Tokyo Media Watch

changin'

If there was ever a time these words were relevant (besides the 60's) it is now:

Come gather round people

wherever your roam

and admit that the waters

around you have grown

and accept it that soon

you'll be drenched to the bone

if your time to you 

is worth saving

then you better start swimming

or you'll sink like a stone

for the times they are a changin'

Come writers and critics

who prophesize with your pen

and keep your eyes wide

the chance won't come again

and don't speak too soon

for the wheel's still in spin

and there's no telling who

that it's namin

for the loser now

will be later to win

for the times they are a changin'

Come senators, congressmen

please heed the call

don't stand in the doorway

don't block up the hall

for he who gets hurt 

will be he who has stalled

there's a battle outside

and it's ragin

it'll soon shake your windows

and rattle your walls 

for the times they are a changin'

Come mothers and fathers

throughout the land

don't criticize what you can't understand

your sons and your daughters are 

beyond your command

your old road is rapidly agin'

so get out of the new one

if you can't lend a hand

for the times they are a changin'

The line it is drawn

the curse it is cast

the slow one now

will later be fast

as the present now

will later be past

the order is rapidly fadin

and the first one now

will later be last

for the times they are a changin'

(Bob Dylan)

Each year in Japan, the Shinto priests choose a kanji (chinese character) to represent the ended year. For 2008, the kanji was hen or "change." 

50

Today was the 50th anniversary of the opening of Tokyo Tower.It had special lighting to commemorate the event.

Like Mother Like Brood

Well, we have finally decided on an album cover for my band, The Pale Brood. A designer at my company named (Sayaka Nakagawa) was kind enough to make this for us. There were a variety of versions and after months of asking for revisions, we ended up going back to one of the original designs she did. That's how these things often work. 

The idea of this image is a mother before she gives birth to her "brood!" The Pale Brood, I'm sure. Hopefully the album itself will be coming out in early spring!

Kaminari-mon in Asakusa

no death by blowfish

art as business

There was an interesting article in the New York Times about how artists are turning more and more to the internet and taking the "business" of their work into their own hands:

These days you don't need as much overhead to keep any business going, if you use the Internet as your main distribution and promotion tool. True, everyone has a blog and a webpage, but there is more opportunity for people no matter where you are and what you are doing. Art Yard has been looking into the distribution and promotion of music a lot lately because of these changes. The big labels don't have the same kind of stranglehold over distribution and marketing that they used to, and more and more independent labels/bands are using youtube, blogs, and other web sites to promote themselves--at very little cost. 

Art Yard is a community that supports those kinds of artists, and this kind of movement is especially important in a country like Japan. It will be interesting to see what kind of changes occur in the next couple years.