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 
:
- 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’d recommend Cowboy Bebop too. Haven’t got it out from Tsutaya video rental for a long time- do the DVDs have English subtitles, do you know?
Afaik the Japanese DVDs of Cowboy Bepop still dont have subtitles – the ones I’ve checked in Book Off definitely don’t. I’ve been lucky enough to be ‘given’ subtitled DVD rips. I recommend them as the quality is surprisingly amazing. I think the subbing group is called Kick Ass Anime – kickassanime.tk is their site. Depends on where you stand with piracy I guess, but it’s really good.
There is a UK version of the first series with subtitles, but from what i remember the image quality was actually pretty poor.
Next up is Full Metal Alchemist and Samurai Shamploo which I’ve never been able to get into, but I’m constantly told to give it another try.
Bebop is indeed excellent. DEFINATELY check out Samurai Champloo. Its by the same creator of bebop, and has cool, likeable characters and is pretty funny. Its basically old-style samurai stories, with a superb hip hop soundtrack (it goes well – honest!) by Nujabes, tsuchie, fat jon and Shing02.
Shing02 did a few gigs with rebel famillia – look em up on yoochoobe. Funny how the good things in life are connected, eh?
Been caning those new Goth trad tunes for a while now. Frickin love ‘Law’. I wish there was a place i could buy all of em on mp3. Ive given up on vinyl as a music medium as its kinda cumbersome, and is a pain to get on my mp3 player.
About dubstep – what sub-genre of dubstep does Goth-trad, Hyaku mado, loefah, Kode-9 etc play? Ive heard a few sets by skream and others, and theyre more hip hop, dub and reggae influenced. I like the techy, glitchy, faster stuff. I come from a breakbeat background, y’see…
Some ace tunes by Nujabes & Shing02 for you to get your ears round:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=HHGq-aZSPGw&mode=related&search=
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ4LhgngbxY&mode=related&search=
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=QxHQKUNxzsA
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=0lM908TkcPo
Hinjoy!
yeah i knew about the hip hop soundtrack – just never got into it for some reason. will def give it another try. i’ve got fifty odd episodes of Full Metal Alchemist first, defo recommend checking that one out too if you haven’t it’s well good.
I know Nujabes and Shing02, from the other work i’ve been doing these last few years, Shing02’s stuff is nice. Funnily enough my friend who runs a label here knows the guy who runs Shing02’s label so i’ve been getting hold of some of the new stuff on there. Actually come tot hink of it i’ve got the samurai champloo soundtrack, ha ha. I couldn’t quite get into it tho either.
As for the dubstep stuff, personally i aint one for boxes and subgenres and what not, as a journo I try and stay clear of that kinda stuff as I don’t agree with it to a large extent – segregate by bpm if you’ve got to, but genres into genres into genres does my nut in :wink: but I understand the need for it at times to get people to interested or even just to get them to understand what you’re talking about. Music can be pretty vague after all.
But yeah anyways, for that stuff you’re on about I would presonally say it’s pretty varied. If you take Kode’s stuff, he plays incredibly varied sets – with influences from house/techno/4×4 stuff to 2step (especially Burial’s stuff and some of his earlier bits) to dubby/reggae bits to grime etc… that’ why i like his stuff so much, because he always keeps it varied, it never becomes monotonous, drony, wobble bass or just one style. Same with Goth, he plays very varied stuff, and his own productions are pretty varied too. If you like that aspect of it i recommend checking his third album, Mad Ravers Dancefloor, as it’s pretty damn eclectic in terms of style.
Labels i can recommend if you like those guys’ sets are things like DMZ, Hyperdub, Deep Medi, Tectonic, Punch Drunk, Skull Disco, Planet Mu and the likes. Boomkat is a pretty good place to checek if you’re after digital formats. They’ve got all those labels on there tho the DMZ stuff isn’t available in digital apart from Bleep.com and they havent updated that for time.
Oh and if you’re from a breakbeat background you’d probably like Distance’s stuff a lot too, he’s on Planet Mu.
Ive heard loads about FMA – too much in fact. Along with Naruto, its the show most teeny anime newbies keep going on about. The fact that theres so many damn episodes put me off too!
I know what you mean about genres and such, but there are types of dustep i like, and types i find a bit dull. Just wanted to know if it had a ‘name’ so i can look for more stuff like it. I dont like grime though… Rapping and lyrics are ok to a certain extent, but grime just gets on my tits big time.
Ive been a fan of Vex’d for a while now, and i love distance’s album. Other stuff i like are intoccabile, cluekid and tes la rok.
Im a bit of a dubstep noob to be honest. It clicked when i saw Vex’d in Bham a year or so ago, but I didnt really start getting into it until i saw goth-trad in Tokyo a few months back. I love it, cos it has the rawness and bass of new school breaks, but without the tempo or bleepy bloopy cheesiness. Some breaks stuff doesnt age well. Dave Tipper is still my all time favourite musician though – awesome stuff.
I was thinking of getting some of Goth’s older albums, but they sound a lot different to what he does now. Plus, amazon.jp is all in japanese! Any idea if hes doing a new album with a more dubstep sound? Hes got enough ace material to do so…!
You tried the chicken tendons yakitori yet? It’s the ultimate yakitori challenge!
TEFLtastic blog- All the truth that’s fit to teach- http://www.tefl.net/alexcase
ha ha no i dont i have, or maybe i did. there’s a great yakitori spot near where i live, but i still dont know most of the names. What’s it called. I must admit I was quite chuffed wiht my heart/tongue experience the other day – having had a distaste for such animal parts most of my life. but then again anything bbq-ed is the way fwd :wink:
I don’t rate the chicken skin ones so much – they’re too tender, i want grilled chicken skin dammit!
I’m sure you wouldn’t, but don’t fall into the trap of getting irritated at Japan because of the weather. You’ll get used to it and start saying “bit hot today innit?” when it reaches 40 degrees C, instead of passing out. Just be sensible and drink a lot – none of that water rubbish, Aquarius all the way. Don’t skimp on the drinks and you should be fine.
By the way, what’re all these Kyoto pictures doing when you didn’t tell me you were coming to Kyoto??! I guess you were with the casual so it was kind of my fault we didn’t meet up anyway. Kinkakuji’s good, but I could’ve shown you the REAL sites – the maid cafe where they respond to your order with “SIR YES SIR!”, the arcade where I’m still in 2nd position of the Time Crisis 2 high-score table, etc.!
ha ha yeah it’s my bad on the kyoto ting mate. I was only there for about 24h – hence why i didn’t holler, cos i barely had enough time to do anything and i decided to do it the day before I went. Went down with Kode 9 and Bug the day before they played and i left the following day at about 6. More of an excuse for me to go down with them and piss about, tho it did leave me broke for the rest of the month!
I loved it tho, so will most definitely be planning a return trip and i will give you a shout cos i intend to spend more than 24h this time!
Sall about Taiko No Tatsujin in the arcade tho, how are you on that? i’ll take on anyone, ha ha. Which reminds me I need to add it to the list of things to enjoy.
One of my junior high school students has the PSP version of Taiko No Tatsujin but it just ain’t the same. There was some video on Youtube (I think) of a guy playing the expert mode in the arcade, playing both Player 1 and Player 2 by himself.
It’s getting a bit hard to find Time Crisis 2 in the arcades now cos the cheap-o places have 3 and the upmarket arcades have number 4. Both crap.
yeah i posted that vid a while back soon after getting into Taiko no Tatsujin properly, it’s insane dude’s on some next level of drumming, or he’s just plain geeky. Probably a fine line to tread.
I think TC2 is the one i played before and I thought it was pretty good – i’ve never been much good at shooting arcades but they’re tons of fun. Cant you get a PS2 pack for TC2?
I brought back a Japanese PS2 from my last japan trip, just so i can play pop’n music and Taiko. I have the proper home controllers for em, and about 12 games in the Taiko & pop’n music series. Got Taiko 1 & 2 on the PSP as well.
Despite the sheer volume of songs i have now, it still doesnt compare to bashing the heavy duty arcade drums.
I loves it!
mr alex case is on the web night and day perpetrating HATE CRIME
I can let you have details
Ok one more from you and i’m deleting you and banning your ip. I’m not having any of your bullshit on this site, if you got beef with someone take it to them instead of trying to spread it around.