
Hey ma and pa, what the hell is wrong with ya’ll? Why isn’t the rest of the year as much fun as Fuji Rock?. Ahh, reality… Here are some memories to fuel us till next year:
Best Acts at FRF 2010:
Fishbone – 20 years and counting, and still one of the best live bands in the world, period. Angelo Moore may now look like a pot bellied pig, but this was FRF 2010’s best mosh pit, with no second place. Read Kern’s awesome review.
Air – 2 guys, so much sound. I can’t imagine what they’d be like with an entire orchestra, which I hear is what they’re trying to do on their next tour
Buffalo Daughter – Dressed in red, and their unique, amazing electro-jamming was at full force. Do yourself a favor and buy their new album.
John Fogerty – Way more than just a 70s rock icon. Read Phil’s terrific recap.
Best DJ set:
Fischerspooner – There was certainly Spooner, but where was Fischer? Who cares. They’ve got the tunes.
Best World Music:
Narasirato Pan Pipers – Wonderful envoys from the Solomon Islands. read more
Anyango – This Japanese girl’s a celebrity in Kenya, and with LOTS of fans! read more
Best Moment:
Fishbone lead singer Angelo Moore handing out flyers at the Crystal Palace at 3am. The flyers were cheap computer printouts and just said “Fishbone”.
Favorite Anthem:
Well, anyway, this was the song I couldn’t stop humming in my head on the bus ride home from Naeba. Riva Starr’s “I Was Drunk…” Yeah, fitting.

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Anyango is the stage name of Eriko Mukoyama, a 29-year-old Japanese woman whose incandescent voice and skill at an eight-stringed African lyre called the nyatiti have brought musical renown and an official position as goodwill ambassador between Japan and Kenya. Her set very authentic east African music on Sunday afternoon filled the entire slope above Gypsey Avalon, almost to the very top. And afterwards, the CD-buying crowd turned into a veritable scrum. 
Mallacan: if you’re from northeast Spain, the Aragón, you may not know this band. So think of them as the Aragonese version of Sublime, seven guys in black t-shirts cranking out hardcore guitar riffs, reggae backbeats and dancey horn parts, all while throwing an occasional devil horns hand symbol out to the crowd. As Aragón perceives itself as somewhat autonomous (not unlike neighboring Catalan), there was even someone in the crowd flying an Aragonese flag – red and yellow stripes with a red star in the center. Do they rock? Definitely. And apparently they’ve been proving this across Europe for 15 years. But this was a first landing in Japan, and they provided a Sunday afternoon with plenty of bounce. If you didn’t feel it, the MC was even screaming, “Jump! Jump! Jump! Jump!”

Riva Starr had one of the sweetest sets a DJ could ask for at FRF 2010, 11:30pm Saturday night and just after the main stages shut down. So there were 40,000 people ready to party and one sure place to go. Riva Starr did not disappoint!








Given that the Parisian three-piece Jamaica are proteges of Xavier de Rosnay of Justice and Peter Franco, a close associate of Daft Punk, their noontime slot at the Red Marquee on Friday might have seemed a touch out of place. Post-midnight Planet Groove seemed an obvious suggestion. But seeing them – guitar/vox, bass and drums – there was no mistake. They are a rock band, and a slightly poppy one with French retro tendencies at that. 

Rusko’s music video for “Hold On” (featuring Amber Coffman) just came out on June 23 in support of his new album O.M.G… Strange for a music video, this is basically a documentary about Rusko’s life on tour, in which: he takes trains, taxis and passes in front of impressive European architecture; he goes to nightclubs, rocks the party, makes the crowd bounce, unplugs his equipment, then suddenly he’s in front of a whole new crowd and rocking the party some more; at the same time, he’s also sort of doing a marketing job for his
Go Chic, a band of three Taipei girls and one guy in their early 20s, this year becomes the first ever non-Japanese band to compete successfully against
OK, so the plot of this video, released about a month ago on June 3, goes something like this: a young Jamaican boy, who has a full beard and might actually be a midget or a drwarf, lives in a tin-roofed shack with a group of chickens, goats, a white rabbit and four supermodel dancehall queens, and oh, they also keep a three-legged bulldog in the yard. For fun, this modern family shoots their crossbow at a junked refrigerator, works out with cinder blocks, stands around looking very fashionable and blase, and before long they all say fuck it and start doing crazy dancehall moves in the living room. At this point, you are probably wondering why the lead image here is the cover of 2 Live Crew’s 1989 album As Nasty As They Wanna Be. Well, I’m getting to that, and it’s not just because I’m a huge fan of Luther Campbell, a.k.a. Luke Skyywalker, or at least we could still call him that before the lawsuit: Georgge Luucas may you burn in hell. 








