Tadd

"Springsteen Sings America - Long Walk Home to the Land of Hope and Dreams" by Tadd IGARASHI; the preface by John Wesley Harding (aka Wesley Stace).
It is a collection of my writings on Bruce Springsteen from '95 to '08 and includes all linernotes for Japanese issues of his albums, concert reviews essays and interviews with Springsteen, Clarence Clemons, Nils Lofgren and Jon Landau. My good friend John Wesley Harding is kind enough to specially write the preface. You can read the English text of his contribution on Wes' myspace blog.
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I am a music jounalist based in Tokyo, Japan. Like to extend my network in the music scene worldwide.
I speak quite fluent English. Often go abroad to attend and cover music festivals, see shows or interview artists. Among the festivals I've been to last few years, I covered SXSW, WOMEX, Austin City Limits Music Fest, Celtic Connections, Vancouver Folk Music Fest and others.
Before I started working as a journalist, I had worked at imported record shops for 5, 6 yrs. Yeah, I was just like the "High Fidelity" guy then. So I also know some about retailing. And I sometimes work for radio programs at FM stations in Tokyo area.
I am a translator too. I have translated these books into Japanese and pubished in the past. Robert Palmer "Deep Blues," Dave Marsh "Elvis," Paul Williams "How Deep Ocean is: Brian Wilson and Beach Boys," Charles R. Cross (ed) "Backstreets - Bruce Springsteen," Andy Gill "My Back Pages: Bob Dylan in the 60s" and more.
My main blog is called, "Tadd"pole Galaxy ( http://tadd.txt-nifty.com/blog/ ). Sorry, but it is in Japanese. I believe you can enjoy some photos, though.
As you can tell from my blog, what I do mainly is introducing foreign music (you guys' music!) to Japanese music lovers. Still I can give you informations about Japanese music scene and some advices concerning music business in Japan.
Now I also work as a superviser/creative consultant for Oak Tree records, a Music Plant label ( http://www.mplant.com/oaktree.html ). Our roster at this moment includes Robyn Hitchcock, Glenn Tilbrook (ex-Squeeze), Boo Hewerdine, The Minus 5 (feat.Scott McCaughey & Peter Buck of REM) and Paul Brady. We are a small label, but have a national distribution just like major labels in Japan.
So if you're interested in releasing your album in Japan, please contact me. Being a small label, we don't have a big room for many artists. Still we can talk. And your music might floor us!