I’ll always remember the overwhelming feeling of illiteracy that struck me soon after I first arrived in Japan. You never really think about it, or comprehend it fully, until you’re here and it’s everywhere around you. You can’t read shit. You can’t understand the majority of what’s being said, much less what’s written. And I don’t think any amount of initial training can truly prepare you for the actual shock of moving to a country where the language is totally alien to your own. Granted if you’ve studied the language for a while, or come from a country with similar linguistic systems, you’re probably ok but that’s unlikely to be the case for a vast majority of the westerners who come to the country. I’m chuffed we did a basic Japanese beginner course before coming, but as I said I realised its miniscule relevance 2 hours after landing.

I actually rejoiced in this feeling of illiteracy and unability to read/write/speak for quite a while - it was a nice, alien feeling. Whenever I travelled before I always made an effort to try and speak a little amount of local linguo, if only to appear to be polite and make an effort, and stop the automatic feeling of alieness you get when being in a foreign country where no one speaks your language(s). The only time that proved impossible was in the Czech Republic where for some reason I was unable to remember any of the words I was learning for a whole week. Coming here to live and work though, I approached it differently. And being able to just lose yourself to an extent was actually quite pleasant, for a while anyway.

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written by Laurent \\ tags: Japan, kanji, learning, reading

By definition trade shows are far from exciting, what with being all about just one thing and generally just an occasion for people to showcase their new products, technologies etc… in whatever field it is that’s the focus. I can think of a few expections, having done my fair share of trade shows in the last 10 years: music and video games. Well ok they’re not boring to me because I’m into both things heavily. But really what other subjects could make a trade show appealing? What’s that? the sex industry you say? Perverts… :lol:

Anyways, I’ve been going to DJ/music trade shows for the last 4 years regularly, mainly PLASA in London, which used to be the most interesting of all the European trade shows but has in recent years become a ghost of its former ‘glory’. All it offers these days is the chance to catch up with people you haven’t seen in ages and piss about with new equipment and also pretend to be remotely interested in whatever marketing BS the reps come at you with. I also went to ECTS a few times while I lived in London, which was the European equivalent of E3 or Tokyo Game Show. Good fun but on a really small scale. By and large I learnt soon enough that trade shows are only really good for one thing - catching up with people, getting drunk and pissing about (ok and sometimes actually doing some work).

With the last PLASA being quite disappointing (actually it was shit) I was really looking forward to Tokyo Game Show - the second biggest video game trade show on the planet after E3 and by the sounds of it and stories from my mates, quite possibly the most fun you can have with geeks in one day, in a enclosed space. TGS takes place yearly, at Makuhari Messe a giant exhibition hall just outside central Tokyo, in Chiba prefecture. This year the show ran for 4 days, with the first 2 open to trade only and last 2 open to the public. I opted for the trade days, purely because from my past experience trade days tend to be better - less people, more exclusive stuff to be seen, and more importantly more (and easier) freebies to be had.

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written by Laurent \\ tags: geeking, storytelling, TGS, video games

Birthday celebrations are behind us, so it’s time for the next instalment of Back to Chill. Lucky number 13 will take place at the usual venue, Saloon at Unit, on Thursday October 4th.

Goth Trad’ll be back in town from his extended European escapade, alongside regulars and guests Keihin from Honcho Sound and MC Mal from Rub-a-Dub market. I’ll be playing b2b with Goth once more.

If you come down, don’t be a stranger. It’ll be heavy as usual, and I’m sure Goth will be packing a heavy bag of dubs fresh from his European trip.

Full details on the flyer below. Oh yeah and this one starts at 8 not 7 as before.

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written by Laurent \\ tags: back to chill, clubs, dubstep, goth trad, Music, night life, Tokyo

Multi tasking is a funny thing. It’s something I’ve always done and been kinda good at, or so I think anyway. But recently I’ve realised that maybe, just maybe, it’s actually more of a hindrance than anything else. And the more I think about it, the more I think that’s the case.

I was reading a report thing I got after doing this personality test the other day and it was on point, saying that I’m the kind of person who likes to multi-task and actually enjoys it. It’s something I do without even really thinking - my brain’s just buzzing and if something can be done at the same time as something else I will. No matter what it is. My mind’s always racing around, thinking of what to do next, what can be done etc…

Lately I’ve come to realise that I should try and control it a bit more because while it’s a useful skill to have, it’s also one that leaves me doing 55 things at once and never really finishing one in the time it could have taken had I concentrated on that one thing only. For example the recent update to this blog could have been done much quicker, but instead I was always working on it alongside something else.

Thing is not only do I like multi-tasking, I’ve also got a short ass attention span, so my mind also has a nasty habit of wandering off while I’m doing something. Working on the internet doesn’t make this any better - if something is taking too long to load, I’ll be opening a new tab and checking something else rather than wait for the page/command/whatever to finish :oops: . I’ll blame that one on drugs and video games…

Anyways, I was listening to an interview with The Bug the other day where he mentioned that he spent most of the last year trying to do 3 albums at once, multi-tasking to save time and only ended up not finishing anything at all. So he’s now decided to focus on one thing at a time. And I think he’s right and I’ll follow his decision too. Let’s see how long it lasts and how well it works eh?

And cos it’s funny here’s a video of men multi-tasking (toilet humour)

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written by Laurent \\ tags: bad, good, multi tasking, time, tired, wasting, work

No you’re not dreaming, the site has suffered a drastic makeover and update. Which is part of the reason why I haven’t been posting much for most of the month. The other reasons being: I’ve had an surge of work (paid work even, the best and most urgent kind there is! :lol: ), I’ve got totally sucked into Heroes season 1 (catching up on 23 episodes before the new season started this week - tv marathons ftw) and I’ve been working on updating this blog as well, which was a slow process due to the aforementioned bits and other things.

Finally done did it though. New design, layout and a fresh new Wordpress version too. Which I must admit is actually nice - probably the first time I’ve felt genuinely pleased with it since I’ve started updating WP. I really wasn’t happy with what had been changed in the previous 2.0x versions, but this one seems to have fixed a lot of things and added a lot of good stuff. So far anyways. Having spent the best part of 6h doing everything today my brain’s probably just too frazzled and I’ll start seeing stuff I don’t like tomorrow after some sleep (and more episodes of Heroes, yes I’m hooked).

So anyways sit back, relax and enjoy. Have a play around, there’s lots of new little nifty things added: the snap shot preview for all links, the gallery’s had a face lift, there’s a new archive page (link at the top) which is lovely and easy to use, you can now share any post on this blog easily by clickling the share this! link which will open a pop up menu giving a choice of options like digg, delicious, emailing etc…, you can also navigate posts by using the calendar or the tags cloud (which will be updated this week to include all posts) or the search function, I’ve added the Turntable Radio podcast feed, and there’s a wicked little thing at the top which you can use to scroll through all the posts on the front page. Whoo hoo for geekery.

If you see anything broken or have any comments/feedback on the changes please drop us a comment. More posts coming up tomorrow too, got a backlog of writing!

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written by Laurent \\ tags: bloggin, computers, geeking, tired, update, wordpress

It’s something we’re all accustomed to in this day and age and which we probably rarely give much thought about, unless it annoys us or grabs our attention. Advertising, and its evil twin sister/brother/father/whatever you want to call it marketing, is most definitely here to stay as capitalism continues its voracious global expansion. And while I tend to agree with theories and opinions that marketing and advertising are incredible wastes of money when you consider the sums poured into them in the last 20 odd years, fact is they serve a purpose in the world we live in. Whether or not you agree/like the purpose they serve is an entirely different barrel of fish.

When I lived in Europe I remember TV adverts were the things that irritated me the most - something I’m pretty much free of here, what with the fact that I don’t really watch TV anymore. The other thing that soon started to make me cringe and or despair was the increasing appearance of adverts on every available surface of everyday life. In London this took the form of adverts printed on the back of travelcards, bus tickets, people in the streets etc… Having studied marketing and advertising at uni, in one way I was interested by it, because it’s such a testament to the relentless push to shove consumerism in any way you can into every possible hook and crany of someone’s life, and in another I was also pretty pissed off - just because it’s annoying. I don’t need to be advertised to everywhere I look. I’m pretty selective in my consumerism, I knows what I wants and I goes and gets it, advertising rarely comes into it unless it’s talking to my inner geek/fan. It’s becoming difficult enough to browser the webanet with all the crap in it, I don’t need it in the real world as well.

Earlier on today I stumbled upon a really interesting article on the adbusters site, which details the plan of Sao Paulo’s current mayor to rid the town of all its outdoor advertising. Which when you take the time to think about it is pretty crazy/impressive/insert adjective here. As the article points out, this is the first non communist city to do so and while it might not be a bastion of capitalism, this move does have some interesting implications. Which got me thinking about Tokyo.

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written by Laurent \\ tags: advertising, Japan, musings, noise, society, thoughts, writing

Damn it’s been 8 months already since I first played at BTC. Time flies as they say. What started as a favour has turned into a monthly ritual and some of my best moments in a city that still feels alien a lot of the time. When Goth Trad came to Europe last year, I arranged a gig for him at the Dragon Bar (where I did a monthly open mic session). The night was great, Goth flipped it as expected and he invited me to play at his newly started BTC monthly session in Tokyo when I moved here. An offer I was only too happy to accept. Fast forward to February this year, and my first gig in Tokyo as the guest at the 6th edition of BTC. And I thought it’d be that, but Goth very kindly kept inviting me back, so much so that I’ve ended up playing pretty much every session bar a couple since then, something I definitely didn’t expect but which has been an amazing experience.

BTC has grown a lot since it started last year. With Goth Trad at the helm, who himself has had a pretty incredible year with his popularity and interest in his music blowing up worldwide, alongside Hyaku Mado, Ske, Kaji Peace and Diagram, BTC has become an amazing little night, showcasing the dubstep and grime sounds that have come (and keep coming) out of London (and in the last year or so the rest of the world) to a growing audience of fans. The parties are held at Saloon, which is basically the downstairs bar/room of Unit nightclub, one of Tokyo’s best clubs. And this venue has also been key to the success of the night, as is always the case, giving it an intimate atmosphere which is definitely reminiscent of FWD>> at Plastic People or the early DMZ parties at Third Base. The vibe and people are what makes the night and while these can be quite different from what I’ve experienced in London or Europe, the audience has started to change over the months I’ve been here and witnessed it, gradually becoming more open and a lot more vocal.

I remember when I played in February and both Ella and I remarked that the crowd reactions were totally different to what you’d expect back home. People seemed a little subdued, and their wasn’t a lot of the usual reactions you’d expect at parties like this. Not that it felt like people weren’t enjoying the music, just that maybe they weren’t showing their enjoyment in the same way as people in Europe would. The only people who reacted as you might have expected were the few foreigners who came down ceremoniously every month (Dan I’m looking at you mate! :smile: ). 6 months later when Kode 9 and The Bug toured and played 2 special parties in Tokyo, the crowd went absolutely bonkers and the vibes were most definitely on par with the best parties I’ve been to in London.

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written by Laurent \\ tags: back to chill, clubs, dubstep, goth trad, Music, night life, Tokyo