Putting the J-pop into music journalism
Tokyo is a lot to take in. It is a city of sensory overload, and then there’s also the music, as Real Groove editor Sam Wicks reports.
Even now, weeks after my trip, I am still processing the sights, smells and sounds that I encountered during my week in Japan on Tokyo time.
My opportunity to visit Japan came with a reporting assignment for Real Groove magazine to document the making of the new series of Making Tracks, a music television programme that will be broadcast on Mediaworks’ C4 channel.
My seven days in Tokyo were truly a privilege and I look forward to sharing these Japanese musical adventures. The week moved at a breakneck pace, a blur of interviews, club nights, neon lights and kampais. It will take some time to collect my thoughts and attempt to translate the experience for Real Groove’s music-mad readership.
Japanese diligence and attention to detail can be found all over music in this country, from the booming industry of J-pop to niche Baile funk and broken beat music scenes. Aficionados are likely to know the history of their genre of choice from top-to-bottom and collect every release they can get their hands on.
New Zealander Nick Dwyer, the music journalist who fronts the Making Tracks series, has a long and involved relationship with Japan and the Japanese music scene, which meant doors opened to us everywhere we went, and I had access to some true insider knowledge of Tokyo’s thriving boutique music communities – from jazz, to hip hop, to broken beat.
While I travelled around Tokyo, I had a chance to check out some of the footage Making Tracks has shot prior to landing in Japan – and it looks stunning. From the song selections and artists to the destinations, Nick and his producer Dean Cornish are again putting together inspired music television.
The material I collected is for a magazine feature on the Tokyo chapter of Making Tracks that will appear in the October 2010 issue of Real Groove, to time in with the debut of the show’s second series on C4.
While I was away, I blogged about my adventures at the Real Groove website, tweeted about my movements through the city, and took a series of photographs which will also appear in the October issue.
In addition to the material I collected for Real Groove, I recorded audio recordings for two stories for Radio New Zealand’s Music 101 programme.
The first was on Kat McDowell, a Kiwi-Japanese musician based in Tokyo and Kohei Katsuura, a former barman at Wellington’s Mighty Mighty and passionate supporter of New Zealand indie music, who has returned to Japan with the aim of bringing New Zealand musicians to his country and exporting Japanese sounds to New Zealand.
The first New Zealand musician he brought over was Urban Tramper’s Lake McKenna, and I spent time with Lake and Kohei in Shibuya, and I watched Urban Tramper perform live in Shibuya’s J-Pop Café.
Since returning to Auckland, I’ve met up with jazz musician Nathan Haines to talk about the shows he played in Tokyo the week that we were there, and I also plan to interview DJ Mitsu from Jazzy Sport who will be playing The Turnaround dance party in Auckland in late-September.
Both of these interviews will supplement the material I’ve already collected, and offer further insights into Japanese musical communities.
I’ve had a long-time love affair with Japanese culture from a distance, and this trip has cemented that, and given it a whole new dimension. I couldn’t have accessed the musicians and the scenes that I did without the knowledge of Nick Dwyer and the Making Tracks team, or without the support of the Asia New Zealand Foundation.
Photos by Sam Wicks:
1) From left - Nick Dwyer, Warren Green, Sam Wicks and others
2) Nick Dwyer of Making Tracks crossing the road with his crew
3) Urban Tramper’s Lake McKenna and Tokyo-based promoter Kohei Katsuura at the Shibuya crossing
4) Sam Wicks interviewing a Japanese musician
