Blog - From party to party

From party to party

Yesterday I had a rather busy evening...

OK Fred #4 release party

I met Nicholas D Kent and together we went to the OK Fred #4 release party held at the very nice NTT ICC located inside Tokyo Opera City.
Of those present were Jean and Yuko, Robert (performing as DJ Milquetoast), Midori, Paul, Tokyo Fun Party's Takashi, and of course OK Fred editor Audrey.

Digiki's DJ performance was the evening's highlight for me, he rocked the house with his Powerbook and Kaos pad, mixing Super Mario Bros. with his latest hip hop track. :)
He gave me a precious copy of his anti-mix limited CD-R "You should play this".

I was surprised that the ICC has a vinyl recorder, allowing anyone who brings in their own audio source to record on a special blank 10" vinyl (sold there for ¥1800 I think).

After the event I took the bus back home, and after eating and taking it easy a bit, I was out again for the night!

Usagi-Chang Night Fever vol.0002

I met my friend Miwa in Shinjuku and we went together to Marz, located in Kabuki-chō, where was being held Usagi-Chang Night Fever vol.0002, the [so far] annual party of Usagi-Chang Records.

Things didn't begin too well as they were carding everyone with no exception, and as I often do when going clubbing I had the good idea (<- NOT!) to leave my ID at home, resulting in having to wait an extra half-hour until after everyone else had entered... That really sucked. Then the ones without an ID were being asked their age and birthdate in order and a good answer allowed them inside. How silly...
This was the first time that such a thing happened to me in Tokyo. I have been carded before when I didn't have an ID with me, but I always got an easy "it's ok, try not to forget it next time". Last year at the same party and same location I don't remember any carding going on at all. Anyway.

Once we finally got inside at 12:45, the night started to be fun. The line-up consisted of Strawberry Machine, EeL, Aprils, YMCK, Micro Mach Machine, YMCK once again, macdonald duck eclair, DJ Soju (Club Par Avion), and Sonic Coaster Pop.

My favorite live perfomance is still definitely Aprils. They had an impressively huge Gloomy panda come on stage for two songs, with who Imai-kun kept fighting playfully. Of all the Usagi-Chang and related scene, I think Aprils give the best live show, with mostly live instruments (over some back-up beat and synth tracks though).

As for my favorite unit that I hadn't yet seen live, it's definitely YMCK! These guys have such a cool sound, sampling old Famicom game music and making original groovy songs with cute girl vocals. Their outfits and performance were great too. My favorite member has to be the guy on the right who played one-handed solos on his tiny keyboard, and also sang into a Famicom controller during vocoder-ish parts (trivia: one of the controllers of the Japanese Famicom contained a microphone.). Singer Midori was also very cute in her unreal game character-ish dress.
I'm so much looking forward to their first album coming out on Usagi-Chang Records in October.

Also very entertaining was Club Par Avion's DJ Soju. I can't quite recall seeing such a funny DJ, and his set of perfect mixes was great! I therefore strongly recommend to anyone in L.A. to go and check out their events!

I was very sad to be disappointed by Sonic Coaster Pop, who I was very much looking forward to, as I love their recent album. I wasn't disappointed by the band itself, but by some odd guitarist guest (who was at the right and isn't pictured(!)) who either A) was drunk, B) didn't know the chords too well, C) can't play guitar. As far as I'm concerned the show would have been all so much better without his noisy "accompaniment". I don't know if it was supposed to be funny or what, oh well.

Here are more pictures of the event:

Click thumbnails for larger pictures. Leave your mouse on the thumbnails for a description.

I bought a cool Aprils T-shirt (¥3990) that's a collaboration with Laundry, and also YMCK's first mini-album "Family Music" (¥500, what a deal!).

Posted on August 22, 2004 at 20:27 | Tweet |

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