Metropolis Community

James Hadfield wrote a new blog post: Gregory and the Hawk

Music fans in Tokyo tonight were treated to what is unfortunately becoming an increasingly rare experience—an intimate, heartfelt performance by an internationally touring musician played to a large, packed house.
Gregory and the Hawk (born Meredith Godreau) bounced out onto the Liquidroom stage, which [...]

  1 year, 3 months ago · View

James Hadfield wrote a new blog post: CocoRosie

Maybe it was the beards that stopped CocoRosie’s most recent album, the woozy and occasionally brilliant Grey Oceans, from gaining a wider audience. Then again, siblings Bianca and Sierra Casady have never gone out of their way to ingratiate themselves. The duo concoct a musical [...]

  1 year, 5 months ago · View

James Hadfield wrote a new blog post: Little Barrie

Daikanyama’s Unit turned out to be a strange venue in which to hear Little Barrie, the rock trio from Nottingham, England. Descending countless flights of stairs to the basement under the basement felt a little like a scene from Dante, especially after entering the final bunker [...]

  1 year, 5 months ago · View

James Hadfield wrote a new blog post: Loud Park 2010

DAY ONE
Kicking off at 11am and closing around 10pm on two consecutive days, Loud Park 2010 offered up a grand total of about 22 hours of heavy metal. Perhaps not everybody’s idea of a relaxing weekend, but for the heavy metal “faithful”–yes, the genre is a [...]

  1 year, 7 months ago · View

James Hadfield wrote a new blog post: Thu 23

Festival Hop the JR Sotobo line to Ohara in Chiba for the Ohara Hadaka Matsuri, in which mikoshi bearers head off to the beach for a ceremonial tussle in the sea. The main action takes place in the afternoon, so no need to get up too early Clubbing Sunglasses-sporting psychedelic overlord Keiji Haino [...]

  1 year, 8 months ago · View

James Hadfield wrote a new blog post: Wed 22

Clubbing Clubbers are spoiled for choice tonight, but we’re particularly intrigued by Beat Mind, a progressive house party in the faux-sacred surrounds of Shinjuku’s Christon Cafe (link). Belgium’s Pole Folder leads the charge Concert Tomomi Nishimoto, one of Japan’s most well-known classical music figures, conducts a concert performance of Prokofiev’s Romeo [...]

  1 year, 8 months ago · View

James Hadfield wrote a new blog post: Tue 21

Stage Tokyo’s musical theater geeks can get their fix from the Broadway Musical Company, a traveling show featuring English-speaking actors performing classic scenes from shows like The Sound of Music, Chicago and Ms. Saigon. They’re at Green Hall in Sagami-Ono tonight (link) Sports The latest clash between the Yomiuri Giants and [...]

  1 year, 8 months ago · View

James Hadfield wrote a new blog post: Mon 20

Concert Known to American and Japanese fans alike as simply Joe, American gospel singer turned R&B star Joe Thomas brings his self-described smooth—and yes, “sexy”—sound to Roppongi’s Billboard Live, with shows at 6 & 9pm (link) Exhibition Calendar of Edo-From Summer to Autumn, the Ukiyo-e Ota Memorial Museum of Art’s show [...]

  1 year, 8 months ago · View

James Hadfield wrote a new blog post: Sun 19

Festival Clocking in at 11 days, the Dara Dara Matsuri at Shiba Daijingu shrine near Hamamatsucho is one of Japan’s longest festivals. Today’s mikoshi parade, which starts at 1pm, is the undoubted highlight Clubbing The surviving members of Detroit hip-hop crew Slum Village are the main draw at Unit’s Peace x Manhattan Records [...]

  1 year, 8 months ago · View

James Hadfield wrote a new blog post: Sat 18

Expo The great and the geek will be heading to Makuhari Messe for the Tokyo Game Show (link), which is reasserting its otaku cred with a Cosplay Grand Prix, followed by a “Cosplay Dance Night” from 6-8pm Concert The wilfully unpronounceable Ftarri Doubtmusic Festival, a three-day summit featuring some of the [...]

  1 year, 8 months ago · View

James Hadfield wrote a new blog post: Fri 17

Film The 3rd Old Town Taito International Comedy Festival (link) kicks off in earnest in Ueno and Asakusa. Screenings include Sergei Bodrov’s A Yakuza’s Daughter Doesn’t Cry, Yong-hwa Kim’s Take Off and an all-nighter of movies starring ’60s combo the Crazy Cats Dance There’ll be a few tickets on the door [...]

  1 year, 8 months ago · View

James Hadfield wrote a new blog post: Tokyo Jazz 2010

The addition of veteran Dutch free jazz drummer Han Bennink to the Tokyo Jazz festival’s closing “Jazz Stream: Past to Future” program on September 5 seemed a bit of an afterthought. With a lineup featuring sax player Joshua Redman, guitarist Kazumi Watanabe’s Tochika group and the revered [...]

  1 year, 8 months ago · View

James Hadfield wrote a new blog post: Fri 20

Exhibition There’s still time to catch photographer William Eggleston’s continent-straddling exhibition Paris-Kyoto, which finishes its run at the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art in Shinagawa on Sunday Sports Recent Metropolis cover stars the Bella Twins will be in the ring for the WWE Summer Slam at Ryogoku Kokugikan, [...]

  1 year, 9 months ago · View

James Hadfield wrote a new blog post: B.O.B.

Part Busta Rhymes, part pixie stick, B.O.B. jumped around the stage with so much energy, you’d never know he’d been jet-setting from Atlanta to New Zealand to Australia to Osaka and finally to Tokyo in less than two weeks. Playboy Tre, who was there either as [...]

  1 year, 9 months ago · View

James Hadfield wrote a new blog post: Jazz Art Sengawa 2010

Japan has one of the world’s strongest free jazz scenes, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at the bill of the country’s leading jazz festival, Tokyo Jazz. To address this oversight, the German director of Sengawa Theater, Peter Goessner, asked vocal improviser Koichi Makigami to put [...]

  1 year, 10 months ago · View

James Hadfield wrote a new blog post: Guruguru Mawaru 2010

You couldn’t accuse Tomoji Takeuchi of lacking ambition. The organizer of Haikou Fes, a one-day indie jamboree held at a former elementary school turned arts centre in 2008 and 2009, was [...]

  1 year, 10 months ago · View

James Hadfield wrote a new blog post: The Raincoats

Well, there was never much risk of The Raincoats getting too slick. Thirty-odd years after first picking up instruments, Ana da Silva and Gina Birch are still apparently figuring how to play them. One of the strangest sights during [...]

  1 year, 11 months ago · View

James Hadfield wrote a new blog post: Emilie Simon

Electronically enhanced French songstress Emilie Simon swung into Tokyo for a couple of showcase gigs earlier this month to promote the Japanese release of her latest album, The Big Machine. Performing solo at Tower Records in Shibuya, she certainly cut an impressive figure, decked out [...]

  1 year, 11 months ago · View