Over the past few months, I've had the interesting experience of being on the receiving end of quite a lot of media coverage about the book, mostly from Japan-focused web sites, magazines etc.
As well as providing a nice boost to my ego and a sense of acknowledgment after all the time toiling alone with only my editor and publisher to encourage me, it's also been interesting to see what aspects people have picked up on. One theme recurring in the feedback I've had is the idea of music as a route into finding a sense of belonging within Japanese society. I made a remark about that almost as a throwaway point near the beginning of the book, but it seems to have struck a chord with several of the people who've read it.
Part of this is perhaps that media focused on life in Japan (the Japan expat village, as it were) is likely to be more conscious of the way sense-of-belonging can be an issue many foreigners in
Japan struggle with. If international music media had taken more interest in the book, their takeaway might have been rather different.
The idea of a music scene as a route into a sense of belonging is applicable to more than life in Japan though. Music has been providing a home for misfits since at least the birth of
rock'n'roll, and probably beyond. As I was travelling around Japan researching the local music scenes of each prefecture, I noticed that it was becoming more a meditation on the nature of "home",
and I'm starting to see that I'd already planted the seed of that idea in Quit Your Band! without realising it.
The other thing that happened was that through the various interviews I did, I refined a lot of the ideas in the book and perhaps improved on my explanations of them. The book itself was a refinement of many points I'd made in my Japan Times writing, and was in part a result of my dissatisfaction with how I'd expressed them the first time around, but now the interviews are starting to make the book feel out of date as well. It's good that I still think I can improve, but also a little bit of a source of worry to find myself revisiting the same ideas over and over again.
In any case, here's a summary of the various online commentary and interviews about the book:
Largely positive review in one of Tokyo's local listings papers.
Another review from a listings paper, this one written by Patrick St. Michel, who I've known for a while from The Japan Times and the music scene generally.
A Japanese culture and language web site and podcast. I can't listen to the sound of my own voice on tape, but some people said this was interesting.
INTERVIEW - Indie Guides
International indie culture site covering a number of cities around the
world.
INTERVIEW - The Quietus
The only coverage I've received in actual music media, I'm nonetheless glad it was The Quietus who did it. It's also very long and goes into a lot of depth. Probably the most interesting one to
do.
INTERVIEW - Tokyo Weekender
Another local Tokyo listings paper, with a more upscale
focus.
INTERVIEW (AUDIO) - Japan Alternative Sessions
INTERVIEW - Zoom Japan
The web version of this is distractingly garbled, so I won't link to it here. I have a (slightly smudged) scan of it though, which is a little bit more readable.
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