Selling Japanese Music To The British

[Mulboyne]

[Sentakki Fried Chicken]

Great story!

[Mulboyne]

[Adhesive]

^ Some pretty cool bands mentioned, thanks for the article.

[Behan]

Guardian: The seedy underworld of music moguls

Are there any pictures of Johnny around?

Although he's over 80, and there might not be much time left, we can only hope he 'receives' what he has 'given'. And without lubricant would be nice, too.

[Behan]

From a Korean web page ni da:

[Mulboyne]

[Mulboyne]

Guardian: Fukuoka's music scene

Something is brewing in the south of Japan. At face value, Fukuoka, the largest city of the country's third largest island, Kyushu, looks just like any other Japanese metropolis: ghastly grey office buildings above ground, endless identikit shopping malls below, thousands of people quietly shuffling about the urban slipstream and maintaining Japan's faceless efficiency. But turn a few corners and there lurks an unexpected antidote to the dull concrete sprawl. A multicoloured underground arts movement is bringing together music and design with internationalism and innovation. Fukuoka's youth are finding a broad new voice. The city first captured the nation's attention over a decade ago when the success of indie band Zazen Boys put Fukuoka's rock scene in the limelight. In 2009, the city is nurturing a vibrant electronic-dance division who are as engaged with the visual arts and internationalism as they are with squeezing exciting new sounds out of their well-worn microKORGs. "I want people to make new connections through my music," says Shiho the Purplehaze, the DJ/producer at the epicenter of the electro-enlightenment, "I want to help to free people's minds. The Japanese need this more than anyone."

Turning Japanese has come to meet Shiho in the headquarters of Oilworks, the music and graphic design den headed by brothers Olive and Popy Oil. Hidden on the fourth four of a centrally located complex, upon entering, Popy's giant canvases, which merge street art with a contemporary computer-design aesthetic, whip you out of the city and into a dream-like technotopia. Both Shiho and Olive are regulars on the underground club circuits in Fukuoka and Tokyo. "There is a real different vibe in Fukuoka," says Shiho, "people are so much more open to their surroundings." At popular clubs like Base and Graf, you don't just go to dance or get drunk, you go to see visual artists at work. "I saw the guy who designed my album cover, Wok22, painting in a club and asked him if he'd like to collaborate. You don't get that in Tokyo."

Another well-known name around the clubs is Juza, aka Moochy, a DJ and producer who has travelled to Cuba and Vietnam to discover music to merge with traditional Japanese elements. Turning Japanese wants to meet him, but he's currently in Trinidad and Tobago recording steel-drum players. Across town at Dois Lagos bar and restaurant, the city's openness to other cultures takes on another form. Inside everyone looks Japanese, but instead of bowing, they throw their arms around you, kissing both your cheeks, before greeting you heartily in Portuguese. Fukuoka has a large community of Japanese Brazilians, ethnically Japanese but culturally South American, who returned to the country after an exodus of families in the early-20th century seeking riches on the coffee plantations around Sao Paolo. Wilson is a Japanese-Brazilian radio DJ on Fukuoka city's Love FM, which broadcasts in Japanese, English, Chinese, Korean, Tagalog, Spanish, Portuguese, Indonesian, Thai and French. Plugged right into the heart of the Fukuoka club scene he espouses the city's virtues with Latino charm, saying: "It is safe, tolerant and the women are beautiful."

As night rolls on people head for the clubs, but despite the buoyancy, Shiho casts some realistic words of warning. "The scene is growing, which is great, but now is an important time. I worry that people are so open-minded about everything that it all passes us by and nothing lasting happens. With this scene I don't want people to just see themselves and the work they are producing. I want people to use our art as a way of seeing the whole world."

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(To be picky, Fukuoka was well-known to rock fans much longer than a decade going back to the Zazen Boys.)