The Boredoms

I've always thought that Japanese experimental music might be a good fit for my musical tastes, but I've never really been able to get into it. Japan's a pretty weird place, and their experimental musicians tend to be even weirder. I heard some really cool stuff from a band out of Osaka called The Boredoms last night on WRIU. It was a 20+ minute long jam called Seadrum that featured a lot of throat singing on top of droning jazz/rock beat. It was so cool that I altered my route home so I could hear the end of the song. They're on the Warner Music label in Japan, so I don't know if this can really be considered Japanese experimental music, but their #2 myspace friend is Sun Ra, so that definitely gives them some good experimental music virtual street cred.

Death of a Salaryman

At the rate I've been going, I should probably rename this blog "I read the Economist so you don't have to", but I couldn't resist sharing this tidbit from last week's article about the demise of the Japanese salaryman. I always knew that Japanese male office workers were expected to sacrifice their free time, families, ambition, and what little individuality Japanese society tolerates in exchange for a job and pension for life, but I had no idea how firmly entrenched this system was in Japan. According to the article, Japanese firms own resort properties across Japan where their employees receive generous discounts in an attempt to encourage them to spend what little vacation they actually take at the company resorts.