The Registrators

April 6th, 2009

The Registrators

Interview by Edgar Barrington
Hear a clip

Aside from being the best band on Earth The Registrators are also the nicest guys on Earth. Singer/guitarist/songwriter Hiroshi Otsuki and manager Takaya Nagashima took me out to an izakaya (one of those places where naked women crawl around with sushi on them) where we drank a lot and did an interview.

If you only know the band for their Rip Off Records debut Terminal Boredom and masterpiece Sixteen Wires, sorry to be snobby, but you are missing out on their best stuff! Released only in Japan, Velocity took everything great about Sixteen Wires to the next level, more pop, more new wave, unbelievable songwriting, ballsy yet perfect effects, and a high budget recording that does the band justice! Next was No Fantasy, a little tougher, a little more lo fi, but essentially 7 more under-3-minute wonders (double 7″/CDEP).

The Modernist: I was wondering about being a band in Japan, where you practice, how often you’re able to practice?

Otsuki: We rent a practice studio for four hours a week. We want more time but the rest of the band, they have jobs. We are always doing new songs, arrangements and things. I wrote many songs and we want to change, so we would like to practice more but now it is difficult.

Do the other guys in the band have jobs?

Yeah they have jobs. Jun, the guitarist works in a hospital…

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Pardon our dust…

March 10th, 2009

We finally decided to join the 90s and convert our old site to this newfangled “weblogging” technology all the kids are talking about. Over the next month, we’ll be slowly migrating all of the old content to this new Wordpress site, and adding the backlog of The Modernist Society Podcasts we’ve been promising along with new episodes of Nikkei Sindex, and the proverbial “much, much, more.”

Stay tuned…

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Islamic Revolution Barbie

March 9th, 2009

Porochista Khakpour has an op-ed in the New York Times, giving her own take on Barbie’s 50th anniversary. Revisit her 2007 appearance at The Modernist Society in this podcast.

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The Modernist Society with Blake Schwarzenbach

February 5th, 2009

mod_soc_blake1

 

The man behind Jawbreaker, Jets to Brazil, and the newly-formed Thorns of Life joins The Modernist Society for a chat on Wednesday, February 18.

Doors at 9pm.
Interview w audience Q&A at 10.
DJs D-Mac and Neville C man the decks from 11 til close.
$4 Bourbon specials / 21+
Bourbon:
2321 18th Street NW
Washington DC

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Podcast - Libertarian in the Age of Obama

February 3rd, 2009

Here’s The Modernist Society Podcast of our chat with Nick Gillespie & Matt Welch from Reason Magazine & Reason.tv, an evening that seems to have prompted some “Change” at the Huffington Post!

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Even a Daughter is Better than Nothing

February 5th, 2008

Notorious Maximumrocknroll columnist and general provocateur Mykel Board spent a year in Outer Mongolia, then turned it into a book. Interview by Edgar Barrington.

The Modernist: I wanted to know what made you decide to turn your year in Mongolia into a novel?

Mykel Board: It’s not really a novel because a novel has a feeling of something that is made up. Even a Daughter is pretty not made up. When I was there I took email notes, I wrote every day about my adventures and I didn’t have a phone let alone an internet connection where I was. So in order to send email I had to physically take the computer down to the email center, plug it in, upload all my email messages and download them and my cousin collected them for the year. And they became my notes and I figured, “Oh I had all of these cool experiences, I should write them.” And that’s when the book came out.

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Marg bar Bowden? (A Fairly Tame Book Review of Guests of the Ayatollah: The First Battle in America’s War with Militant Islam)

November 10th, 2006

Embassy
By guest author, L.P. Omid

If you want to find out why Mark Bowden wrote his latest book, Guests of the Ayatollah: The First Battle in America’s War with Militant Islam, a journalistic account of the events of the U.S. Embassy seizure and the subsequent hostage debacle over twenty-five years ago, beyond the obvious financial benefits to the author and his publisher, you won’t find the answer in the 637 page book itself. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Mystique and the Mistake of the First Person: an interview with Jonathan Ames

January 31st, 2004

Jonathan Ames is the next big thing. There, we’ve said it, and probably jinxed his career from this point forward. But seriously, ask anyone. Okay, ask anyone who’s read The Extra Man. Ask anyone who’s been to his readings, seen his one-man show, or read his columns way-back-when in the New York Press. Ask them, and they will tell you that they can’t believe that he’s not wildly famous. Ask them and they’ll express awe for and admiration of the earnest manner he discusses the sexual exploits of both he and his characters. Ask them and they might be a little upset that you’ve heard of him too, that he’s no longer their little secret.

The Modernist’s Jason Mojica met with Jonathan Ames at his hotel in Chicago’s gold coast. The author was in the middle of his recent tour to promote his new novel, Wake Up, Sir! Born out of Ames’ love for P.G. Wodehouse, Wake Up, Sir! introduces us to a 30-something alcoholic author who, due to fortunate slip on some ice, has become wealthy enough to justify hiring his own valet, a man named Jeeves (of course).

The Modernist: Do you like doing these book tours?

Ames: Is that part of the interview, are you recording already?

Yes. Would I get a different answer if it wasn’t?

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