Tobacco-Stained Book Launch

Well, we actually did go through it with on Friday, and truth is I'm still recovering as we went right through from 6:00pm to 6:30am.

It was bloody brilliant, too.

Aside from the novel launch per se, we had screenings of The Maltese Falcon and The Third Man interspersed with anime gems like Tokyo Marble Chocolate and Mamoru Oshii's Tachiguish-Retsuden; heck, we even showed The Karate Kid.


And the music - from DJ Wada, Ko Kimura, Jin Hiyama (pictured), Eri Makino, Cut Bit Motorz, Toshiyuki Yasuda, Devin Wine and Paul McQuade - was sublime.

More please... once I recover.

Funk Gadget 'Blah Blah' on White Vinyl

I know, I know - this is not really Japan-related, although the original track (which also appears here) was conceived and spat-out in my hack studio here in Tokyo just over a year ago, with the accidental input of the ever-brilliant Paul Birken (long story).

And the remixes concept was also dreamed up here in Japan over the past few months - but the rest of this story, as they say, was a global effort.

The record label is Slidebar Recordings, the sister label of Kitty Corner over in Germany run by Axel Sohns; the artwork is by Marcin Markowski in Poland.


And the remixes are by: Si Begg (Mosquito/Tresor), Patrick Pulsinger (Cheap/Disko B), Dave Tarrida (Tresor/Musick) and Birken (Bonus Round/Tonewrecker).

Oh yeah, and Funk Gadget is me - another of my silly production aliases (I have about 30 of 'em).

This one's a side-project I do for noisier electro/dubstep/cut-up stuff. So, when granted the insane opportunity to conjure up a record for Slidebar (and this lovely WHITE VINYL one at that), I decided to bring along a few of my like-minded mates.

This baby came out last month (February 2010), and you can check out sneak preview sample sounds (and/or order the vinyl, if it's your cuppa tea) here:
http://www.deejay.de/Funk_Gadget-Blah_Blah_Ep-SLR003__483917

Here's the hack video-clip: