This episode of ZamZaman is an all womxn set of 1960’s to 1980’s Japan, my teenage gateway to the world of record collecting and music research sparked by Sheila Burgel’s online zine, ChaChaCharming. At the time before the first major U.S./European re-issues and musical archives a click away on YouTube, I spent hours searching 45s with Google translate in my high school computer room to simply listen to the records featured in Burgel’s “holy grail” records list. This mix features songs by womxn, as well as artists such as Akiko Wada née Kim Bokja (Japanese of Korean descent) who challenge post-war and contemporary male-centered, ethnic homogenous politics in Japan.

Cha Cha Charming “What We’re Listening to” (2003 to 2004): https://web.archive.org/web/20041011000722/http://chachacharming.com/playlist.php

“Sophisticated Boom Boom” with Sheila B. Playlists (2015 to current): https://wfmu.org/playlists/CF