What is Octopus Army?
Octopus Army is a campus radio program that started in 2001. The show is dedicated to Japanese music of all kinds, with a focus on modern popular music. There is no allegiance to genre, though in the recent year much more avant garde and experimental music has appeared due to the fact that it is easier to find in Canada than, say, J-Pop. Occasionally the show will include interviews with Japanese artists, or people with some kind of connection to Japanese music.

The purpose of the Octopus Army website is to be a modest resource for fans of Japanese music. Much of what I play on the show is difficult to find, and hopefully I can help people track down music and support some of these incredible artists.

For contests/giveaways, playlists of upcoming shows, concert announcements and random information, check out our News section.  The other sections — playlists, reviews and links — will be updated monthly.

But I thought this was...
If you are looking for Octopus Army the 'zine, they're no longer at www.octopusarmy.org. The 'zine is on permanent hiatus — but you can still find it online at  http://maggietron.com/octopusarmy/. If you're looking for Octopus Army the clothing store, you'll find them at www.octopusarmy.co.jp.

So who are you?
I’m Jamie, the Program Director at CFMU (the bearded dude above). I’m also a freelance writer in southern Ontario.  I lived in Japan briefly, tending bar at a place called J.J. International...but that's another story for another part of the webpage.

What is CFMU?
CFMU is the campus station at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. CFMU has been broadcasting on the FM band since 1978. While we have a low wattage we still cover a wide area (population approx. 1 million) and broadcast on the web as well.

Why Japanese music?
When I was in Japan, I felt that much of the music on the Japanese charts was incredibly cheesy, so I started looking into Japanese “alternative” music – in other words, anything that wasn’t popular. I found some truly amazing music. Ironically, I’ve come to dig J-Pop as well.

Octopus Army grew out of my enthusiasm for the music. On the one hand, the show explores music that is very "Japanese" in nature, so it's new and interesting to western ears.  On the other hand, the show features a lot of punk, hip-hop, pop, and so on — music that is very familiar to us, but by artists that most of us have never heard. Either way, it's an experience.

Admittedly, my musical indecision makes OA a challenging listen at times. One week I could be playing Merzbow and the next week I could be playing Namie Amuro. I also lean a little heavily on Nagoya-based psychedelic collective Acid Mothers Temple, but that's because they release so many freakin' albums…

Where can I listen to the music?
In the Hamilton area, listen Mondays at 5 pm EST on 93.3 FM, CFMU. Outside of Hamilton, stream it online (live-to-air only) at http://cfmu.mcmaster.ca.

PRESS

The following article is from the Hamilton Spectator, July 29, 2004.  It was to promote a club gig I was doing (and the facts are mostly right!)

THE SOUND OF JAPAN IMPORTED FOR CLUB GIG
By Rob Faulkner
The Hamilton Spectator 

You'd understand if James Hayashi-Tennant ended up hating Japanese music. After all, as the "master" (token white barman) in a Nagano bar wholly staffed by westerners, his boss had him sing live with the bar's jazz band.

"I sang My Way," he recalls.

Strangely, it didn't scare him off back in 1995. He graduated from McMaster in 1992 and was looking for a change. He ended up staying two years in Japan. He didn't teach. But he made friends, and heard plenty of terrible music.

"The first time I was there everything I heard, I hated," he says of mainstream Japanese pop, or J-Pop.

"It sounds cheesy to our ears, the production is really slick and the images are totally different ... some of it made Britney Spears sound absolutely street."

Ready to discount the music of an island nation of 127 million, the young English/drama grad sat down to watch MTV Japan. He saw a black-and-white video for a crazy, slide guitar-playing band. Kind of like the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, by way of Tokyo. They wore suits. And space helmets.

"I thought, what the hell is this?"

Now he knows. In fact the Zoobombs, a funky hip-hop rock band guaranteed to get any club moving, are among the Japanese artists he plays on McMaster's radio station CFMU 93.3 FM.

As CFMU's programmer, Hayashi-Tennant turned his MTV revelation -- that not all Japanese music sucks -- into a weekly show called Octopus Army.

Named for a chain of Japanese clothing stores, its tag line even mimics broken English: "The funky hardcore #1. Japanese best of happy music ... Feel exciting place of beat!"

For 144 shows, about three years, he's pretaped a diverse mix of garage-rock, psychedelia, punk, ska, hip-hop, downtempo and countless other splinter groups. All from Japan. He's been there three times since 1998, on missions that has seen his collection of rare Japanese CDs increase from 20 to 200.

"I go alone," says the 34-year-old father of one of his jaunts to Shibuya, Tokyo's hip record-buying district. "Sometimes I go in blind. I get to Japan, go to Tower Records and buy new discs from bands I like. Or I listen to a couple tracks and just buy it."

As plugged in to Japan as he is -- Hayashi-Tennant's wife is half-Japanese (hence the hyphenated name) and he speaks enough Japanese to find the bathroom -- he's still an outsider in its music world.

He dreads researching bands not on the web or in The Wire, an avant-garde U.K. music magazine, because he can't read Japanese all that well. Interviewing musicians is hard because he needs a translator. Luckily, as the cliche goes, music is universal.

Taking the show live will be interesting because Hayashi-Tennant owns CDs, not vinyl like most club DJs. (Rare CDs in Japan are pricey enough, at least $10 more than a new pop disc.) He's curious to see if anyone but his friends come, curious to meet his listeners.

And he's working out a track list that will keep people moving, turned on by something new, without scaring them off Japan's way-out alternative music scene.

One sure bet is Acid Mothers Temple, a four-piece Osaka collective among the best exports from Japan's psychedelic scene. They've played Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and have been reviewed in the western press. (They're compared with Mudhoney, Monster Magnet and King Crimson.)

Surely, the Zoobombs will make his live show list. On his website, octopusarmy.com, Hayashi-Tennant calls their latest CD Let It Bomb "brilliant" but with fewer blues-rock guitar riffs than its predecessor Welcome Back, Zoobombs! Vocalist Don Matsuo is a Rolling Stones freak, as heard on Pleasure Drop's twisted Some Girls chorus.

"The funny thing is, very few young people in Japan have even heard of these bands," says Hayashi-Tennant, whose taste now ranges from J-pop to the avant-garde. But, when it comes to the later, he knows a club isn't the same as a radio station.

CFMU listeners can spin the dial if they don't want to hear Keiji Haino scrape an out-of-tune hurdy-gurdy for 45 minutes. They can nod off if a 65-minute track feels too long. And he'll also go light on the Merzbow (a.k.a. Akita Masami), who makes something called "harsh noise" with sounds of jet engines, buzz saws and chickens.

He certainly doesn't want you to hate Japanese music.