Fujirockers: The official fansite of the Fuji Rock Festival

Best voice: Moriarty's Rosemary

Best shows
Ozomatli
John Fogerty
Rustic Pans

Best voice
Moriarty

Worst voice
Ian Brown

Best new thing
The hammocks

Worst new thing
Getting eaten by vampire forest beasties, probably while sleeping in the hammocks

Biggest disappointment
Hearing that Matt & Kim canceled the Naeba Shokudo show because they didn’t like the look of the stage.

Best food
The red tomato curry

Best drink
Atsukan sake at the tokoro tengoku

Worst drink
Hot rum coffee at the tokoro tengoku

Weirdest celebrity sighting
James Murphy at 5am, shirtless, bragging about how fat he is

Lessons learned
Wellies. Not sandals.
And insect repellent.

Rosemary

The rootsy sensibility of the France-based quintet Moriarty reflects its members’ far-flung origins, which, in addition to France, includes the US, Switzerland, and Vietnam. In fact, once you absorb the more obvious influences–folk, country, blues, and some trad Irish–the music feels sui generis, or, at least, confounding of convention. Their latest album is a “soundtrack” of what appears to be a non-existent film about “Puss’n Boots,” except that all the songs are more famous for being from other “soundtracks” (mostly operas and musicals). Bizet’s “La Habanera” is done as a Delta blues and “I Feel Pretty” as a kind of kindercore ditty. Though the instrumental component is clever and technically adept, it’s Rosemary Stanley’s vocals that make the strongest impression. Possessing a classically bell-like soprano, phrasing as eccentric as the young Joni Mitchell, and a sense of humor that I still haven’t fully processed, Stanley slathers all the rustic textures with her urban intelligence. Continue Reading…

I arrived just in time to get a crap position for Moriarty on the boardwalk. It seems that despite the fact most of us here at FRF.com know sweet F.A. about them they are pretty popular act… I had to climb off the boardwalk into the bush (on the wrong side) just to get a look in.

Starting out with “My Baby’s Back In Town” (at least that’s the first song I was able to listen to) the group ingratiated themselves wit a nice bluest guitar sound. “Private Lily” hinted at an anti war sentiment, something unsurprising given Sean’s labeling of them as the real bohemians. A very 40s feel was evident to me as I struggled to even get a look at the six piece. Continue Reading…

ZACH DE LA ROCHA FROM ONE DAY AS A LION

For those unable to join us in Naeba or for fest-goers wanting to spend more time with their fave acts, a number of Fuji Rock ’10 artists will be doing additional gigs in Japan around the time of FRF.

Continue Reading…

There’s a good chance that many people attending this year’s festival have never heard about the 6-person French group, Moriarity.

I could count myself as one of those people if not for being assigned to write a a feature article about the band ahead of their Taipei area appearance  last June.

After doing some initial research like visiting their Myspace site and watching some videos on Youtube, I was quite suspicious that Moriarty had borrowed a page (musically and stylistically) from Natalie Merchant and 10,000 Maniacs and to some extent, Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians. And, I wasn’t sure that what had been cool vibe in the early 80’s originating in upstate New York, a scene that may be described as “American Gothic” would still be compelling  30 years later. Continue Reading…