say around this time of the year. I ...

The Daikanyama Unit was bad-mouthed in my Tokyo live house post , but having been there on Sunday I have to say it wasn't actually that...

Facing pounding rain as I headed out to see advantage Lucy and others, I remembered a line from the Lucy song “Smile Again”: “I realized th...

September is shaping up to be a bountiful harvest month for Japanese music. First off, there's a not-to-be-missed CD release party at th...

I was thinking of the health benefits of going to rock gigs as I watched Supersnazz play at the Red Cloth. Head-banging, pogo-hopping, arm-...

Who could have guessed it, watching these white-dressed dancing trio at an Apple Store in Osaka, that they would one day take over Japan? Wh...

After all these years it's still a trip to go to a live house and find, standing next to me, one of those musicians I've listened to...

(Photo credit: 4 Bonjour's Parties) How sadly fitting it was that on the last night of the final Formoz festival ever, a typhoon hit th...