Message: Steve, who hails from Vancouver, Canada, was first exposed to Japanese music at the tender age of four, when his aunt gave him a Japanese children's record as a souvenir of her trip to the land of geisha and cherry blossoms. But it wasn't until he found a copy of Osamu Kitajima's "Benzaiten" album in a used-record store in Vancouver while he was in college that his interest in Japanese music started to get serious. By that time McClure was an avid music fan and an aspiring journalist, making his debut as a music writer with a review of George Harrison's 1974 Vancouver concert in his high school newspaper. After graduating from the University of British Columbia in political science and French in 1982, he started working as a reporter for a local weekly newspaper in Vancouver and has worked...

Steve, who hails from Vancouver, Canada, was first exposed to Japanese music at the tender age of four, when his aunt gave him a Japanese children's record as a souvenir of her trip to the land of geisha and cherry blossoms. But it wasn't until he found a copy of Osamu Kitajima's "Benzaiten" album in a used-record store in Vancouver while he was in college that his interest in Japanese music started to get serious. By that time McClure was an avid music fan and an aspiring journalist, making his debut as a music writer with a review of George Harrison's 1974 Vancouver concert in his high school newspaper. After graduating from the University of British Columbia in political science and French in 1982, he started working as a reporter for a local weekly newspaper in Vancouver and has worked as a writer ever since. In 1983 Steve moved to the U.K., where he worked as a copywriter and journalist until his itchy feet caused him to buy a one-way Aeroflot ticket to Japan in 1985. He found work at the English-language Japan Times in Tokyo, and soon began writing stories about the Japanese music scene. In 1991 McClure became music trade magazine Billboard's Japan correspondent and is now Billboard's Asia bureau chief. In 1998 his Nippon Pop, the first book in English about Japanese popular music, was published. Besides writing for Billboard and various other publications, McClure also works in TV and radio.