It appears that I am geared to turn sixteen at the end of this week (I started counting the years backwards a while back).

In celebration, a couple merry friends and I, will be drinking, spinning records and being a general nuisance to the gentle people of Shibuya, on Friday, August the 24th. This is all taking place at Cozmo’s Bar, from 9pm on (presumably until last train’s time).

So feel free to pop by and have a drink or ten with us !

Thanks to a last minute spare ticket provided by lovely Dame Kozlika, I went yesterday to a production of Lohengrin, at Opéra Bastille (the ugly 80’s monsterchild one of the two). I figured I may as well post a quick personal review – I’m told this is what this whole blog thing is about: empowering the People, all that… So here goes…

The Story

I’ll let you peruse the Wikipedia entry for a complete synopsis, but story goes a bit like:

• Beautiful Damsel in Distress is saved in extremis by Handsome Stranger from Unknown Origin, who washes her honor by pounding on Manipulated Semi-Vilain Consigliere.
• Beautiful Damsel in Distress offers own hand to Handsome Stranger from Unknown Origin, who gladly accepts it with proviso that she shan’t ever ask for his actual name or try to uncover his Unknown Origin.
• Evil Manipulating Witch manipulates.
• Naive Beautiful Damsel in Distress is manipulated.
• Beautiful Damsel in Distress lasts all of 24 hours before asking the forbidden question: Handsome Stranger no longer from Unknown Origin, turns out to be none other than, theretofore unmentioned, opera’s titular character.
• Swan this, swan that, swans are everywhere.
• Handsome Stranger Better Known as Lohengrin leaves, pissed off. Swan becomes a prince. People rejoice, broken love mourns, evil pouts.
• The End.

[rough outline]

Lohengrin was one of the few remaining major Wagnerian works I had not seen. Which must now bring my compounded Wagner experience to a few trillion hours. That is, like every other of his other opera, this one is long, very long. Unlike the Nibelungen tetralogy, though, it isn’t particularly fast-paced.

I must confess to a couple yawns during the first act, while second and third act peaked up a bit, both story-wise and musically.

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We had a couple tix for the Qwartz “Electronic Music Awards” last Friday (went, despite knowing this would imply spending the rest of my week-end, reading up the works of Messrs. von Neuman, Morgenstern and Nash, a coffee IV hooked to my arm)…

Despite grand ambitions and a few catchy headliners (most notably: Bjork and Pierre Henry, both a last-minute no-show), the whole event had a very homemade vibe to it. Most of the MC’s time was spent calling for people to come on stage who often had apparently picked that time to go drink champagne or weren’t even attending to begin with… The show ended up running a couple hours late (we gave up and left shortly before the end, leaving only a very scarce crowd behind us).

All this bickering notwithstanding, we had a cool evening: the live sets were very eclectic, ranging from über-experimental stuff, to dancefloor-friendly, beat-heavy electronica. The people were friendly and the venue absolutely gorgeous.

A few random rantish thoughts:

• Despite the lack of an artificial commodities market where such could be sold at inflated prices, music does have its dubious “white-on-white-with-white-shadows” school of contemporary artists. They tend to make 10-minute long tracks using a sine wave generator, some bubble wrap and a microphone for sole instruments.
• On the other hand, being a “serious” cutting-edge electronic artist making “dancefloor-friendly” tracks, apparently means 90% of the time, using the played-out-to-exhaustion Amen break like it’s 1998 and Drum’n'bass is the new cool shit.
• Erm. Was Drum’nbass ever cool? Yea, nevermind.
• Vitaminsforyou played one of the very few live acts I would have paid to dance to.
• Cocoon had infinitely more ambition than substance. I have seen better post-situ art performances, waiting in line for Alcatraz at Pier 23.
• Leonard de Leonard performed some pretty bouncy electro-hip-hop songs. Yet I couldn’t help notice they had little business being there: for all its cheeky joviality, the rapping wasn’t exactly Public Enemy-quality (kinda tried for it, though) while the “electronic” part ranked in the straight-outta-mom’s-garage league.
• Try as I may, Pierre Shaeffer’s Musique Concrète still bores the hell out of me. Oddly enough, Soares Brandao’s “Hommage to Pierre Shaeffer” wasn’t completely devoid of interest (watching more than listening, actually).
• Nominees and tracks that caught my ear : Wang Lei, Matmos (++), Electroluvs, Coloma, dr Bone, Hypo & EDH, Bostich…
• Most of which (Matmos excepted) I wouldn’t dare putting up against any major mainstream electronic act (say, at random: Laurent Garnier, Matthew Herbert etc.) or even many smaller indie producers…
• Despite a list of nominees spanning (only?) half-a-dozen countries, the whole music selection had a heavy French feel to it. Perhaps a little too much systemic bias within the selection process.
• Foie-gras & marzipan gingerbread makes for truly divine petit-fours.

For somewhat more constructive insights on that event, you can check out this post (in French) from a blogger in my feed list who, as it turns out, also went.

A somewhat public-interest announcement for once:

If you are in Paris today and looking for a way to spend an early evening, there’s a free pyrotechnics show near la Villette (19th arrondissement) tonight at 9pm. Seems like the weather should be nice, but I’d bring a warm sweater and a tarp to sit on.

We went yesterday and it was a good time. Much flames and explosions to be marvelled at.

Only downside, was the very forgettable smooth jazz soundtrack to the whole thing. If the sound of elevator-riding saxophones deeply offends your ears, I recommend you bring your iPod or large amounts of psychedelic substances.

Access map (in PDF format)

Do you know how hard it is to get rid of a fridge in Tokyo without either parting with half your bank account or breaking a dozen local laws? Hard. Very hard.

But it’s all behind now, the move is over, all that’s left is a few days to enjoy Tokyo and say bye to all friends before heading for Europe, by way of Hong-Kong (Thursday to Saturday, if anybody’s around and wants to meet for a beer).

So anyway, tonight, I, with a few friends, will be busy getting drunk on cheap sangria and reminiscing the wacky hijinx of the gaijin life in Japan, all the while spinning a few records and, who knows, shaking some nails to it…
It’s all taking place between 8 and 12, at Cozmo’s Café in Shibuya. About 2 minutes from the station, near the Post Office. Here is the map…

So whether we’ve met in the past or even if you’ve never got a chance to spot me in the flesh during my stay in Tokyo, do come and say hi! I’ll be the one either drinking my 20th Gin&Tonic under a table or haphazardly spinning a few records at the turntables…

A few cool things coming up:

Wednesday (07/20) - Japanbloggers Meetup - Zest, Harajuku

A group of people from all horizons and many countries, brought together by a common love of blogging, tech gizmos and cheap somewhat reasonably priced beer.
Newcomers always warmly welcomed.

Thursday (07/28) - Laurent Garnier - Yokohama Museum of Art [Note: I got the date wrong initially. This is taking place next week, not this week. Thanks to Martine for pointing that out!]

Reels of silent early-century B&W movies, with live instrumentation by worldwide famous, veteran techno DJ and producer: Laurent Garnier.
Sounds very experimental, but the man is insanely talented, should be interesting.

Update (also playing on 08/06):

Friday (07/22) - screening of Bondi Tsunami - Super Deluxe, near Roppongi Hills

An indy surf-movie about a bunch of crazy Japanese and their adventures in Ozland…
Miss Tracey blogged about it a few weeks ago. Turned out last week-end that my friend, the awesome Stacia, is going steady with the lead actor… It’s a small, tiny, star-studded, world, after all.

About Laurent Garnier:

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Chicago jazzman Oscar Brown Jr. died last Sunday.

He wasn’t perhaps sitting at the top of my personal pantheon of Jazz, but one of his track most definitely is.

But I was cool has to be the most hilariously infectious tune ever howled by a talented musician this side of the Funk belt, and the only way you should spend your next 2 minutes 55 seconds.

And until my bandwidth freezes over, or the vindicative Gods of Copyrighted Music kick me in the karma nuts, I’m gonna put the track for download on my server: please be nice and buy the album, it is well worth it. The trial sample is right here.

Party announcement at the bottom »

How do you do when you completely and unabashedly forgot an ex’s birthday? With no valid excuse whatsoever, if only a very busy day and a genetic inability to remember dates correctly (I swear I thought it was tomorrow). And don’t tell me suck it up, apologize and get a nice gift: she’s quite the vindicative type too. After all, she made sure to wait until the following morning at 8am to inform me that I was officially an arsehole… you know, just making sure I had no wiggle room for white lies…

Which brings me to the problem of my day so far: what to do…

Which you probably do not give a rat’s ass about. And truthfully, who am I to blame you.

But let’s not ruin the mood. I guess we’ll just have to double the usual morning tequila sunrise and consider our quota for public humiliations and shameful exposures fulfilled for the whole month. And that’s always a good thing: you don’t really want to stock up on past dues for these kind of quota.

Cue mandatory sakura blossom speech.

Everybody will have, by now, noticed that the sakura blossom is upon us. At least I know I have. But I would have little excuse, seeing how every other street in my neighbourhood instantly turned a rosy white color and I no longer see my breath upon waking up (which means either one of two things: my new toothpaste is working much better than the previous one. Or it’s getting warmer). That, and also half the trains on the Yamanote have been busy giving day-by-day updates about the state of the sakura front (unlike, say, some people who could have at least hinted that there was an important upcoming date, last time we talked).

There are basically two schools of hanamist:

Some will defend the inscrutable beauty and zen symbolism of the spectacle, and take comfort in their ephemeral regularity, seemingly changeless, yet each time unique. Those people, particularly the gaijin among them, will tend to grow copious amount of facial hair and put on traditional samurai armors to charge at locomotives on their horse, thus ensuring an edifying finale where they can get a last dying glimpse at the sakuras down below, before heading out for the land of their ancestors.

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If I tell you the place is really gorgeous, unusually classy for Roppogi (that is to say: doesn’t look like Roppongi much), will be filled with cool people and feature a jazz ensemble and some smooth beats courtesy of yours truly (the beats, not the ensemble…) you should already have more than enough reasons to come see me tonight at Cafe Amanis.

But just to make sure, I shall also add that there will be an Open Bar (yea, that means free booze) tonight (28th) from 6 to 9… Still cheap after, but it will probably be too late to catch up with the heavily inebriated crowd by then.

If your wage-slave hours do not allow you the slightest bit of fun on a weekday, then you can still come check out the place with the mere mortals, on Friday (29th), Saturday (30th) or Sunday (31st): I’ll be there, along with heaps of drunken people wearing silly outfits.

As an extra bonus, you might get to see me in my special Halloween leopard-print g-string costume.

I guess now is a good time to let you know that tomorrow night is Candy II: Still Happening, in other words, the second installment of what has by now clearly been established as Tokyo’s best party of the Summer.

As it turns out, it’s also Justine’s birthday party, and Carl’s, and Hama’s, and half a dozen other people. So if you’ve not heard of it yet, it’s probably because you just don’t know the people that matter in this city. Or maybe because the only one you know is a lazy sod who’s posting that announcement exactly 24 hours ahead of time.

Anyway, I’m told it will be quite fun, and happening early on, so show up early. I, myself, will be deserting the place at 11:30: there’s some really cool outdoor party in Chiba that same night and, quite frankly, between: 1) hearing myself playing sober in a fashionable bar and 2) dancing to ear-splittingly aggresive progressive house on a beach with my head full of substances, there’s nary a choice there.
Nah, I’m just kidding (especially about the substances, mom)… it’s just that, with Atsushi, Hako and everybody else, we’d been planning to go a long time ago, and anyway, Candy should be an early night affair.

All right people, so I shall expect to see you tomorrow 8:30 sharp in Shibuya. See flyer for details and don’t bug me: I know it’s exactly the same freakin’ one as last month… blah.

Oh, did I say it was free (as in beer and love)? well it is.

Just a small party announcement to tell you that tonight I’ll be playing at Bar Tokyo for their closing party.
Komei was told two weeks ago by the owner that the lease wasn’t gonna be renewed and this week-end is their last one before inventory and handing the keys back.

Bar Tokyo was one of the only enjoyable place in that massive suckage that is Roppongi, one where I could still stand to set a foot despite my general hatred of all things roppongi… unfortunately its being gone only goes in the overall direction taken by the neighbourhood (more suckage, if that is even humanly possible).

Anyway, Ian, Atsushi and myself will be playing there all night… making sure to leave on a high note! so if you are around, feel like getting down tonight, come by and say hi: there will be great fun to be had no matter what.

Bar Tokyo is located on Roppongi Crossing, 6F of the bookstore building across from Almond and the Koban (round the corner from 1st Kitchen)

Yet Another Party Announcement

If these upcoming party announcements are becoming a bit monotonous for you, that’s because they are, believe me… So this is the last one, I promise, and precisely to tell you where Party Notices will be posted from now on.

Let me introduce our brand new NativeTokyo page (that is, until we get nativetokyo.com launched). For now, it contains details for two parties in May:

you there!

Here it is at last. I just finished a first version of the flash flyer for our May 23rd Party in Yoyogi koen.

This flash anim is definitely not a work of art. There are many things I am not quite happy with, and I kind of botched the sound editing. But this will have to do, as I’m a tad busy trying to ingurgitate a few hundred nasty pages of applied mathematics and quantum mechanics in time for next month’s finals. All this, naturally, on top of my regular full time job and musical activities.

The skinny:

More details soon enough, along with a map. Send me a note if you wanna receive an update.

Here is the flyer I just finished for a party we’ll be throwing at the end of the month (Friday, the 21st)…

Will update with details later