Fujirockers: The official fansite of the Fuji Rock Festival

There were are few dozen people huddled around the stage when Ogre You Asshole came on. They completed what sounded like a short, sharp sound check and then immediately ran into their open track, a blazing guitar beat with falsetto lyrics like Modest Mouse or Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.

I can tell you that I was impressed and stuck around, even rising from my seated position about halfway back in the audience. More audience trickled in and many people started dancing. It was much better than I thought though I noticed the soundman was strangely still on stage and looking at the equipment.  Right then and there it dawned on me, this was only the soundcheck!

After a ten-minute break with some lovely interlude music, the band came on stage again and the place was half filled. There were equal numbers of foreigners and local Japanese in the audience and everyone was dancing about. This band has quite a following in the US, and it seems that every band from the Pacific Northwest who comes to Japan requests Ogre You Asshole as their opening act. In fact, they probably even got their name from one of the bands they admire, read it here in our earlier post. Anyways, they sounded great today, and the Red Marquee was mostly full by the time they made it halfway through their set. Its power pop at its best.

Special Others

The term “post rock” is a slippery one, prone to ponderous postulation and pigeonholing.  Post-rock seems to state that its practitioners have tired of traditional rock n’ roll tropes and decided to move on, noodling through music without regard for traditional song structures. The Yokohama-based quartet Special Others certainly fit certain criteria to be included in this camp: they’re instrumental; they rarely reach the squealing guitar crescendo of a rock gig; and they jam like a jazz band covering the indie rock catalog. Well, to be honest, they’re constructed more like a jazz band than anything else, with an upright bass and organ playing prominent roles.

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The Bloodthirsty Butchers sound check was the loudest thing I have ever heard when the band played in Taiwan in 2008. And for a band that overtly models themselves in the likeness of My Bloody Valentine, dare I say they they were louder?

I witnessed My Bloody Valentine’s set at Fuji Rock the same year when they went into the 20-minute feedback storm for the song “You Made Me Realize.” That was pretty loud, but not in a painful, off putting way. But as a testament to these powerful sound waves, the  fabric on my trousers did begin to flap. A recap of this concert is here.

But where the Bloodthirsty Butchers have them beat is they b-r-i-n-g it every time, with each song being a sonic blast, from the beginning of the show to the end. Also, their sound is not a simple pop melody obfuscated by fuzzy guitars but something more ferocious and experimental.

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AKIHIRO NAMBA LIVE IN SHIBUYA DECEMBER '09

As Dom mentioned, FRF’ 10 just gained a second Foo Fighter.

However, monsieurs Grohl and Hawkins are not the only bandmates who are visiting Naeba, but not performing together.  This year’s fest will also include two former members of the late Japanese popular punk band Hi-Standard.  Hi-Standard’s guitarist Ken Yokoyama will perform on the Green Stage on the first day of the fest, while bassist Akihiro Namba will be part of the White Stage’s  Sunday lineup.

If drummer Akira Tsuneoka makes it onto the bill, we could have the perfect setting for a Hi-Standard reunion!

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Two days ago (May 24) the Boom Boom Satellites released their 7th album To The Loveless, and by the looks of the first video to come out of it, for the song “Drain” (to the left), they are still beating hard down the path of transe-rock, techno-rock or whatever variation they prefer these days. If watching the video makes you think that these guys watched the Matrix one day and then more or less decided they wanted to live there, it is not too long of a stretch from the time they formed the band (1997) to the date of the movie’s release (1999), and back then they were still caught up in their early explorations of fusion between spaced out jazz to spaced out rock. So in other words, the BBS sound had not yet given way to the crunching big beat sounds for which they’ve been known ever since their breakthrough album of 2005, Full of Elevating Pleasures, so conjecture on this point may be worthwhile. Continue Reading…

Ken Yokoyama on the Green Stage at FRF '06

One of the more humourous bits of Green Stage banter I caught at FRF ’06 was between Ken Yokoyama and his former bassist Serge Verkhovsky during Yokoyama’s rainy Saturday afternoon set.

During a pause between songs, the pair wondered aloud which of the many mountains surrounding the beautiful Naeba Ski Resort was Mount Fuji. After picking one to be the famed Fuji-san they continued to rile up the already excited wet masses with more melodic skate punk cuts. Check out Dom’s Fuji Rock Express report of the performance here.

Yokoyama made his FRF debut in 1999 as the guitarist for Hi-Standard. When the trio parted ways in 2000, he turned his focus to BBQ Chickens and his Pizza Of Death Records imprint, which is now one of the Japan’s most successful indie labels. Pizza Of Death’s Hawaiian6 will also be making their return to FRF this year (having previously played in 2005) and Comeback My Daughters were with us at the fest in 2009.

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It’s probably been said before, somewhere by somebody, but the idea popped into my head spontaneously, so I’ma go with it: the best way I can think of to describe Tokyo’s toe (not to be confused with Utica’s moe., also at the Fest this year) is indie-rock instrumental jazz. Of course, there’s no section called indie-rock instrumental jazz at your local Tsutaya; they use the tag “post-rock” for such purposes. But I like my idea better.

The conceit of post-rock is to take the instruments of rock (guitar, bass, and drums) and create something much more rhythmically and harmonically complex than rock. Often there is a generous or even bulk helping of electronic glips and blops in the mix. toe’s got a smidgen of this on their latest album, For Long Tomorrow, released at the end of 2009, but what makes me think of 1960’s jazz is Continue Reading…

The Bawdies begin their nationwide 40-date headlining tour for their recently issued fourth full-length, “There’s No Turning Back,” on May 13 meaning the dapper looking Tokyo foursome’s live set will be firing on all cylinders at Fuji Rock on July 30.

Friends since elementary school, Roy (vocals and bass), Taxman (guitar), Jim (guitar), and Marcy (drums) decided to start playing together as The Bawdies on January 1, 2004.  It didn’t take long for them to begin garnering attention for their infectious mix of vintage R&B-accented rock ‘n’ roll and especially for Roy’s fantastic, soulful vocals.  Since then the group have toured Australia twice and have played a number of large Japanese festivals including an appearance on the Rookie A Go-Go stage at FRF ’07.

On the strength of last year’s “This Is My Story,” The Bawdies were voted favorite Japanese act by record store staff from across the country at 2010’s CD Shop Awards.  And while “There’s No Turning Back” stumbles at times, there’s still abundance of top-notch tunes like closing cut “Movin’ and Groovin’” to get the masses at FRF ’10, um, well, movin’ and groovin’.

Here’s The Bawdies “Hot Dog” music video:

Photos and a live report from FRF ‘07.

Here’s a review of “There’s No Turning Back” that I wrote for The Japan Times.

Photo by Hoya and used with the permission of Fuji Rock Express ‘07.

If bands play festivals to pick up fans that wouldn’t normally cross their path, I’m thinking Straightener will do pretty well. They’ve got a perfect punkpoprock festival sound.

Straightener are named after the Christian fundamentalist gay conversion therapy clinic that they run in their spare time. Not really.

They began as a duo in 1998, became a trio in 2003 with the addition of a bass player, became a quartet in 2008 when they added a second guitarist. When Straightener talk about growing as a band, they mean it literally.
Where will they play? Red Marquee? I’m hoping for an outdoor slot. Try listening to the following track with grassy mountains in your mind, or a big metal shed. They’ll make more friends in the field. And they’re about due for a new member, so if you like ‘em, join ‘em.

This clip isn’t their best effort, but it does come with the title “Donkey Boogie Dodo”.

The first time I saw Asakusa Jinta, I knew they were Fujirock material.
Click “continue reading” for more info and vids.

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There should be lots of twenty and thirty something girls hanging around Field of Heaven on Sunday afternoon to see the reformed Sunny Day Service play it’s trademark unpretentious, lost-in-the-70s guitar pop. It’s funny: I have met so many Japanese girls who happen to be into bands like Mogwai and My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth that just can’t get enough of Sunny Day Service. Maybe this is what you need to listen to after a few hours of being morose, like coming up music, instead of coming down.

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For a band with a name that means “beard” in English, you would think all the members of HiGE (pronounced hee- gay, it only looks funny spelled out) might be sporting chin hair of some type, but only one member of this Tokyo quintet actually seems to have a beard. They do have two drummers, though.

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For Japan’s premier blues-punk outfit, Guitar Wolf, burning out was the only option. Until now?

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Si vis pacem, para bellum (”If you seek peace, prepare for war”)
Anyone who chooses a name like 9mm Parabellum Bullet must have a point to make. I think the point this band is trying to make is that they go off. No wait–they blow up. No wait–they erupt. No…wait–they explode. No, no…wait, wait–they detonate!

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