It’s been a funny few weeks. Back at work following a long and nice break for the Obon holiday (main summer holiday in Japan) and there’s been a string of fairly comic moments, which all culminated today. Let me entertain you if you will…
First I discovered that someone, somewhere thought it would be a good idea to licence (and I use the word lightly here cos I really wonder if they did licence them) extracts from British TV comedies to show in school receptions, while students wait, chat etc… Which sounds like a great idea - British comedy is after all responsible for some of the finest moments in the history of comedy on TV (Fast Show or Monty Pythons just to name two). If there’s one thing I’ve always loved the Brits for, it’s their sense of humour (with a few exceptions - I never quite got some of it, TV or real life). Where it gets a little twisted, and kinda funny, is in the choice of said British TV comedies: Little Britain and the Migthy Boosh… err… what? :???: It ain’t nothing against either of these programmes in particular, I quite liked Little Britain at the start though it got tiring fast and I never got the Mighty Boosh but a lot of friends rave about it, it’s just that well… I don’t quite see how Japanese people would really understand either, there’s an incredible amount of references with regards to culture, society and the likes which I would never expect a Japanese person who hasn’t lived in England for a while to get, and that’s without touching on accents and slang, double entendres etc… What’s more, some of the sketches in Little Britain don’t strike me as particularly good taste - yeah they’re funny, but for a school environment? (ok and here feel free to point out that Eikawa does not equate school) Whatever floats the corporate boat though, it’s pretty funny witnessing moms, children and receptionists watching the only gay in the village sketches or the violent throwing up ones :lol: After all it’s English, which is all that seems to really matter to them.
I think I might have mentioned this before when I posted the interview/feature on Goth Trad, but here are the official details. The man like Goth Trad will be returning to Europe in two weeks, for what can only be described as a thorough tour this time. After a few years doing small tours, this time he’ll be taking in 8 countries and playing 11 dates. Which should give everyone plenty of opportunities to catch his amazing live show.
All dates are live shows - not DJ sets. And as I’ve said on numerous occasions before his live shows are truly something to behold so I heavily recommend you check them out if he’s playing near you.
More info on the man and the music on his myspace and site (links on flyer and on the right hand side). Here’s some youtube footage to back up my claims re his live shows:
Finally… after 6 months of gestation inside my brain and another 2 months spent actually putting it together, my new mix is ready. Following on from the mix I put together last year before leaving the UK, this mix covers a lot of different styles and spans 2h25 - because I am actually unable to limit myself to making mixes that are within the usual 70/80 minutes limit. So I’ve decided to keep on making mixes which are a lot longer than usual, mainly because I find it to be a lot more fun than trying to limit myself (not that that’s a bad thing either).
As opposed to the last mix this one was done entirely in Ableton - because I have no decks here. Whereas last time I opted for a mix of both vinyl and digital, and used Ableton to wrap the whole thing together, this time the whole mix is digital (though quite a few tracks were ripped from vinyl on my trusty portable turntable) and done in Ableton. Which has proved more than a challenge at times but has been really enjoyable - on the plus side Ableton allows you to really delve deep into mixing, tweaking and effecting as much or little as you want, yet at the same time this means that you can find yourself getting really anal about things, whereas with a decks mix there is going to be some element of human error, or a human feel to it. I’ve tried to keep some of that in there though, but I’ve also gone deep into the anal side of things, at times managing to mix up to five tracks together and play a lot with eqs, effects etc… Something I couldn’t do live, not only due to skills but also due to not having the equipment. While the majority of files are digital I’ve stuck to using only hi res files, 320 mp3s, wavs and flacs, so the sound quality is still good. This ain’t no iPod mix :lol: Continue reading »
Oh yeah! Back To Chill first anniversary on the 30th of August at Saloon at Unit. This time it’s an all night extravaganza of beats and bass, with more guests than you can shake a stick at it.
Props to the BTC boys for pulling this one off it should be off the Richter scale :wink: Lots of MCs as well as live shows from Skyfish and Sak Dub I as well as guest appearances from Quarta 330, Mixmas and yours truly.
If you ain’t been before you can check some previous posts in the music section with some reviews and audio from previous nights. If you like your bass though this is an unmissable event!
You don’t wanna miss trust me, and at 2000 yen in it’s a bargain for Tokyo really. More info and details on the BTC blog and brand spanking new BTC site.
Right I best get practicing really :oops: See you there!
Making the most of the last few days of my holidays, and deciding to brave the overbearing heat, I went off on a long overdue record shopping trip yesterday. I’ve been planning said trip for a while, having had to dig quite deep online to find some useful resources for record shops in English, but haven’t had the time to really do it properly yet.
Tokyo, and Japan to an extent, is a real haven for music fans and collectors. While most other countries seem to be quickly suffering from the increase in availability of digital formats, with physical sales suffering accordingly, Japan still has a strong market for physical sales - and not just new releases, but especially second hand releases. Second hand CDs and records (as well as tapes in some places) abound in Japan - they’re everywhere, and there’s a shit loads of them.
With regards to vinyl, Japan has long been known as a bit of a haven for DJs and collectors - Japanese only releases and re-issues always compete for high prices in the west, and when you’re here it’s quite easy to complete your collections. All you have to do is roll down to places like Shibuya and Shinjuku, which according to the lists I’ve found online collectively hold in excess of 80 vinyl shops, which is impressive to say the least. From new releases to classics and oldies, if you’re looking for it, chances are you’ll find in Tokyo, and with a bit of luck for dirt cheap too (and if it’s not cheap the current exchange rate should prove more than favourable).
Having pretty much retreated into the cool haven of my room for the first three days of my holiday, I decided today that I should really make an effort and spend the day out - even though the mere thought of the heat was starting to make me sweat. I’ve been trying to plan a bike ride all week, seeing as I’m not going out of Tokyo this time and there’s still plenty of countryside (or to put it better not so densely populated urban areas) around where I live which I haven’t checked out.
While I’d have been happy to set off early (baring in mind that would have involved getting up early, but anyways) there was no way I was going to bike it in the blazing lunchtime heat, so I set off in the afternoon. Keeping in line with most of my biking trips since being here I decided on a direction and not much else - I was going somewhere, wherever that might be. My direction was north west-ish, and my only aim was to find a river I’d seen on my map which I could follow for as long as possible.
Here’s another little round up of things I’ve been thoroughly enjoying recently, this time not just limited to music. In no particular order I recommend you check all these out:
- Macha flavour Hageen Dazs ice cream (not sure if that’s available outside Japan but if it is jump on it)
- Ice cold Oolong tea
- Air conditioners :lol:
- Anno 1701 on Nintendo DS. Ian Banks couldn’t have been more right when he proclaimed Civilisation was the crack of the video game world
- New Kode 9 bits - Skeng remix, Den of Drumz, Dabrye remix http://www.myspace.com/kode9
- New Goth Trad bits - check http://www.myspace.com/gothtrad
- New bits from The Bug - check http://www.myspace.com/thebuguk
- Jahtari! http://www.jahtari.org - Rinse Fm podcasts http://feeds.feedburner.com/rinsefm - Alex Case’s TEFL blog http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/
- Cowboy Bepop - google that sh*t if you’ve never seen it
- Tongue, heart and rib Yakitori - bbq-ed food is the way forward
- Spannered, a great online music mag http://www.spannered.org
- Taiko No Tatsujin DS and Taiko No Tatsujin arcade, the most fun you can have with two sticks and a drum ever
I mean seriously… this kind of heat isn’t normal… global warming for the win
Apparently this the hottest summer for a long time, yesterday rocking up to 40 degrees!
It’s so hot that:
- My laundry is dry within 20 minutes of being hung outside
- I’m seriously contemplating not leaving my flat and the god sent air conditioning for the next 8 days of my holiday
- I don’t open the curtains during the anymore - darkness!
- I sleep hugging the air con remote control
- I was sweating and panting at 11.45pm last night whilst cycling back wearing sandals, shorts and a basketball top - I mean seriously come on
- I actually enjoy taking freezing cold showers
So it’s been over 7 months since I started being a teacher, and packed it all for a new life (in pretty much every meaning of the sense) on the other side of the world. And after a few rocky moments at the beginning it seems things have definitely settled down, whether or not for the best I’m still not quite sure.
The new life bit has definitely been an interesting one so far, challenging, rewarding and also downright frustrating at times - which is rightfully as it should be I’m sure. The career change bit however has definitely been a lot weirder than I ever imagined it would be.
I can’t say I’ve ever wanted to be a teacher… ever. I love languages though, that’s no doubt, especially having spent so much of my youth learning them and the last ten years living in a foreign country (which has definitely become another home) and I’ve always maintained that English is: a/ the easiest language of the three I can speak (French and Italian being the other two) and b/ the most fun one to use, because of how maleable it is (I’m actually pretty sure that’s not an English word, but hey it sounds like one - in French it means ‘easy to shape’). Having done a CELTA course to become an accredited teacher (the irony of which still amazes me) I’ll now readily admit that English isn’t so easy when you break it down - Japanese most definitely ranks much higher in the mindfu*k category. Though I still think it’s the most fun one to use, I’m just not quite sure how I can convince people of this now, having been reminded of the darker side of grammar and pronounciation :lol: .
Ok so I’ve gone from spending the month of June refusing to turn my air con on in an attempt to prove to myself that I could cope with the supposed heat of the Japanese summer, only to find out that the worst was yet to come and that I really can’t deal with heat and humidity combined in great amounts. I returned from our holiday in Izu at the end of June and promptly wacked the air con on after my room had turned into some sort of personalised, and well equipped, sauna. And I haven’t turned it off since…
Not even during the much delayed rainy season which lasted pretty much all of July and was supposed to cool us down a bit (or so I was led to believe). Being drenched wet in 30 degree heat definitely isn’t my idea of fun. Nor is having to walk in horizontal rain whilst on the way to work dressed in work clothes and subsequently having to go to the convini to buy socks so I could teach for the day (though actually that last part was pretty enjoyable - after bitching for 10 minutes the thought did cross my mind that they’ll probably sell socks in there, and lo and behold they did. I do love this country).
And now August has rolled up and the heat has settled properly it seems - as Fushimi warned me a month or so ago. And fudge me it’s hot. I mean really hot. And humid, unbereably humid. It’s just so oppressive. I have a tendency to never be truly happy, and always moan if it’s cold, hot or whatever, but right now this is beyond the joke. The heat is truly on a scale I’ve never experienced before, and I’ve spent summers in some of the hottest parts of Europe - where nothing moves for five/six hours past lunchtime due to the heat.
I’m definitely glad for the overabundance of air conditioners in Tokyo - though it does take some getting used to, walking from oppressive heat into cool (or downright cold) rooms/shops/trains and back out again. Repeat all day long until you either catch a cold, a sore throat, runny nose etc… I rocked a cold for most of July, and am now pleasantly enjoying having an on/off dry throat and being unable to find the ‘right temperature’ inside that won’t leave me feeling a little too cold or too hot.
What do you get if you blend dub and reggae with laptops and 8-bit sounds? Well according to the guys over at Jahtari you get something called Digital Laptop Reggae. Which is pretty damn nice.
Kode 9 put me onto these guys when he was over, and I remembered his advice to check their site for some free music today - and boy am I glad. Currently sifting through the 50 odd tracks that are freely available on their site, and so far so good.
As they put it, the fusion of classic dub/reggae (which in itself is a pretty random style of music production, soulful and focusing on the human element and a whole lot of space and effect) with laptops/software (which in itself is a pretty non-random thing, being downright mathematical and well at times downright soul-less) is pretty excluding - they shouldn’t work with each other at all, being so opposite. But they do, and they work well, especially with the addition of a lot of 8-bit sounds.
If you have a soft spot for both dub/reggae and for warm, fuzzy synth sounds and cheap 8-bit melodies, you’ll find yourself like a kid in a candy shop.
Jahtari run a label and website and as mentioned have a pretty big selection of their previous releases on the website, free to grab or stream. So I won’t babble on much longer, but will recommend you go over and check it out cos it’s well worth your time. It’s also nice to see a label willingly putting up previous releases for free download - the only ones not available are those slated for an actual physical release. I’ve put a couple of tracks in the post, which you can stream below.
So anyways get downloading and skankin - perfect summer music.
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