Gil Asakawa's Nikkei View | beatles
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October 9, 2008

One of the great advantages of working for MediaNews Group Interactive is that our office, on the 9th floor of the same building that houses both the Denver Post, which we own, and the Rocky Mountain News, is that we have a terrific view. Located at the corner of Broadway St. And Colfax Ave., our building overlooks Civic Center Park, which is surrounded by us, the City and County Building, the Denver Art Museum and Denver Public Library complex, and the gold-topped Colorado State Capitol. Off in the distance to the west beyond the City and County Building rise the mellow foothillas and then the already-snow-dusted Rocky Mountains. With the sun shining and the air crisp with early fall -- a rarity here, since fall is often skipped in the rush from summer to winter -- it's easy to remember why we love living in Colorado so much. Today, the view off our 9th floor balcony of Civic Center Park showed some event going on. The summertime Farmers Markets had already stopped, and beside, they were held on Wednesdays and this was Thursday. You could hear the amplified sounds of music wafting up off street level, though, and a weird-looking tower was spitting out soap bubbles. There was a large, colorful peace sign drawn on the grass of the park, so I figured it must be an anti-war demonstration of some sort. During lunch, I wandered downstairs and crossed the street to check it out. It turned out to be a peace-and-art event, and a celebration of the late musician-activist-Beatle John Lennon's birthday. Lennon was born in Liverpool, England on Oct. 9, 1940.
May 1, 2008

I'm a born-again Asian American. Most of my life, I was oblivious to my rich roots and Japanese heritage. I was a banana -- yellow on the outside, white on the inside. So probably more than some Asian Americans, I like the idea that May is officially "Asian Pacific American Heritage Month" in the U.S. There's a part of me that finds it irritating that APAs get noticed once a year and we're practically invisible the other 11 months. But I'm glad that former transportation secretary Norm Mineta drafted the legislation to establish this month-long celebration when he was a Congressman. I'm pretty immersed in the APA community now -- not just Japanese American, but also the dozens of other Asian ethnic cultures and how they've evolved as they've become established in the U.S. APA Heritage Month makes me think of times when I was less connected to my own roots, and not interested in the vast wealth of culture throughout Asia. When I was a kid, I was into Japanese and Chinese (or more correctly, Chinese American) food. That's what my family ate when we weren't eating hamburgers, steak, spaghetti and pizza. This was before I developed my voracious appetite for Indian, Vietnamese, Korean, Cambodian, Singaporean and Filipino food. It was pre-dim sum. And, it was way before I grew to appreciate all kinds of Asian music, both traditional and Asian American. (Note: For those of you non-Asians who are Asiaphiles, I want to make the distinction that though we Asian Americans appreciate our heritage and understand how we're steeped in traditional values, we're all about the mix of being both Asian and American, or perhaps more accurately, being Asian in America.) One very clear example of my growth and awareness of Asian culture today as opposed to when I was younger, is my appreciation for one particular track in George Harrison's landmark recording, "The Concert for Bangladesh." The track is the Indian music performance, "Bangla Dhun," by the sitar master Ravi Shankar.

January 29, 2007

Although a small label had unsuccessfully released some singles in 1963, most American rock and roll fans were introduced to a new band from England via Capitol Records’ 1964 album, “Meet the Beatles.” That album, and the subsequent visits by the mop-topped Liverpudlians to the U.S., sparked by appearances on TV including historic performances on the “Ed Sullivan Show,” re-set an entire generation’s emotional gyroscope. Beatlemania brought with it a different kind of music, pop that popped with surging harmonies and was driven by hard, clangy rhythms, shot through with the soul and R&B of rock’s roots but also energized with a new kind of electricity. The Beatles were the prototype for power pop, a genre that generations of bands, fans and rock critics have been seduced by ever since “Meet the Beatles.” The list of power-pop artists that have been critically heralded is long even though few have hit the charts and become rich and famous: the Byrds (as much power pop as folk-rock and later, country); Alex Chilton and Big Star, Marshall Crenshaw, Windbreakers, Bram Tchaikovsky, the Records, Flamin’ Groovies, Let’s Active, Bangles, Nick Lowe, Matthew Sweet, Rubinoos, the Shoes… the list goes on and on. One power pop band that actually has hit songs to its credit, the Smithereens, has gone full circle with its latest recording, “Meet the Smithereens.” It’s a song-by-song replica of “Meet the Beatles,” only done as the Smithereens.
November 26, 2006

It took the urging of Cirque du Soleil, the acrobatic dance performance group, to bring the music of the Beatles – the most iconic of 1960s baby boomer musical catalogs -- into the 21st century. The bulk of the project is a mashup, the digital-era, technology-enabled ability of taking two different kinds of data and “mashing” them together to make something new. Mashups can be a newsworthy online database of crime statistics overlaid onto a Google map, for instance, or it can be cool cultural commentary, like overdubbing Nirvana's “Smells Like Teen Spirit” onto the Destiny's Child hit, “Bootylicious” (they fit so perfectly, it's spooky). Or, mashups can be the melding of two generations of music, like producer Danger Mouse's weaving of Jay-Z's “The Black Album” with the Beatles' own “White Album.” This time, though, the work of reconstructing and reassembling the Beatles' recordings was a sanctioned deal.
December 20, 2005

It's been 25 years since John Lennon was murdered in front of his New York City apartment building by a crazed fan. Over time, the media have covered the anniversary with diminishing interest, but this year resonates because of its quarter-century milestone. I've been listening to a pretty good two-CD compilation, "Working Class Hero: The Definitive Lennon," released by Capitol Records (and compiled, with "definitive" decisiveness, by widow Yoko Ono), and appreciating Lennon's solo work more than I have in years.