Japan Shoegazer Festival 2011

There was a brief moment at the cusp of the '90s when shoegazer acts reigned supreme in the UK music press – only for grunge to explode in the US, followed not too long afterwards by Britpop in Blighty. Today, only My Bloody Valentine are remembered with much awe, while their descendants – Ride, Lush, Chapterhouse, et. al – will be lucky to elicit much more than a shrug and a sympathetic smile. Well, assuming that you aren't talking to any of the bands playing at Japan Shoegazer Festival 2011, that is. Who'd have thought that there'd be more than a dozen local descendants of the shoegaze generation – or, indeed, that some of them would be rather good? Cruyff in the Bedroom and Lemon's Chair are the biggest names here, though spare a thought also for Hiroshima's Speaker Gain Teadrop and Sendai's Lily of the Valley.