Blog - Weekly revue: 2019 weeks #33-34 (August 10 to 23)
Weekly revue: 2019 weeks #33-34 (August 10 to 23)
Food: - Unagi (grilled eel) again :)
- Triangle Curry, Shibuya
- Curry at Cochin Nivas, Shinjuku
Music event: - On Sunday August 18 was the annual "Shibuya no Natsu-matsuri", organized by Mixi Group. Held in Yoyogi Park, this year it featured live shows by Tajima Takao (Original Love) and Scha Dara Parr, all for free! :) The shows were great! I went wearing a yukata, the second time of the season, and I ended up dancing along to Shibuya's official bon-odori song "You Make Shibuya" (written by Kaji Hideki and sung by Nomiya Maki, hear it on YouTube), twice, before calling it a day. It was announced that next year the festival will be held at Miyashita Park (which has been closed for a year or two for renovations).
- Then the next Wednesday, I went to see Maika Loubté's solo show at Shibuya WWW! Although she has played tons of shows, it was her first real big solo show, and it was sold out! WWW is a venue that I really like, reusing a movie theater, so I was very excited to see her on that stage. This show also celebrated the release of her new album "Closer" which is great! At the show the album was sold as a vinyl edition which I got of course (beautiful and on clear vinyl!).
The show featured Maika, with a manipulator (backtrack, etc.) and a drummer! There were live drums throughout the entire show, which was a great addition. Maika normally plays synthesizers heavily in her shows, making much of her sounds live and from scratch, but this time was different. While she did play solos and some bits, she was mostly singing, and spending a good time with her audience more than ever. It was great! I was also happy to see that the fluffy singing puppet she uses in "Violet's green eyes" made it to the big stage. I love it! :) Completing the performance was special lighting and VJing.
Félicitations Maika pour cet excellent spectacle et album!
- This year again I dropped by Mitsui Building for the annual karaoke contest, held outside of the building. Employees of the tenant companies of the building compete by giving an extravagant show of karaoke, dance and then some! This event is very popular and the place was so crowded that it was hard to find a good spot to watch from. It was a lot of fun to see those performances which often use some originality to provoke some laughter. :)
Exhibition: - Went to see modeling artist and illustrator Kow Yokoyama's exhibition "Kow Yokoyama Maschinen Krieger. The Imagination World to Show by Molding" at the Yume Art Museum (aka Yumebi) in Hachiōji. The vast exhibition features countless of his beautiful and detailed workpieces, mainly of characters and machines that come from his very own sci-fi imaginary world. It was very impressive! I knew Kow for his artwork in CTO LAB's CD artwork (latest album "Beyond The Box" and also mini-album "3 Cycles"). CTO LAB also wrote the theme song of Maschinen Krieger, "The Theme of Ma.K.", which is included on the "Beyond The Box".
On my way out I couldn't resist getting a random toy capsule (for ¥500), without really checking what it might contain, and I was surprised that it was a full plastic model kit of one of his creations! I ran to buy a cutter knife and made it right away. :) Being really well done, the pieces fitting perfectly together, it didn't even require glue.
The exhibition goes on until September 1st.
- I also dropped by another exhibition, titled "Best Friend ~jinken Max~" by electro artist Haruko Tajima and painter Amenoichi. I've been liking Haruko's music for a while, and also the fun music videos she creates herself, ever since seeing her live as "Francis avec Haruko" (her unit with Ori Makoto).
The main pieces of her exhibition were mirrorballs that she made by cutting up her own original CDs into small square pieces (saying she has too much dead stock...). Her stuff was quite cool, very pink and at a glance Harajuku-esque, though she has a punk attitude and knows to criticize what should be (I like her song "Tik Tok Angels" that pokes fun at the Tik Tok "trend"). There I bought her new album "kawaiiresist", which I had been listening to digitally, and also a previous one titled "Harukonium" (2017). Oh, and she was there, and she signed me an autograph! Yay!
Music release news: Nomoto Karia, Tokyo Panorama Mambo Boys, chelmico, "Toki Asako Remixies Weekend Shuffle", Takahashi Yukihiro, "Carole & Tuesday" (Cornelius), Nuback
This week's video: Haruko Tajima "lipstic"
Posted on August 21, 2019 at 23:21 | Tweet
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