Tag Archives: Japan
RIP Yukihiro Takahashi (1952 – 2023)
Yukihiro Takahashi was een Japans muzikant die buiten zijn geboorteland best gekend is als drummer en leadzanger bij Yellow Magic Orchestra.
YMO brak in de Verenigde Staten door met “Computer Game” (1978), een cover van “Firecracker” (1959) van de Amerikaanse lounge muzikant Martin Denny.
Net zoals die andere elektronica-helden van de jaren zeventig, Kraftwerk, raakten ze in de VS bekend door de Afro-Amerikaanse gemeenschap.
Op een aflevering van Soul Train brachten ze twee nummers: een cover van “Tighten up” van Archie Bell & the Drells en het bovenvermelde “Computer Game”.
RIP Arata Isozaki (1931 – 2022)
Arata Isozaki was een Japans architect gekend omwille van gebouwen zoals het brutalistische ‘Oita Medical Hall’ (1959-1960).
Rust zacht Arata.
RIP Kohei Yoshiyuki (1946 – 2022)
Kohei Yoshiyuki was a Japanese photographer known for his book The Park (1979, 2007) which shows people cruising for sex in Tokyo parks in the 1970s.
The book was hailed by Martin Parr as “a brilliant piece of social documentation, catching perfectly the loneliness, sadness and desperation that so often accompany sexual or human relationships in a big, hard metropolis like Tokyo.”
Of all the deads I posted about since the death of Elza Soares, this one is the most interesting one. Erotomania is still my main affliction. Long live public sex and its voyeurs.
RIP Kenzō Takada (1939 – 2020)
Kenzō Takada was a Japanese fashion designer. He was, with Yamamoto, the most famous Japanese fashion designer of the 1980s.
Some of my best friends are in fashion. The fashion and arts scene always threw the best parties here in Antwerp, as I suppose, they do anywhere around the world.
Of all the arts, fashion probably is at the same time the most vacuous and the most embodied of the arts; the most ephemeral and the most ‘out there’.
RIP Joe Shishido (1933 – 2020)
Joe Shishido was a Japanese actor known for his eccentric yakuza film roles and his artificially enlarged cheekbones. He also played in Japanese exploitation exercises such as Gate of Flesh (1964).
The clip above is a tribute to Joe Shishido, a montage of clips from A Colt Is My Passport (1967). It is, as is usual with this kind of endeavors, more interesting than the product it is based upon.