| Name | Ryuichi Sakamoto坂本龍一 |
|---|---|
| Background | non_vocal_instrumentalist |
| Born | January 17, 1952Tokyo, Japan |
| Instrument | Keyboard, piano |
| Genre | Electropop, Synthpop, Electronica, Classical |
| Occupation | Musician, composer, record producer, actor |
| Years active | 1977–present |
| Label | Columbia Music Entertainment(1978–1979)Alfa Records(1979–1983)MIDI(1984–1986)Sony Music Entertainment Japan(1986–1987)EMI(1989–1991,1993)For Life Records(1994–1997)Warner Music Group(1998–2006)commmons(2006–present)A&M; RecordsRestless Records |
| Associated acts | Yellow Magic Orchestra, Kiyoshiro Imawano |
After working as a session musician, he formed the internationally successful synthpop trio Yellow Magic Orchestra, with Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi.
Following the disbanding of Yellow Magic Orchestra, Sakamoto released a number of solo albums in the 1980s. While primarily focused on the piano and synthesizer, this series of albums boasted a roster of collaborators that included David Sylvian, David Byrne, Thomas Dolby, Nam June Paik, and Iggy Pop, among others. Sakamoto would alternate between exploring a variety of musical styles, ideas, and genres — captured most notably in his groundbreaking 1983 album Illustrated Musical Encyclopedia — and focusing on a specific subject or theme, such as the Italian Futurism movement in Futurista (1986). At times, Sakamoto would also present varying interpretations of technology's intersection with music: He would present some pieces, such as "Replica," with Kraftwerkian rigidity and order, while he would infuse humanity and humor into others — "Broadway Boogie Woogie," for example, liberally lifts samples from Ridley Scott's film Blade Runner and pairs them with a raucous, sax-driven techno-pop backdrop.
As his solo career began to extend outside Japan in the late 1980s, Sakamoto's explorations, influences, and collaborators followed suit. Beauty (1989) boasted a tracklist that combined pop and traditional Japanese and Okinawan songs, yet featured guest appearances by Jill Jones, Brian Wilson, and Robbie Robertson. Heartbeat (1991) and Sweet Revenge (1994), meanwhile, looked to international horizons and worked with a global range of artists such as Roddy Frame, Dee Dee Brave, Marco Prince, Arto Lindsay, Youssou N'Dour, David Sylvian, and Ingrid Chavez. 1996 saw the appearance of two notable albums: Smoochy, which fused pop and electronica with bossa nova and other South American forms, and 1996, which featured a number of previously released pieces arranged for solo piano, accompanied with violin and cello.
Following 1996, Sakamoto simultaneously delved into the classical and "post-techno" genres with Discord (1998), an hour-long orchestral work in four parts. Here he evoked the melodic qualities of his film score work, imbued with the influence of 20th century classical composers and spoken word. The Sony Classical release also featured an interactive CD-ROM component and website that complemented the work. Shortly thereafter, the Ninja Tune record label released a series of remixes of various sections, produced by a number of prominent electronica artists, including Amon Tobin, Talvin Singh and DJ Spooky.
The next album, BTTB (1998) — an acronym for "Back to the Basics" — was a fairly opaque reaction to the prior year's multilayered, lushly orchestrated Discord. The album comprised a series of original pieces on solo piano, including "Energy Flow" (a major hit in Japan) and a frenetic, four-hand arrangement of the Yellow Magic Orchestra classic "Tong Poo." On the BTTB U.S. tour, he opened the show performing a brief avant-garde DJ set under the stage name DJ Lovegroove.
1999 saw the long-awaited release of Sakamoto's "opera" LIFE. It premiered with seven sold-out performances in Tokyo and Osaka. This ambitious multi-genre multi-media project featured contributions by over 100 performers, including Pina Bausch, Bernardo Bertolucci, Josep Carreras, His Holiness The Dalai Lama and Salman Rushdie.
Sakamoto later teamed with cellist Jaques Morelenbaum (a member of his 1996 trio), and Morelenbaum's wife, Paula, on a pair of albums celebrating the work of bossa nova pioneer Antonio Carlos Jobim. They recorded their first album, Casa (2001), mostly in Jobim's home studio in Rio de Janeiro, with Sakamoto performing on the late Jobim's grand piano. The album was well received, having been included in the list of New York Times's top albums of 2002.
Sakamoto collaborated with Alva Noto (an alias of Carsten Nicolai) to release Vrioon, an album of Sakamoto's piano clusters treated by Nicolai's unique style of digital manipulation, involving the creation of "micro-loops" and minimal percussion. The two produced this work by passing the pieces back and forth until both were satisfied with the result. This debut, released on German label Raster-Noton, was voted record of the year 2004 in the electronica category by British magazine The Wire. They later released Insen (2005) — while produced in a similar manner to Vrioon, this album is somewhat more restrained and minimalist.
Meanwhile, Sakamoto continues to craft music to suit any context: In 2005, Finnish mobile phone manufacturer Nokia hired Sakamoto to compose ring and alert tones for their high-end phone, the Nokia 8800. A recent reunion with YMO pals Hosono and Takahashi also caused a stir in the Japanese press. They released a single "Rescue" in 2007 and a DVD "HAS/YMO" in 2008.
Sakamoto's latest album, Out Of Noise, was released on March 4, 2009 in Japan.
In July 2009 Sakamoto was honored as Officier of Ordre des Arts et des Lettres at the French Embassy in Tokyo.
Frequent collaborator David Sylvian contributed lead vocals to "Forbidden Colours" – the main theme to Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence – which became a minor hit. Sixteen years later, the piece resurfaced as a popular dance track called "Heart of Asia" (by the group Watergate).
Other films scored by Sakamoto include Pedro Almodóvar's Tacones lejanos (1992); Bertolucci's The Little Buddha (1993); Oliver Stone's Wild Palms (1993); John Maybury's (1998); Brian De Palma's Snake Eyes (1998) and Femme Fatale (2002), and Oshima's Gohatto (1999). He also composed the score of the opening ceremony for the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain, telecast live to an audience of over a billion viewers.
Several tracks from Sakamoto's earlier solo albums have also appeared in film soundtracks. In particular, variations of "Chinsagu No Hana" (from Beauty) and "Bibo No Aozora" (from 1996) provide the poignant closing pieces for Sue Brooks's Japanese Story (2003) and Alejandro González Iñárritu's Babel (2006), respectively.
Sakamoto has also acted in several films: perhaps his most notable performance was as the conflicted Captain Yonoi in Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence, alongside Takeshi Kitano and British rock singer David Bowie. He also played the roles in The Last Emperor ( as Masahiko Amakasu) and Madonna's "Rain" music video.
In 1998, Italian ethnomusicologist Massimo Milano published Ryuichi Sakamoto. Conversazioni, a collection of essays and conversations.
He is also known as a critic of copyright law, arguing that it is antiquated in the information age.
| Name | Commmons |
|---|---|
| Parent | Avex Group |
| Founded | 2006 |
| Founder | Ryuichi Sakamoto |
| Status | Active |
| Distributor | Rhythm Zone |
| Genre | J-pop, Electropop, New Age music |
| Country | Japan |
| Location | Aoyama, Tokyo |
| Url | Commmons |
In 2006, Sakamoto, with avex Group's help, founded , a record label promising change in the way music should be. For him, Commmons is not his label, but is a platform for all aspiring artists to join as equal collaborators and share for benefits of the music industry. The word Commmons has three M's because the 3rd M stands for music.
It is distributed by Rhythm Zone, Avex's urban and R&B; record label, and uses the catalog code RZCM-4****.
It also serves as a distributing label for Thrill Jockey and Raster-Noton in Japan.
Category:1952 births Category:Living people Category:People from Tokyo Category:Japanese film score composers Category:Japanese dance musicians Category:Japanese composers Category:Anime composers Category:Japanese record producers Category:Intellectual property activism Category:20th-century classical composers Category:21st-century classical composers Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Tokyo University of the Arts alumni Category:Japanese keyboardists Category:Avex
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Russell W. Porter died in 1949 of a heart attack at the age of 77. The crater Porter on the Moon and the crater Porter on Mars are named in his honor.
Category:1871 births Category:1949 deaths Category:American astronomers Category:Amateur astronomers Category:Opticians Category:People from Windsor County, Vermont
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| Name | Jōichi Itō |
|---|---|
| Caption | Joi Ito in 2007 |
| Birth date | June 19, 1966 |
| Birth place | Kyōto, Japan |
| Residence | Dubai, United Arab Emirates |
| Nationality | Japanese |
| Other names | Joi Ito |
| Known for | Blogging, Moblogging, Creative Commons |
| Relatives | Mizuko Itō (sister) |
| Alma mater | Tufts University (dropout)University of Chicago (dropout) |
, more commonly known as Joi Ito, is a Japanese activist, entrepreneur, and venture capitalist.
Ito has received recognition for his role as an entrepreneur focused on Internet and technology companies and has founded, among other companies, PSINet Japan, Digital Garage and Infoseek Japan. He maintains a blog, a wiki and an IRC channel. Ito is the CEO of Creative Commons and General Partner of Neoteny Labs.
Ito returned to the U.S. to attend Tufts University near Boston as a computer science major, where he met, among others, Pierre Omidyar, later founder of eBay. Finding his course work too rigid and believing that learning computer science in school was "stupid", Ito dropped out of Tufts to briefly work for Ovonics. Ovshinsky encouraged him to return to school. He enrolled at the University of Chicago in physics but dropped out on discovering, in his opinion, the program at Chicago to be more oriented towards producing practical engineers than towards teaching an intuitive understanding of physics. In the Fall of 1985 he became the first student to register for a pioneering program of online courses offered by Connected Education, Inc., for undergraduate credit from the New School for Social Research.
Ito is one of Timothy Leary's godsons—a close non-traditional family-like relationship, an idea said to have been conceived by Leary for a few of his friends. Later, Ito ran a nightclub in Roppongi, Japan called XY Relax with help from Joe Shanahan of Metro Chicago/Smart Bar. He helped bring industrial music from Chicago (Wax Trax) and later the rave scene, including importing Anarchic Adjustment to Japan.
Ito is the CEO of Creative Commons. He is on the board of Digital Garage, Culture Convenience Club (CCC), Tucows, Machinima.com, EPIC, Technorati, WITNESS and Global Voices Online. He is the founder and CEO of the venture capital firm Neoteny Co., Ltd. In October 2004, he was named to the board of ICANN for a three-year term starting December 2004. In August 2005, he joined the board of the Mozilla Foundation. He served on the board of the Open Source Initiative (OSI) from March 2005 until April 2007. He currently serves as a Board Emeritus for OSI. He was a founding board member of Expression College for Digital Arts as well as the Zero One Art and Technology Network. In 1999, he served as the Associate to Mr. Mount (the executive producer) on the film The Indian Runner. Ito also served as a Board Member of Energy Conversion Devices from 1995 to 2000.
Ito is a venture capitalist and angel investor and was an early stage investor in Twitter, Six Apart, Technorati, Flickr, SocialText, Dopplr, Last.fm, Rupture, Kongregate, etology Inc, Fotopedia and other Internet companies. A vocal advocate of emergent democracy and the sharing economy, Ito is a doctoral candidate in Business Administration focusing on the sharing economy at the Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy, Hitotsubashi University. He is the author of Emergent Democracy. Ito is Senior Visiting Researcher of Keio Research Institute at SFC.
Category:1966 births Category:Living people Category:Japanese activists Category:Japanese bloggers Category:Japanese businesspeople Category:Japanese vegans Category:MUD developers Category:People from Kyoto (city) Category:Creative Commons Category:Venture capitalists Category:Japanese expatriates in the United Arab Emirates
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| Caption | Hodgman in 2009 |
|---|---|
| Birth date | June 03, 1971 |
| Birth place | Brookline, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Birthname | John Kellogg Hodgman |
| Occupation | Actor, author, humorist, television personality |
| Yearsactive | 2005–present |
His writings have been published in One Story (to which he contributed the debut story), The Paris Review, McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, Wired and The New York Times Magazine, for which he is editor of the humor section. He contributes to Public Radio International’s This American Life, and CBC Radio One’s Wiretap. His first book and accompanying audio narration, The Areas of My Expertise, a satirical tongue-in-cheek almanac which actually contains almost no factual information, was published in 2005. His second book, More Information Than You Require, went on sale October 21, 2008.
Hodgman was the headline speaker at the 2009 Radio and Television Correspondents' Association dinner in Washington, D.C.
In 2005, Hodgman played a character named "The Deranged Millionaire" in They Might Be Giants's Venue Songs DVD/CD, narrating in between songs with dialog he co-wrote with the band. He also narrated a number of Venue Songs-themed setlists during the band's live shows in 2005, and has introduced the band while in the role of The Deranged Millionaire as recently as May 16, 2007. Hodgman appeared again with They Might Be Giants on The Late Late Show, with Craig Ferguson, on December 11, 2009. Hodgman performed the spoken-word portions of the song Why Does the Sun Shine?
In February 2006, Hodgman appeared on Attack of the Show, a show that airs daily on G4, to share some insight with the host and promote his book The Areas of My Expertise. In this appearance, Hodgman recounted the sad tale of the lobster (which he said were actually a small, furry, extinct species, killed and replaced by the creatures we think of as lobsters today) and brought along Jonathan Coulton, a frequent Hodgman collaborator and musical director of the Little Gray Book lectures. Coulton performed a song called Furry Old Lobster. Also, on October 18, 2008, Hodgman appeared again on Attack of the Show to talk about his newest book More Information Than You Require.
Hodgman appears in the Get a Mac advertising campaign for Apple Inc., which started in May 2006. In the ads he plays the personification of a PC alongside his Mac counterpart, played by actor Justin Long. In reality, however, Hodgman himself became a Mac user in 1984.
In 2007, Hodgman appeared in the "Bowie" episode of the HBO television series Flight of the Conchords. He played the manager of a musical greeting card company who was considering using one of the band's songs for a greeting card.
Hodgman appeared in the episode "No Exit" of Battlestar Galactica, appearing as the civilian neurosurgeon, . He had earlier visited the set in 2005 to write about the show for The New York Times Magazine. A bottle of Edradour given as a gift to the show's producers also appeared in the episode "Crossroads, Part I."
On Friday, June 19, 2009, Hodgman was the headline speaker at the 2009 Radio and Television Correspondents' Association dinner in Washington, D.C. Hodgman referred to this event as a "Nerd Prom." Many of his jokes were on the topic of President Barack Obama as the first nerd president, and quizzed the president on his knowledge of Frank Herbert's novel Dune.
Hodgman appeared in the last two episodes of the first season of Bored to Death, "The Case of the Stolen Sperm" and "Take a Dive," as a literary reviewer who wrote a bad review that offended the main character. He returned in the second season.
Hodgman voice-acted on The Venture Bros. in the episode "Self-Medication" as Dale Hale, an ex-boy detective in therapy following the death of his father.
Also, during the 61st Primetime Emmy Awards in September 2009, Hodgman provided color commentary with made up trivia about the winners. He reprised this role for the 62nd Primetime Emmy Awards in August 2010.
Because of his continuing support for QI, the BBC's intellectual comedy quiz, to be shown on BBC America, Hodgman was invited to appear on the show. He was the first “fifth panelist" on the program broadcast 3 December 2009 (the usual line-up being Stephen Fry as host, Alan Davies as regular panelist and three guests)—and won, continuing the tradition of a guest winning their "rookie" appearance on the show, despite his terrible, near-silent performance. .
Category:1971 births Category:American humorists Category:Living people Category:McSweeney's Category:People from Brooklyn Category:People from Norfolk County, Massachusetts Category:This American Life personalities Category:Yale University alumni Category:Apple Inc. advertising
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In 2005 Hibon created in-game sequences for Killer7, Capcom's highly acclaimed video game. He also designed and directed a segment for "Tokyo Zombie," a Japanese horror film written and directed by the infamous Sakichi Sato.
Hibon's short film Codehunters premiered at the MTV Asia Awards 2006 held in Bangkok, Thailand. Since its release, Codehunters has been shown in more than 50 festivals all around the world, and received nominations at the Raindance Film Festival and the Rushes Shorts Festival. It won a gold award for Best Animation at the Promax/BDA Asia awards in 2006, the Imagina Award 07 for best short film, a D&AD; Nomination for Animation, and most recently the highly coveted Golden Nica award at the Prix Ars Electronica 2007.
In early 2007, Sony PlayStation commissioned Hibon to create and direct an animated series inspired by their flagship PS3 game "Heavenly Sword". The episodes, made available weekly as a lead-up to the game's release, are also featured on the game disc as extras.
Hibon directed the animated short of The Tale of The Three Brothers in Part 1 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. He is currently lined up to direct Pan, a dark contemporary version of the story of Peter Pan.
Ben's work has been recognized by Promax, British Animation Awards, Creative Circle, D&AD;, OFFF, Flash Forward Festival/NY and shown at festivals such as Raindance, Rushes Soho Short, onedotzero, Resfest, Art Futura, the Berlin Interfilm Festival, the Edinburgh and Stockholm International Film Festivals. His commercial work includes clients such as Sony PlayStation, Electronic Arts, Renault, MTV Europe, MTV Asia, Sega, Puma, Capcom, Channel4, Namco, Nissan and Kwik Fit.
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