Good Morning Garage

Good Morning Garage, originating in Tokyo, Japan, is a live, InterFM, morning variety show show. It is broadcast every weekday from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. and is hosted by George Williams, Taro Furukawa, Mike Rogers; with news by Wakana-san. The Japan Times Newspaper says "The least annoying gaijin tarento in the Japanese media, George Williams presents 'Good Morning Garage' with Taro and Mike."

Current sponsors include Tommy Hilfiger, au by KDDI, Pirelli, Viva Macau, Macau.com and Georgia Coffee 'Jyodeki' Campaign.

Past sponsors and support include Mediage(Sony Corporation), Calpis, Apple Incorporated, PlayStation3, NTT DoCoMo, Paramount pictures, Toyota Motors, Tenacious D, Roland Corporation, iwine.jp, Air New Zealand, Terrance Downs Resort, Galactica, and iTunes.

Background

Good Morning Garage, or GMG, as it is often called, has become a critical success and is now the highest rated radio program in the history of InterFM. Even though GMG is broadcast in the Greater Tokyo Metropolitan Area only it now has the largest number of listeners and fans of any program, syndicated nationwide or not, in all of Japan on the Mixi Social Network.

The GMG programming is energetic, with edgy comedy and loud music, so in the beginning the show was not well received by Japan’s FM morning sponsors and listeners. Japanese FM radio had always been much more sedate than the fare offered by such stations as KROQ in Los Angeles. Japanese listeners have traditionally preferred bland talk and news shows, while their more “progressive” music programs limited their “radical” offerings The Rolling Stones or The Beatles. Good Morning Garage's playlist offers a variety of music, ranging form 1940’s Swing, to modern Punk Rock. The "Catch Copy" of the show is 'from Frank Sinatra to The [...] Pistols.'

Mike Rogers is the show’s producer and hired the original cast and crew. In addition to his career in FM radio, Mike is a Professional Wrestling Announcer, a TV producer and writes for Lew Rockwell at Lew Rockwell's web site, where he is known as Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers.

Content

Guests

Among guests who appeared on the show and at events were very famous Japanese and foreign musicians and Sports Stars. Some of these have been: the head coach of Japan's National Baseball Team; winners of the 2006 World Baseball Classic ; Japanese baseball legend, Senichiro Hoshino 1 who appeared at GMG’s very first event. Other guests have included world renowned musicians such as Alec Empire from Atari Teenage Riot; Juliette Lewis (Juliette and the Licks); Aerosmith; Jimmy Page; The Stranglers; Cary Brothers; Siouxsie Sioux; [...] Tendencies; Donots; Envy On The Coast; The Soap; The Pistolas; Oblivion Dust; Snake Davis; Shout Out Louds; Lightspeed Champion; Eight Legs; kamomekamome; Takashi Okazaki the creator of Afro Samurai; Mayday Parade; The Winter Kids; Kat "Kat" McDowell; Animal Collective; Oceanlane; Jonah Matranga; Snuff (band); The Bishops; The Howard University Jazz Ensemble; The Cazals; LAZYgunsBRISKY; The Death Set; Chris Betros, Managing Editor of Japan Today; autokratz; Tortured Soul; Selfish [...]; The KBC; and Adrian Sherwood; as well as many New Japan Pro Wrestling champions.

Program status

The program is 180 minutes long. It appears on InterFM in Tokyo. It is historic as this program is the very first time that InterFM has ever defeated its rivals J-Wave, or Tokyo FM for the number one rated morning slot.

In April 2008, Good Morning Garage made history again in becoming the most popular FM radio program-related site on Mixi in Japan. Mixi is the most popular Social-networking community in all of Japan, boasting even more members than Facebook, Myspace, or You-Tube.

Good Morning Garage began broadcasting on April 3, 2006.

ja:グッドモーニングガレージ fi:Good Morning Garage