The Summer Sonic Festival, now entering its second decade of existence, might very well be the most disconnected music festival in all of Japan. Whereas the Fuji Rock Festival stockpiles dozens of domestic bands to compliment the various foreign acts playing, Summer Sonic mostly relegates Japanese acts to “opening” slots before noon. It’s the “international”…
The months just keep passing and the summer draws even closer. Let’s check in with Japan’s premier summer festivals to see what’s up. – The big new update on the Summer Sonic front would be reunited indie-gods Pavement getting a slot. They already dazzled Tokyo and (especially) Osaka once before, so if you missed out…
“How many of you saw saw us in Osaka in the ’90s?” Pavement’s Bob Nastanovich asked between songs during the group’s April 10th show at Zepp Osaka. He was greeted with a decent-sized wave of cheers. I, along with the majority of the crowd, did not “woo.” Though I’m hesitant to make blanket statements about…
Talk about welcoming timing – I started my day reading this horribly bleak interview at Eye Weekly. It’s the type of article that makes a music writer depressed enough to wonder “what’s the point” as they stare blankly at their WordPress dashboard. Minutes later though, I clicked on a Pitchfork story about Pavement adding reunion…