KJM‘s Shuya Okino played some damn cool tunes, yesterday at Metro…
But seriously, what’s with the rockstar entourage thing?
Staff rushing to fetch the official record-bag carrier when Mr. Okino decided to head for the exit, half a dozen groupies in tow?!
Guys, this is broken-beat/jazz house, not 1980s arena rock… Sure, he is good, but still only a couple steps removed from what your grandma listens to on 94.2 Smooth Jazz FM.
I should preface this somewhat-less-than-glowing review of Sonic Mania (aka Summer Sonic for people who dance at night) by mentioning one important detail:
I don’t really like music festivals.
More exactly, I don’t like a certain kind of music festivals (that kind). I think I have spent enough of my youth, dancing half-naked on Californian beaches or through Black Rock Desert that I don’t need to defend my record of appreciation for spontaneous music-oriented gatherings. I just still can’t figure the draw with mainstream music festivals: horrible acoustics, quantity-over-quality line-ups and uninspiring settings.
If I wanted to dance in the middle of stadiums, I’d be a football cheerleader.
Acts at major music festivals fall into two categories: bands that were cool 20 years ago (and whose sole surviving member badly needs to pay his taxes) and up-and-coming bands you will hear a 100 times better at a smaller, more targeted venue. The packaging of the two together, along with laundry-detergent levels of sales/marketing based more on PR momentum than musical coherence (complete with nonsensical stage schedules) are what make music festivals such a profitable deal for major industry players and a miserably pointless experience for everybody else.
Sonic Mania certainly followed that pattern. In fact, every other headliner on the line-up could accurately be summed-up as: “That guy you’ve never heard of, with ties to that band you definitely knew [and perhaps liked], back in the 2000s/1990s/1980s”…
Considering how much whining is liable to follow, I should add I had a perfectly OK night, fun even. But my enjoyment of the event was entirely down to being with a cool group of people and, most importantly, being comped and not having paid 10,000 of my hard-earned yens to attend that semi-debacle of a festival night. I feel I kinda owe it to the poor saps that paid out of pocket to let the world know what passes for top-yen-worthy festival in Japan these days…
Kicking off Obon holidays with Aya-chan at Canal Café. Later heading out to Sonic Mania with some guestlist love. Life has been worse.
Pros and cons of attempting to survive on maximum recommended dosage of Japanese cold medicine on a workday:
Pros: Finally answering the old nagging question of whether Vapnik–Chervonenkis dimension makes more sense on mushrooms (or any satisfyingly close approximation thereof).
Cons: The answer is: no, it definitely doesn’t.
Because Golden Week is no reason to slack off, this week program is centered around: 2 hours biking, 6 hours clubbing and 4 hours banging at a keyboard in some vague hope of finding a cancer cure by accident1hey! it worked for Fleming. I say it’s worth a shot.. Daily.
Day 2 (and counting) of that regimen and, beside symptoms of mild sleep deprivation, everything seems good.
You know you are at a Japanese free party when…
What a nice and unexpected way to cap a lovely hanami/easter picnic on a Sunday afternoon…
The end keeps nearing. Last weekend in Berlin. Feeling ever so slightly gloomy, for all sorts of reasons. Luckily I have the thought of warm Spring days ahead, plus many exciting plans for the months to come, to keep me from thinking about it too much. Also: it is about time that I resume working on that thing they call a PhD.
As usual, way behind in the note-keeping business, but a few random tidbits instead:
Berlin, 7am.
I have more ink on my wrist than… a… erm…
Too soon?
It eventually happened.
It took a while, but I think I finally know how it feels to be the ancient one, sitting helplessly while the younger ones try to operate antiquated machinery from another era… say, a turntable.
Picture if you will: a standard Berlin bar, two cheerful yet terminally hopeless barmaids, a pair of standard-issue decks, a [presumably rather cheesy German] record to be played…
It went a little bit like this:
Seriously: now I know exactly how old-timers feel, when they see condescending-yet-clueless youngsters trying to operate a 1930s radio… and miserably failing at it, as if it was some alien technology.
