8-bit festival

Atari attack! An all-night celebration of primitive electronic music, the line-up including my favourites YMCK. Saturday 26 Jan, Star Pine's Cafe Kichijoji. Go to the Famicon site for details.

Statues and windflowers

Wandering around a Buddhist cemetery in Ryogoku, I came across these statues decorated with plastic windflowers. I'm guessing that these are children's graves as there were offerings of juice boxes nearby instead of the usual sake or beer.

World's most expensive stress toy

Who can resist this cuddly cyber seal? Paro responds to human touch by cooing and wiggling about in a very cute and 'realistic' way (pretty sure normal baby seals would put up with this much manhandling). Used to help the elderly who are unable to look after pets of their own, the robot has proved a big hit, many claiming that, like an ordinary pet, he is useful in combating depression and stress. Costing upwards of 350,000 yen (around 1,500 pounds), those who fall for Paro's charms are looking at a hefty price tag. I tried Paro out at the great robot exhibition in the National Science Museum and, while, the movements seemed natural, beneath the fur you can sense the metallic limbs beneath, totally rigid and inflexible. Unlike normal pets, but more in keeping with standard cyber pet behaviour, Paro throws a tantrum if ignored. At the exhibition there was always someone on hand to stroke Paro so I didn't get to witness his cyber rage. If it's anything like a Furbee fit or a Tamagochi tantrum, I was probably spared an ugly sight. A big fuss is being made about this robot - Danish film director, Phie Ambo, is currently making a film about Paro's therapeutic effects - but I can't really see how different he is from these previous incarnations of computer cuteness and more importantly why he is so expensive.
Spot the difference.

Too many dentists not enough doctors

It seems that not a week goes by without some new story of people being turned away from hospitals for treatment, due to a lack of trained physicians, and dying as a result, as per this article in Mainichi. Imagine my surprise then to find out that Japan has a surplus of dentists. According to Japan Times, there are more dentists in Japan than convenience stores and many are in dire straights financially. In most countries dentistry is a cushy high-earning job. Wonder if all too many of these dentists fell for this dream instead of the more humanitarian goal of saving lives.

End of Winter Party

Electronic music is a medium that inherently appeals to bedroom musos, who, luckily for us are prepared to spend innumerable hours alone perfecting that particular blip or bleep. A self-contained form of expression which, can sometimes give voice to the furious howls of disconnected souls. So it seemed with Ametsub who performed tonight at Shibuya O-Nest's "End of Winter Party". With only a crescent moon slice of face visible, the other side shadowed in hair - even before he sent out his all-out sonic attack - it was clear that he was setting up barriers. Only those tough enough to withstand the unpleasant whines and random blasts of sound are those privileged to be allowed in. A challenge is all very well but isn't music in some part about beauty as well as aggression? This is why Kashiwa Daisuke, who threw loops of piano passages into the the bit-stream, making them ricochet and decay in ways that were heartbreakingly beautiful, stood out from the crowd of electronic artists. His music is at once both aggressive and tender and, for me, created that miraculous state, where you are, for awhile, totally immersed, made transparent as the snowstorm of noise blizzards through you. Shuta Hasunuma with his almost dance music, that suddenly fractured at odd moments, catching you off guard and making you draw breath with awe at his creativity, seemed, unlike Hasunuma, slightly handicapped when he tried to draw in more organic noises - with a live bass and drums.
The most outstanding act of the night came from Shugo Tokumaru who, elfin-faced and barefoot, presented his music unclad of it's usual technological trickery. Stripped down you find that the acoustic version, is indeed the seed for his magical toy-fairground sound (see earlier post for review of ST's style), the musicianship was breathtaking. A close second highlight of the night were Group_Inou (pictured above), a couple of geeky kids straight from a scene of Weird Science, the best description I can give of them is rap accompanied by a mashup of Bach and Eurovision songs played on a Bontempi organ.

BTW the pic isn't mine, mine was too rubbish so I lifted it from their site, gomen.

Prime minister's YouTube address falls on deaf ears

Japan's new prime minister Fukuda Yasuo has posted a New Year's speech in English on YouTube. In it he puts world peace and cleaning up the environment high on the agenda. However, his dour face (never once cracking a smile) and staccato delivery hasn't gained much of a global audience, at the time of writing he'd only been viewed 609 times and nobody has yet posted a comment.

Hair for Life

This commercial, currently running in Japan, advertises hair implants. Although you never actually see someone having hair sewn into their heads, instead you get the technique demonstrated on a plastic scalp. Presumably the company decided that getting hair sewn onto your bonce with needles involves some amount of blood and therefore wouldn't look too appealing on TV. What's weird though is that at the end, there's a shot of some hair which has been implanted into someone's forehead being tugged at to demonstrate the implant's strength. Did they think that this would not freak out the viewing public and who is the poor unfortunate who got hair sewn onto his face?
Click on the link to view the horror:
http://www.artnature.co.jp/mens/cm/index.html