The initial line-up for this summer’s Fuji Rock Festival has been released. Organiser Smash Corp. announcd a playlist that includes Aqualung, The Beach Boys, Beck, The Black Velvets, Cake, The Coral, Dinosaur Jr., Eddi Reader, Fatboy Slim, Foo Fighters, The Go! Team, Juliette & the Licks, Los Lobos, The Magic Numbers, Mercury Rev, The Music, The Pogues, Sigur Ros, and Steel Pulse. Fuji Rock will take place July 29-31 at the Naeba ski resort in Yuzawa, Niigata prefecture. Creativeman Productions will announce the first artists for Summer Sonic Festival, which will take place in Osaka and Tokyo on August 13-14, on March 14.
Veteran entertainer Katsura Bunshi died yesterday of liver failure at a hospital in Mie Prefecture. He was 74. He was one of the leading performers of rakugo, the traditional form of comic storytelling. Rakugoka sit in seiza on stage and use minimal props to relate stories handed down over the generations. The fifth rakugoka to hold the name Bunshi, he won many awards and was decorated by the government with the Medal with Purple Ribbon in 1997 and the Order of the Rising Sun in 2003.