wot's, uh, the deal?
Well,
first, a little backstory. In 2005, an aging record geek moved to Tokyo
in search of What's Next, got a job teaching English (like everybody
else) and quickly resumed his record geeking. There was just one
problem: all this local stuff. Now, it wasn't a problem at first...in
fact, it was a source of initial jubilation. A whole new music scene, a
whole new world to discover! Yes!
The problem came soon after, however. Outside of the small handful of bands that had achieved some degree of notoriety in the West (Acid Mothers Temple, The Boredoms, Shonen Knife, Boris, etc.) there was NO information in English. Seriously, nothing. There were legendary artists that I had never even heard of, which is a rather sharp blow to the ego of a guy who's been collecting records for 30+ years. A trip to the basement of Shinjuku Disc Union was simultaneously thrilling and humbling. Whoever these "Zuno Keisatsu" people were, they certainly seemed important: there were no fewer than three shelves devoted to them. "Seagull Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her?" Isn't that an XTC song? My God, who are Les Rallizes Dénudés, and why is that CD $800?
Well, teaching English wasn't all it was cracked up to be, and I had a bit of an itch to return to writing, so I put two and two together and decided to take the leap and devote myself to writing a primer for Japanese rock. Word on the street was that Julian Cope was working on a Japanese themed followup to his Krautrocksampler, but that it was confining itself to the late 60s and early 70s. Great, but there's still work to be done. So here I go: I decided to get the ball rolling, and after an extended period of time spent wading through truly epic amounts of personal anxiety and red tape (the story of which will probably merit a second book,) I quit my day job, as it were, in 2008 and started the long process of learning about this mountain of unfamiliar music.
So now I needed a game plan. But how to tackle such an enormous subject? There were hundreds of bands, thousands of records. Hey, how about a web site? It can serve the dual purpose of giving structure to the task and promoting Japanese rock to the world, not to mention it can give a bit of instant gratification to people who have been starving for information for the last who knows how many years. So...the birth of Jrawk.
Which brings us to right now. The book is tentatively set for 2011 completion, and of course, we'll keep you posted.
よろしく御願いします。
Chad Van Wagner, JRAWK 合同会社
The problem came soon after, however. Outside of the small handful of bands that had achieved some degree of notoriety in the West (Acid Mothers Temple, The Boredoms, Shonen Knife, Boris, etc.) there was NO information in English. Seriously, nothing. There were legendary artists that I had never even heard of, which is a rather sharp blow to the ego of a guy who's been collecting records for 30+ years. A trip to the basement of Shinjuku Disc Union was simultaneously thrilling and humbling. Whoever these "Zuno Keisatsu" people were, they certainly seemed important: there were no fewer than three shelves devoted to them. "Seagull Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her?" Isn't that an XTC song? My God, who are Les Rallizes Dénudés, and why is that CD $800?
Well, teaching English wasn't all it was cracked up to be, and I had a bit of an itch to return to writing, so I put two and two together and decided to take the leap and devote myself to writing a primer for Japanese rock. Word on the street was that Julian Cope was working on a Japanese themed followup to his Krautrocksampler, but that it was confining itself to the late 60s and early 70s. Great, but there's still work to be done. So here I go: I decided to get the ball rolling, and after an extended period of time spent wading through truly epic amounts of personal anxiety and red tape (the story of which will probably merit a second book,) I quit my day job, as it were, in 2008 and started the long process of learning about this mountain of unfamiliar music.
So now I needed a game plan. But how to tackle such an enormous subject? There were hundreds of bands, thousands of records. Hey, how about a web site? It can serve the dual purpose of giving structure to the task and promoting Japanese rock to the world, not to mention it can give a bit of instant gratification to people who have been starving for information for the last who knows how many years. So...the birth of Jrawk.
Which brings us to right now. The book is tentatively set for 2011 completion, and of course, we'll keep you posted.
よろしく御願いします。
Chad Van Wagner, JRAWK 合同会社