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.

Tobacco-Stained Party, Tokyo 東京 25/3

These are strange times here, for all too obvious reasons - and sometimes it feels like we’re collectively treading water awaiting the next Big Thing to transpire. Meanwhile the reactors still belch scary looking clouds and we get shaken by dozens of aftershocks everyday.

I know this cuts a minor issue in the grand scheme of things, but a high percentage of events and parties have been cancelled here in Tokyo, and attendance is lower than usual at the places that're still open.

A lot of the DJ/producers I know are spending most of their time at home, creating tunes – or putting together worthy benefit compilations, like the ones coming out through Shin Nishimura’s Plus Tokyo label and another called Kibou that’s being put together by Japanophile DJ Hi-Shock through his Elektrax label – which features contributions from a wad of Japan’s finest techno bods.


It’s been mad timing for my new novel to come out; teaches me to write a yarn that’s been described as “post-apocalyptic noir.”

I’m supposed to have the Tokyo book launch this Friday 25th March (in other words tomorrow) at the Pink Cow in Shibuya, but the postal service is all screwed up so there's a big chance I won’t be getting the books themselves in time from the U.S.

Not through lack of trying by Kristopher and Christine @ Another Sky Press, but, as I say, our timing has been a wee bit out-of-whack with nature.

I'm still praying to an empty mead hall of Norse gods that UPS will be able to get the books out of Japanese customs - where they've been since Monday - and here into my lap in time. Hell, if not for the party itself, I just want to hold and stroke the beastie that's taken so much time of my life to complete!

Anyway, after much soul-searching, mood-swings, flip-flopping and so on, we’re doing the launch party, regardless of earthquakes and/or radiation levels.

READ MORE HERE @ TOBACCO-STAINED MOUNTAIN GOAT BLOG.

Cut Bit Motorz Takes the Wheel

One of my preferred emerging Japanese artists at play here in Tokyo over the past couple of years has been the somewhat enigmatic Tsuyoshi K.

He doesn’t tell anyone what the ‘K’ stands for.

Tsuyoshi started out making fringe, left-of-centre electro-pop stuff as Gadget Cassette but last year scrapped that and changed name to Cut Bit Motorz – at the same time as he began pushing through more tech-house related sounds.

Funnily enough, even though we lived in the same city and customarily did the email thing as well as having remixed each other’s tunes, we didn’t actually meet up until last month – when yours truly was quite tanked (that’s the Christmas/bonenkai season for you in Japan) and... er... embarrassingly played a hack set at his party.

The lack of personal acquaintance before that jaunt didn’t stop me from releasing last year in August a digital slab of remixes of Tsuyoshi’s tune ‘Dry Fruit‘, albeit in a limited manner, through IF? Records. We got on board some of the man’s more experienced Japanese peers – DJ Wada (Co-Fusion), Toshiyuki Yasuda (Robo*Brazileira), Takashi Watanabe (DJ Warp) and Tomi Chair – to do the rejigs, making it an entirely Japanese putsch that crisscrosses eclectic, tech, electro, house and (dare I twist it) a marginally more progressive stance.

Even after putting a face to a name – and in spite of my sadly wayward set at that gig in December – Tsuyoshi seems to have forgiven me for the musical mayhem and is keen to do more together. This guy is an absolute gem to work with.

If your stunted attention span is still somehow focused, you can read more about Tsuyoshi - plus the interview questionnaire itself - at the new Techno How? site here.

Love Songs

What music do you like to make love to?

A simple question, really.

“Sometimes I sing ‘Danger Zone’ in the bathroom. I like the music from Top Gun. When I was a child I dreamed of becoming a fighter pilot, and to this day Top Gun is my favorite action movie. But this is not bathroom music,” laughs Takashi Watanabe.

“Hmm. I think jazz house, because of swing and the punchy hi-hat accents and R&B horn riffs.”

As DJ Warp, Watanabe usually spins far harder techno and tech-house tunes.

Toshiyuki Yasuda, who makes music under his own name as well as doing vocoder crooning as Robo*Brazileira, jumps at the opportunity to answer this one. “Coleman Hawkins’s ‘Body and Soul’,” he cites.

“It never repeats the same riffs or theme throughout the tune, so I feel fresh and stimulated each time I listen to it - which is important for it, isn't it? Although actually no music is really the best, I think.”

“I like deep and dark minimal because it makes me erotic,” suggests Rie Kurihara (better known as veteran DJ/producer Ree.K), and then she goes one step further and debunks the idea in agreement with Yasuda.


The rest of this article is online HERE at Forces Of Geek.

Dry Fruit Japan-style

Aside from this wayward blog I also get to run an equally aberrant record label called IF? Records, through which we release a bunch of electronic-inclined stuff on vinyl and through digital means.

Most recently we've been able to get stuff out by people like James Ruskin, Luke's Anger, Dave Tarrida, Paul Birken, Wyndell Long, Ben Mill, Dave Angel, Kultrun, Justin Berkovi, Mijk van Dijk, DJ Hi-Shock, Koda, Ben Pest, Bill Youngman, Enclave, E383, Donk Boys, Jammin' Unit and Justin Robertson - people across the board whom I respect and cherish as musos.

Last week the label put out something I've wanted to do for ages: a release focused solely around some of the best Japanese artists currently cutting sounds.

The source material was a track called 'Dry Fruit', put together by the somewhat enigmatic Tsuyoshi K (he doesn't tell anyone what the 'K' stands for), who started out making fringe, left-of-centre electro-pop stuff as Gadget Cassette but more recently changed name to Cut Bit Motorz and at the same time began pushing through more tech-house related sounds.

Funnily enough, even though we live in the same city and constantly email each other as well as remix each other's tunes, we haven't ever actually met.

But that didn't stop us releasing a digital slab of mixes of 'Dry Fruit', in which we got on board some of his more experienced Japanese peers - DJ Wada (Co-Fusion), Toshiyuki Yasuda (Robo*Brazileira), Takashi Watanabe (DJ Warp) and Tomi Chair - to do the rejigs, making it an entirely Japanese putsch that criss-crosses eclectic, tech, electro, house and (dare I say it) a marginally more progressive stance.

Truth is I really dig working with this elusive digital mate and Tsuyoshi is breaking ground with his own work (he recently remixed the Dead Agenda track 'Chaos Theory' as well as Tomi Chair's 'Stroboscope') and you'll probably brush up against the guy more often in future outside of this obscure forum.


"Regarding digital, there are great outlets online through which to dig up music from all over the world, and then share it about - which is fantastic," Tsuyoshi espouses.

"With this EP I've been most surprised about these people actually choosing to do the remixes in the first place, and it's exciting. I want you to listen to them by all means."

Propaganda bomb out.

Japanese Musicians Rule OK! (Part 2)

Two weeks back for my hack Flash in Japan column over at Forces of Geek I did a feature story on a bunch of cool, talented and rather diverse musicians based in this country (Japan), asking for the feedback on a swag of hotch-potch questions.

We ended up with far more material than we could run in one sitting, so we called that Part 1; without much further ado here’s Part 2 - kept nice and relatively simple - with the further feedback from Masaya Kyuhei, aka DJ Q’hey, Tsuyoshi K, alias producer Cut Bit Motorz, Akiko Kiyama, Ko Kimura, Takashi Watanabe (aka DJ Warp), DJ Wada (Shuji Wada from Co-Fusion), Tatsuya Oe (Captain Funk), Jin Hiyama, Toshiyuki Yasuda and Lili Hirakawa.

Luckily none of these people objected to my more obscure, self-indulgent queries—which this time around all related to that most essential of topics: anime and manga.

HEAD ON OVER HERE.

Japanese Musicians Rule OK! (Part 1)

Godzilla has many kaiju enemies and friends, like King Ghidorah, Biollante, Mothra, etc.

I assumed the majority of Japanese musicians, especially ones involved in the techno and electronic music sphere of things, would know all about Godzilla and would have an opinion on same, like a preferred friend/foe.

I was wrong - partially.

Most of these people seem to have vague feelings but nothing solid enough to slap a ribbon on it and call it assertive.

“Sorry, I don't have enough knowledge to select a Godzilla co-star,” quips Toshiyuki Yasuda.

“I don't know much at all about Godzilla,” admits Jin Hiyama, while both DJ Wada and DJ Warp select Mothra as their champion - but for somewhat dubious reasons.

“Because he’s peaceful?” Wada wonders aloud; “Because he can fly and is really cute,” suggests Warp.


“I like King Ghidorah,” Cut Bit Motorz says, “though I’m not well-informed about Godzilla. I think I like Ghidorah because his name and appearance are so striking.”

Lili Hirakawa is more assertive, to a degree.


“I think I like King Ghidorah too - but I have a sad story about this. I accidentally got a tattoo of King Ghidorah on my left arm! I asked for the Japanese eight-headed dragon Yamata no Orochi but the tattooist gave me King Ghidorah, which has only three heads, and unfortunately it also has a foot missing... So it’s a very funny dragon. Anyway, some people talk to me when they see it and they’re like ‘Oh, hey! You like King Ghidorah, huh?’, so I’ve gotta keep saying yes every time. After 10 years, I finally started to like King Ghidorah. To tell the truth I don’t know much about it - I’ve never seen a Godzilla movie yet.”

“I’d definitely support Godzilla,” assesses technopop musician Electron Tee. “He’s much cooler—and, besides, I hate moths!”

Techno DJ/producer Shin Nishimura agrees, aside from the anathema toward common streetlight variety flying insects. “Godzilla would win by jumping and punching with that tail of his,” he pictures.

Ko Kimura, however, sees more in the machine. “Mechagodzilla is best for me because it looks really cool!”


THE REST OF THIS INTERVIEW/DISCUSSION IS NOW ONLINE @ FORCES OF GEEK. PART 2 WILL BE PUBLISHED in 2 WEEKS.

Tokyo Tower vs. Tokyo Sky Tree!

It seemed somehow fitting when, in late May 2008 at the 12th Seoul International Cartoon & Animation Festival (SICAF 2008), a charming, quirky little anime feature titled Tokyo Marble Chocolate was awarded the Grand Prize in the Feature Film Category.

After all, much of the anime’s unfolding romantic comedy and poignant philosophizing about love and life in contemporary Tokyo takes place around Tokyo Tower – an obelisk that in 2008 also celebrated its 50th anniversary.

While there are a lot of other symbols of Japan that weigh in much older and further tip the scale in the history stakes, when you're debating the preeminent visual icon in Japan's capital city, and its more famous ones, you can’t possibly ignore Tokyo Tower.

Besides, it’s impossible to miss the tower – painted, as it is, in vivid red and white and gorgeously spot lit after hours. Stature-wise, it reaches upward to a peak of 333 meters, thus edging out its earlier doppelgänger, the Eiffel Tower, by around nine to 13 meters, depending on whether or not you include their antennas in the equation.

Tokyo Tower also continues to dominate the skyline as the world's tallest self-supporting steel tower, easily seen from the Imperial Palace and Roppongi. It boasts an otaku-revered antenna that broadcasts all that vital anime we watch on TV stations here in Tokyo like NHK, TBS and Fuji TV.

The past 50 years have been quite remarkable, and monumental unto themselves in terms of the life of this tower and its impact on this city as well as Japan and the outside world.

It dominates the back-drop in the recent, nostalgic feature movies, Always: Sunset on Third Street, parts one and two, that were directed by Takashi Yamazaki (of Returner fame) and set in the late 1950s, during the tower’s construction. And our metallic altar was used as the titular name of a movie in 2005 that starred Junichi Okada, who more recently did the voice of Prince Arren in Studio Ghibli's Tales from Earthsea.

And just two years ago the movie Tokyo Tower: Mom and Me, and Sometimes Dad, starred the very cool Joe Odagiri (Shinobi).

In contrast to such dramatic attention, however, the tower has long been Godzilla’s and Mothra’s favoured plaything, and in manga has been particularly ill-treated: it was sucker-punched in Geobreeders, became the center of paranormal activities in the pages of Tokyo Babylon, and was the focus of some alcoholic excess in Wings of Wishes.

The tower also features heavily in anime.

It was shown destroyed in Cybuster, then popped up in a more romantic light – before being partially ransacked – in Sailor Moon, as well as in other anime like Card Captor Sakura, X, Magic Knight Rayearth, Angelic Layer, Someday’s Dreamers, and Burn Up Excess.

In fact if the anime outings are to be believed, the structure is actually a magnet for mayhem and a portal for inter-dimensional mysticism.


All the iconoclasm may be fictional, but the tower came a hair’s breath from destruction in September 2004, when a 747 accidentally passed within 200 meters, en route to Haneda Airport.

And yet, while the monument may have been crushed, squashed, melted down, transformed, and manhandled like a mammoth toothpick, and represent an object of some cynicism in younger Japanese’s minds, Tokyo Tower wasn’t raised for ruin alone.

Twenty-something Japanese English language school advisor, Shoko Shima, sees the tower in a more positive light. “For me, Tokyo tower is one of the symbols of Tokyo. When I see it, it makes me feel nostalgic. It’s not cute, nor interesting, but I think we need it in Tokyo as an older symbol of the city.”

And acclaimed electronic music producer, Toshiyuki Yasuda (Robo*Braziliera), says that “It is most assuredly a romantic symbol in mid-Tokyo.”

The obelisk was designed by Nikken Sekkei Ltd., and constructed in 1958 by Takenaka Corporation, Japan's oldest architecture and engineering and firm, at a cost hovering at around ¥2.8 billion.

It has an average 2.6 million visitors per annum and has been romantically illuminated at night – with 164 globes that change color according to the season – for enamoured young and old couples alike since 1989. Many of them visit the first-floor aquarium, which houses some 50,000 fish, or the wax museum on the third floor, and then the self-explanatory Trick Art Museum. The view itself is an optional extra.

On a clear day, Mt. Fuji is visible from the tower. On most days, unfortunately, it isn't.

Regardless, all this is set to end in a way when Tower Tower is superseded by its younger, more virile replacement, the Tokyo Sky Tree – currently being constructed in Sumida (see below, this week) - which aims at almost twice the size of our existing aging hero.

Turns out that Tokyo Tower just isn't tall enough in the 21st century to offer complete digital terrestrial television broadcasting coverage - but at least this may mean that Ol' Red will be left in a secure retirement from attacks by Godzilla and his kaiju cronies.

The Tokyo Sky Tree will just have to lean to deal with the abuse.