Ian (F) Martin
banner
ianfmartin.bsky.social
Ian (F) Martin
@ianfmartin.bsky.social
Writer and indie music scene person, based in Tokyo. Author of Quit Your Band! Musical Notes from the Japanese Underground (Awai Books, 2016) / バンドやめようぜ! (Ele-king books, 2017) and owner of Call And Response Records.
Reposted by Ian (F) Martin
November 23, 2025 at 9:34 PM
What I love more than almost anything else on Earth is getting ready for bed of a Sunday night and only then, at that moment, learning that Monday is a Japan national holiday. It's like discovering a hidden world in Mario: a whole new adventure, where the dream continues beyond the borders of sleep.
November 23, 2025 at 4:13 PM
“If I lose you, if I lose you, if I lose you, if I lose you, uhuh, uhuh, uhuh…”

singingpope.jpg
November 23, 2025 at 3:56 AM
Of the current of Guided By Voices lineup, Styles We Paid For isn't their best album but it's the densest-packed collection of individual bangers.
November 22, 2025 at 6:48 PM
Reposted by Ian (F) Martin
Brian Eno’s ambient cats #caturday
November 22, 2025 at 12:32 PM
Robert Pollard is AI
Can’t believe Sault were AI
November 22, 2025 at 10:42 AM
Stuff that came home with me today. The Lush reissue was the whole reason I went out in the first place; the Helen Love was the happiest discovery; the Data album I’ve no idea about and just bought for the band name and artwork. If anyone wants to explain to me what mistake I just made, lemme know.
November 21, 2025 at 5:09 PM
Anyone who wants to make a lot of money (from me, can’t guarantee anyone else), get to work making an actual real westcountry cider available on tap at Japanese pubs — and not just barely-ciders like Magners and Aspalls. Doesn’t have to be the very best stuff: just real westcountry and not Strongbow
November 21, 2025 at 9:22 AM
Never seen my wife move as fast as when I told her Pulp were headlining EotR next year. Anyway, result is we’ll be in the UK for a coupla weeks in September. Mostly Bristol but probably a night or two in London for those who need us.
November 21, 2025 at 9:02 AM
Having one of those days where I'm hitting refresh over and over again on social media, just to see if the AI bubble has burst yet or if Rupert Murdoch is dead or if the president of the United States of America has poked one of his eyes out trying to figure out which end of a biro you write with.
November 21, 2025 at 5:55 AM
In this week's instalment of "Oh yeah, that band I love is coming to Tokyo! I wonder where they're playing... Oh, the fucking Blue Note," that band is...
November 20, 2025 at 12:29 PM
Love to have post waiting for me when I get home!
November 19, 2025 at 2:50 PM
Flicking the anti-football switch to “off” just long enough to yell “Cymru am byth!” and then flicking it back on again.
November 19, 2025 at 5:55 AM
If small forces of bears can keep the perverts pinned down around Gifu City and Minokoma, the bears’ main mobile units can launch a flanking attack from the southwest and take control of the regional industrial and transport hub of Nagoya, leaving the perverts stranded with their supply lines cut.
Gifu Shimbun has a map which plots monthly bear sightings and reports of suspicious individuals. The result looks like a strategy game, pitting bears against perverts. www.gifu-np.co.jp/articles/-/3...
November 18, 2025 at 11:22 AM
Name an artist with more outright, stone-cold, slay-you-dead-right-there-where-you-stand, melt-you-into-a-puddle-of-ecstatic-goo pop bangers than Erasure DON'T TRY YOU CAN'T DO IT IT'S IMPOSSIBLE THERE IS NONE.
November 18, 2025 at 5:28 AM
"The next stop is Koenji, Koenji..."
(Flautist and acoustic guitarist pack up, and guy with a suitcase full of analogue noise modules and industrial welding equipment starts setting up in the middle of the aisle)
November 18, 2025 at 2:58 AM
-We're handcuffed together and must cooperate to evade your pursuers
-Nothing happens but it's eerie & beautiful anyway
-A monster or something but it’s more psychedelic than scary
-Various comic misadventures teach selfish person to be nice
-The film's lying about what genre it is 'til the last act
Top 5 movie genres:

- Moving here was a bad idea
- I went away and now I'm back
- I am eventually vindicated for my weird obsession
- My weird obsession gets me killed
- Let's have some people over for dinner
Top 5 movie genres:

- Does this robot / monster have a soul? (Yes it does)
- Sassy New York newspaper gal does not need love but finds it anyway
- I travelled in time or space. It was a mistake.
- You’re supposed to be the victim of my crime but I love you
- Being a detective is miserable but hot
November 17, 2025 at 11:05 AM
There are few things that make me happier when watching an American TV drama than Ken Marino showing up for a guest role.
November 16, 2025 at 5:29 PM
Not proud but not entirely ashamed either that my initial reaction to this was “Oh yeah, the yuri manga by sketchy 90s legend artist Satoshi Urushihara…”
Chirality is such a useful word for how rarely it is used in normal conversation.
November 16, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Think Glocally, Act Lobally
November 16, 2025 at 10:38 AM
Belatedly learned about the "Roy Jay is an online fake/AI demon" conspiracy theory today and it's poking at a thought I can't quite articulate re hauntology and the Ghost Box scene (also recently been writing a short article for a Japanese magazine about Mark Fisher). Defamiliarising the past maybe?
November 15, 2025 at 5:28 PM
I live in a dangerous neighbourhood. Took a stroll to the shop to get something for dinner and accidentally spent £20 on all this (and dinner: I didn’t forget dinner).
November 15, 2025 at 1:03 PM
Telegraph readers' memories of 1975 are just distorted by what a banner year it was for Brian Eno - the triple-threat of Another Green World, Discreet Music *and* Evening Star one after another.
Ah the 1970s.

Stagflation, three day weeks, collapsing infrastructure. Civil War in Northern Ireland. In yer face racism and bigotry everywhere. Bin strikes. Strikes in general. Blackouts. Industrial decline. Wage inequality. Dog crap everywhere. And households spent 25% of their income on food.
November 14, 2025 at 11:23 AM
Feeling haunted by the album Chill Out by The KLF today.
November 13, 2025 at 6:17 AM
I want to make a joke about billionaires being afraid of Joyce Carol Oates where the punchline is "Uh-oh, here she comes" but can't quite make it work, so just imagine I did a funny one, please.
November 11, 2025 at 12:42 PM