Fujirockers: The official fansite of the Fuji Rock Festival

Formerly Hotel and VV

In that crowded mini-universe of boy-girl duos who play proto-blues as art rock, The Kills have always been more earnest than inspired, but in the past couple of years, as both Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince have jettisoned their noms de rock (VV and Hotel, respectively), they’ve earned more press as solo agents. Mosshart found common musical cause with the king of boy-girl proto-blues duos, Jack White, several years ago and they went on to form The Dead Weather for two fierce albums and world tours in the space of a single year; while Hince romanced the super model’s super model Kate Moss and eventually wed her at the beginning of this month (Mosshart was the best man–talk about earnest). Continue Reading…

Madam says knock you out

Jun Nagami has a pretty good gimmick. She’s a blues guitarist, and while that alone can earn her some curiosity cred in Japan since she’s a woman, it obviously isn’t enough for Nagami, whose technique isn’t going to make Stevie Ray Vaughan’s corpse sit up and take notice. What people do notice is that she’s fast approaching 50, but rather than resist the unflattering labels that usually attend such life changes, she embraces them in her act as Madam Guitar, a housewife with teenage kids and a salaryman husband who happens to play guitar. As she so ably demonstrates, homemakers get the blues, too: Their husbands drink too much and stay out late, their daughters hang out with boys that seem a little sleazy, and they know they’ll never get that big house they were always told they deserved if they took care of their families. The last time she played Fuji Rock, in 2007, she had a full band who could fill out her tales of woe, which were funny but nevertheless sounded pretty true. (We don’t mean to imply that this is a reflection of Nagami’s own life; it seems to be an act, but in any case it’s a very sympathetic one) What was particularly impressive was how varied Nagami’s music was. The band helped her realize a wide array of styles, from swinging jazz to walking blues to stomping funk. As it turned out, women in starched kimonos and fierce power chords aren’t mutually exclusive concepts. They went together pretty well, as a matter of fact. Continue Reading…

SHOOT ME IF YOU'VE HEARD THIS ONE

Gruff Rhys is one of a handful of acts at this year’s festival who seem to be making up for lost opportunities. All of these artists were scheduled to tour Japan in the month or so following the earthquake/tsunami of March 11 but cancelled for reasons they didn’t fully explain though everyone understands what they are. And while the mess in Fukushima remains as contentiously controversial as it’s ever been (Are radiation levels unacceptable or not?) some of these artists may want to rectify the image problem that the cancellation brought about, and Fuji seems a good way of showing instant solidarity. I mean, that’s what rock festivals are for, right? Continue Reading…

Fountains of Wayne, Shibuya Club Quattro Jan. 2010

If Chris Collingwood’s and Adam Schlesinger’s careers have proven anything it’s that great pop, the kind that hooks you immediately and stays with you indefinitely, is hard work. As the songwriting heart of Fountains of Wayne, Collingwood and Schlesinger are masters of two disciplines: The three-minute power pop song, and the thumbnail sketch of tri-state suburban life. In terms of the latter, each FOW album has progressively dealt with an older cohort. On their third album, Welcome Interstate Managers, the duo moved beyond short stories of adolescent yearning among the subdivisions to more adult themes, but without losing their taste for sweet radio-ready pop–John Cheever filtered through Tommy James. The white collar orcs who stumble through the album’s tales of urban angst and suburban lassitude can’t understand why life isn’t as good as their guidance counselors told them it would be. A self-assured Wall Street type drinks his way uptown, wondering how his lover would willingly leave New York “for no better place.” A novice account executive with “a new computer and a bright future in sales” wakes up hungover in the Port Authority Bus Terminal. In other words, they’re either losers in love who wait in vain for the “little red light” to blink on their message machines, or losers at work who can never “get the numbers to add up right.” On 2007’s Traffic and Weather, this sensibility aged slightly. It now belonged to the thirty-something who’s comfortable in his/her boring job and co-op condo. Marriage and kids should be the norm, but finding “Someone to Love” when there’s so much on TV and calories to burn isn’t so easy anymore; which means you find love where you can, even behind the counter at the DMV (”Yolanda Hayes”) or on a jaunt to Lichtenstein (”New Routine”). Continue Reading…

Amadou & Mariam

As a rock festival, Fuji has always strived to be as inclusive as possible, but never has there been this many A-level African acts in the lineup: Three groups who have transcended the limiting label of “world music” to become global influences in their own right. Any one of them would sell out immediately in a major world capital. Take Amadou Bagayoko and Mariam Doumbia, the blind married couple from Mali who now make their home in Paris. They’ve been professional musicians since the 1970s, though it wasn’t until Spanish polymath Manu Chao took them on as a production project in 2005 that they became well-known outside of Africa and Europe. Purists and diehards bemoaned the “crossover” flavor of Chao’s ministrations, an opinion that inadvertently insulted their artistry. Amadou and Mariam have too much experience as seasoned performers to fall victim to some producer’s idea of what white kids might like. They treated the rock guitars, the synths, even the occasional English lyric as if all of it were theirs to begin with, and then they casually blew everyone away. This isn’t to downplay the beauty and excitement of their more traditional songs of love, harmony, and social responsibility (one of their best tracks is a plea to truck drivers in Mali to be careful and not run over wild animals), which they can deliver effectively with just Amadou’s plaintive guitar and Mariam’s head-clearing vocals. But this is a rock festival, and this is a couple who can boogie with the best of them. (Also, note that Manu Chao is playing at the festival as well, so there’s a distinct possibility he’ll show up to jam if scheduling permits.) Continue Reading…

One plays guitar, the other doesn't

No Age, the punk duo from Los Angeles, played Shibuya Club Quattro last Feb. 16 in front of a good-sized crowd that was appreciative and at time stoked; but it never quite dropped over the edge into total punk ecstasy. Drummer/vocalist Dean Spunt and guitarist Randy Randall have a slightly artier take on punk’s hard-fast-short credo. The frantic tempos, bullet-proof melodies, and pocket-sized compositions are all there, but augmented by interludes of guitar squall and loops/effects that were recreated on stage by a serious-looking friend in a tie and windbreaker. Randall played the same hollow-bodied guitar through the entire 75-minute set, and the pair only paused between songs maybe twice. The show had momentum but lacked the kind of sharp definition, both aurally and visually, that usually makes live punk so bracing. My companion mentioned that just when a song started to hit its stride, it tended to end. He liked the fact that they were expanding punk’s parameters but thought they didn’t go far enough: It’s possible to take hard-fast-short too seriously. Call me old-fashioned, but that wouldn’t be punk; which, of course, is hardly a flexible position to take in an indie rock world where anything is acceptable and rules mean nothing. Continue Reading…

These days nobody begrudges indie bands the help of a superstar producer the way they used to, so the able-bodied New York-based guitar-pop quartet with the wincingly earnest name The Pains of Being Pure at Heart only earned props for getting Flood and Alan Moulder to helm their sophomore effort, Belong. Though initially boosted as neo-shoegazers, and literary neo-shoegazers, too boot, on the new album the group comes off as a progressive power pop outfit with more pedestrian concerns. It’s an altered perception that can only be party credited to the cleaner production. That Kip Berman’s girlish whisper pushes to the front of the churning instrumental mix indicates that lo-fi just won’t do any more, but he also sounds more honestly in love, when love happens to be the topic. The band necessarily loses much of its appealing spunk in the bargain, but it’s impossible to listen to these songs and not be reminded of the producers’ past glories, the U2 roar of the title song, the Depeche Modish bounce of “Heaven’s Gonna Happen Now.” POBPAH were never that original, but they could fool you into thinking they were, and except for Fountains of Wayne, there’s nobody at the festival this year who is as likely to occasion spontaneous outbursts of choral singalongs; but that suggests they have a dedicated fan base already, so get cracking. You only have a little less than two months.

Best feat of engineering

Best show
John Fogerty: After seeing Stevie Wonder at Summer Sonic last week, I was refortified in my opinion of what a rare and wonderful treat Fogerty’s Saturday evening set was. Though Stevie can still ram and jam with the best of them, it’s clear that those classics, as great as they are, mean less to him with every passing concert. He’s just played them too many times. Fogerty, on the other hand, went almost three decades without playing his classic CCR tunes in front of people simply because he didn’t own the publishing and didn’t think he should pay for the privilege of performing them. Now that he’s got the publishing back, it’s like he’s discovered these songs for the first time: fresh, tough, eminently sing-alongable. Now it’s our privilege to hear them again.
Runnerup: Moriarty, the best France-based, Anglophone, Irish-American-roots rock group with female lead singer. Every festival should have one. Continue Reading…

Raul, Wil-Dog, Jiro and Ulises

The multi-culti, musical hybrid L.A. collective Ozomatli gets lots of props in this blog and from FRF in general. This was their fourth time at the festival, and the feeling is mutual.

“Top festivals in the world?” pondered percussionist Jiro Yamaguchi. “Fuji Rock, Glastonbury–Glastonbury because it’s an actual city.”

“This is better, though,” said bassist Wil-Dog Abers from behind a pair of enormous shades and underneath a white ball cap.

“Yeah, it’s cleaner,” said Jiro. “But it’s the people, too.”

Yamaguchi, Abers were sitting in the back of the Prince Hotel with sax player Ulises Bella and guitarist Raul Pacheco, talking about the band’s new album, Fire Away, which is the first they’ve released since becoming ambassadors for a cultural outreach program sponsored by the U.S. State Dept., and the experience of playing to people in far-flung areas of the world had a profound effect on it. Continue Reading…

What you see is what you get

What a difference four years make. The last time Scissor Sisters played Fuji the reaction was underwhelming. At the time the band was touring their second, less exuberant album, and their headlining set at the White Stage started great and just sputtered out. This time, they got the “special guest” position on the Green Stage to officially close the festival, and fulfilled their mission perfectly, or should I say gorgeously. Continue Reading…

Earth goddess

Not that many people showed up for Sandii Suzuki’s collaborative performance with the kalimba player Bun of Koh-Tao and the Te Hive Hui No Manumere Dancers, which I believe are from her hula dancing school. Sandii’s evolution from 1980s bilingual rock singer to world music maven to award-winning hula dancer provides her with plenty of outlets for her creativity, and the show at the Orange Court was publicized as being “Earth Conscious.” Continue Reading…

He can change

Though I’d only seen LCD Soundsystem once before I saw them play the twilight set at the White Stage today, I would characterize them as a safe bet. Funk is hard, which is why !!!’s Friday night show was good-not-great, but rock is fairly simple as long as you stick to basics, and James Murphy, who is more of a technician than an artist, understands basics very well. His becoming a singer with LCD Soundsystem seems almost like a fluke, considering how self-conscious he is. On stage he looked timid and cautious, until the music consumed him and drove him to ever more frantic fits of self-expression. Continue Reading…

Know what I mean?

JJ Grey is from Jacksonville, Florida, and man he sure sounds like it: A drawl as thick as molasses, a courtly Southern attitude, and a sentimental streak wider than the Okefenokee Swamp. He sings the blues, and every offshoot you can think of, from swamp funk to country soul to Memphis R&B. And the guy’s got the voice to handle it all, a big, brash instrument with a bit of gravel at the bottom. Continue Reading…

Chris Keating

Sunday would seem to be the setting for the battle of the hip, white, New York-based, world music-channeling indie bands; or, at least, two of them. With Vampire Weekend setting up camp on the Green Stage in the middle of the afternoon, their contempos over in Brooklyn, Yeasayer, laid siege to the Red Marquee right after lunch. Considering the turnout, their estimable reputation seems to have preceded them, and there was quite a sizable portion that knew the songs, if not the words themselves. Continue Reading…

Masafumi Goto

Fuji Rock sometimes takes the credit for the enormous success of Asian Kung-Fu Generation, who went from the Rookie A Go Go stage in 2004 to Budokan in a little more than a year’s time. Actually, the Yokohama quartet was already buzz-worthy when they played Rookie, and later that summer even appeared at Summer Sonic. Nevertheless, they’ve been almost annual visitors to the festival and this year were slotted into the tricky opening position on Sunday at the Green Stage.

It’s difficult to receive the kind of overnight success Ajikan has without being jaded, and I almost didn’t notice they had started playing when they opened their set with a quiet, reflective song that seemed sort of wimpy, especially given lead singer Masafumi Goto’s bespectacled grad student demeanor. I had just come from the Red Marquee, where Good For Nothing, a hardcore pop punk ensemble, had cleared my sinuses with a rip-roaring set. These guys are buzz-worthy at the moment and are still young and hungry, but the attitude is backed up with chops and a real talent for songs. Would they be the next Ajikan? Continue Reading…

Get close

Moriarty’s Friday afternoon show at the Gypsy Avalon may be my favorite set so far mainly because it was such an unexpected surprise. There was therefore no surprise when the France-based sextet took the tiny Naeba Shokudo stage at midnight on Saturday, though it’s a good bet that the folks who were occupying every mud-slathered nook and cranny at that odd venue had no idea what to expect. The reaction was all the more rewarding. Continue Reading…

Catch that buzz

The wetness had returned in full force by the time Roxy Music took the Green Stage Saturday night, and might have been the cause of the jumbo screens going on the blink temporarily. During the opening song, “Re-make/Re-model,” the screens showed cover art from Roxy albums and then went blank. When they occasionally flickered on, they’d show guitarist Phil Manzanera or reedman Andy Mackay, but no Bryan Ferry. Was the infamously vain lead singer not having his image conveyed? Talk about remaking, remodeling.

Eventually, the glitch was repaired and Ferry’s still handsome kisser was all over the Jumbotron, but by that point we’d already heard “Out of the Blue” and had proceeded into that part of the band’s back catalog where they gave themselves over completely to unabashed romanticism rather than the curdled kind that characterized their first three albums. Younger rock fans who grew up listening to “My Only Love” and “More Than This” probably think this is what Roxy’s all about, but for all the Brylcreem and worsted suits and pneumatic fashion models, Roxy represented a perversion of the slick, sophisticated modern male. The best illustration of this is “In Every Dream Home a Heartache,” which used to be quite scary. On the Green Stage it was given a lush arrangement that neutralized much of the song’s self-disgust and dread, and Ferry didn’t seem up to acting it fully, so he pumped it full of irony. Continue Reading…

Let's choogle

It was totally appropriate that John Fogerty’s first Japan show in 38 years opened with “Almost Saturday Night,” even though it might have been even more appropriate if Fogerty had played the song himself rather than a recording of it. One thing that may have been lost over the years in terms of the legacy that Creedence Clearwater Revival bequeathed to popular music is that CCR was first and foremost a dance band in the classic tradition. They were a group that played for working class people on the weekends. They were local entertainers. “Nice to see you,” Fogerty said when he finally came. “Let’s have some fun.”

And fun we had. Not so much because Fogerty played all his hits, but because those hits were written and performed with the idea of thrilling people rather than impressing or enlightening them (they eventually did that, too, but it was just gravy). Now that Fogerty is a national treasure who finally owns his publishing and can do whatever he pleases, he can afford a big band of studio slickers to take with him on the road. I mean, Kenny Aronoff? Doug Clifford may have been a limited drummer, but he did as he was told. Aronoff can’t help but draw attention to himself with that bald head, those muscleman arms, and that huge attack. In fact, the attack was overkill in general. Did Fogerty really need three extra guitarists? Much of the beauty of the original Creedence sound was its spare but efficient arrangements, which were all but lost in the wall of sound that came from the Green Stage.

Continue Reading…

Simon says: Crowd surf!

In case you weren’t aware that their afternoon show at Gypsy Avalon was their first ever show in Japan, the Brooklyn indie pop duo Matt & Kim would have reminded you over and over and over again. In fact, as Matt said almost as soon at the couple bounded out on stage grinning from ear to ear, “this is our first ever show on this continent.” I assume he means Asia, right?

Suffice to say, M&K get a lot of mileage out of very little, musically, at least. This is not necessarily a criticism. There’s much to be said for a positive stage attitude and making the audience feel good about choosing your particular performance, but M&K have elevated this consideration to such a lofty plane that the music seems almost incidental. Mainly, it’s Kim bashing away enthusiastically and rudimentally on a small drum kit and Matt with his clear, high voice, singing over his toy keyboard parts, which tend to be limited to single-note lines. Continue Reading…

Martin Johnson

Anglo-Irish trad music is pretty popular in Japan, as evidenced by how often the Chieftains used to tour here and how quickly their shows sold out. I assume that’s what the “underground” refers to in the name of this band: trad musicians hanging out together in hobby groups playing reels and jigs and sea chanteys. The “overground” in the name refers to the fact that these guys make a living from this; or, at least, part of a living. Several of the members are in the hardcore punk band Brahman, so this could be considered moonlighting. But based on the show they gave at the Field of Heaven Sat. afternoon, it’s not necessarily a softer break. They may play acoustic instruments, but they play them like a hardcore punk band. Continue Reading…

Leaning tower of Pisa?

Festival security is asking everyone to be on the lookout for someone who calls himself “the mad builder.” This individual has been stalking sleeping festivalgoers and building elaborate structure of stone on their prone persons. Apparently, it started early Friday morning out near the Orange Court when Taro Suzuki or Tokyo dozed off in his camp chair and awoke to find a mini-replica of Stonehenge on his solar plexus. “I was quite surprised,” he told us. “And I didn’t want to move because obviously whoever had done it had gone to a lot of trouble.” Continue Reading…

Don't try this at home

I finally got to see the act that everybody’s been talking about. The Narasirato Pan Pipers of the Solomon Islands did their “formal” show at the Orange Court during lunchtime on Saturday under an overcast sky and in front of lively, good-sized crowd. By formal we mean they wore their native duds, which nevertheless looked improvised for modesty’s sake. Very happy to be here, they danced and piped and sang with enough energy to light the festival ground, though they still seem to have a way to go before they master stage protocol. Continue Reading…

men in black

Get the fist pumping and the blood will follow: that’s a worthwhile credo for Saturday morning, at least for those who were at the festival Friday and stayed up a bit too late doing a bit too much the night before. Hatano, the drummer and spokesman of the punk band Hawaiian6–which is not from Hawaii and counts only three members–obviously understood what he was up against and was gracious about thanking people sincerely for moshing and genuinely acting unrestrained. “You usually don’t have to thank foreigners,” he said, “but with Japanese it’s necessary.” Everybody wants to be appreciated, even if it’s for their own good. Continue Reading…

Love me tender, love me deux

The French rockabilly revivalists Mustang are one of the ubiquitous bands this weekend. By they time they took the tiny stage in back of the Naeba Shokudo near midnight Friday, they’d already played twice, and there was still at least one more gig to go. At the Red Marquee the previous evening during the pre-fest party they were greatly aided by the crowd’s anticipatory verve. The band was rather stiff, making their old-style rock-n-roll feel a bit academic, but people would have whooped and danced to Mozart’s “Requiem” at that point. Continue Reading…

Nic and the new girl

The Brooklyn-Sacramento dance machine !!! scored the headlining slot at the White Stage Friday, which is quite a coup for an indie band of their magnitude (meaning, not much in terms of record sales) but not necessarily surprising given the group’s track record at Fuji so far. It was their third time at the festival, and the last time they were here they totally smoked the Green Stage in an afternoon set that literally had everyone within earshop dancing their asses off. Considering that the Green Stage is where the most sedentary punters park those asses of theirs that’s a real accomplishment. Continue Reading…