Musician and producer Ueda Gen died in Tokyo on Sunday evening of lung cancer. He was just 47. Ueda started rock-ska band LÃ-PPISCH in 1986 along with four of his Meiji University friends, and remained with the band until 2002. In addition to his solo career, he was also a producer and songwriter for many other artists. He wrote the music and lyrics for Hajime Chitose‘s smash hit debut single “Wadatsumi no Ki.” He continued to work after he was diagnosed with cancer and began chemotherapy at the end of 2006. LÃ-PPISCH played a revival concert tour last year, but Ueda only appeared for one show, in Tokyo in October. His condition also forced him to pull out of a planned appearance at the Rising Sun Rock Festival. His final public appearance was playing with punk band Kemuri on the Fuji TV “Bokura no Ongaku” show on November 23.
• Actor Karasawa Toshiaki (44) was among yesterday’s recipients of awards presented by the government. The awards, from the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, are given out every year in recognition of contributions to the arts. Other winners were screenwriter Mitani Kouki (46), rakugo-ka Tatekawa Shinosuke (54), and movie director Suo Masayuki (51). An established star of TV and movies, Karasawa most recently won acclaim for his lead role in Shakespeare’s “Coriolanus”, directed by Ninagawa Yukio. He described how his wife, actress Yamaguchi Tomoko (43), was so into the play that she flew to London just to watch him on opening night at the Barbican Theatre.
• On their third visit to Japan, American rock band Maroon 5 performed at Nippon Budokan for the first time last night. They performed a 14-song set based mainly around last year’s second album “It Won’t Be Soon Before Long”, which sold about 350,000 copies here. The band is scheduled to play an extra show at the same venue on March 17.