Tenniscoats performed at Time Out Café & Diner in Tokyo last weekend. Two songs are up on the Time Out Tokyo website today: 嗚咽と歓喜の名乗り歌 from Tan Tan Therapy, and マリーン from Theme of Tenniscoats. Both are performed in a really stripped down, beautiful way. Well worth a look.

http://www.timeout.jp/en/tokyo/feature/3681/Video-Tenniscoats-at-Time-Out-Caf%C3%A9

Time Out Tokyo has a track from the new Tenniscoats album, Tokinouta, streaming here:

http://www.timeout.jp/en/tokyo/feature/3028/Song-stream-Tenniscoats

Tokinouta is the latest album from Tenniscoats. It has its first review today on Time Out Tokyo. Follow the link below to read it.

http://www.timeout.jp/en/tokyo/feature/3014/Tenniscoats-Tokinouta

Time Out Tokyo discusses Lady Gaga and, er, bareback porn, amongst other things, with Scissor Sisters.

http://www.timeout.jp/en/tokyo/feature/1924/Scissor-Sisters-the-interview

Time Out Tokyo recently interviewed Satomi Matsuzaki, singer and bassist for the very wonderful Deerhoof. Speaking on the eve of their latest album release, Deerhoof Vs. Evil, she discusses a life perceived as a katakana character, her seemingly psychic relationship with Paul McCartney, and her influences, including Boowys, The Smiths, The Cure, Nick Cave, Sonic Youth and more.

Read the full interview here:

http://www.timeout.jp/en/tokyo/feature/1786/Deerhoof-Vs-Time-Out

Miyavi, Japan's 'Samurai guitarist' speaks to Time Out Tokyo about his music, his family, and his dream collaborations.

http://www.timeout.jp/en/tokyo/feature/1758/Miyavi-Artist-family-man-delight-to-the-nostrils

Other artists mentioned in this article:

Madonna
Prince

Time Out Tokyo asked 20 Japanese cultural figures to name the top 100 Japanese songs of all time. Interviewees included Cornelius, Towa Tei, Keiichiro Shibuya, as well as film directors and other artists.

The results are now in…

100 greatest Japanese songs

On July 8th, 2008, Jon Nice and Jon Wilks, then responsible for the short-lived TADA Music website/web-label, set off on a train heading out of Fukuoka towards Karatsu City, Japan. They got off the train at Niji No Matsubara, a forested area along the track (the name translates as the Forest of Rainbows) and walked until they felt well and truly immersed in woodland. Once they were happy with the obscurity of their location, they unloaded a small amount of recording equipment and several rucksacks full of musical instruments.

Over the next four hours, whatever came to them in inspiration…

It’s been some time since I posted anything here with my mind and fingers, audio or otherwise. It’s not for a lack of inspiration; more just a lack of time, and the fact that Jon Nice now lives in the UK, while I’m in the UAE. It’s frustrating. You see, it’s very satisfying to put songs like ‘The Wassailing Song‘ and ‘The I Don’t Know Song‘ on the net and see them get a decent airing. It’s odd, too, to see which take off and which flounder. The songs you work on for a year, seasoning…

Electric Grizzle, the new 5-track EP from The Grizzly Folk is now available for free download. Constructed from the ground up by the peripatetic songwriting talents of Jon Wilks, aided and abetted by electron-botherer Jon Nice, Electric Grizzle is something of a departure from the barrel-chested folk rumblings of their previous recordings. Featuring vocals from Nanbanjin’s Dai Evans (Friday Night) and Emma Kuntze (Gotta Keep an Eye on my Lover, These Are the End Days), Electric Grizzle brings bristles to pop, both figuratively and literally.

Download it here, and please share it with…