Welcome (even though I know there's probably no-one there)

I've been living in Japan for almost six years with more than two of those years spent in Tokyo. I know there is a thriving music scene out there, something more interesting than all the shite manufactured pap that dominates the charts here in the same way as it does worldwide. There are twelve million people in this city, another eight or nine million in the suburbs surrounding it - think of the music that some of these people must be producing. The problem for me is getting to it. My Japanese isn't great, I can't read the magazines on sale here. I can listen to the radio and hopefully understand some of what is said, but it's not enough. There are good listings magazines but understandably they tend to focus on the major foreign artists who make their ways to these shores. I'm sure I'm not the only person in this position (we'll see soon enough), so that's why I'm starting this blog. As I find out more about the music that pulsates in the belly of this huge lifeform of a city, I hope to share it. That's what the internet is supposed to be about, isn't it? (and I guess porn).

This is going to take time to get going - I've never really done this kind of thing before, so bear with me. From the smallest acorn sprouts the mightiest oak blah blah blah. One final thing - I don't plan to just write about Japanese music - I don't know enough to fill the back of a postage stamp, never mind a blog (that's probably not a good way to promote this blog but it's the truth). Tokyo Music is of course about music from Tokyo, but I also want it to be about what Tokyo-ites of all races and nationalities are listening to (although that doesn't mean this is supposed to be a place only for people living in Tokyo), be it obscure American post-rock, lo-fi noodlings from Finland, stadium rock from the UK, traditional music from Malawi, or even megaselling pop from Madonna. Hopefully we won't agree about everything (how fucking boring would that be?), but I hope we can be civil. I want people to let us know what they are listening to, what discoveries they've made in dusty record stores, what stuff they found hidden in the darkest corners of their iPods that they'd forgotten to listen to, and what is yanking their crank at that particular time. Let's see how this goes.