speareight

Over & Out

2006-03-05T18:08:00.000+09:00

so ive finally got to grips with the fact this blog business just occured cos i had so much fucking free time online in japan. this is now no longer the case and im not gonna write anymore of this, tho maybe one day i update the clubs guide to auckland or something. if youre some wack robotic spammer trying to trick me to view your retarded website via flattery, kindly fuck off. cheer

Miles Maeda @ La Fabrique, Tokyo 17.07.05

2005-01-01T02:28:00.000+09:00

This was Miles' second trip to Tokyo and the same people arranged the party but it wasn't part of their usual Solid series. Instead it was a one-off, word of mouth type affair with a lot of industry people showing their faces to catch the man in action. His set was sublime and he had the crowd grooving along so nicely that his time was extended, taking us well into the night.

Before him, Jun of Outergaze Records played an equally appreciable set of kinda techy tribal tracks of the finest order. And afterward Marshall finished things off with a nice set of straight up underground house. Throughout the night the club had a great vibe with people chatting and getting merry, as they rightly should, but minus the madness that was apparent at the Raoul party last month.

It was a very fitting final event for my two-year stay in Japan. Cheer cheer...

milesmaeda.com
outergaze/capricious recs

Raoul @ La Fab / Regisford @ Yellow, Tokyo 04.06.05

2005-01-01T02:27:00.000+09:00

Raoul Belmans, of Swirl Peeps fame, played a whole bunch of tunes that I've loved since hearing online but which I've never heard on a club system so I was totally on cloud 9 throughout his set. And of course there was also tons of shit I'd never heard before, which is what makes me most happy of all! Awesome music and skills plus cool presence = dope time ++. Before him, Kai played the second slot instead of the first and handled it perfectly. I really dig this guys tunes and he will no doubt just keep getting better and better. First up was another Tokyoite (I didn't catch his name but apparently he's a Loop resident, which indicates quality), and he played a fairly techy, deep set that got the night off to an interesting start.

And as someone commented, this was easily one of the best parties ever at La Fabrique. The crowd was wild and loud and messy and there was just a general big party vibe rocking throughout the venue, though personally I don't think this should have been permitted to spill into the DJ booth. Like while Raoul was trying to do his thing a couple of delirious party people were jumping around showing off for the crowd, right up in front of the decks.

Anyways, I missed Marshall's closing set because I jumped in a cab to Yellow to catch Timmy Regisford (NYC/Shelter). He was playing some sweet stuff at the start but then descended into classic after classic, which bored the hell out of me even though the party and dancefloor was pretty pumping. I'm sure the club actually asks them to drop that shit but, seriously, they come here and get paid a ton of money to spin tunes they've been spinning for like 20 years!!! Yawn already, nahmean.

Then after the clubs I got up to a little mischief with some new friends. Gosh it was fun but I've been suffering all week because of it... So it goes.

swirlpeople.com
space lab yellow

Kasey Goto @ La Fab / Derrick May @ Yellow, Tokyo 07.05.05

2005-01-01T02:24:00.000+09:00

yellow peeps

ladies @ yellow

This was a quality night indeed. It was the eve of my birthday and, coincidentally, a bunch of my mates were also in Tokyo; we stayed at the same hotel and went out for Thai before hitting La Fabrique at around 11. Kasey guested at the Solid party last year but he was the featured DJ this time and dropped a whole load of hella fucking dope houseness! Twas a really, really fun set of tunes to bounce around to.

Then I skipped over to catch the last hours of Derrick May at Yellow and, not surprisingly, walked smack bang into an absolutely rollicking party - high as a high thing and generally very up for a good time. Much funny banter ensued between myself and various peeps and I spent some quality moments dancing away by their seriously sweet speaker stacks and knocking back a few stiff drinks. Mr May's music was perfect and his personality was plain bursting from behind the decks.

His set over, I hung around the club a while (generally being a menace) then headed back to the hotel for a couple of hours' sleep before having a slightly messy champagne brunch with my friends at a quality cafe in Ropponghi. Schweet.

Frankie Knuckles + DJ Deep @ Ageha, Tokyo 01.05.05

2005-01-01T02:23:00.000+09:00

shibuya

alex, dj deep and girlf

Ageha is a fuck off venue on the outskirts of Tokyo. You can get there from Shibuya for free by taking their very own bus with a bunch of mad clubbers all up for a big night out. The mainroom is immense with an enormous round platform in the middle with subs underneath, and superb full range drivers suspended around the perimeter. But the DJ booth is up way high so you barely know who's playing. On this night, Frankie Valentine (UK) then Frankie Knuckles (Frankie fucking Knuckles) were playing and it was kinda fun in there but the real action, imo, was in a warehouse-style tent outside.

When I arrived, Alex from Tokyo (a super nice guy originally from France who has lived in Tokyo and now lives in NYC) was playing b2b with DJ Deep (a well respected seminal type jock/prod from France)... and they were fucking rocking. Deep then played by himself for a while then a guy by the name of Hadja Kouyate played live on a laptop, then Frederic Galliano finished things off. The music from all four of these guys was fucking excellent: fresh, tribal, deep, funk... you know the drill. Really great to dance to, especially when high on a lil Shibuya-bought ecstasy, as I was.

[Basically if you're a decent looking foreign girl walking down one of the back streets of that part of town, chances are you'll be stopped by a middle eastern looking guy and asked to go for a drink. And chances are that they'll be a dealer with anything from E to meth just a quick phonecall away. It's pretty safe if you're not too obvious about shit.]

Meanwhile... there are two more zones at Ageha. One is a dark, proper underground club type room with mezzanine balconies (where I heard fresh, fun rollicking house for about 1/2 an hour) and the other is an outdoor area with a pool (where one of the DJs from Kyoto Jazz Massive was serving up some chill style stuff). There is also an outdoor but covered area where you can buy food etc, and plenty of spaces inside to sit down. Plus there are many toilets in all of the bathroom areas, which is always a welcome surprise even at the best of clubs.

Interestingly, there are specific rules about where you can smoke and take drinks that are in glasses. On the mainfloor, for example, you can't have either. Security is solid; staff are professional; the sound is great; and the whole place has a wonderful crazy friendly atmosphere even though it is so vast. I'll certainly go back. And when I do, I think I'll book a return spot on the club's bus because getting the train back to central Tokyo at 7am - drunk and high - was not an easy task, particularly as I cannot read Japanese whatsoever.

My destination at that point was Yellow, where Doc Martin was playing, and I got there in time for the last half hour of what must have been about a six-hour set. The party was still jumping and I had a drink with some of the Yellow crew who had also been at Ageha earlier. All around, then, twas a quality night. Especially considering I got comp entry to both places, saving me close to US $100. Safe as fuck.

Dub @ Think, Fujioshida 12.03.05

2005-01-01T02:22:00.000+09:00

This was a fun night at a fun place. There are many quirky nooks and crannies tucked around a sprawling building that consists of a bar/lounge at one end with a large staircase in the middle, then a small area featuring a pool table and video games, then a lovely area with plants and water features, and a restaurant at the other end. The restaurant was shut but some people had platters of food on their tables in the lounge and it looked excellent. Upstairs is an outdoor patio and an unusual arty kind of space with booths containing iMacs. Overall then, Think is an exceptionally multi-purpose venue with a great ambience.

I'm not sure if they are permanent but the night I went there was a DJ set-up of two turntables, two CD-Js and a mixer, located down the far end of the lounge. The soundsystem was very solid and in the center of the room is a small sound room under the staircase that looked well equipped to handle live acts etc. The music itself was wonderful: a youngish DJ and an oldish DJ took turns playing records that ranged from reggae to banging dancehall and dirty jungle, with some quality MCing over top. Many of the records were 7" but they also scratched some 12"s and played CDs. Behind them, a large screen showed parts of movies like Eight Millimeter amongst other eerie footage.

Like the DJs, the crowd was mixed age with some older men propping up the bar and some just-legal ladies working the dancefloor or giggling in groups around the outskirts of the room. I got very drunk and danced deliriously about the place with a good gang of English peeps and some Japanese people I met on the night. The hosts were friendly and the deep, downbeat - but seriously danceable - music reminded me strongly of NZ. The only difference being that soundsystems are rarely so brilliant and DJs are rarely so charismatic downunder as they are in Japan.
Full marks!!!

Francois K @ Yellow, Tokyo 05.03.05

2005-01-01T02:21:00.000+09:00

pics courtesy of yellow

It's always so nice when people live up to high expectations and Francois K was easily as fantastic as legend would have it! I was absolutely delighted to experience him for myself: to see the passion and love he obviously feels for his vast collection of music, and Yellow has got to be the best place on the planet for doing so. It got way packed for a while but there was always somewhere to sit or dance and I did a lot of wandering around and a lot of drinking and soaking up the general dopeness of the party.

Beat Pharmacy performed live for about an hour and that was cool enough - the main guy on his laptop and one of the guests on his album playing the hell out of a guitar. The duo performed at the opposite end from the DJ booth and for a while half the crowd was facing one way and half was facing the other and it was all quite ridiculous. As soon as the act finished, Francois got the party rocking again and after that he didnt stop till 12 fucking pm. He was actually scheduled to play till 11am, which is impressive enough for a 52-year-old, but the crowd stomped and clapped when he brought things to a close at one point, so he played on.

As is oft the case, the last few hours of the night/morning were easily the best. His music was fucking awesome - leaping between banging techno, deep dub, dirty beats and classic rock.... but in such a way that it just flowed and made sense and even familiar tunes like Strawberry Fields shocked the brain on Yellow's truly awesome soundsystem. And the finale was some next-level majestic shit.

random hot ladies

Here's some tracks my friend recognized:
Snoop Dog / drop like this
Joris Voorn / lost arrivals pt.2 ( piano break down techno)
Hall and Oats / i can't go for that
Sueno Latino / sueno latino, derrick may`s mix
Bob Marley / Buffalo soldier, dub version
Lenny Kravitz / are you gonna go my way
Jerome and Ferrer / sandcastle, FK edit
Moloko / forever more
Mission Control / outta limit
Pete Heller / time warp
James Brown / funky drummer
CRM / happy endings
Matrix / tightrope (DnB)
Instant House / awade, joe's jungle sound dub
Depeche Mode / personal jesus
Francois K / edge of time
Basic Channel / phlyps track 2

And Francois' own highlights from his website:
"Marionette" Matthew Jonson
"Disco-Fied" Rhythm Heritage (ABC)
"Rootsman Dub" Deep Space Rhtyhm Section (Deep Space Media)
"Cosmic Sandwich" Steve Barnes (Traum)
"Live In Cologne" Bugge Wesseltoft (Jazzland)
"Mafungo" Joe Claussell (Sacred Rhythm)
"First Reaction (V2)" Laurent Garnier (Mute)
"Here To Go" Beat Pharmacy (Deep Space Media)
"Halleluwah" -edit- Can (Celluloid)
"Prelude" (excerpt, from 'Agartha' live) Miles Davis (Columbia)
"Power Of Brain" Franck Biyong (El Casa)
"See Mi Yah" Rhythm & Sound (Rhythm & Sound)
"Somewhere Over The Rainbow" Jimi Hendrix (Reprise)
"Rock Vibe" Kenny Dope (Dope Wax)
"Neurotic Behavior" Psyche/BFC (Planet E)
"Eastman Sound" Augustus Pablo (Rockers)

Deep Space
Space Lab Yellow

Miles Maeda @ La Fab, Tokyo 05.02.05

2005-01-01T02:20:00.000+09:00

jason and miles

The Solid crew delivered the goods again... another great party with top tunes and fun people. It's common knowledge that Miles is heavily into yoga etc and Marshall (promoter and closing DJ) is well into it himself so it was only a matter of time before the Canadian brought the Chicagoan to Tokyo. Kai kicked the party off with his usual blend of fresh, deep, funkladen, slightly edgy tracks, then SiSi took things a bit darker with an extremely eclectic set that covered all house bases but also ventured into breaks and prog territory. I wasn't so keen on some tracks but he kept things ticking over pretty fast and it was interesting to have the ear challenged so much.

Miles himself was top notch, playing fresh as fuck great music with hardly any older or classic tracks... just a straight up delivery of underground house circa 2005. The mix CD he did in conjunction with Smart Bar and Igloo Records has just been released and so it was a bit of a party to celebrate that: entitled The New House Sound of Chicago, I can confirm it's a great listen! When I initially read the tracklisting I thought it would sound a little too familiar but the way he's sequenced and blended the tracks, plus the fact there are original vocals from Collette over some of them, makes it a mix that should stand the test of time and is a worthy statement of where made-in-Chi house is at about now.

Then on Sunday he led a Yoga workshop which I found very interesting and stimulating on both a mental and physical level... a dope DJ may be just the thing to get me into it after years of mild interest. www.milesmaeda.com

The Village of Auckland, 02.01.05-11.01.05

2005-01-01T02:19:00.000+09:00

ange in the mainroom @ morrison

camille in the lounge

Auckland practically shuts down over the NYE period, which could be kind of depressing except that the reason for this is that most people clear out to lovely beach houses for a week or two, or go overseas, or because the government rightfully makes businesses pay their staff a lot more on public holidays so many places just choose not to open and pay their people as usual... But for me, who was really wanting to gauge what was up with AK nitelife these days, it was fairly fucking inconvenient. I arrived in town on Sunday the 2nd and the only really quality establishments that were open for business were Prego and SPQR (social kind of restaurants) and Crow Bar (classic drinking den). So that was where we went, and it was fun but pretty bloody par for the course. On Wednesday I got drunk enough that I ventured down to Cube (club underneath a boring upmarket bar) and paid for three of us to enter Showgirls (dire stripbar). Both were atrocious.

Despite the hangover, things picked up slightly on Thursday when I went and met friends at Verona on K Rd. The place has changed owners and, though some of its dirty charm has vanished, I think the place is looking sweet. It was nice just to hear some house music and see people chilling like normal. We then went down the road to a club called Edens that has a Thursday night party called Kiss and Makeup. The band was actually kind of engaging with their rock n roll antics and the crowd was kind of cool and quirky but the soundsystem was low quality and high volume, which never did anyone any good at all. Ink was shut. Calibre was shut and didn't ever look like opening. 4/20, Rising Sun and Blend were shut and so were all the other anonymous venues along the strip... so we went to Pitt St where the Supper Club ("Slapper") was busy but uninviting with upbeat - almost hard - house. Foci (the old Luminaire) was shut. Pitch was shut. Match (new) was shut... you get the picture. So we went to Mr Luckies. The place can be kind of ironic fun if you're wasted and club hopping and just want to stop off for a quick drink and game of pool but it was depressing as all hell that night with a few lame men and some even lamer music courtesy of a TV station. Nonetheless the night ended well at somebody's apartment and then, of course, Crow.

Friday started out at Corner Bar with a whole bunch of friends and that was very pleasant indeed. Then we went to Crow and that was horrible. Initially we were denied entry on the grounds of it being full but tactlessly dropping a list of names fixed that, then - horror of all horrors – there was a DJ downstairs. One of the things I've always liked about Crow is the fact the music doesn't really matter; you go there for the service, the drink, the company, and the environment itself. We left for Fu Bar and this was its polar opposite: empty with a fairly grim vibe though good underground music. Luckily Khuja saved the night with the ever-capable Manuel Bundy delivering great tunes and a sexy girl known as Rochelle serving up stiff drinks. It should've ended there with dignity but of course I stumbled back downtown after that, ran into my old street friend and shared a joint, went back down Fu and somewhere along the way hit the pavement hard and damaged my right knee.

Saturday began with a family dinner and it was only right that I then took my parents and a couple of their friends down to Boogie Wonderland, a new downtown club that's struck gold with a tried and true formula: nice décor and popular music. Needless to say it wasn't my idea of a great time and we soon split for Morrison, which is another newish downtown club but with a much better formula: upstairs is the bar, downstairs is the club and both are equipped with a Martin soundsystem, spacious DJ booth, aware staff, soundproofing, and ample seating – all done stylishly. It was my first time there but I'm aware it's taken a central spot in Auckland's small underground house scene since the Bowler burnt down, Calibre went downhill and, most recently, Centro chose not to renew its lease, and I can now easily understand why. Good job! The Homewreckers party featured an all girl lineup including DJ Rire from Sydney and Ange in the club and Jess Hartley and Camille in the lounge. It never got very busy but the music was solid all night in both areas and I had fun drinking and generally checking the place out. Personally, though, I could've done without the Aussie slipping into that breaky electro stuff that's so popular right now, and without Ange laying down some fairly fucking hard acidic tracks at 3am, especially considering the first half of her set was bumping and grinding along so nicely...

It was at around that time that someone suggested we head to Ink, which was apparently open for someone's birthday and imagine my delight when I discovered that the person in question was none other than Mr DJ Phully and the party was totally rocking!!! I used to frequently listen to Phully's Saturday afternoon George show and, though he surely doesn't remember, he was one of the first people that encouraged me to take up records etc whilst in Japan... No idea who was spinning when I got there but the tunes were chunky, the vibe was festive, the hosts were on form and it was just bloody lucky as far as I'm concerned that I at least got a taste of how good AK can be when it's actually open and people are out.

Sunday also began with a family dinner but once I went to my friend's friend's house it took less than 5 minutes for a pill to be put in my mouth – the first of the holiday – and after that the wheels just kept turning until finally falling fall late Monday afternoon. I hung out awhile on their deck, on a waterbed, drinking a lovely pina colada and finally finding something to miss about the old town. We then headed up to Foci to catch the end of their Sunday evening drum n bass session and that was actually really fun even though there was hardly anybody there. The dnb was the good sublime shit, not the hard metallic shit, and the organizers were all really friendly. It runs from 5-12pm so once it was over we went back to an apartment for a while then I headed back out to meet a friend at the usual place and we drank well into the next day, the old school way. Random shenanigans included openly exhibiting my breast for someone to snort stuff off (only to learn it wouldn't be required afterall), and publically popping a pill up my arse at the sudden suggestion from our team leader. Classy lady.

Golden Gisborne, NZ 29.12.04

2005-01-01T02:17:00.000+09:00

I lived in Gisborne from the age of 3-10 and I've been back several times since then, visiting friends and family, but this was the first time I've ever been out on the town and I was very pleasantly surprised. It began when I phoned up one of my primary school friends to catch up for the first time in about 15 years. She invited me down to her boyfriends place in Wainui Beach, where a bunch of surfer types had been drinking all arvo, and I was happy to discover she's turned into a delightful young lady... we had some drinks then the lot of us caught a van into the city.

Our first destination was a lovely big bar at the head of a curve in the river and we sat about with some friendly locals and shot the breeze while listening to an eclectic mix of pop rock anthems. We then relocated to the Poverty Bay Club. As the name would imply, the Club used to be a meeting ground for gentlemen. They opened it up to women some time ago to allow for rising costs, falling membership and new social norms, but it still failed financially. So they've now split the somewhat sprawling venue into two: the outer part is comprised of a dope little bar and club, and the interior contains a rather posh bar with adjacent event rooms. The two bars share the same spacious bathroom facilities and there are nice outdoor areas to accommodate the smokers now that NZ has officially introduced a comprehensive smoking ban inside all public buildings.

Gisborne is small but I was still surprised to find an old primary school crush manning the decks in the club. He kicked the night off with some topnotch underground house - on labels such as Fetish Recordings - but was soon replaced by hoodlums who dragged us deep into Compton. Damn shame as far as I was concerned but it was obvious the crowd preferred the thuggish beats to the 4/4. I continued to discover other longstanding family acquaintances throughout the night and some of us eventually returned to my girl friend's house for a quick cocktail, then I went over the road for a bong and promptly passed out.

Incidentally, NZ has a wonderful brand of vodka called 42 Below (and a gin called South) and they have recently launched a flavored range that includes Feijoa, Passionfruit and Manuka Honey. I picked up a bottle of the Feijoa dutyfree and had been caning it with apple juice over the previous few days; that night I also discovered the delights of the Passionfruit with soda, and the Honey on the rocks. www.42below.com

Halo @ La Fab / Kerri Chandler @ Yellow... Tokyo 4/12/04

2005-01-01T02:16:00.000+09:00

dance ritual

love saves the day

I found out what the record is that Fiasco played twice at the last Solid party - a boot of Golden by Jill Scott. I know this because Halo played it and I was such an obnoxious idiot on Sat night that I asked him about it then proceeded to sing it badly for the rest of the night/morning. Anyway, Halo played some solid shit - new and old - twas more like a lesson than a journey, as I insisted upon telling him while he was trying to talk to somebody else. Before Halo, Kasey spun a fantastic techy set of beautiful deep house. He's super kakoii (cool) and kawaii (cute) too. Afterward a bunch of us went to Yellow and thoroughly enjoyed the soulful, funkladen sounds of Jersey's Chandler.

It was the first time I've been really, really moved by that old NYC-style vocal disco stuff: I felt like maybe we got a glimpse of what music would've felt like back in the fucking day, as everyone is always saying, when it was new and fresh. The soundsystem was just so warm and the vibe was splendid. Some of us then wandered around Ropponghi for a while trying to find a terrible afterhours hardhouse club called Quest, and, unfortunately, we did eventually find it. I'm always shocked that people enjoy that music. Shocked! Then we went to Orbient and that wasn't so bad because they had a little lounge where some guy was busting out house like Red Light Green Light, though the main room had hardcore techno action and there were lots of couples of men lying around. Incidentally, the weather on Sunday was fucking stunning - warm and clear - because there'd been a typhoon on Sat nite which was in full effect when we left La Fab at around 5.30. Just a single-nighter, it was, but enough to turn Tokyo into an umbrella graveyard, as one person poetically called it.

two of the afterhours crew

Hmmmm. Today is Tuesday and my heart seems to be beating but my brain is 100% flatlining it. This is because prior to hitting the club on Saturday I smoked about five large rocks of pure crystal methamphetamine, known in Japan as shabu. Some random European guys bought it for me as a present and, in fact, I only used a minute portion of the gift but it was still too much; hence the obnoxiousness. So. Anyway. Here's a poem a guy wrote after I related my misadventures:

there was a young lass called beth
who caned a bit too much crystal meth
she drank all day
and got in a bad way
and suffered from terrible breath

Module 3rd B-day feat Dizzy / Garth @ Yellow, Tokyo 05.11.04

2005-01-01T02:15:00.000+09:00

Module is an excellent little club in central Shiubuya that specializes in underground electronic music of every genre. They bring foreign DJ/producers to Tokyo fairly frequently and part two of their 3rd birthday party featured Sa-Sa, Lady Something Different and Dizzy of Doubledown fame. I drank a lot of vodka and had a very fun time fully checking LSD for the first time: she played a wonderful selection of deep tough house with a moody kind of vibe, occasionally lightening shit up with a tried and true slice of cheese. For me, Dizzy played a set of two halves. The first was a good selection of house that wavered between styles and failed to really grab my attention; the second was a tight and coherent mix peppered with twisted tracks that got people dancing in glee. Module's dancefloor is self-contained in a small room and unfortunately the smoke machine broke at one point, continually pumping until it became difficult to breathe, so that meant I left the floor for a while and just listened from one of the upstairs lounges. I can't remember the exact times but I'd guess Dizzy spun for about three hours from 1-4, at which point I jumped in a cab to Yellow.
www.ladysomethingdifferent.com
www.doubledownrecordings.com
www.clubmodule.com

Garth was billed as playing House & Classics and that's exactly what I heard from the moment I hit the floor, drunk and a little delerious. I happened to run into a guy I'd met the previous week at Maniac Love and we kept on drinking and dancing around to everything from the Police to Talking Heads with chunks of new 4/4 action in between. I had received several warnings about Garth's style prior to going to the gig - that he was too techy, that he was too deep - but if you like your house and classics then this would have been the gig for you for sure. I liked the odd rock/pop tracks he slipped into the mix but I could've done without the dub flavored stuff he fed us at about 6am. Like, we know it's kind of getting late but tracks like that at that hour are tantamount to a warm glass of milk and a bedtime story as far as I'm concerned, whereas if you keep the bpms sailing along and the mood bouncy your crowd will do the same. Someone recently wrote that there's no such thing as a mellow track on a good soundsystem, only a deep track, but I beg to differ. Yellow's system is very fucking good but some of Garth's shit was mellow as yellow man. Probably didn't help that I'd taken a valium but, imo, those sounds are better kept for Sunday afternoon. That's all.
www.grayhound.net
www.club-yellow.com

Solid 1st Anniversary feat Fiasco @ La Fab, Tokyo 06.11.04

2005-01-01T02:14:00.000+09:00

DJ Marshall and promoter Jason have done a brilliant job over the last year throwing a party about once a month at Shibuya's fun French venue. As well as showcasing local talent, many of their parties have hosted the creme de la creme of underground house DJ/producers including Heather, Fred Everything, Ali, Joshua/Iz and Diz, and their first birthday party featured Johnny Fiasco. Kai played an excellent set first to get the party started then Lady Something Different (aka Kaori Ichikawa) delivered her own brand of deep, sexy house before Johnny Fiasco dropped some house bombs straight outta Chicago. Host Marshall served a storming set of slightly older tracks before finishing the night off back-to-back with his guest.

Personally, I was extremely fatigued from the previous night's shenanigans at Module and Yellow but I thoroughly enjoyed the music all night. Mr Fiasco is a regular on the world circuit and was back in Tokyo after two previous appearances - most recently at one of Ichikawa's Sketch parties at JZ Brat last year - but it was my first time hearing him. He played some cheeky, chunky, funkladen house and pulled one of my favorite tricks which is when DJs drop a great track at the start of their set then the same one again toward the end (of course I've got no idea what track it was but I'm sure I'll hear it again - twas killer).
http://www.ladysomethingdifferent.com
http://www.johnnyfiasco.com
http://www.lafabrique.jp

NB: I was found to be smoking a joint on the dancefloor after it was handed to me by a Japanese person and narrowly avoided landing myself in serious trouble. Lesson learnt? Don't fuck with drugs in Japan - at least not publically - because the law is always enforced. I would've been better off sticking to my earlier combination of chocolate and champagne...

Jeff Mills & Ken Ishii @ Womb, Tokyo 29.10.04

2005-01-01T02:13:00.000+09:00

pic courtesy of womb

I have a new favoritist DJ. His name is Ken Ishii and he's a rock star! He played the guest spot at the closing party of Jeff Mills' 4-week residency at Womb and, imo, was more enjoyable. Mills has got to be one of the most conceptual DJs on the planet and he has hosted his Time Sensitive sessions in Tokyo a couple of times now with each week having a definite agenda. This year the first week was Live with Francois K, the second featured Octave One with Ann Saunderson singing live, the third was all about the 60s and 70s with Mills delivering an entire set of James Brown, and the fourth is the one I went to: Mills played first from 11-1, then Ishii played about 1-3, then Mills played till closing at about 5. The club was busy from the time it opened and eventually got uncomfortably packed so the dancefloor became like a mosh pit as Mills laid down some fast and frenetic beats in between lulls of ambient noises. Ken started off with something which I'd be inclined to call brokenbeat techno if it didn't sound so wack - like, is there such a thing? How about breaknotech? [Ha ha ha] Whatever, it was kind of slow and choppy and heavy and then he just gradually built up to some cranking, thumping slabs of proper techno stylee but with a little more funk than Mills, and even a few vocals. Mills' second set was pretty much a straight slam of musical futurism.

So what is Techno anyway? Well, I actually went to this party to find out once and for all and the conclusion I reached is that the beat's faster and flatter than house... sometimes the basslines remind me a lot of drum n bass - either when it's crunking along with the beat or when it's long and searching like some of the original Reece techno tracks... all the other noises are kind of abstract but there's still some organic elements... despite the faster pace, however, the thing which techno definitely is NOT is hardhouse/ harddance/ trance etc etc which are all about stupid buildups and breakdowns and obvious chord shifts with dumb vocals and annoying noises. Techno just aint cheesy.

The basic story goes that NYC begat disco, Chicago begat house and Detroit begat techno, though it seems it was never just a one-way ticket from one city to the next but rather an ongoing exchange of ideas. A clever little birdie informed me that Derrick May even sold his Roland 909 to Frankie Knuckles at the Warehouse, thereby giving house it's heartbeat. But the D-Town peepz did eventually develop a sound and style that was clearly distinguishable from what their Chicago brethren were creating, just as the music played at the Warehouse came to be distinguishable from disco. As far as I can tell from all that I've read and from the empirical evidence of listening to the early tracks from both cities, Chicago was more about making shit work on the dancefloor because these clubs were springing up and the demand was massive, whereas Detroit was just Atkins, May and Saunderson doing their thing with the new machines.

In Last Night a DJ Saved My Life, they claim that the term Techno was just invented so a few Brit journos could write about the next big thing [Cue Billy Joel: "There's a new band in town / But you can't get the sound from a story in a magazine..."]. But according to Saunderson, in the interview linked below, Atkins was already calling it that. In any case, techno couldn't have just been called Detroit House because people argue that the likes of Moodymann and Theo Parrish play and produce Detroit-style house (and others play West Coast-style, and others play NYC-style and others play UK-style or French-style or ---) so the name wouldn't suffice to describe a sound that is, in no uncertain terms, different from the 4/4 chugging of what is now understood to be house music in whatever city you care to name. (Though, aside from its place of origin, there are now a billion other ways you can label it incuding the dreaded Funky. I don't have his name on hand but a DJ recently shared his standard response to people who request Funky House: "all my records are house and they all be funky". In other words, FUCK OFF!).

It's kind of ironic, then, that Techno has come to be the blanket term ignorants use for EDM when, in fact, it's probably the smallest and staunchest of the genres... And sometimes, I must confess, I did find Mills' music a little boring. When I was out on the dancefloor in the middle of it all then I could fully appreciate what he was doing and get swept up in the energy of it but if I removed myself from the action the music sounded a little sterile and monotonous. Luckily the visuals were absolutely fucking incredible. Mills' said in the brief intermission between his and Iishii's set that the equal mix of sight and sound was intended to increase the enjoyment factor of electronic music, and it sure as fuck worked.

pics courtesy of womb

The mainroom at Womb is three floors high. There are two lounges behind glass on the back wall and the front wall is plain above the raised DJ booth. The groundlevel walls down the side of the dancefloor are your standard black things with subs and stuff stacked against them, and the two floors worth of wall above that are usually plain except at the back of the left side where there's glass into the sides of the lounges. Usually only the front wall has visuals projected onto it but on this night they had put square screens over the entire upper two floors of sidewalls so that three sides of the dancefloor were surrounded by enormous visuals.

When Mills played they were all spacey - planets, moons, stars, rockets, comets, and a recurring motif of stars all rushing upward quickly for about a minute making you feel like you were floating up with them. One stunning image was when a huge planet slowly rose up around all three sides then disappeared. Then when Ishii played the visuals were hardcore urban shots of Tokyo with a wicked car chase through the city and some excellent aerial shots that were all fucked up to mirror each other and cool stuff like that. Also, Ishii's headphones had some kind of sparkley things on the band (diamantes/ crystals/ diamonds?) and he just had so much charisma behind the decks with this dope bling-bling t-shirt and some seriously beautiful dirty tunes and a lot of classics - I was very moved by him.

Mills took it up jacking and hard when he got back on and the spacey visuals started up again and the dancefloor was rammed so I went and chilled in the 3rd floor lounge, which is opulent and beautiful with chandeliers, and a DJ by the name of Keita was playing some of the best drum n bass I've heard in a very long time. So that was fun. Then, in the final hour, the crowd thinned out and Mills started rocking some deep, exciting techno and so I hit the dancefloor again and that was probably the best part of the night. He gave a speech at the end and thanked the people for allowing him to experiment with them and said what he had leaned this month would directly affect his performances over the following year. A Japanese MC translated and the crowd went beserk and so he played an encore track. And guess what it was? Jaguar!!! Oh, and guess what the soundsystem is? Phazon. A large stack of speakers in each corner, more subs in the middle of the sidewalls, and 4 tweeters suspended right down off the ceiling so they form a square above the crowd, a little way in from the stacks. Womb also has one of the world's biggest mirrorballs.

Unlike American cities, Tokyo is very short on space - particularly the kind of empty warehouses or loft apartments that make for great afterparties. So a number of clubs throw afterhours parties every weekend and the one at Maniac Love has been running for about 10 years now I think. It's kind of dirty and hardcore but everyone goes so it can be fun and I was just sitting in a corner drinking a Tequila Sunrise and trying my hardest to understand what a very cute, exceptionally e'd up woman was trying to tell me when I noticed that the person standing about 10cm in front of me was none other than my new favoritist DJ! I introduced myself and he was delightful and said it was always very special working with Mills because he thinks differently about things, and the concept of featuring the visuals so prominently in sync with the music was very new for everyone, and he had even practiced for the night.

And there were actually two of the brand new Pioneer DVJ-X1s set up in Womb's second floor lounge for people to play around on. They had Mills' Exhibitionist DVD in them and you could scratch the image and the music at the same time. I had fun doing that when he was turning a record over - he looked like a psycho little DJ puppet - and it was hilarious watching these wasted, hot Japanese girls scratching away with state-of-the-art headphones on and shit. Japan fucking loves their gadgets. And I fucking love Japan.
http://blog.excite.co.jp/jeff
http://www.womb.co.jp

For a definitive account of how techno was born, check this interview with Kevin Saunderson.

Famfatal @ UnderLounge / Rolando @ Saza*E, Osaka 23/24.09.04

2005-01-01T02:12:00.000+09:00

There appears to be no shortage of talented female DJs in Japan and all the ones I've come across thus far have also been very sexy (that includes you Kaori Ichikawa!). An obvious play on the words femme fatale, Famfatal is a collective of female DJs, VJs and Gogo Girls that throw a party at UnderLounge every couple of months. When I arrived at the club, Mie Kashiwagi was delivering a deep blend of funky and progressive house and really mixing and mashing the tracks up - I was so impressed that I bothered to find out her name from the door staff and I'll certainly try and catch her again. I don't know who played next but she began her set with Smack My Bitch Up then launched into some breaks followed by ball-breaking techno and some quite fluffy house, which was quite a headfuck to say the least. The Gogo girls danced on the stage on either side of the DJ booth and there was a large area of fresh flowers on the floor directly in front of it. While Kashiwagi played, the girls were barely dressed in naughty lingerie; while the next DJ spun, they wore traditional Japanese kimono but with a leather corset around the middle. Bizarrely, the VJs wore matching red and white suits that made them look like Santa's little helpers. The dancefloor filled steadily with an equal mix of ladies and men, but the club was never packed.

UnderLounge is fucking bling-bling. The entrance (and doorman) is right on the street but you need to walk through a covered red walkway and down some stairs to get to the reception area, then turn right and go around into the main area. When you first walk into the club, there's an Island Bar with a tall glass shelf in the middle and seating around the back and right of the surrounding space. On the left side is the entrance to the bathrooms, lockers and cigarette/beer vending machines - all modern and exquisitely designed. In the center of the club is the dancefloor. It has a small platform at the back with a high table on each side and the DJ booth at the front, so the space is well-defined. Large EAW full-range drivers are suspended from the roof of the four corners, above some serious subs at the back. There's a walkway on the other side of both tables, then some spacious seated areas (booths on the right/tables and chairs on the left). On the night of Famfatal one of the booths was occupied by ladies giving free makeovers with the best makeup on the market. Another bar backs directly onto the DJ booth and behind that is a slightly raised VIP/reserved section. Between the areas there are some silver garage-style doors that can be pulled up or down as they want (they were down early on then pushed up later the night I was there, which is probably standard procedure). The reserved space has a bar along the left side and tables and seating along the back with ornately gilded mirrors on the walls, vases of fresh flowers and and black-tie waiter service.

There may have been a sign up but I didn't know the area was reserved and was examining it in detail when I was stopped by a merry bunch of Japanese guys and asked to sit down. An Australian girl joined them shortly after - fresh from receiving a complimentary makeover - and she turned out to be the girlfriend of one of the men. I noticed one of them kept sniffing from a small bottle and asked if it was rush and although it turned out to be nothing more than cold medication, this triggered them to ask me if I was a junkie. I said no, though I later learnt they use the term loosely to refer to all people who party hard. Japan is very hardline about drugs and there are always signs up in clubs warning of the consequences if you are found using them (usually thay say they will report you to the police and name the specific station involved) so I was surprised when another guy came over and offered the group some coke from a straw that you could sniff directly from, but I just took some and said nothing. By this time the music was driving me crazy - the 2nd DJ was on and playing all kinds of dodgy shit - so I told them I was going to go back to a cool, compact club called Vinyl where I had started my night. With the Australian translating, they told me they might come later.

I had got to Vinyl at about 9pm and at that time there was some chill beats playing but the bartender had assured me it would be house after 10pm ("Vinyl - House of House Music" says the sign outside), and a young NZ/Japanese guy was indeed playing some quality 4/4 stuff by the time I returned at around 1am. The club is your standard DJ bar with a dancefloor at the front, the DJ booth and bathrooms down the left, and the bar across the back and down the right. It was still almost empty but I sat down on a sofa and my friends from UnderLounge arrived a short while later. Then things got really mental. They produced a small shot pipe filled with ketamine and shoved it under my nose, then a bottle of rush, then took me outside to smoke some ganja in their car. A few rounds of this later and I didn't know what the fuck was going on.

One of the ongoing issues for me in such circumstances is trying to reconcile the fact that the ground is and is not moving. That is to say, the floor is stationary and I'm moving on it, but at the same time, the whole ground is moving because we are on a fucking rotating planet. Also, I often have trouble deciding if it's a good thing or a bad thing that I'm often totally wasted with people I don't know, in cities I don't know, but with a familiar backdrop of repetitive beats and glitches... I've done a reasonable amount of K but not for a while and it was strong stuff, plus I had no idea how much I was taking because of the way we were doing it. Are you familiar with the device? It's small and made of glass with a cyclindrical portion loaded with powder and a round nozzel on top that has a little lever kind of thing so when you sniff from it only a certain amount comes out. It's the first time I've seen such a thing, and it's really rather clever.

In addition, I discovered these people use the word OD whenever someone takes too much of something - not just when your life is actually endangered by it - and "puri puri" means twisted/wasted, they use the verb "nomu" (to drink) in reference to taking pills, and they pronounce V. I. P. like one word: "vip". A couple of unsteady, sanity-challenging hours later I found myself in a cab with the man who had first stopped me and, after resisting his invitation to smoke more with him at his house, I was taken back to my hotel.
www.famfatal.com
www.under-lounge.com

Jaguar is one of my all-time favorite tracks; I love Underground Resistance; I love the mix Rolando did for UR under his Aztek Mystic guise; UR is huge in Japan; Saza*E is a brand new club on the industrial side of town; I went to the party with two bonafide members of the Yakuza. Does this sound like a recipe for fun or what? The previous night, I discovered Rolando would be playing and told my new friends I would definitely be going and they had said they'd come with me. At around 10pm I rang and said I could either check a club called Dawn by myself and meet them later, or meet them now; they told me to go to one of the guy's house. When I arrived he was wearing a business suit but he soon went to shower and later emerged totally naked with full tatoos down his arms and across his chest. I jokingly asked if he was Yakuza (a member of the Japanese mafia) and he seriously replied that he was half mafia/half businessman. Oh, I said.

Later he made me promise that I would soon return to Osaka for a longer time and we agreed on it by linking pinkie fingers. But half of both his were missing: chopped off at the age of 22, which apparently indicates that he violated some kind of Yakuza protocol. Another issue is that because the tatoos brand them as mafia, they've got to wear long sleeves all the time. When the Australian girl arrived later I told her I hadn't noticed their tatoos or fingers the previous night and she laughed and translated what I'd said to her boyfriend, who couldn't speak a word of English. "Gomen ne", he said quietly (I'm sorry). "Zenzen daijoubou", I replied (no problem at all). In any case, the guys rang the club ahead of time to tell them they would be coming. This meant we were greeted at the door and escourted up the elevator to a serviced section down one side of the mezzanine area that frames the dancefloor; though, interestingly, they did have to pay entry and for drinks. I asked if people generally knew who they were and they said yes, which explains why they weren't bothered about doing drugs so freely the previous night. This time they had pure K in one of the shot pipes and a mix of K and some very smacky E in the other - not for the faint hearted or minded - as well as plain pills. I drank only water all night in an attempt to stay with it though I'm not sure if I did a very good job.

One thing I've noticed about Japan is that although people are very enthusiastic about international artists, they are just as appreciative of their own talent and Rolando was simply the guest DJ at a night called Club Noir, as opposed to being the headline DJ at a dedicated party. Like, his name appears in the same font as the Japanese DJs on the club flyer and he only played from 2.30 till 5.30, when the club closed. The other DJs were Yoku and Astro and whoever played directly before Rolando was excellent. Osaka, I discovered, is a bit of trance town but they seem to like it hard and fast whatever the genre. All the DJs I heard played all styles of music from deep to funky to progressive to techno to trance and the crowd reacted equally well to all of it. At Saza*E they would periodically shout in time to the beat - not woohoo or whistle or whatever but shout loudly and strongly - kind of HEY HEY HEY HEY... very very tribalistic feeling. So how was Rolando? Wicked Wicked Wicked. I don't know if the previous DJ played it last or if Rolando played it first but Jaguar rang out very early on and he worked shit well. He's also exceptionally goodlooking.

Saza*E is owned by the same people as UnderLounge and opened very recently. It's absolutely state-of-the-art. I find it hard to imagine there's a venue on the planet that is better designed or equipped for partying (though there is a definite bias toward the scenester side of clubbing as opposed to say Yellow, which is all about the music). They over-filled the place by about 100 people I think and it was difficult to move on the main floor, so I stayed mostly up in the area reserved for us and looked down on it. We could also see through some frosted glass at the back of the room into a seated, fully-catered lounge with low-volume music, called the Pink Salon. The area was strictly reserved but I was allowed to look around when I told them I was a journalist (not entirely untrue but certainly a bit of a blag). These areas of the club are on the 2nd and 3rd floors; the first floor just has the entrance at the front and assumably the service/kitchen areas occupy the rest. There is a very impressive staircase that winds up with vertical steel poles all around the interior. There is also a straight staircase going from the back of the mezzanine, past the entrance to the Pink Salon, and down to the back of the main room.

Like UnderLounge, the DJ booth has a bar directly behind it and the main one is at the other end of the dancefloor by the entrance. Of course the bathrooms are gorgeous. But the exceptional feature of the club is the Water Lounge on the 4th floor. It had a private party going on that night but my friend was able to obtain permission for us to go up and take a look around. Eerily, it was just like seeing the club I have invented for a fictitious project. It's all white and occupies the full length of the building. It's called the Water Lounge because there's a fountain coming out from one wall into a shallow, marbled brick pool. The Mackie soundsystem was like nothing I'd ever heard before - deep and low and clear. The club is evidently sponsored by Technics and the booth featured two Technics CDJs, and two Technics MKG5s (Have you seen them? They're patent, sparkly black with a blue pitch light) and a Technics mixer in the middle, all in a perfect straight line. (The mainroom booth had a Urei mixer with an additional turntable behind it so there was a triangle of them, and the CDJs were on the outside). The crowd in the 4th floor lounge was uniformly fashionable and, as usual, the real fun was downstairs with the crazy people.
www.saza-e.com
www.undergroundresistance.com

To give you an idea of the kind of stuff that's constantly going on in Japan right now, Kaskade was due to spin at Saza*E the night after Rolando, while Rolando was due to appear in Tokyo at a club called Ageha, which is a huge venue on the outskirts of the city that features trapeze acrobats and a swimming pool. Back in Osaka, Jeff Mills was scheduled to play UnderLounge in the near future, David Mancuso was booked to host an event at a club called Noon and DJ Garth was booked to play at a club called Nudic. How do I know all this? in most cities in the world EXCEPT AUCKLAND (which is as bitchy as two pitbulls on heat) clubs have other clubs' flyers on their counters and even other clubs' posters on their walls. Osaka seemed particularly congenial because in the map on the back of their flyers many of them showed the location of nearby clubs as well as the usual famous landmarks. I had a very good time there and will definitely go back.

3 Chairs Release Party @ Yellow, Tokyo 18.09.04

2005-01-01T02:11:00.000+09:00

This is one of the dopest parties I've ever been to. Yellow is a fucking serious nightclub and the 3 Chairs crew are fucking serious about their music but the two factors combined to create a lot of fun. The Japan tour saw the four Detroit DJs play the club twice: once on the Saturday and once at a semi-private party on the Monday (they went to Osaka on Friday and Kyoto on Sunday). Yellow doesn't allow photos to be taken inside and so if you want to write an official review of an event or the venue you need to contact them and they'll then hook you up with a pro photographer. However, in the case of 3 Chairs, the club had to contact the promoter of the night who then had to contact their agent to ask permission, and it was declined. No press allowed. Instead 3 Chairs' journalist friend travels with them and records the night as they want it to be remembered, which is fucking class I think.

Another thing about Yellow: they've recently had some renovations done and the place is looking sweet. The lounge that's adjacent to the club has been refitted with a seated bar down two walls that you can sit behind, with the actual alcohol bar still along the back wall. There's now a clear space in the middle of the room (rather than tables and stools) and the design is all very minimal and industrial and black and white and modern. Upstairs they've added a half-wall here and a few tables there to make better use of the already lovely space. And, best of all, they've redone the ladies bathrooms so there are now 4 spacious cubicles instead of two small ones, plus a couple of unisex toilets downstairs.

As to the soundsystem - I've been researching the things lately and I still don't know shit but I got to the gig early (Theo Parrish playing to 5 people anyone?) so I was able to have a proper look at it and ask the sound guys what was what without being too much of a nuisance. In each of the back corners they have an even-shaped speaker stack - 2 wide and 4 high - graded from low mids to highs with an additional tweeter thing on top. In the center of the back wall, raised well off the floor, is one very large subwoofer that's surrounded by wooden platforms. You can either sit on the part that's level with the top of the sub (under the very low roof and leaning against the back wall) or you can sit on the benches that are level with the bottom of it. There is also a small space on either side of the sub where you can stand on the lower part so your head is about level with the people sitting on the higher part. Get it? It's fun back there, kind of like being in a surround-sound cave because the bass is right next to you and the speakers are on either side (though obviously facing forward into the dancefloor). At one point, a guy sittiing beside me said: "Tonight is very good sound. Last week Francois K played only CDs and sound was very bad."

The DJ area is down the other end of the room and there's a large round pylon in the middle of the floor; the roof above the pole and to the left of it is low (like at the back) but it's high on the right side, where there's a steel staircase at the front going up to the lounges/bathrooms. On the back part of the right wall there was a large graphic of the 3Chairs... so it all looked and sounded wonderful... In each of the the front two corners there is a odd-shaped stack with a large sub-bass enclosure on the bottom, then large speakers, then a full range driver with a curved protruding part, then one of those funny little tweeters on top. According to my friend the curved part "was a horn-loaded device. It is usually made of metal and uses a compression driver. Horns act as a natural amplifier by physically increasing the amplitude of the sound wave as it works its way down the throat and out the mouth of the horn, just like a trumpet". And the amps were all in little cupboard things right behind each of the four stacks. I drew a diagram of this stuff and asked what each bit was and I'm still not really sure but, anyhow, the system sounds deep and clear and loud and warm and nice. The lighting is also minimal so the club is mostly dark.

As mentioned above, Theo Parrish played first. The same friend said this about him: "He plays a lot of old disco mixed up with detroit house and techno - nothing like the minimal stuff he produces. It's a real "chill" vibe. He also uses a 3-way frequency isolator to really fcuk with the sound. He'll just pull the kick out for 2 minutes and let you dance to the hi-hats while he overloads the mids or whatever, then BAM! and all you've got is a bassline and all the tops are gone. I love it when those Detroit guys 'jam the box' but it drives some people up the wall. Seeing Theo this year was the first time I have had a DJing epiphany for a long time. He really draws out the emotion in the records. One thing is for sure - you'll either love it or hate it." He was on from around 10.30 to 1.30 and I loved it. He chopped up all styles of good house etc with plenty of style and really worked the ever-filling dancefloor so that by the time he got off everyone was cheering and whistling and clapping whenever he pulled some kind of stunt. Rick Wilhite played next and he took it kind of darker with lots of those deep spooky basslines, then Malik Pittman got on at about 3 and kicked shit off with some banging techno-style house action, then I left. So I don't know if Malik maintained the same pace (but I doubt it).

And, yes, I missed Moodymann aka Kenny Dixon Jr. The reason for this is that my father was asleep at a hotel at that time and I had been up since 6am at a fish market with him, and had another full day ahead and didn't want to rock in from a club at 7am, which is about when the moody man would've finished. Maybe that was a dumb move on my part but, the thing is, Parrish was excellent and then Wilhite honestly played a whole set of the exact kind of music I love and so I didn't think it possible that what followed it could get any better. He was awesome. A gorgeous, big, black man wearing a white bandana and a t-shirt saying THE BOYS ARE BACK...... Hot club. Hot tunes. Hot crowd. Hot party.

http://www.3chairs.net
http://www.club-yellow.com

Farina/Carter Release Party @ Zentra, Chicago 02.08.04

2005-01-01T02:10:00.000+09:00

photo of diz and mf taken by david.o of chicagogroove.com

The latest beautifully packaged offering from San Francisco's OM Records is a live mix CD from Derrick Carter and Mark Farina respectively. To celebrate its release, Farina was invited to spin in Chicago at the Monday night industry party that Carter presides over every week with Diz and Hiroki: House Arrest at Zentra. The party has been running for about eight months and ordinarily it's held on the first floor of the club and the upstairs mainroom is kept shut. The DJs play down the end of a long room that's dominated by a bar and spacious booths. There's also a large lounge and an outdoor garden where movies are played and a patio where bbq food is served. But on this occasion both floors were open with Diz, Carter and Farina spinning in the mainroom and a number of other DJs holding court elsewhere, and the line to get in went well down the street. It's possible that Farina simply has more pulling power in his native city than the usual residents because he doesn't spin there so often. I think it's also likely that many people just need a bit of an excuse to go out these days and there was never any doubt that the party that night would be different.

I'm unable to report of the music or atmosphere in any area of the club besides the mainroom because I didn't leave it: the energy was electric. Diz spun first and confirmed he's got the skills and style to match any DJ on the planet. He played a mix of funky, fat, flirtatious house, working the EQs to get the dancefloor jumping. Next up, Carter delivered a set that hit you right in the chest. There was scarcely a vocal to be heard for the opening part as he lay down some driving, bass-heavy tracks that locked everyone in. Later he lightened things up with a couple of bouncing guitar-licking grooves then, toward the end of his time, he dropped a hip house track that was like a big shout out to black America, raising the vibe to another level. Farina finished things off with a flawlessly mixed, fantastic selection that made time fly. His set included a few more rap tracks and some of the acid-inspired stuff that's big right now but, typically, every kind of good house was also well represented. At one point he dramatically slowed a tune down and melded it into Everybody Loves the Sunshine, then kicked the party off all over again. It was well into the night by this stage and it was seriously hot and sweaty in there.

Chicago is still a fairly segregated city but the best clubs naturally attract a crowd that's properly representative of the underground house movement - mixed age and mixed race - and that was certainly true of Zentra on this occasion. Throughout the night there was an MC announcing the DJs and occasionally calling on the crowd for some response; at one point he was simply hollering "Chicago - Illinois - Chicago - Illinois" in time to the beat, perhaps indicating that the night was a special one in the city's recent history.

http://www.om-records.com
http://www.classicmusiccompany.com
http://www.zentranightclub.com

Chi-Town Bump, 22.07.04-02.08.04

2005-01-01T02:09:00.000+09:00

Like San Francisco, I went to Chicago to take a break from Japan in a famously cool English-speaking city. But mainly I went there for house music. As someone said, it's simply not possible that everyone involved in the current scene could have been around in the halcyon days of The Warehouse, Muzic Box and Power Plant because of sheer numbers and also because it was mainly a gay black scene; and I didn't expect them to have been. However, I encountered a lot of people who were totally unaware of their city's role in EDM history and this I did find surprising. Many had never heard of The Warehouse at all; one person asked me what kind of music we were listening to (it was DJ Heather playing house); another asked me what kind of house I was looking for, as in property.

On the whole, though, I encountered industry people who were intelligent and fun and generous, and I learnt a great deal about the place and people that spawned the music. Most people will agree that house is house - period - while others have a particular definition of what house is based on whatever era it was that they most actively participated in the cause. For many older Chicagoans, this seemed to equate to the gospel/diva style vocal house that most clearly conveys the spiritual/social nature of the music, and I realized that this is actually what they're referring to when they say Deep House (as opposed to the lush stuff that I associate with cities like SF). I asked a lot of people what they thought about the current state of affairs in Chicago and the general consensus seemed to be they're on their way out of a fairly poor period that began a few years ago. Check these sites for some insight and info:
http://www.deephousepage.com
http://www.music-101.com
http://www.chicagogroove.com
http://grooveparlor.com
http://www.metromix.com

Thursday: Smart Bar's 22nd Birthday.
The party featured DJ Heather and Miles Maeda. Brad Owen kicked things off with a beautiful set and then introduced me to bunch of cool peepz: much fun ensued. It was the first time I'd heard Heather spin and I can now understand why so many people rate her so highly (unfortunately, some asshole stole her CDs that night). Miles spun last and took things down a level: deeper, darker, dirtier. Smart Bar is quite far north of the city and I ended up going there 3x so it can't have been bad.

Friday: Very hungover and jetlagged.
Not very keen about going out but I got in a cab and went up to check either Crobar (for Felix da Housecat) or Zentra (for Yousef). They're just around the corner from each other but both had lines of people that I wasn't desperate to join so I jumped right back in a cab and went home.

Saturday: Chicago Underground Sound loft party.
It was a beautiful venue with a fantastic view of the skyline and, although the party was fairly quiet all night, I had a good time with some of the people I'd met on Thursday night. Stacy Kidd spun a deep set and Paul Johnson arrived late to play last but his set was cut short by fighting outside. Some Estonians tried to sneak in via the fire escape and set the alarm off in the process then when one of the hosts went down to turn it off, they jumped him. Nice. Everyone started splitting at that point as there was talk that the assailants would return with guns, and PJ invited me to go with him and his boys. There was blood on the steps when we left. By that time I was rollin my ass off - as they say in the local vernacular - so nothing gave me much cause for concern. But it's a shame the same kind of lowlifes all over the world always find ways to disrupt the peace of independent parties. Back at Mr Johnsons, we ate more candy and watched Dave Chapelle DVDs on his giant TV. And the boys identified my ass as an "apple", whatever that means.

Sunday: Day Ra @ Iggy's.
It was a beautiful day and I went along to Iggy's to introduce myself to the lovely Arman of Music-101, who I'd contacted some months previous. People were friendly, tunes were good courtesy of resident Brian Gardner and guest Hiroki. Nice time had by all.

Monday: House Arrest @ Zentra/Boom Boom Room @ Green Dolphin St.
Zentra was quiet when I arrived so I sat down with some guys then went to Green Dolphin for a while, which was slowly building into a fun party. When I got back to Zentra, Diz was spinning - soon followed by Derrick Carter - and there were a few more people in the club but it was still pretty chill.

Tuesday: Industry Night @ Slick's / House @ Big Wig.
I arrived way early at Slick's and hung out for a while then went round the corner to Big Wig, where Gene Farris had held a residency until very recently. His replacement was playing some solid house and the club was lovely, though empty. Back at Slick's, Diz and Frique spun some good tunes and the party got big as the night wore on.

Wednesday: Grant Park / Moonshine / Tini Martini / Bigwig / 3 Degrees @ Zentra.
Chicago's Grant Park has been host to formal Dancing in the Park for a number of years now but this was the first year they incorporated a DJ element (and on the flyers it specified that there wouldn't be dance classes at these events). Apparently the key organizer decided if Detroit could hold a festival on the strength of their techno then Chicago could hold parties on the strength of its house: about time. So Diz and Derrick kicked the series off some weeks ago and Frankie Knuckles will finish it off in a few weeks on Frankie Knuckles Day, when they will also open an honorary Frankie Knuckles Way where The Warehouse was located. The evening I went, Skip played first and Silk Hurley finished things off. He played an excellent mix of old school vocal house, acid house, disco, funk, and some more recent pop anthems. The crowd was very mixed with beautiful older black women rocking some hot fashion and plenty of kids running around in amidst the usual mash of dancing folk. Some friends commented that more South Siders had shown up than was usual, and it's a reflection on Chicago that you can still pick where people are likely to come from. Anyhow, the party was rocking. I then went to my friend's place and we hung out a while before going to Moonshine. Unfortunately none of us knew Moonshine is a restaurant and the afterparty starts right after the party in the park so we missed Johnny Fiasco's set. It's a fun place with people dancing in between the tables and I was chuffed to spot DJ Trax wearing a Joy Division t-shirt. At Tini Martini, Lady D played some good tracks including PJ's latest catchy tune about a hot girl that looks better than Britney... Then I went by myself to Big Wig to hear some drum n bass but it was the worst kind of dnb party as far as I'm concerned - hard, angry music and a small intense crowd. Finally I went to Zentra. 3 Degrees is a global network of house heads and the Wednesday night party is a members-only affair but a guy I met the previous night said I'd be okay to go; they let me in no problem when I mentioned his name. People had said the party had had its day but I found a club full of happy people dancing to quality music so I have no complaints whatsoever.

Thursday: KRS 1 @ Funky Buddha / Benefit Gig @ Smart Bar.
I wanted to check Funky Buddha but I wasn't all that bothered about KRS so I stayed a while, had a few drinks, checked the opening act (which had a heavy number about being "from the bricks") then I left as soon as KRS came on, which was probably very stupid but nevermind. Smart Bar was holding a benefit party and the line-up included Monna, Lady D, Heather, Colette and Diz. I was most impressed with Colette: I knew she sung over tracks in a beautiful feminine voice so I was expecting her set to be quite fluffy, but it wasn't. She played some fat, funky, driving house and only sang over it a little. As I was leaving the club I met some friendly guys who turned out to be Ron Hardy disciples: I went back to their place way up in north Chicago somewhere for some tunes etc.

Friday: Dantes / Peach Fuzz @ Dark Room / Smooth Grooves @ Sonotheque / James Zabiela @ Sound Bar/ Acid House @ Smart Bar.
The guys I'd met the previous night had tipped me off that Dantes was an early gig so I went along at around 7 and found a nice, small bar full of older black people having some afterwork drinks to some old school disco vocal house. The bar girl, however, was a young blonde thing and she was hopeless. I made the dumb move of asking some guy if they were going to play some deep house (as advertised) and he was like, "What you talkin bout girl? This is deep house." I left soon after that and this quiet, tired guy came with me for some reason. We went to Sonotheque, which had just opened, and had a good drink and painfully superficial conversation with some thirty-something white folk (So, what do you do? they asked my companion). Then to Dark Room, which was also just opening, where the music was excellent and the party promised to grow. My new acquaintance fell asleep at the bar and I told him that it really would be better if he didn't come with me any further.

To Crobar briefly, where I asked if I could just take a quick look around the place and they obliged, then back to Sonotheque, where the party was now doing very nicely. The music was solid, the people were chill, the barstaff were exceptional, and one of the final tunes was Bad Boy by Mr Knuckles, so I was very happy. One of the DJs that night did something novel too - he cut between fresh house and proper disco in about a 3/3 format. I don't like disco much but some of the others did and just when I'd be getting pissed he'd cut back to some good stuff. I was impressed by the idea of following a strict structure while playing different genres - you could do it with any others too. Maybe I should have stuck around with my friends after that but I'd purchased a hash muffin off some mad woman with a basket of the things so my thinking was a little impaired and I went to Sound Bar to hear James Zabiela of Renaissance or Global Underground or some superbrand fame. The music wasn't actually that bad but I wasn't down with the party at all and soon left for Smart Bar. Old school DJs like Pierre and Adonis were booked to spin but when I got there it wasn't so much acid house as banging proggy breaky stuff. I escaped to a friend's place pretty quick.

Saturday: "Claude Young" @ Vision / Rithma @ Big Wig / Leo Party @ Spy Bar.
I went to Vision early to meet some friends and was therefore witness to a bizarre charitable hair competition; some of the crowd was amusing but the music was appalling. I stayed around until the main club opened next door then split to Big Wig to catch Rithma. If Rithma were a letter, he would be F: fucking friendly, fucking funky. He was one of the nicest, chillest DJs I've ever spoken to in a club environment as a stranger. It was his first time in Chicago and I was surprised by how few people knew he was in town. BW is more of a DJ bar than a club so, although there were quite a lot of people scattered around drinking, the dancefloor waxed and waned. By the time Rithma got on, though, the place was lively enough and I was delighted to hear some of the funnest, freshest house music ever. Unfortunately I left early to hear Claude Young back at Vision: it turned out he didn't show up and there was some German playing fairly soul-less techno in his place, which contrasted badly with Rithma's organic tunes. Worse, nobody in the club even knew it wasn't Young spinning.

Things were crazy outside Spy Bar with people all standing round trying to get in. In the wake of the nightclub fire that killed about 50 people a while ago, the Chicago authorities are strict about numbers. Apparently clubs often claim a low capacity to keep insurance costs down and it never used to matter but now that they're being enforced it's working against them. (Incidentally, I spoke to someone about the fire at that club and they said all kinds of shit was always going down there so, though tragic, it wasn't entirely surprising.) Anyhow, the owners of Spy were up on the street indicating who could go in; it was the final night of Music-101's Always party, which had been running for about a year, and luckily the lovely host came up and helped me out. When I got downstairs the place wasn't even that full but totally rocking. I caught the end of Diz's set then all of Monna's (I think) and the music was some of the best I heard while in town. Typically, I was a little fucked up by this point and danced on a podium to escape the men on the floor and have some space to do my embarassing thing. And later that night, also typically, I decided to DJ. For the record, I totally suck. Most DJs choose not to get messed up before they play because it fucks shit up (witness how good crazy EQ'ing sounds to the E'd up and you can kind of get why), but I only ever play when I'm high as a hawk and the results aren't cool at all.

Sunday: Dayra @ Iggy's / Sound Bar / Crobar.
After sleeping all day I got up and decided to have some E for breakfast before hitting Iggy's for some food and beer. It was another lovely evening - in every way - and I met two friendly people who insisted I go with them to the Sunday night gay parties at Sound Bar and Crobar. A little more Corona and some cocaine later I found myself dancing to some excellent tribal beats at Sound Bar, courtesy of Ralphi Rosario. One of my companions told me his friend worked on Party Monster and said Seth Green did a very good impersonation of him in it, which I have no trouble believing. He was wearing a classic Sex, Drugs and Rock n Roll t-shirt (or something to that effect) and when a friend walked in wearing one that was identical but for the color, it took less than a second for the latter to remove his and turn it inside out. Class.

At Crobar the progressive house sounded good at first but grew worse as the night progressed, or as I straightened up, or both. I thought it was a great idea to dance on a podium with this hot black chick and give my wallet to one of the barman, who liked the fact it had a pink star on it, so I ended up leaving with my most important possessions loosely contained in a purple velvet bag, feeling very stupid and gross. That night, I had the first (and hopefully last) physical nightmare I've ever experienced. It was like I'd been possessed by an evil spirit - no shit - and I was trying to wake up and move but couldn't and then when I did finally wake up I was in slight shock, only to fall right back into it again. I lay the blame squarely on the devil's dandruff I'd been sniffing the previous 24 hours: thank the Lord I don't do that too often.

Monday: Boom Boom Room @ Green Dolphin St / OM Release Party @ Zentra.
I showed up very early at Green Dolphin and had a quiet drink and cigarette down by the filthy Chicago River on a very beautiful night indeed. A lovely man asked to take some photos of me and we had some fun doing that but the experience delayed me getting to Zentra so I missed a lot of Diz's set. Luckily I still had all of Derrick Carter and Mark Farina to listen to, and after sitting down a while I couldn't resist dancing with the massive, sweaty crowd of fabulous Chicagoans. It's a pity these weren't the sets that were recorded for the OM CD because I actually think they were a lot more lively... Afterward I should have gone straight to bed but instead I went with this guy to his South Side apartment and proceeded to get very freaked out as he snorted coke, smoked coke with weed in a bong, swigged tequila from a bottle and washed it all down with Corona, while talking about himself in the 3rd person. The only good thing to come of this excursion was the beautiful drive back to the city along Lake Shore Drive - dawn breaking with the famous skyline in the distance, then surrounding me for one last time. If I'm sounding sentimental as hell right now, it's because I am. I have so much love for the city of Chicago.

Click here for more information about the clubs mentioned.

A Tuesday in Tokyo, 15.06.04

2005-01-01T02:08:00.000+09:00

New York is the original city that never sleeps but from what I can gather various NYC authorities are slowly strangling the place in their efforts to make it 100% safe and squeaky clean, while Tokyo seems to be largely left to its own devices. There is a small police box in every district but I don't think I've ever seen a policeman - maybe they're all undercover? Anyhow, it's true that the nights get increasingly chaotic as the week progresses but there was a lovely buzz about the place on an ordinary Tuesday too. We began with cocktails and champagne up at the Sky Bar of the Keiyo Plaza Hotel in Shinjuku then made our way to Shibuya where we had dinner at Elephant, a big pan-Asian restaurant with a Buddhist theme. Many restaurants do good set-menu deals and for a little more you can drink as much as you want too (nomihodai), which is what we did there.

I then went and met a friend of mine and he took me to his friend's bar. There must be hundreds of similar places around the city but you really need to be shown them by someone who knows because they're usually buried in a basement with an anonymous door. The bar was small with banging music, a genki proprietor and interesting decor. A lady did a tarot reading for me and I smoked some pot in the loos so everything was feeling kind of heavy. Very enjoying time. Then to Hachi Aoyama, a 4-storied club built next to a massive highway. We drank more shochu, ate a little yakitori and generally traipsed around. The owners and staff were excellent examples of modern Japanese men: unselfconsciously eccentric.

Finally - drunkenly and pointlessly - I went to Yellow to find the last of my friends were just leaving. They have a hip hop/R&B night on Tuesdays and it wasn't really up my street at all. But it was better than the bars I went to after, where people continued to drink and dance to awful Eurotrash or gangsta beats that sounded surprisingly good after a few shots of vodka. At least I now know for myself that Roppongi is hideous rather than just taking other people's word for it. Back to the hotel at 6, destined to be hungover for two days. The point of the story? Monday to Sunday, Tokyo's open for business.

Frisco Disco, 28.04.04 - 06.05.04

2005-01-01T02:07:00.000+09:00

just as Qool as you are

poser mega club

bring your own beach

warehouse horror

kiddie rave in fresno

all out no chill

comes with karaoke

SF has been a major player in the global music scene for years and years and is now home to many of the best underground house DJ/producers in the EDM movement. So I basically went to San Franciso to check out how the music of labels like OM, Grayhound and Green Gorilla is presented on its home ground. I was surprised to find that the breaks phenomenon is just as big as everywhere else and also that a lot of the music was kind of darker than you'd expect from such a sunny little town. But then, as someone said, that was probably a reflection on where I went.

It was my first adult trip to the US and I didn't know anyone so everything felt kind of surreal, like I was in a movie. Aside from just taking a holiday, I intended to go on a nitelife fact-finding mission but I didn't end up finding out much except that the people of San Francisco (who were generally from anywhere but SF) definitely know how to party. Most of the time I just sat back and watched what was going on. I was fairly reluctant to move when I found somewhere good so I actually didn't end up going to many places but I think I got a decent feel for the place all the same. If you're planning on going, check: sfstation.com They cover everything but the club guide is exceptional.

Wednesday: First up was a party called Qool at 111 Minna, an art gallery in the center of town. Hosted by DJs Spesh and Jondi, the party starts at 5 and goes till 10 every week and I thought the concept and space were brilliant. However, at first, the party seemed kind of gay (not in the homosexual sense) with pounding tunes ringing out over an empty dancefloor and everyone doing their best to out-talk each other in the other part of the building. But gradually the place filled up and I made friends with a bunch of lovely men who took me outside and got me stoned (it was ok to smoke just across the street from the doormen). The party took on new meaning after that and I saw it for what it is: a fantastic meeting ground for people wanting to go a little wild in the early evening of a weekday.

A nice man drove me to the next place I wanted to go, which was a party called Shizzam Jizzam at Arrow Bar. Maybe I got my wires crossed because I was expecting acid house and they were playing rock n roll, but that in itself was cool because I'd never heard the likes of Mother's Little Helper played on a live PA before. However I leap ahead of myself. Before I found the bar I accidentally smoked some crack down an alley with this black chick who had asked me if I wanted to smoke a little weed. I wasn't too happy when I found my lungs lined with plastic but I wasn't exactly furious either; my companion decided to ditch me at this point. He pleaded me to be sensible as he took off down the street but I assured him I wasin no such mood. After that, by the grace of God, I spent a while wandering around the armpit of SF being misguided by various dodgy pimps and hustlers away from my destination. Fortunately, along the way, I passed Anu Bar where there was a rocking little house party called Satellite in full effect so I went back there after having a couple at Arrow. I was then adopted by a charming man who bought me topshelf vodka/sodas all night. I don't recall how I got back to my hotel that night.

Thursday: I showed up early to hear/see The Rapture and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club perform so I had to sit through a mundane hardrock act to begin with but got talking to the merchandise girl, who I'd met the night before, and that passed the time. The Rapture played first and were fantastic. On the album I get a little annoyed with the pitch of his voice but he had such an adorable stage presence that I didn't mind his occasional screeches at all. Also, I didn't realize that another band member sung a lot of the time. The entire band was really busy with the drummer playing conventional drums or working a drum machine, the singer singing or playing guitar and generally being entertaining and engaging with a really raw, vulnerable performance, and the other guy playing the keyboard or synth or whatever plus the sax and a miked up stick banging thing (that obviously has a much better name than that). Maybe there was a fourth person? Whatever, they were great and their set took you up and down, fast and slow through their album and other songs. In between bands the sound guys played some great tunes, from DJ Shadow to The Stones to crazy disco techno and catchy bouncing house. One of the singers of Black Rebel came out and sat right of stage on his own and played a couple of new songs with an acoustic guitar, one of which was called Complicated Situation and was really beautiful. Then the other singer came out and took to the other side and added some bass, then finally the drummer. So they looked like a really equal band and shared singing duties and totally rocked it, all in black. Fortunately for me they played my favorite tracks quite soon (the first and last ones on their latest album) because I was itching to get to my first proper nightclub so I left early.

The End Up had a party called iMixed on that night, possibly referencing iPods and stuff but I don't know if any of that was going down or not. I also didn't recognize any of the names on the bill but I think it's safe to assume that in a city like SF many of the DJs would have been spinning for well over 10 years by now, famous or not, and they were all excellent. The music was great and I loved the club, which seemed custom built for fun times. I also quickly made some friends and ended up going back to a production studio in SOMA with a promoter who I'd met the day before at Minna. A few other people turned up, to his displeasure, but it meant a quiet little party of music and drugs proceeded till the following morning.

Friday: I should have gone and checked out Mighty, a modern art gallery/club on the other side of the Mission that had an early party from 5-10pm on Fridays. But I was feeling a bit unstable and instead called up a guy I'd met the previous night to go out for dinner. He came and got me and we went over to Oakland and hung out at an all-American diner that was annexed to a casino, then went back to his house where I witnessed a heated debate about the war on Iraq and America's role as the current world superpower. The participants included my friend, who was a black ex-marine, his sexy Hispanic roommate and their skinny white friend, who was a member of the US army at that time. For the record, there was a gun and some coke on the table between them and hip hop blaring in the background, and outside there was a ghetto-hawk searching the neighbourhood for some kind of criminal. I was pleased in my time in SF to encounter way more intelligent anti-Bush opinions than otherwise but that night I got the full scope.

Finally I got taken back to the city and dropped off at a warehouse-style club called Mezzanine where 2ManyDJs were playing. The party was large but unfortunately I'd missed Solar's set (he was one of the hosts) and by the time I got there the music was all about fucking breaks and electroclash or whatever the hell it is and so I'd almost run out of patience by the time the main act came on. They played a few tunes I knew, including a mix of Inner City's Good Life, but although they were probably just getting warmed up and likely to take the crowd on a fun ride through electronica's past and present, I split. Just down the street was Club 6, where I knew East Coast Boogiemen were playing, so I went there. I loved the club and the music was superb: deep, dark, funkladen, interesting, fresh house music. I think maybe Jonene played first but I'm not sure. There wasn't a huge crowd and I should have gone up the road to another club called DNA, which has a weekly house party called Remedy where people like Kaskade are resident, but I didn't. Oh well. Had a great time anyway and just as I was leaving I ran into some wealthy young guys I'd met earlier and they gave me a ride home and their number so as to meet up the following night.

Saturday: I took a cab out to the guy's friend's house and we had a few drinks and got a little geared up to hit Ruby Skye where Doc Martin was playing. The club was nominated for the Dancestar awards as one of the top five in the US so I suspected it might be a little OTT but went along anyway because I love Doc Martin. He was excellent, playing a rumbling mix of underground house with techy acidic twinges and a few sexy classics thrown in for good measure. The venue is beautiful with throbbing sound but the crowd was kind of wack and there were some chicks (wearing fishnets and ponchos) hired to dance on podiums amidst other such superclub trappings.

Although I wanted to hear the Doc's set I was impatient to go back to Club 6 where the party Get Underground was celebrating its second birthday. I also probably should have nipped up the road to the End Up and checked out Foundation, the monthly party featuring Miguel Migs, Julias Papp and Jay-J, but I didn't because I was too busy getting stoned with a married couple in the wicked shady lounge that's behind one of the dancefloor's walls. They asked me back to their house for some sex, coke and valium and I thought it sounded great but my friend said it was terrible idea so I didn't go.

Sunday Day: The End Up is open nearly all weekend but the gig changes at various times. On Saturday morning they have a day party that runs from 6am-12pm and on Sunday T-Power runs from 6am-8pm, then switches to Devotion. It was a lovely space to hang out and after a couple of hours wandering round and drinking beer I settled in with a group of people who were really friendly and kept introducng me to people. The music was quality house at first then it switched briefly to dirty breaks then back to good house, then finished with some fairly terrible gospel-style vocal stuff that drove me away. The numbers ebbed and flowed throughout the day with the people who had been out all night dropping off while other groups from various afterparties kept showing up and then more people would come along having been home for some sleep first. By around 7 it was a jumping party with a full dancefloor and a noisy crowd out in the garden.

Sunday Night: It was the first night that the party Bionic was at a DJ bar called Pink in the SOMA/Mission area rather than at The Top on Haight St, where it had been for about six years. Allegedly they moved because the sound system is better and because they can now stay open till 4am instead of 2, but on that night they shut early because it was so quiet. I've no doubt it will pick up though because one of the hosts, Joshua, plays/produces some of the best music around and I assume they have a loyal following who just took a night off or whatever. I was feeling a little frail by that time and didn't really know what to do with myself so I didn't stray far from the dancefloor. The music was flawless, courtesy of J and the other original founder, Mark E Quark.

Monday: After sleeping all day and eating some delicious authentic tacos for the first time (soft tortilla kind of wraps not hard shells) with a friend of a friend, I was ready to party again. The Green Gorilla Lounge people used to throw a weekly Monday event called High Heels at a wicked little DJ bar called Milk, on upper Haight St. The May flyer featured a camp 50s style woman bent over in some sexy heels and fishnets so I was expecting the place to be full of hot ladies rocking the latest Jimmy Choos. But it wasn't, although I wore some brand new hot pink numbers that made dancing a rather awkward phenomena until I got a little drunk. The music was right on point and the hosts were super nice and friendly and I got drinking with this random guy who runs an upmarket strip club but allegedly frequents places like Milk to get away from all the female ego. Later on we shared some MDMA and you'd have to be a loser not to have had a good time in those circumstances. Even better, an acquaintance from the previous day showed up and I left with him to go to his friend's Moroccan restaurant in the Castro district, where people were partying all night with the assistance of serious quantities of cocaine.

I must have been a little high by this point, and not just because of the heels, because I offered to DJ so our mad host wouldn't have to climb a steep ladder to get to the decks every time a record finished. There was vinyl stashed absolutely everywhere and I'm sure some of it was brilliant but everything was in the wrong sleeves and it was dark and a vital part of the headphones was missing. I had fun mixing all kinds of shit into, over, and out of the one dirty bassline. Hours later, I should have left with my friend and gone somewhere glamourous for breakfast or something but instead I stayed until the atmosphere turned sour and by the time my cab came I was dying to leave.

Tuesday: I went round to the studio I'd been at on Thursday and there wasn't exactly a party going on but a bit of drinking and drugging and dancing went down after we'd been and got some more quality Mexican food in the Mission and then had a couple of drinks at two bars on lively Polk St: Big Foot and The Hemlock. The first had a DJ playing awful funk or soul or something and the second was playing Joy Division. Class.

Wednesday: Should have. Should have. Should have. It's a phrase to ruin a girl's sanity. The Top has a house party every Wednesday and I hadn't been there because Bionic had been shifted to Pink, but I didn't go that night either. Instead I went up to Harry Denton's Starlight Lounge, which is a scenester's bar on the top of a grand hotel in the center of town. I only went because this gorgeous girl had given me her card the previous week and luckily I didn't have to wait or pay, and I didn't stay long. So it wasn't exactly a fitting final destination for my time in in San Franciso. I probably should have gone to The Top, listened to some dirty beats and smoked some more crack or something.

Click here for more information about the clubs mentioned.

Derrick Carter @ Womb, Tokyo 28.05.04

2005-01-01T02:06:00.000+09:00

Derrick L Carter is a big beautiful black man from Chicago and he's one of the world's most famous underground house DJs. For one reason or another this was the first time I've heard him spin and he was definitely good though I got a little lost in the party (Womb is rather vast) and forgot about the music sometimes. Apparently the Phazon system is not what it used to be and it did sound a little dull and flat around the edges of the mainroom though I felt fairly immersed in it whenever I ventured to the middle of the enormous dancefloor; I just didn't do that often enough. Like Kenny Hawkes, Carter was supported by a local DJ called Remi and I can't say I particularly rate him. He played some solid house with a few of Carter's classics like Where U At? thrown in for good measure but it was instantly apparent when Derrick himself had taken control. He played relentlessly good house music for 5 hours until finally being removed from the decks after three encores with lights on and off every time, much to the obvious chagrin of the Womb crew who like to shut things down at the early hour of 5am (most clubs in Tokyo are open till at least 6 or 7). Carter was apparently their first major house act in a while and they can't have been disappointed with their choice of DJ nor the attendance, though the place didn't totally fill up till around 1:30.

Lately, Womb has mostly hosted dnb, techno and progressive parties that tend to attract a multitude of ravers regardless of who's playing, often because they're associated with influential clubbing brands like Renaissance or Global Underground. The overall profile of house music just doesn't seem to be as high as it's more epic counterparts in Tokyo though I think the deeper styles are better suited to smaller clubs anyway, the music being altogether more subtle and sexy. As far as I'm concerned it's a bit of a catch-22 because only the bigger clubs can afford to book the biggest DJs so we have to go there to see them, while many other equally competent DJs are destined to keep rocking the smaller clubs in relative obscurity until someone takes a gamble and exposes them to people outside the informed underground... after which we won't be able to hear them play at intimate venues unless we catch them in their home town or at some kind of secret/ private/ pre/ post party.
Club Womb
Classic Records

After the gig I went to a fantastic little bar in east Shibuya called Red. The place was packed with a mixture of ageing gaijin (foreigners) and young Japanese all getting down to some quality house, as if to prove my point. What a fucking impact Carter's bumping chunky naughty tunes would have made in such a place! And then I went to the mad afterhours party at Maniac Love in Aoyama and, again, his set would have worked a treat in the tighter environment.
Maniac Love

[For the record, I then went to Lost in Translation with an American boy I met at the party, had Thai and beer for lunch, passed out on the train back to Kofu and finally ended up at my friends birthday party, where I drank Long Island Iced Teas till late that night. Twas a good weekend].

Diz @ La Fabrique, Tokyo 05.06.04

2005-01-01T02:04:00.000+09:00

Just before the club opened, Diz was interviewed for a TV documentary about black people in Tokyo. Strange but true. Photo taken by Michael K Atkinson

I'm convinced Iz & Diz are the best house DJs on the planet. I've heard Joshua/Iz spin in NZ, Tokyo and SF at both banging club parties and quiet bars and he impressed me every time, so I was very excited about checking his DJ/production partner in crime. Both appeared courtesy of Soul City Industries - a promotion team that hails from Canada and includes DJ Marshall - so both parties were at La Fab as part of the Solid series. The fact that the pair played the same venue meant it was easy to compare them though Diz got the better position in that the decks were shifted to a space under the mezzanine lounge while Iz was way up in the DJ booth that's level with it. I'm sure they're well aware of their own idiosyncratic differences but they essentially seem like different sides of the same coin to me, which is obviously why they would work well together.

On the night in question, Diz played a mix of new and old, beautiful and edgy, soulful and techy: every kind of house is house is house that falls into the category called quality. He also partied with the crowd while the other DJs spun, making people extra responsive to his own set. Of course, once again, I got a little too tipsy etc and misinterpreted certain events. But that seems to be a requisite part of my clubbing experience; the drama will only end when I stop getting messed up and allow my brain to see and hear clearly. Even so, an excellent night passed with a fantastic bunch of people and lots of solid dancing action. I only wish I was more of a trainspotting type because Diz played a couple of tracks that momentarily broke my heart they were so damn deep.

La Fabrique
Music-101 - for bio and Chicago events etc

"Good Beats" @ Nuts, Tokyo 19.03.04

2005-01-01T02:03:00.000+09:00

There is some very unusual use of the "Engrish" language in Japan so it's possible the name refers to someone's penchant for almonds and cashews but it seems more likely that they're familiar with the fact we use the word nuts to mean crazy/mad/mental, because the club is all of these things. For a start, the queue was massive. My friend and I decided to go for a drink in a nearby bar on the assumption that it would be shorter by the time we got out but instead it had doubled. We didn't really have any grounds on which to claim VIP status and our Japanese definitely wasn't up to blagging it so we were debating going elsewhere. But the people at the back of the queue enthusiastically convinced us that it was worth waiting as the talent that night was very, very famous. I had previously checked the listings and didn't recognise any names so presumably they are Big in Japan, that oft used phrase to indicate that something should be considered cool. In fact the only information I gained from the website was that the genre was Good Beats, but we decided to stay anyway. I went to a conbeni (convenience store) for some beer and an hour and a few Beatles songs later we were finally inside.

The club has got industrial decor but is infinitely smaller than your average factory and in some parts my tall friend had to duck down. The dancefloor has the usual bank of DJ equipment at one end and complicated looking sound gear at the other. The system was huge and sounded serious if you danced on this stage kind of thing that stood between the main stack of speakers. And even if you didn't want to dance on the thing you still had to climb over it to get from the back of the room to the middle, or else go around a perilous corridor crowded with people just hanging out. I was constantly falling over because there were so many unseen steps or people sitting on the floor. At the end of this corridor is the bathrooms and for such a small club they were well equipped but we still had to wait a while because the place was rammed.

On the other side of the dancefloor is an area with the bar in the center and seated areas at either end. The wall between the bar and dancefloor is a one-way mirror but I can't actually remember who could see who. There were only two bar staff working and they were fun to look at but I'd rather not have had so much time to do so. At both ends of the room the roof is really low to allow for two small lounge spaces upstairs; one public, one private. The open area had twin Vestax and a laptop just sitting there all ready to go but nobody was using them. The VIP just had a few sofas and hot ladies.

"Good Beats" is actually a very accurate description of the music policy that night. When we arrived it was quality Hip Hop and this morphed into some decent RnB and dirty DnB, some amusing gangsta rap, a brief crazy performance by some live MCs, and everything in between. To give you an indication of the calibre of their international guests, it was their third birthday party the following week and they had DJ Spinna playing a house set on the Friday and a hip hop set on the Saturday. In other words, pure class. And did I mention the crowd was at least 80% female? Now that's nuts.

Club Nuts

Mark Farina @ Yellow, Tokyo 27.02.04

2005-01-01T02:02:00.000+09:00

If you read the credits on the cover of Mark Farina's album you'll see that Yellow is one of the soundsystems he thanks. Likewise, they obviously appreciate his ability because he was given sole command of the premises for over 9 hours. Perhaps it was written in the fine Japanese print on the flyer but I was seriously surprised to learn that Farina was already playing when I arrived at the club at about 10.45. And I was delighted to discover that there would be no support DJs on the night, either in the main room or the separate upstairs lounge bar. Instead the whole of Yellow's sprawling, industrial space would be treated to whatever one of the world's favorite DJs chose to play, all night.

Known as much for his modern Mushroom Jazz stylings as his inimitable brand of deep house, I was expecting Farina to begin with a couple of hours of random beats - maybe a bit of hip hop, funk, disco or electro type stuff - and slowly make his way through the genres until he reached house proper. But he got started on the 4/4 tip immediately and worked the ever-growing crowd with a captivating, sometimes quirky, sometimes twisted, sometimes beautiful selection that peaked at around 4 when he dropped into an hour or two of tougher crunchy house that had the dance floor totally hypnotized. The last couple of hours were still super tight but more varied in tempo and style and conducive to a messy finale.

Space-Lab Yellow is one of Tokyo's most established clubs and hosts many of the biggest underground acts to grace these shores. The sound is phat and the people friendly. In the main room there's a steel staircase which spirals up to a small area that overlooks the dancefloor below and, half-way up, you can look through the metal caging down into the DJ booth. Whenever I saw Farina he was busy as hell: flicking through an enormous case of CD-Rs or a bag of records, mixing, blending, blending, mixing, and dancing his ass off. I'm guessing he was doing that when I wasn't watching him too. It was fucking impressive though unfortunately I imbibed too much stuff and don't remember it very well.

Club Yellow
Om-Records

Kenny Hawkes @ Module, Tokyo 23.01.04

2005-01-01T02:01:00.000+09:00

I went to Bar Rhumba in London a few times in '98 but only to Bryan G's Movement party on the Thursday night; never to Kenny Hawkes' Space party on the Wednesday. If I had gone, however, chances are that I would have heard some of the best underground house available to be heard served by an all-star selection of international DJs. Instead, the first time I heard the name Kenny Hawkes was when I asked about a few outstanding tracks that came out at around the same time and found out they were all by him: Play the Game featuring Louise Carver, Dance with Me (a re-hash of the Acid House classic about cocaine), and a remix of the Inner City hit Big Fun. So when I heard he was going to be spinning at Module as part of a promotional tour for his mix CD on NRK, I knew I had to go.

Unfortunately I was still in quite bad shape after my Thailand adventures: my leg still had a gross hole in it, my feet were still a little cut and my brain was still broken. Fortunately I still had a supply of morphine and a bottle of amyl, which I'm well aware sounds kind of nasty but hey, whatever. I met my friend by the Shibuya station and we walked the short distance to the club together then just hung out in the upstairs lounges and downstairs clubroom until Mr Hawkes graced the decks.

Nothing really extraordinary happened that night: I didn't do anything dumb or meet anyone crazy or anything really, but we had a fantastic time because the music was so great. There was a bizarre moment of synchronicity when I had just taken some more morphine (my leg was giving me hell) and Kenny dropped this crashing, cymbal-laden, heavy track with the vocal "no more pain". And amyl always makes me laugh, disgusting as it is. I was surprised to make a handful of new friends when the people around me twigged what I was up to. One of them even borrowed it and didn't give it back, but that's cool – all the less brain damage for me.

Club Module
NRK Records

Thai Style, 20.12.03 - 06.01.04

2005-01-01T02:00:00.000+09:00

I stayed in Bangkok with a few friends for a few days and we didn't party very much during that time but one night we went to Pat Pong because one of my friends is gay and he wanted to check some of the boy bars. I had fortunately managed to locate some Xanex earlier on in the evening and so was happy to just sit back and let the night take its course. The first place we went to had a bunch of young men standing on a caged platform wearing nothing but skimpy underpants with a number attached. Some of them looked a little frightened and I know if it was me I'd have to be absolutely wasted. My other friend had done some research into the Thai sex trade and knew some kids are sold into it by their parents so she wasn't too thrilled by the scene. The music wasn't too bad though and the DJ claimed to be 100% straight. We told the street hawk it wasn't quite what we had in mind and so he led us to a hardcore place where the music was hi-nrg and a couple of men were fucking on a stage. One of them had his hands on the ground and his legs around the other's waist so they kind of looked like someone mowing the lawns. At one point when the lights lit up we saw that the glass box behind us was splattered with cum. Later a bunch of men came out and just stood round like at the last place except this time they were completely naked and playing with their flacid penises.

A couple of days later I flew by myself down to Surat Thani and spent the night drinking beer in a pizza place with some Swedish guys who weren't keen on trying the local fare right away, and there wasn't much else in the way of nightlife on the town. The next day I caught the ferry to Koh Pha Ngan and agreed to stay at Bayview Bunglaows on Haad Yao Beach when a tourist scout asked me, despite the fact that I was due to meet a friend on the island and go with her to Hat Rin. At the docks was a man named Sye who was waiting to take any new recruits back to Bay View; I said thanks but no thanks to my friend and off we went. Turned out Sye was a bit of a DJ, into acid house and other quality beats, and he was playing that night at a bar on a beach on the north side of the island. He agreed to take me with him though that night was really the beginning and end of our friendship. After dumping my stuff in a basic bungalow on a small cliff overlooking a beautiful bay, I went swimming and waited for him at the bar. Rather than driving around the coast to get north, you have to drive back to the center then head up. The roads are shit and we got stopped along the way and one of our crew dropped a few names to avoid any hassel because the previous week Sye had had his decks confiscated after a posh new resort down the beach bribed the police to shut their party down... The authorities may have executed a couple of thousand dealers but dodgy dealings seem to be alive and well in every stratosphere of Thai society.

The venue was a lovely mediterranean-style bar that trailed down to the beach. Also booked to play was a French man who had his own CD-J decks and mixer and a lot of fantastic music. The party was a success; but I got too drunk and stoned after going on some dimly remembered adventure to another party with a stranger in a car. As the sun was coming up I met a young man named Philip and we went swimming together in our clothes, then went clambering around on some rocks trying to find the best place to watch the sky. Unfortunately I fell part way down a big gap, which had the ocean swirling at the bottom, and seriously cut my feet and legs and clothes. Philip freaked but I don't really remember what happened after that. I woke up in his bungalow, sent him to buy me some valium and we ate green curry at a beach side restaurant on Christ's nominal birthday. I got a taxi and arrived back at Haad Yao in time for our Xmas party, absolutely wrecked. Sye immediately recognised what kind of person I was and launched into a tirade about the number of people who fuck up mixing meds with recs and alcohol. But that was exactly what I did for the rest of my holiday. Sample combination: a few Mojitos, a magic mushroom omelette, and a little morphine. I can't remember the exact order of events but I ended up partying every night with different people in different places along the beach or around the island. Some of them are below...

Bayview Bar.
Considering it was the height of the season, there were a lot of people staying semi-longterm at the place so it was easy to make friends and some of the staff were cool too. The bar itself is in the middle of a lovely flat area that sits just above sea-level at the northern tip of the bay. There are decks set up on big nights but there was always great music playing over a very respectable soundsystem, from Green Velvet to Groove Armada. The drinks were excellent and they had a seafood bbq in the evenings, as well as serving the food from the restaurant up the hill. Sometimes the place would be packed and everyone would dance so it felt like an open air nightclub, other times it was really quiet with guests sitting round in small groups smoking pot and chilling.

Jack's Bar.
Located well back from the beach about midway along, Jack's had the vibe of a good private lounge or an afterhours lock-in. Jack himself lived upstairs but the bar was open air on three sides with cushions on the ground to sit around some low tables and a small dancefloor. The whole building was raised well off ground level and the stairs were at the back, leading directly to the bar, and there was a balcony at the other end, overlooking some sandy scrub. The music was excellent: all good variations on the house theme and the usual chill-out suspects. Despite it's location, Jack's felt very urban and the vibe was really imtimate. One night I took too many mushrooms and drank too many buckets (redbull, vodka and something else) and leapt about the place like a pyscho; Voodoo Ray was the final straw.

Magic Bar.
Nestled up in the hills behind Haad Yao Beach, Magic also had a Japanese kind of thing going on with the main room having a few low tables and cushions to sit round on, overlooking the bay. There were also a couple of normal-height tables outside in front of the main bar. They sold shroom tea and also played excellent music. I couldn't believe my luck when I kept finding sounds that weren't progressive trance or whatever the hell it is much of the dancing population adores.

Paradise Waterfall Complex.
This place is huge and very fun. It's located in the center of the island and requires a decent drive to get there. Unfortunately I persuaded one of the Bayview guys to drive me there on a scooter then I rapidly took off into the dancing area and he ended up driving back by himself and getting into a serious accident, which counted him out of any NYE parties... The place itself has a large restaurant and bar area at the back then you walk down either of two steep flights of steps to get to the outdoor, but enclosed, dancefloor. There's seating all the way down the sides and the DJ booth is in the center about midway down. Like most places I saw, CD-Js were the order of the day and the music was super fresh, courtesy of various Northern European people who carted their collections round for kicks. As the name would suggest, there's a waterfall nearby. You just go down a path and find the prettiest chill-out zone ever.

Pirate Bar.
A few bays south of Haad Yao, up on some cliffs, I went to there in a taxi one night and had a brilliant time. You have to walk down a path to get to it because the whole place is set back in a small bay that's framed by cliffs. The bar is at the very back and the DJ booth is raised up really high; people dance all around the place but there are lots of flat rocks that make good dancefloors, as well as the sand and the sea. On the far side, you can walk up to an area that has tables overlooking the ocean. I remembered one of the DJs from the Waterfall party and ended up hanging out with him as well as some other people I'd met recently: very fun night.

Hat Rin.
This is the main party town on the island but I only went there for NYE. By that time I had fallen in with a cool gang of Brits and a bunch of us went to a restaurant together before hitting the beach. I knew the Full Moon parties were mostly about Goa-style trance and shit but I immediately found a couple of proper clubs that were adjacent to each other and played top quality house and dnb respectively. So that was me sorted. I made several excursions up and down the beach with various types throughout the night (in order to imbibe various stuffs, from E to pot to shrooms, which were all very available) but mostly I spent the night chilling on some cushions at the front of the house club, overlooking the crazy shenanigans on the beach. I only really picked up when the sun came up and suddenly I saw all my friends rolling around in the sand.

It was a very incoherent and stupid and irresponsible holiday and unfortunately one of the male staff at Bayview turned against me badly toward the end and I reacted by reporting him to the boss. Neither of us behaved particularly well but he was in a professional position and had turned sour on other girls before me. Still, I felt sick and tired at the end rather than cool and wild. I had to hurry to Koh Samui and grab a late flight back to Bangkok to make my flight to Japan early the next morning. So I spent my last night drinking in an airport bar and handing out all manner of medication to various odds and ends that passed my way. Everyone should go to Thailand. The people are lovely and the country is fucking incredible.

Deep and Dark, Auckland 12.05.01

2005-01-01T01:30:00.000+09:00

Oh dear. This was the name of my 21st birthday party, for which I had flyers professionally designed and printed and everything. We also hired a big PA but my dumb friends took it away the night before to another party and were late getting back and all the settings were fucked. Also, for some reason they got one of our friends to spin first and he plays hip hop and happy house, which aint my thing at all. So my other mate got on pretty quick and started knocking out some good deep, dark house but the music/system was only one of the problems. For some reason my plan was to have about 15 of my friends and family go to a lovely Japanese restaurant before the party. We had a case of Moet and other beverages to drink and everyone got slaughtered but I didn't organize much booze for back at our place after.

True, I lived in an enormous warehouse with 5 other people at the time and, true, many people were expected to turn up so it would've been hard to provide for everyone. But my friend's boyfriend worked for one of the key liquor companies in NZ and when he showed up I was only able to offer him some warm, second-rate beer. How embarrassing. If this still isn't sounding so bad then you might like to consider the fact that I hadn't been to sleep since the previous night and had been drinking etc all day. It had been a fantastic night at dirty old Calibre and I was partying with two of my more glamourous friends and one of the then-owners, upon whom I promptly developed a platonic crush. I stayed in touch with my family and friends all day and just tried not to worry about anything... But, really, it did turn out to be a disaster. There was a moment when I was just like Meg Ryan in The Doors film when she burns the duck: trivial matters assuming mammoth significance. I was fucking wasted, and it was a fucking waste of an opportunity to have a quality clubbing session in a private venue. Oh well.

Electric @ The Grand Circle, 2000-02?

2005-01-01T01:15:00.000+09:00

Can't remember exactly when this party ran but it was sometime in the early naughties. And just as the Breakz fueled my passion for dnb, this party solidifed my love of house. It was Dick Johnson's first residency after relocating permanently to NZ from Blackpool, hosted by Lightspeed. In the support slots were top local jocks such as Soane and Emerson; the soundsystem was sweet; the venue was ace; the crowd was cool: everything was just as it should be. And during that same period Lightspeed hosted the Paper Recordings' Robodisco events at the GC - featuring Elliot Eastwick, Miles Hollway, Ben Davis, et al - so those nights kind of blended into the Electric weekly in my mind... house house house, a little ecstasy and a few vodkas... Dayum I had some fun.

London Rudeness, May '98

2005-01-01T01:10:00.000+09:00

First, some background: NZers get an automatic two-year working visa to the UK and many take it after they finish university. But I had been possessed by drum n bass since I was 15 and so I made up my mind to get to its home as soon as I turned 18 and could therefore get in the clubs... To get the visa, you need to have 2000 quid in your bank and fortunately (perhaps I should say sadly?) I had inherited $15 000 NZ - roughly 5000 pounds - from my grandmother when I was 15. A good few thousand of it had been spent repaying my ex-stepfather for the damage I inflicted on his car in a drunken escapade; the remainder I used for my plane ticket and the visa deposit.

I have an aunt who lives an hour out of London but I shunned her hospitality because it would've made clubbing inconvenient. So I arrived unaccompanied and immediately purchased a Mixmag to determine which parties were on that night and therefore which part of the city I should best station myself. As it turned out, it was a Tuesday and there wasn't much on so I went to a B&B in Kensington and stayed in for the night. The following day I relocated to a hostel in Brixton and drew up a game plan: Fabio's party Swerve was on Wednesdays at the Velvet rooms, Bryan G's party Movement was on Thursdays at Bar Rhumba, and Goldie's party Metalheadz was on Sunday at the Blue Note. This left Fridays and Saturdays free for big one-off events, and Mondays and Tuesdays free for whatever.

The first Wednesday is ridiculous. I go down to the club early and hang out at the bar, drinking and chatting to the staff - they immediately offer me a porter job but I decline on the grounds that it would cut into my clubbing. Then everybody begins to arrive and the proper music gets started. The party was hip and hot as hell at that time and all the heads came down: Grooverider, Kemistry (who died the following year) and Storm... and the two lads from a seminal production duo. I knew it was them because I had had their picture on my wall for some time, so I go over and talk to one of them and he's polite but not thrilled to meet me and directs me to his counterpart, who is very drunk.

He gives me a mixtape (yes - tape!) and his card to meet up for lunch but then later suggests we do something that very night instead, and I acquiesce. So the party finishes and we are standing outside on the road and some guy tries to sell us some heroin, then some cars pull up with all the heads in them and they're saying to the guy, "Aren't you coming?" And he's like, "No, catch you later," and I'm feeling a bit silly at this stage but what the hell. So we go wandering around Soho and find a ludicrously expensive hotel, he goes to the bathroom to throw up, then we both pass out. The next morning I feel so self-conscious about being some superficial jockey slut that I offer to reimburse him for the hotel, and he accepts! Dear O Dear.

The following night I again get down to the club early and make friends with the DJ who is getting things going in the bar before they open up the dancefloor. The party was off the fucking hook - packed with madly dancing rude bwoys, hot ladies and various pimps and hustlers with madass beats and raucous MCs. When it's finished, I'm walking up the stairs and someone goes, "Hey, Dolce and Gabbana," in reference to the blatantly branded jacket I was wearing. So I turn around and its this cute black guy who invites me to an afterhours lock-in at a local bar. At the bar, the black guy sits down with his friends on one side of a big table and I sit down on the opposite side next to these white guys, who keep passing me charlie spliffs.

I soon find the white guys more interesting than the black guys and when we are all thrown out of the bar I decide to go with them, which causes a bit of a bad tempered exchange between the two groups. Being fought over - Hahaha. It turns out the guys live in this incredible house in North London and have a lot more coke: so much that it's scattered all over a glass table and they don't bother sweeping any of it up, just keep tapping more out of bags and handing me the note. I think this was probably my first time doing cocaine. I soon get very high and have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing there, whether the men have any ulterior motives or not. In any case, one of them kisses me while the other is out of the room and the other one gets upset and escourts me out like a gentlemen, but forces himself on me at the last minute. So who knows. I just remember walking off down the street - in accordance with their instructions as to how to get to the tube station - feeling like a billion bucks.

The Metalheadz sessions were crucial to the evolution of dnb and I was so excited to go that I again arrived super early, which was very early indeed considering the party was scheduled to start at about 8. But this time I didn't hang out inside with the staff; I hung out in Hoxton Square and had a delightful time. There was a group of gorgeous black french men kicking a ball around and the weather was lovely and we smoked some pot and sucked lollipops and I felt like I was at the center of the universe. (Incidentally, as things are wont to do, Hoxton has since become a serious haven for hipsters and lost some of its ramshackle charm.)

When I finally got inside the club, I was surprised to find that it was very small. The main space was narrow and long with the dancefloor on one level and a chill zone down a few steps. Upstairs was a super laidback lounge where you could buy jerk chicken or ice cream and people were just hanging out as if they were in their own lounge. I stayed mostly on the dancefloor and was thrilled when Goldie himself appeared to play, but disappointed to see he looked kind of put out and bothered. I made some kind of moronic gesture that was meant to suggest, "Hey, cheer up - you're the king of our world!" But I think he took it as a request to bare his famous gold teeth and I received a vicious scowl for my trouble.

I was in London just over two weeks before my finances and confidence started to seriously wane, and I went to those three residencies each night I could. On the Fridays and Saturdays I went all over the place: to Brighton and some other pier town for massive multi-room raves, to underground North London venues like the Rocket and Camden Palace, and to Mass, the Fridge and Dogstar in Brixton. For example...

One night I planned to go to the Ministry of Sound but never made it. I was hanging out in Brixton listening to some guys rapping gospel over some basic beats when this man asked if I wanted to go with him and his mates for a smoke. I said yes but soon discovered we would be smoking crack - not pot - and, better yet, I would be paying for it. Yippee! Of course nobody coerced me into either action but they obviously knew a soft touch when they saw one and, in any case, I thought the whole thing was thoroughly exciting. We get back to their apartment in Clapham and they show me what to do with the pipe (made of a plastic bottle) and the rock sat gently on a bed of cigarette ash, which burst into fine toxic smoke the moment it had a flame beneath it. At first I can't breathe very well but I soon get the hang of it, and get high as a muthafucker. Even I can tell that one of my hosts is a bona fide addict and he talks all kinds of psuedo-deep bollocks, and sings beautifully, and plays the guitar... but then gets angry when I won't touch him and so, at around 5am, I suddenly panic and stumble my way out of the place into dawn.

The night I went to Mass was fantastic. I meet this cool guy in the line outside and he gets us some pills and the party is awesome - I find myself totally surrounded by huge black mamas wearing baggy fishnet stockings and everybody's dancin their asses off like you wouldn't believe. Afterward, the guy invites me to a lock-in at a small Jamaican restaurant and I'm the only white person there, and one of few women. I buy some ganja then give it to some boys, who keep rolling us spliffs, and basically stand there smiling and marvelling at the wonderful old men in full suits, singing into little gold microphones and dancing daintily. This time my companion is much more understanding when I bid him adieu and the night ultimately ends on a hella high note.

At one of the raves down on the coast, I'm lowriding some Tommy Hilfiger jeans so you can see my Calvin Klein boxer shorts, with a pair of white Reebok Classics on my feet, and a red, white, and blue striped tiny-tee on top; and I get stopped by one of the MCs as I'm making my way along a corridor. He rapidly interrogates me, kisses me on the cheek, then disappears. I think nothing of it but later when I'm out on the dancefloor I suddenly realize he's rhyming about a girl from NZ wearing blah blah blah and I'm like, WTF? This can't be fucking real! But it was real. Later, I'm sitting down getting my shit together and some boys walk past and say something mean about me, to the general effect of, "We're well over you, slut. Fuck off." I left the party - and London - feeling equal parts confused and bemused.

Ed Rush @ The Box, Easter '97

2005-01-01T01:05:00.000+09:00

So it was Easter 1997 and I was back in Auckland for the first time since being forcibly moved to Nelson for my final school year because of bad conduct over the summer break. It began up North where I got drunk and accidentally offended my friend, who then punched me so that I developed a bad black eye - nicely complimenting my 100% baldhead. Some days of hard drinking later, my friend and I decided to prematurely return to Auckland and attend the Breakz NYE party at Calibre. My parents were away for some weeks at that time and eventually various acquaintances moved in. We proceeded to eat and drink everything in the house and then we ran out of money so I sold my personal TV and a few CDs to buy some booze; then later my so-called friends sold my parents' TV and many of their CDs, for which I also received the blame. A low series of events culminated in me crashing my stepfather's car whilst driving drunk to buy cigarettes.

Now I was back. For about two years previous, the most exciting thing for me to do on weekends was take acid and go to a jungle/dnb party at either a club or an underground type venue. And fortunately Ed Rush was scheduled to appear at The Box that very weekend. Ed Rush, in case you don't know, is a very seminal producer in the world of dnb, best known for a twisted techy sound; The Box was a seminal nightclub located on High St where many of NZ's best DJs got their first big break.

Most of my friends weren't that into dnb and so the plan was to go with them to a house (ie, home) party first then head out to the club with whoever would come along. As far as I recall, my friend and I bought a tab of acid and split it between us, which is a crucial detail because it proves that what happened was a product of my subconscious (or something) rather than a faulty/laced product. Chances are that I had also drunk quite a lot though I don't specifically remember if this was the case. The next thing I do remember is being inside the club and the walls melting, and talking to me.

I remember feeling very sick – not merely nauseous but thoroughly diseased – and trying to find somewhere where I could be alone. I ended up in a stairwell and had this inkling that the person who could help me was in the room at the top of the stairs, but for some reason wouldn't come out. Eventually it became clear that this person was 48 sonic – my favorite local dnb DJ. It was also clear that I was needed. Earth was about to experience some kind of calamity: drum n bass would be the divine code as to what we ought do; the DJ would be the recipient; I would be the interpreter.

Whether or not I ever actually went into a stairwell I don't know, but I can't remember there actually being such a stairwell in the venue so it seems unlikely unless I found one outside of the club (more of that later). I do know that I eventually made it back onto the dancefloor and started seeing different people in place of the people I could actually see – it was the drugs, yes, but bear with me when I say it was like seeing their true self, their soul, or maybe themselves in a former life. And one of these mirages was distinctly my mother. At one point I was dancing by myself in a clearing at the front of the dancefloor and that was when the music was supposedly speaking to me, and everyone was encouraging me to fulfill myself – to be myself totally – so I could save the world. Or some such fucking thing.

The music, remember, would have been very fast, tough, dark, warped stuff with crazyass vocal snippets and samples... the room would have been very dark, hot, and smoky... there would have been flashing lights and smoke machines, and mirrorballs always seem very important when fucked up – like the central focus of the energy or... who knows. I remember trying to figure out if the people around me could tell I was so utterly far gone, whether I at least appeared to be dancing as part of the crowd or whether I did indeed stand out (something which was to become an ongoing issue for me at dance parties ever after).

But I could only think objectively like that for short periods because then I would get all wrapped in the vision again; and the next thing that happened is that the floor started moving. Now it's easy enough to stand firmly still and say the ground isn't moving beneath you, but of course the truth is that it actually is moving – on it's own axis and around the sun. And bizarre scientific facts like that do not make reality any easier to decipher when one is in the midst of a heavy acid trip. So the ground starts moving and breaking up and everyone has to seize a portion like a skateboard and ride on it as the earth disintegrates and suddenly we are just in space, still dancing, still listening to drum n bass.

Hmm. Now comes the fun part. This was what was going on in my head, right. And meanwhile my body was up to all kinds of unrelated hijinks. I must have been being a menace all around the club throughout the night but the turning point came when I allegedly tried to remove a record from the decks while the DJ (Ed Rush or another, I don't know) was actually playing it. Dear Lord. So I was then thrown out of the club onto the busy street. Once outside I apparently - in no particular order - jumped in a fountain, ran across the bonnet of a taxi, and sat on the street in front of a police car. It was at that point that someone obviously decided I ought to be hospitalized.

I recall waving out the back window at the small crowd of well-wishers who watched me being taken away, but I don't recall the rest of the ride. I came around some minutes or hours later to find myself in a small private room with a picture of a waterfall on the end wall, still tripping my ass off. I could hear water running somewhere and the picture was moving so that the sound and image fused together and appeared alive. Attached to my bed was a clipboard on which I had signed several false names in very bad handwriting: I had to get out of there.

Someone brought me a cup of water and I then followed them out but was led back to my room again. Luckily they didn't take this as their cue to monitor me further because my second attempt was successful. Auckland Hospital backs onto a large series of parks known as the Domain so I ran into it and I guess found a taxi or something and got myself home. But like everything about this story, I'm not really sure.

The Breakz, Thursdays @ Calibre '96

2005-01-01T01:04:00.000+09:00

This party played a seriously formative role in my (night) life. The line up was invariably Aaron, Riddle, Pots, and 48 sonic - playing the bestest, baddest jungle and drum n bass available to NZ ears at that time. Sometimes the party would be kinda quiet; most of the time it would be busy. Peeps would be hanging out, drinking and sneaking someplace for a smoke, while others would be working the floor at a time when the club was quite different to it is now. The decks were along the sidewall, rather than the end, in a small enclosed booth that you entered from the wall leading to the bathrooms; there were no seats where the current booth is and the part-wall between the bar and dancefloor was higher or lower... hmm I can't quite remember. Anyway it was a bit darker and dirtier all round.

Of course I was underage at the time but it was easy enough to get in if you dressed up a little and we usually had fake IDs anyway, in case we were asked. (Bizarrely, my parents freely let me go every week even though I had school the next day.) But one night I was frustrated by the fact I had to get all dolled up to get inside when all I wanted to do was listen to the music. So I wore a red adidas tracksuit, trainers and a bucket hat and they refused me entrance; I snuck in but then the police came down for a random check, saw me swaying about, and threw me out.

[For the record, I've been thrown out of the club twice since then: the second time I had been at Roger Sanchez the night before and drinking all day and we went down there as soon as it opened and I was singing "wherever you go I'll follow you" loudly and badly (Sanchez had played the new EBTG boot), and they understandably escourted me out. The third time was very unpleasant. I had been down there the night before and, again, drinking all day as well as smoking that hideous substance known as P, and was suffering some kind of identity crisis. I got abusive and sat on the bar and was promptly evicted and banned for about a month.]

Portland Road Party, Auckland Circa '94

2005-01-01T01:03:00.000+09:00

I'm writing about this party because it epitomizes the kind of shens that frequently went on back then amongst middle-class kids in central Auckland: someone would decide to have a party while their parents were out or away and so they'd tell a few of their mates, but word would soon spread from them to their acquainatances, to their enemies, and to strangers. Fast. By the time everyone got to the party at around 9pm, the house would inevitably be overflowing so trashed people would spill out onto the street. At that point the police would usually arrive and ineffectually try and get everybody to go home, and perhaps throw a few of the more obvious troublemakers in a paddy wagon. The rest of us would wander about the street smoking and drinking and talking and giggling and gaggling and vomiting and kissing - even fucking or giving/getting blowjobs - and doing whatever else we felt like until someone heard about another party, or offered to have people back at theirs, or we decided to traipse into town and mob a fast food joint.

This one party was memorable for me because three stupid things happened: I fell in a creek and got all wet; I sat down against a lamp post and got pissed on; and my leg got hit by a slowly passing car. When my mother saw the horrendous bruise and bump the following week, I told her my horse had kicked me. (Yes, I had a horse at that time - one of four successive pets I had from age 8 to 6 - though boys and parties were rapidly gaining more of my attention). This lie was one of many I would tell during my teenage years as I came home late or failed to come home at all, trashed our own house when they went out, crashed the car, stole things, or stupendously fucked myself up. Such is life.

NYE Parties

2005-01-01T01:00:00.000+09:00

NYE parties have traditionally epitomized one of my biggest personal problems: fucking up ideal circumstances by imbibing more than I can handle. Luckily, there's always been a lot of good mixed in with the bad...

93/94: Whangamata, NZ
First NYE away from my family,with my friends. Stayed with my friend's liberal family at a hired batch just back from the beach, just down from the Surf Club. Much good eating and drinking was done at home and much silliness was done away from home.

94/95: Cooks Beach/Whangamata, NZ
Got into an argument with a friend about something at Cooks and that prompted me to split to Whanga, where I hadn't organized anywhere to stay. Hung out at a friend's place by day and went wandering by night. Drank way, way too much and had some crazy adventures but was also a disgusting mess - mentally and physically. Eventually my dad came and got me and drove me to Wellington so I could go to the family place in the Marlborough Sounds; felt like being sent to a rehab center.

95/96: Bay of Islands/ Calibre, NZ
I went away with some friends to go canping up north but it rained so we stayed at someone's house and drank a lot. I accidentally broke something of sentimental value to my friend and he punched me, so then I had a black eye as well as no hair. After that we relocated to our other friends' place where some heavy drinking went down before me and one friend decided to get the hell back to AK. Went down Calibre for The Breakz drum n bass party with much makeup on face.

97/98: The Gathering, Nelson ,NZ
Went camping with some friends and took a load of acid. Spent a lot of time in the house tent where there were mini trampolines built into the ground to bounce up and down on. Salmonella Dub rocked it in the beats tent one night. I found a lovely little chill spot in the forest somewhere and ate some pancakes and ice cream; very cold at night and very hot by day - that's about all I remember.

98/99: Fat City @ The Roadhouse, Manchester, England
I had just moved to Manchester from Bristol and this was a very Manchester party. The music was fucking excellent courtesy of Mark Rae and company - can't remember exactly who else was on the bill - and The Roadhouse is an intimate venue that's perfect for that kind of thing.

99/00: Pauanui, NZ
Had just got back to NZ and was very disorientated, especially because the pot seemed insanely strong and all my friends were suddenly popping pills and doing speed. It rained so camping was a mess, but the party was inside at a friend's place and fairly fun.

00/01: Nice n Urlich, Auckland, NZ
A friend organized a room up at The Metropolis so there was a pre-party with everyone looking hot. We all hit the Winter Gardens in good form though I'd been dumb and not hidden the drugs I had on me and would've been caught out had I not took the initiative to declare some prescription drugs before they searched for any others, which were in the same purse. I had a multi-ticket to NnU, the drum n bass party at The Town Hall (Digital?) and whatever was on at The Aotea Center, so I didn't stay long in any one place. There's no doubt Mr Keys and Mr Urlich know how to throw a party and theirs was the most fun. I'd managed not to drink much all night but back at the hotel I took to Heinekin with a vengeance and ended up going to an afterparty by myself to hear some friends spin, but passed out before they started.

01/02: Up North, NZ
Went with some friends to a lovely house on some cliffs a couple of hours north of Auckland somewhere. Much fine eating and drinking, and a little drugging. As usual, I got a little out of order and accidentally offended one of my best friends, which sucked. But some more people arrived late and that was fun. There was excellent music all week and much good conversation.

02/03: Inland Nights @ Calibre, Auckland, NZ
Went to a pre-party at a friend's friends' place in Piha. Ate lovely food and got twisted as the sun went down. Hit the club just after midnight (maybe) after a fun drive into town, but then it all went a bit Pete Tong. Don't even remember how the lads' set was: a vacuum cleaner probably would've sounded sweet in the state I was in. Very hungover and depressed for days after.

03/04: Hat Rin Beach, Ko Pha Ngan, Thailand
Smoked some opium and pot and ate a magic omelette in the afternoon at Haad Yao Beach then met up with some of my new mates in the early evening and caught a cab with them to Hat Rin. Tracked down some valium and codeine at the chemist then barely ate dinner at a nice restaurant with a whole bunch of chill people, drinking Long Island Iced Teas. Hit the beach at about 10, did a quick circuit to check the situation and promptly decided the best bars were right next to each other - one with house and the other with drum n bass, so mostly stayed in that vicinity apart from quick tours up and down the shortish shoreline.

Found some E and a place that sold shroom shakes and spent the night oscillating wildly between high energy and total lethargy (I was still very lame frommy x-mas day accident, hence all the pain relief). Met a random American and went to his bungalow overlooking the ocean and smoked some pot. Lost my friends, found them again, then lost them and found a charming madhatter from England. Beautiful sunrise, after which all the nutters came out of the clubs and onto the beach to play. At around 10am we went to the hi-nrg/proggyclub and knocked back some Thai Red Bull and vodkas, then caught a cab to another beach and smoked some opium. A fairly typical Thailand adventure, probably.

04/05: Cooks Beach, NZ
Yippee! I finally managed not to get myself into a complete mess. My father dropped me up to the beach in the early afternoon of NYE; we had lunch in Whitianga, then my friends came and collected me from the ferry stop on the other side of the river. A little booze shopping later and we arrived back at the house they had rented for the week. Great bunch of people; some good music courtesy of umpteen iPods (though not enough house as far as I was concerned); a lovely bbq meal; quality beverages; a lot of pot; a random trip down to another party; bizarre naked shenanigans involving an unenthusiastic boy = a good night.

The next day I awoke at around 10am with a mild hangover and promptly assembled all the ingredients for a Bloody Mary, mixed a few and delivered them to my darling crazy girlfriends in bed. Solid drinking ensued for at least 12 hours. And, again, I managed not to fuck anything up or fuck anyone off. I don't think. Gave meself a big pat on the back I did.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

2004-01-06T01:14:00.000+09:00

Did I get the title right? Wow! Loved this film. I was hoping for a bit of inspiration and entertainment on a quiet day and I sure got it... The story is so clever and the special effects in the dream sequences are brilliant, and the casting of Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet in the lead roles is perfect. It's great, I think, that two such megastars are actually really fucking quality - Carrey has been in a number of thoughtful films by now (Truman Show etc) and I've been a fan of Winslet ever since Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures. She can really dress up and dress down that girl; and though her laugh sometimes sounded quite posh and English, she pretty much like totally pulled off the American thing in my opinion. Anyway, that's all by the by: this movie is bonafide artistic genius!

American Psycho

2004-01-06T01:13:00.000+09:00

The orginal book of the same name is apparently brilliant. But for me, who found the short murderous scenes in the film to be quite sufficient, the pages devoted to describing the violent deaths of the protaganist's victims would probably be a little too much. Nonetheless, I love the film. Love it. It's class from start to stop with some wicked snapshots of high life in '80s NYC (following on nicely from Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities): bribing doorman to get into the coolest clubs; faking getting tables at the most fashionable restaurants; business card envy; body pride; prescription drugs; hip minimalism; stupid wealth... But it's the dialogue and mental monologues that really steal the show as far as I'm concerned. Probably lifted straight from the novel, some of it is so fucking sharp and clever it got me laughing out loud and thinking hard at the same time.

Igby Goes Down

2004-01-06T01:12:00.000+09:00

I love the Culkins! I think maybe I'm in the minority on this matter but I really do: Macauley was quality in Home Alone and the Good Son, and made a classy move retiring for some years then re-entering in arthouse flicks like Party Monster with other young brats. And Keiron looks to be just as promising.

Like Party Monster, IGD is full of drug fucked degenerates and so there is some excellent black humor at the expense of their physical and mental mishaps: meds, recs, hard, soft - it's all in there. The scenes take place mostly in a dope NYC loft or at Igby's childhood home in DC where we are repeatedly exposed to the extreme neurotica of his mother, played excellently by Susan Sarandon. His father is also an absolute headcase - but of a different calibre - and his brother is well on his way to straight edged psychodom. Both are played by well-known actors that I've forgotten the name of, and the movie also features Jeff Goldblum as a wealthy bastard and Claire Danes as a bitchy Jew.

Sample dialogue:
Girl: You're funny.
Boy: If something is so funny, why don't you just laugh?
Girl: [hi-pitched false laugh] Is that better?

Hahahahaha. Hilarious.

The Divorce

2004-01-06T01:11:00.000+09:00

Starring Naomi Watts and Kate Hudson as sisters, this movie is quite slow but lovely. It is set in Paris and so there is some sumptious fashion and food action, and scenery, and the central characters are artists so I found everything rather stimulating. The plot obviously revolves around a divorce but it also encompasses both parties families, not just the man and woman, and the contrast between the two families - American and French - is immense. There are sinister overtones throughout the film expressed mostly by eery strings and the like and tragedy eventually strikes twice... one time it is self-inflicted; the second time it is at the hands of a rogue psycho character that I felt was somewhat incongruous with the rest of the film. But all's well that end's well, and the film does indeed have a happy ending.

The Phantom of the Opera Movie

2004-01-06T01:10:00.000+09:00

I had a little time to kill in Tokyo and my usual cinema was playing Supersize Me, which I didn't feel like seeing, so I went down to this big place that usually features blockbusters and saw the poster for this... I've been to one proper opera in my life and didn't particularly enjoy it but I've always loved the Phantom theme song so I thought I'd give the movie a try, if only to hear it.

The opening sequence was simply stunning: a distant black and white pic zooming in and eventually leaping to life and taking us inside a run-down Opera House, then jumping back in time to when the House was at its prime. The cinematography was true art. Then the story began and, though it was very fanciful with some irritating bursts of song, I was help rapt by the gothic intensity of the music and motion...

Whatshername was fucking annoying as an Italian diva - bad accent, bad everything. But the actress who eventually replaced her as the lead in the story was exquisite and the way her costume and makeup changed between scenes was plain wicked... Man, I'm totally rambling like a girl here but it's because the movie really was so trivial and superficial, yet so profoundly moving at the same time.

Unfortunately I had to leave early because it ran so long, walking out on a snowy scene in a graveyard that would probably seem ridiculous on TV but was mindblowing on the silver screen. Stunning. Simply stunning. And at least I got to hear my song.

Ray

2004-01-06T01:09:00.000+09:00

Another classic to add to the bio-pic cannon: there must be few people on the planet who don't appreciate the contribution Ray Charles made to music as well as his personal style and obvious sense of humor and grace. I knew little about his life prior to seeing this film but wasn't surprised to learn he - like many other artists - was ravaged by hard drugs at some point and enjoyed considerable success with the ladies, which always makes for a good plot. The acting is excellent (confirmed by the fact Jamie Foxx won an oscar for his role), and the cinematography is gorgeous with bold color in the flashbacks to his childhood and more subdued tones for the main scenes that occur mostly in clubs or studios, or Charles' increasingly impressive homes. Needless to say, the soundtrack is brilliant and the difficult dynamic between Charles and his managers, wife, and various backing vocalists, is convincing.

For me personally, this film rates alongside such tragic kind of stories as La Bamba, The Doors, Boogie Nights, Dreaming with the Fishes, Drugstore Cowboy, Basketball Diaries, Basquiat, Requiem for a Dream, Trainspotting, 24 Hour Party People and all the others that show talented people being fucked by drugs and/or alcohol or mental illness. Some ultimately pull through and some don't but, for better or worse, I take my inspiration from them all.

Ocean's 12

2004-01-06T01:08:00.000+09:00

I have a general policy of not reviewing things I don't like - usually I just won't mention them at all. But it's worth mentioning how utterly bad this flick is. I felt ripped off, not only because of the money but because of the time I wasted in the cinema watching it. I went with my family and afterward we ranked it out of 10. I gave it a 2 because some of the fashion is pretty slick and the music isn't too bad; I think my dad gave it a -2. It's all about the actors and their egos, like some fictional big brother. I'm embarassed to have seen it and I sure hope they're embarrased to have been it.

21 Grams

2004-01-06T01:07:00.000+09:00

I watched this on Saturday night when I was feeling anti-social after taking a long detour through a festival in the torrential rain only for my friends to go out moments after I arrived. It made me feel better. It's beautfully shot and the non-linear story comes together perfectly at the end. I just loved the fact it was so human: blood, semen, organs, life, death, love, loss... all contained in an extremely poignant plot. Make sure you see Amores Perros too.

School of Rock

2004-01-06T01:05:00.000+09:00

Jack Black seems to be everywhere right now but I don't particularly remember ever having heard of him a short while ago; maybe I'd just seen his face. He's very funny in this movie and I couldn't help thinking his character mightn't be far off his real person because he played it so naturally. The premise for the movie is nothing new: inspiring straight rich kids to explore the creative areas of their minds, a la Dead Poet's Society. But it's a modernized version with rock music at its core and accessories like mobile phones and iBooks apparent in the classroom. I'm so heavily into EDM these days that I forget there are still a whole bunch of people out there who still believe rock to be at the heart of the counter-culture revolution and despair at the sight and sound of MTV.

In the bigger scheme of things, rock hasn't been around all that long and yet it became fully mainstream many years ago. All forms of music begin in the underground then slowly catch on, cross over, explode and retreat again; some people will always hold true to the original ideal in which it was born while others will jump to the next big thing, and I don't see anything wrong with this. Anyhow, School of Rock makes highly entertaining lite-viewing. If you want to watch something more intense in the musical vein, try and track down the b&w documentary about Thelonius Monk, the jazz pianist. It's fucking cool.

The Straight Story -- David Lynch

2004-01-06T01:04:00.000+09:00

I was a little too young to watch his Twin Peaks series when it originally aired but I've been suitably impressed by the films I've seen since - Mulholland Drive, Lost Highway etc - which are beautiful and eerie and interesting to watch. So I was intrigued when my terrific friend James brought a video to my house that had "za suturato sutori" written on it in katakana. He claimed it was a slow David Lynch film about a man on a tractor, and his description wasn't gripping enough to prevent me first watching a Sex Pistols documentary, the start of some dumb MTV style movie and most of The Wedding Planner on TV. Finally I put it in the machine and it was a delight from start to finish. Every line of dialogue is meaningful because the characters don't say alot; subtle nuances of emotion conveyed best in a look or expression. The story is lovely but it's also a beautful testament to the elderly and their continuing strength of spirit in the face of physical deterioration. There is a quality conversation about the experience of being WW vets in modern society and the lasting impact that has on their perspective of the world. Incorporated in the plot is also the issue of the state's role in determining who is and isn't fit to care for children and the lasting bonds of family despite superficial differences... What a film!

Swimming Pool

2004-01-06T01:02:00.001+09:00

This is a French film and I saw it in Japan so there were no subtitles for those parts but they're not too hardcore and I got the gist so everything was fine and dandy. Except the movie's kind of weird. The plot totally centers around 2 women, one an anal middle-aged writer, the other a promiscuous young girl. The action takes place at a house in a quiet French village and involves a little eating, drinking, smoking, fucking and dancing, so they covered their bases well. I'm not sure which parts were real and which weren't and I don't think it matters, it's one of those films you just submit to and come out at the end going, okay, cool, whatever.

Sometimes I despair that I'm not a straightlaced person with a fully functioning mind that's capable of saying yes and no and start and stop at the right times in all aspects of life from work to the bedroom. But this movie reassured me that it's better to be an interesting fuck up than a dull perfectionist. Maybe. Hopefully.

Lost in Translation

2004-01-06T01:02:00.000+09:00

I guess I'm in a reasonably qualified position to discuss this film because I live in Japan and spend quite a lot of time in Tokyo; plus I'm a similar age to Scarlett's character, though not married to a famous photographer. And I do really like the film. I think it's beautifully shot and really captures that beguiling, bewildering feeling you get when you are brought into contact with someone that you end up feeling deeply for but can't really be with, now or ever. The whole isolation thing is relevant too of course and the whole what the hell am I doing, how did it come to this, where do I go from here confusion was perfectly illustrated in the scenes where she's sitting on the windowsill and he's sitting on his bed.

But, however, nevertheless, I do have one small criticism. I just don't think that a director as sophisticated and sensitive as Sophia Coppola needed to resort to stereotypical shots of Murray dwarfing Japanese in an elevator, or the director screaming at him, or everyone deferentially ushering him everywhere. I don't know; I'm not famous or particularly tall so maybe that is how it is for people like him but the Japanese aren't actually all that short and they're quite capable of being polite and attentive without being over-the-top obsequious. I saw the film twice, once on DVD and once at Rise, an arthouse cinema in Shibuya. The first time everyone fell asleep around me. The second time nobody laughed once. Maybe I'm developing a strong affection for the Japanese people so I feel moved to defend them, but maybe certain aspects of the film were in fact unnecessarily cliche. I loved it all the same. SJ's character was gorgeous and human, and the girl that was supposed to be CD was hilarious.

Troy

2004-01-06T01:01:00.001+09:00

It's true that this movie is a bona fide Hollywood blockbuster starring Brad Pitt. However it's still absolutely wondrous. I studied Classics at high school and am aware that it's not an accurate depiction of Homer's masterpiece, but whatever. The story has been used as the basis for so many other works over the years that people should know by now not to expect a faithful rendition and if they happen to be major fans of the original (assuming such a thing exists considering it's antiquity and dubious origins) then perhaps they should refrain from going to see the movie. I can think of few things more tedious right now than listening to such people dissect it because there are so many things that Wolfgang Petersen got right. The film is stunning. And the casting was brilliant.

As far as I'm concerned Brad Pitt can do no wrong. He's been in my good books ever since seeing him smoking a bong in Thelma and Louise and I loved Se7en, Joe Black, Fight Club, Snatch etc as much. The man who played Hector was also excellent and I'd like to think the two could have swapped parts and carried both equally well. And Orlando Bloom as Paris - how charming and cute and hilarious! What a complete flake. It's a tough call to be the woman whose "face hath launched a thousand ships" but Helen was very very beautiful, as was Hector's wife. The only criticsm I would agree with is that everyone does harp on about the immortality of fame a little too much; but then the fact that such a story has once again been used as the basis for something magnificent proves that the tale of their deeds has indeed been told for thousands of years and will now be known to the young and dumb everywhere for at least another few to come. Personally, I'd love to see a film adaptation of Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida.

Old School

2004-01-06T01:01:00.000+09:00

Starring the sexy Vince Vaughn and a few other great men I can't remember the name of, this film is hilarious. One of them comes home to discover his girlfriend, Juliette Lewis, watching porn and waiting for two others to emerge from the bathroom for a gangbang. They split up and he moves into a house which is subsequently zoned for university use only, so, following the success of a party they had to celebrate his release back into the wild, they decide to establish a fraternity. Much fun and chaos ensues with some great one-liners along the way. The whole movie is well scripted and well acted so the slightly stupied idea actually works really well.

Party Monster

2004-01-06T01:00:00.001+09:00

Riding the endless wave of all things '80s, Party Monster is an unusual film that left me feeling amused and repulsed in equal measure. Starring Macauley Culkin and Seth Green, with a requisite appearance from Chloe Sevigny, the characters are proudly superficial and so camp that the acting sometimes seems completely wooden. But then I believe that might be the point. The plot is an extreme version of the small town misfit wanting to prove himself in the big city, the boy having been sexually abused and looking to one of NYs trust-fund party queens for advice as to how to be fabulous. Cue some DiY party mayhem followed rapidly by hardcore drug addiction to anything that can be snorted, ie, ketamine, coke and heroin. This means we are spared the classic junkie shots of needles going into arms though we later see both main characters in hospital being fed by a drip. I'm not a huge fan of crazy drag costumes but there are some superb moments full of beautiful colors and banging tunes. There are also some wonderful tips offered to club-kid aspirants and, considering the film is based on a true story, they must have worked - assuming of course that getting infamous in a short lived microworld is your thing. Just remember: if all else fails, play techno...

Rosemary's Baby

2004-01-06T01:00:00.000+09:00

This is a hella strange film from the '70s. It's hard to say exactly why it's so strange without giving the plot away and it would be a shame to do so because it builds eerily along to a climax which isn't entirely unexpected, but is perfectly executed to give you the maximum creeps. The movie stars Mia Farrow, who is delightful as Rosemary, and a bunch of other characters who are irritating and charming by turns. The setting is New York in the mid '60s so some of the fashion is excellent, especially in the little party scene. Polansky, the director, did well to keep the soundtrack to a minimum so that the audience is left to feel how they want without soaring strings or dark drums indicating when we are supposed to be moved or apprehensive. Having said that, Fur Alise tinkles intermittently throughout the entire film.

The Detroit Pistons

2004-01-05T01:05:00.000+09:00

Fact: I love large industrial cities, the more depraved the better. I've never been to Detroit but there must be something special about the place considering all the groundbreaking, seminal music that has emerged from there. In case you don't know, I'm talking about stuff like Motown, that little electronic genre called techno, and a small band known as The White Stripes. Manchester has made a similarly impressive contribution to the world: from Northern Soul (which was possibly an English adaptation of Motown anyway) to Joy Division and New Order to UK acid house. It is also the home of paperecordings (which is now online only) and one of the founding DJ/producers, Elliot Eastwick, recently made a film about the similarities between the two cities and their respective sounds. How totally cool.

What I'm trying to say is that I think it's fucking fantastic that the Pistons beat the Lakers. I don't much care for baseball or American Football but I've kept an eye on basketball for a number of years, and even bought a terrible Chicago Bulls t-shirt when I was about 13. But the Bulls seem too much like Man U to me, with Michael Jordan being the George Best or Eric Cantona or whatever star you want to name, so I've shyed away from supporting them. A friend of mine said that the Lakers were actually more like Man U but I think they were wrong; they're more like Chelsea. The same friend told me about the last Detroit team that one the title - The Badboys - a while before the finals even got under way, and that attracted me to them even more.

So, assuming nobody objects on any serious grounds, I'm now going to start supporting the Pistons in earnest. Not because they won but because they're representatives of some hardcore shit in a flakey world. Of course, initially, I'll just buy a cap and try and catch a game on TV and check the scores in the paper, but one day I'll certainly get to Detroit to watch the team. And Detroit also happens to be home to the serious EDM festival known as Movement, so I'll probably have to go there too. People tell me it's a dangerous city and there's nothing to do but that just makes me want to go more.

The Black Caps

2004-01-05T01:04:00.000+09:00

NZ's national cricket team, led by the mighty Stephen Fleming. Sometimes they "snatch defeat from the jaws of victory" but that's all part of the fun. Anguish one minute, triumpg the next... The team has a lot of character and not a few class players. There's nothing like the sight of a non-strike batsman all in black leaning on his bat with one leg languidly crossed over the other. Or quality spin bowling. Or sweet reverse sweeps. Especially on a sunny day at Mt Eden with some hot chips, a few beers and a killer hangover. I love cricket and I love The Black Caps.

Black Magic

2004-01-05T01:02:00.000+09:00

My father is a fisherman and my little brother's father is a keen boatie so I've been around the ocean all my life and love nothing more than being out on a nice day with a few bevvies and a good lunch. As most people know, NZ is comprised of several islands so there is a lot of water and lot of water sports; a few less people know that we were the first country to win the America's Cup and successfully defend it. Then, in '03, we fucked up big time. It was a national disgrace and the impact will no doubt be felt for some time yet. The only possible consolation would be the old saying that if you're going to do something you may as well go all the away, because we didn't just lose - we didn't even really compete. Our boat was shit.

Manchester City Football Club

2004-01-05T01:01:00.000+09:00

I wasn't born In England near a club and I don't have any family ties to one so I had no choice but to pick one for myself. I'm obviously not much of a glory hunter but people often talk condescendingly about Oasis when I mention which club I support and I'll freely admit that I was introduced to MCFC through a Noel Gallagher quote in the NZ Herald in 1996, in which he told various members of the Board to make him a cup of tea and the Chairman to just fuck off, but my reasoning was a little better than that. Manchester appealed to me because of its long musical tradition and hard-core industrial history and by the time I got to England in '98 I was ready to switch from checking the Premiership results in the papers and watching the highlights on the tele to an all-out declaration of support for one team. I knew I was going to be living there and that I'd probably be able to get tickets to see City play because they were in Division Two at the time. I figured if I started with them while they were at the bottom then by the time they got back up I may have earnt the right to celebrate the fact. And, for some reason, I actually thought that City meant the urban part of the area and United meant the surrounding suburbs, and I'd choose a dirty housing estate over rolling hills any day. I also like the color blue better than red and the North of England better than the South.
Initially I was very shy around proper Manchester born n bred fans but after spending so many hours in the cold watching them "stumble about shooting chances into the Kippax" I decided I had the right to say We and Us, at least to fans of other teams anyway. You don't pay money for that kind of entertainment just because a couple of rock stars are at it. Luckily City made it to the play-off finals against Wigan at Wembley and were promoted to Division One but, unfortunately, it was the same season that United won the treble so the achievement seemed paltry by comparison. In 2000 they were promoted back to the Premiership only to be relegated again in 2001. They didn't mess around in the 01-02 season and won the Divison One title convincingly. Hopefully they'll now stay where they belong in the top flight of English football although this season they've hovered uncomfortably around the bottom of the table.
The City of Manchester Stadium is mint, on the absolute other side of town from MUFC, and in February City beat United 4-1 at home.

Manchester United Football Club

2004-01-05T01:00:00.000+09:00

Man U are the first thing I ever remember knowing about English football and initially I didn't have such a bad opinion of them because football was an interesting alternative to rugby and the All Blacks, and the people that wore their merchandise were pretty cool too. However it wasn't long before I decided they were kind of like the football equivalent of the All Blacks in the sense that they had fans all over the world that don't know much about the respective sports other than a few star players from major teams, and aren't likely to ever actually get to Manchester or NZ to watch a home game. That is to say, both clubs attract a disproportionate number of fairly ignorant fair-weather fans. Unlike some born n bred Blues, however, I'm not so bitter and twisted that I can't enjoy watching them play sometimes.

Osaka

2004-01-04T01:08:00.000+09:00

If Tokyo is kind of like London with a multiplicity of independent neighborhood centers linked together by suburban sprawl and congested highways, then Osaka is kind of Manchester. It's got a much more integrated feel to it so you actually feel like you're in the same town when you travel from one part to another. The Kita (north) District is all about department stores, underground shopping malls, corporate buildings and business hotels while the Minami (south) District is all about day-glo restaurants, pachinko arcades and clothes shops. There a couple of rivers and some major buildings (Town Hall etc) in the several blocks between the two districts and they are linked down the center by Mido Suji Boulevard, which is a wide street with many of the major fashion houses like Chanel and Dior choosing to situate themselves toward the southern end of it. Generalizing the Minami District further, the east is for dining, the south for gambling, and the west for shopping and drinking with loads of vintage clothing stores and hip minimalist bars. Running east to west through the middle of it all is Dotomobori, where you find extreme fashion and fun.

If you lived in Osaka I'm sure you'd get to know some of the surrounding neighborhoods but most of the action does seem to occur in these two central areas. It is a big city, though, no doubt. To get from A to B can take some time though there is a huge network of overhead highways and underground railways to help you and the people are exceptionally friendly. From a distance, Osaka is not an attractive city but if you get onto the streets and in a amongst it you'll find the place is truly alive with a superb atmosphere and vibe in the air, and it boasts a nightlife to easily rival Tokyo though many places shut earlier.

Chicago

2004-01-04T01:07:00.000+09:00

Chicago is a big city in every sense but it doesn't take long to get a basic grasp of how it works. Some tips:
*After the Great Fire, Chicagoans were given the opportunity to plan the city from scratch and they did this by creating a zero mark from which you can reference North, South and West (Lake Michigan lies to the east of the city). They also numbered the blocks in each direction so that you can tell from a street number how far away somewhere will be from the center in a much more accurate way than if a street starts and ends in any old place and, furthermore, is hilly and curvey, which Chicago streets are not.
*The city has a good elevated rail service - the El - which will get you nearby any destination, if not deliver you right at its door.
*Most of what goes on in the North Side can be referenced in terms of three main roads: Clark, Lincoln and Milwaukee, which run NW at varying degrees. If you follow Milwaukee out of the city you'll cut across Grand, Chicago, Division and North, and most of the fun happens along these roads or just off them. The central neighborhood is Wicker Park; take the Blue Line and stop at Damen. If you follow Lincoln out of the city you'll cut through Fullerton, Diversey and Belmont, and these also have things going on along them. The central neighborhood is Lincoln Park but the Belmont area is also good; take the Red, Brown or Purple Lines and stop at Belmont. Clark St has got stuff happening all the way along it and will get you to Wrigley Field and Chinatown; the Red line is good for getting up that way. Halsted and Ashland run vertically through the city and they're also useful reference points.
*The near West Side is dominated by abandoned warehouses and industrial spaces but parts of it are hyper hip now, especially along Randolph.
*Realistically, tourists won't have much cause to go to the South Side unless you make some friends that live down that way who can show you what's going on; take the Green Line if you want to check it out for yourself. The area was traditionally where much of the lower socio-economic and/or black part of the population lived and the nationwide trend toward gentrification hasn't affected many neighborhoods yet, for better or worse.

Local authorities all over the States are currently pulling down projects and offering tax cuts to developers to build new housing in their place but often it's not the former occupants of the projects that end up living there. Sometimes they get pushed to the suburbs, perhaps to a district that's even less desirable because of it's sterility or lack of jobs and transport, and the so-called poverty cycle begins all over again. Of course, this is a pessimistic view and I don't have any better solution or any experience of what I'm talking about; I've just spoken to a lot of people and read a lot of material and I think it's important. Other ethnic minorities, such as Poles and Swedes, also live together in various parts of Chicago. At the Historic Society I watched a documentary in which one claimed this was a good thing: they get to live among people like themselves and interact with everyone else whenever they leave their particular neighborhood, but it seems unlikely that everyone would agree with that, particularly if the schools and other public facilities vary greatly between neighborhoods.

The center of Chicago is awesome. The lakeside is reserved for parks and beaches and walkways, and the central part is known as Grant Park. It's comprised of a number of quite distinct areas including Millenium Park, which was finished four years late to the tune of half a billion dollars. I can understand why some people may think it was a waste of resources but it really is impressive. There's an outdoor music venue with superior design and acoustics: a giant trellis has speakers fixed to it so you can hear the performance perfectly from any vantage and it's aesthetically pleasing at the same time. There's an enormous shiny metal jelly bean that reflects the people standing under it and the beautiful old buildings across the street. There's a fountain thing with a dynamic image of a person's face on it that's sometimes made to look like they're spitting the water, which you can also splash around in. Other features of Grant Park include a gorgeous old fountain and a little park called The Spirit of Music, where the city has hosted an evening dance party every Wednesday throughout the summer, featuring the city's best house DJs. And on other nights there's dance classes before sessions of anything from jazz to blues to country, as well as the daily concerts in Millenium Park.

And the rest of the Downtown area is also straightforward: there's The Golden Mile along Michigan Ave, which runs north of the river mouth and is all about upmarket shopping and chain stores. Then there's the Loop (named after the circular part of the L), which is south of the river and is where you'll find the theatre district and some of the famous commercial buildings like Sears Tower. The Loop is less lively than the Michigan Ave area but also less touristy.

One of the nicest things about Chicago, I think, is that nearly everyone I met was actually from there and genuinely loved the place (apart from the weather). As one guide I read said, it's just such a solid city. For comprehensive info check www.metromix.com

San Francisco

2004-01-04T01:06:00.000+09:00

SF is an incredibly compact beautiful town that is easy to like. I only spent a week there so didn't quite go everywhere but you'd probably need no more than 2 weeks to get a decent knowledge of the place. If you're into bars and restaurants and clubs and galleries and stuff, then you only really need to know about a few key streets and you're sorted. Market St leads all the way from the touristy piers, through the Downtown financial/shopping center and up into Castro, the gay district. It cuts diagonally across town and the area to the south west of it is aptly called South of Market (Soma). This is an area full of arty warehouses, hip DJ bars and underground nightclubs. Running vertically through it are Mission St, Howard St and Folsom St, which are useful in finding your bearings along the numbered streets that cut across horizontally. 1st, 2nd and 3rd are very much downtown, 6th is known as the armpit of SF but is home to Arrow Bar, Anu, Club 6 and the End Up, which are all worth checking. 16th is the start of the Mission district and 24th is its center. That's where you go to get authentic Mexican food.

Running west from mid-Market is Haight St, which leads all the way to Golden Gate Park and was famous in the 60s/70s for all the rock n roll/free love type action that went down. I didn't spend a lot of time there but it's got a lot of records shops, alternative clothing boutiques and healthy cafes etc. The Top and Milk Bar are both on Upper Haight, which is the far end. Running parallel to it is Hayes St and the blocks known as the Hayes Valley, which is good for independent shopping and home to BPM Records. Running north from Market is Van Ness, a main route through the city, and Polk St, which has loads of good bars. If you walk up Grant St from downtown Market you'll go through China Town and end up on Columbus St, which is at the heart of North Beach. There you'll find the book shop City Lights and a bunch of arty bars and places. And just up the road is Coight Tower, which affords incredible views of the harbor and the Golden Gate Bridge.

There are plenty of other micro communities nestled in the hills around the city and it's all so small that you'll find them easier just by walking around than you would using a map and public transport or whatever. But for the record, BART runs from the airport through the city and across the Bay Bridge to Berkely so is useful to get a few blocks somewhere and then walk the rest. There are lots of buses but it means figuring out what route/stop to use. A taxi from one part of town to the other will only cost about $10. And of course the trams run along the steep streets in the city center but I'd recommend you walk so you don't get fat or miss anything.

For info about anything and everything, check www.sfstation.com
For short-term accomodation try www.craigslist.com

Suntory Vineyard, Yamanashi, Japan

2004-01-04T01:05:00.000+09:00

Japan is not very famous for producing wine and a lot of is way too sweet; more like Ribena than Montana. However, this place is wonderful. I had a hangover and wasn't particularly in the mood for drinking but it was my first outing alone with Japanese people who don't speak English and I didn't want to be difficult. We took the guided tour first: it was an exemplary example of Japanese efficiency and I'm sure I would have learnt a lot about making wine if I had been able to understand anything that the delightful guide told us. Instead I watched the various TV presentations and looked at the fermentation/ bottling/ labelling machines with due awe. After a slow stroll through their underground ageing vaults, we emerged into the sun and were instructed to drive up to the next stage.

The next stage turned out to be a three-tiered complex overlooking the central valley basin of Yamanashi with Kofu city to the left and Mount Fuji directly ahead in the distance. The top tier had an a la carte restaurant; the middle area had a large courtyard with tables and chairs, a shop that served free glasses of the house wine, and a bakery that produced fresh croissant and pasteries as well as selling cheese, crackers, jam and olives; the lower tier had a series of covered cave type things, under which large groups of people were feasting off yakiniku-style bbqs: prawns, scallops, beef and vegetables. Sound impressive? It should; the place is flawless.
I was there with a young married couple and their 3-year-old daughter. My friend had previously prepared lunch for us all and brought it in some lovely bento boxes (compartmentalized lunch boxes), so we ate that on the middle tier with plenty of cheese, crackers and wine to give the experience a little French flavor.

I had stayed at their house the previous night and witnessed authentic Japanese domestic life for the first time since I came here a year ago. Their house was very old and had minimal furniture, as is the custom, but they were very able hosts and I had a lovely time. Traditionally the family would all sleep in one big room on futon that are stored in cupboards every day. That night there was a large bed made up of three futon inside the room and a single futon just outside the door, and my friend was even sweet enough to ask me which I would prefer. My only complaint would be that her husband is a relic from the dark ages. We woke before him to take her sister to the train and at that time his wife was wearing an elegant turquoise dress. Later she emerged wearing a short, tight black and white thing that was a little trashy, if not slutty. I asked her why and she said her husband had told her she looked like a grandmother in the previous outfit, and ordered her to change it. And she did!

Thailand

2004-01-04T01:04:00.000+09:00

I never had a great desire to go to Thailand, even though a number of my friends raved about it, but it's practically a rite of passage for people on the JET (Japanese Exchange and Teaching) programme in Japan, especially over the NYE break because Japan is freezing and, well, it's Japan. That is to say it's formal and rigid and organised and expensive and monocultural and not many people can speak English confidently (my opinion on a bad day anyway). So I booked a ticket without really knowing where I would go or who I would go with. It turned out a couple of friends flew into Bangkok at the same time, but on a different flight, so I stayed with them at various hotels for a few nights. We saw some interesting stuff driving round in tuktuks, ate some good food, drank some beer and bought some Xanex before it became prescription-only in the new year. Pat Pong is the nig area for touristy clubs and sex bars. I didn't stay there but the Kao San Rd is the famous strip full of hotels and bars.

If you're going to any of the large temples, like the Palace, make sure you where long sleeved tops (girls) and trousers (boys). They provide clothes for you to change into but I couldn't be bothered waiting in line; we saw some other stuff that was kind of cool. One thing that was definitely fun was riding up the river in an old boat thing. There are official tourist boats that do this but you can jump in anything that comes along for a much cheaper price. Another thing I didn't do, but which comes highly recommended, is have clothes tailor made at the many places that do this. Tuk tuk drivers get a commission if you go with them to one of them and it's not such a bad idea, everyone can win if you play it right. Overall though, Bangkok isn't the reason you go to Thailand.

I elected to fly to Surat Thani and then take the ferry to Ko Pha Ngan because it was cheap and looked easy. As it turned out, I'd missed the last ferry and had to stay overnight in Surat then ride in a crowded bus for an hour to get to the port, then endure a 3-hour boat trip to the island. This is instead of paying a little extra to fly direct to Koh Samui then take a 10-minute taxi to the ferry terminal and a half-hour boat ride to Ko Pha Ngan. But actually it wasn't that bad. I attached myself to some Swedish guys and we found a cheap hotel, booked boat tickets and had a few beers. The bus ride was a proper SE Asia experience, which was necessary considering I'd decided to take the easy route and fly direct to the beach, rather than explore the country by bus and train like proper travelers. And the boat ride was fucking beautiful. I took a Xan and accepted a man's offer to stay at some bungalows to the NW of the island, even though I was due to meet my friend at the ferry terminal and go with her to Hat Rin.

The place was called Bay View Bungalows and it was located at the north of Haad Yao Beach. It turned out to be the budget option on a fairly highclass strip but this meant the people staying there were really chill and the staff were lovely. The house restaurant was situated up on the cliffs and served fucking excellent food, including shroom omelettes if you asked nicely. The bunglaows themselves are variously located on the cliffs and mine had a stunning view over the bay, just above the water. It was very basic but I didn't spend much time there so that was cool. Just back from the beach was a little service area that had shops, a massage parlor, a travel agent, internet access and taxis to elsewhere on the island. All along the beach were loads of different restaurants and bars (including ahideous nouveau riche resort that was out of sync with the rest of the bay), and there are more back off the beach and up in the hills.

The main local town Thong Sala is about half an hour away by taxi and the main tourist town Hat Rin was about an hour (that's where the Full Moon parties happen). Both are bustling with people and shops and bars and Hat Rin also has a few good clubs. Koh Samui is half an hour away by Ferry and is much bigger and more developed than Koh Pha Ngan; I only spent a few hours there. I didn't go anywhere else because time flew too fast but word on the street is that the islands on the other side of the mainland are more commercial with Phuket being all about families of Americans and old German men. Koh Phi Phi is supposed to be busy but beautiful. Next time I go to Thailand I'm going to venture up north, particularly to Chiang Mai, which is allegedly excellent fun and very different to the beautifully hedonistic south.

Piha Beach, West Auckland, NZ

2004-01-04T01:01:00.000+09:00

Piha is a very special place indeed. It is a small community with just a couple of old-fashioned dairies (convenience stores) selling basics like bread and ice cream. The shop by the beach does the best fish n chips ever and the Surf Club restaurant cooks a great steak. The licensing is such that you have to sign in as a guest when you go there and that about sums Piha up - anyone is free to go but it really is a private world unto itself. With a stunning, rugged beach framed by cliffs and spilt by the unusual land mass known as Lion Rock, Piha is an alternative playground for the young and old alike although people risk swimming in the extreme surf at their peril. Housing varies hugely from the upmarket to the very basic and there's a camping ground in the center. Home to artists, bums and a few semi-retired residents, music and drugs often play a central role in recreational activities, particularly for the electronically inclined. Auckland itself is currently in the grips of an amphetamine crisis with many people smoking a supposedly pure form known as P. However, it aint that pure and Piha has suffered more than its fair share of casualities considering the small populaton. There are other beautiful beaches nearby, accessible by foot or car, but no place quite matches its vibe.

Where I've Lived

2004-01-04T01:00:00.000+09:00

I was born in Whakatane in the Bay of Plenty and my father still lives there. It's small and kind of nice but rather dull. Across the hill is Ohope Beach, where my grandmother lived, and that's beautiful. At the age of three I was moved to Gisborne in Poverty Bay, on the east coast. The provincial names are actually quite apt because Gisborne is sunny and famous for surfing but there are a lot of people who live there that aren't doing very much, including work. When I was 10, I moved to New Plymouth in Taranaki, where I found my wonderful black horse Poseidon. It's a great town for equestrian pursuits and is bigger than the others but still tame. Next was Auckland, NZ's big smoke. Geographically it's huge and the population is well over a million but I only really inhabited the areas immediately surrounding the city center: New Market (upmarket shopping), Parnell (art and restaurants), Downtown (usual chain shops on Queen St/NZs best designers and EDM shops on High St and surrounding area) Ponsonby (bars, cafes and clothing boutiques), Grey Lynn (community-based urban living), Kingsland (villas and a hip little strip of various shops), and K Rd (clubs and independent shops). I rapidly and steadily fell off the rails in Auckland but made some great friends and got seriously into music and partying, which is a good thing if you ask me. At the height of my delinquency I was moved to Nelson where I got my feet back on the ground and my head down from the clouds to complete high school with honours. As far as small towns go it doesn't get much better than Nelson. There is at least one of everything you need; book stores, music shops, restaurants, clubs (Phat Club), bars, cafes (Zippy's) and pubs (The Mean Fiddler). Plus its got sunny weather, great beaches and a friendly atmosphere.

In England, I only dipped in and out of London and it's one of the great city's of the world so it would be pointless to furnish it with a detailed description. However my favourite place was Hoxton Square. I lived mostly in Bristol, which is a fantastic little city with lots of creativity and energy. But unfortunately it thrived on the slave trade and the class system is still alive and well today with Sloane Rangers inhabiting the big houses of Clifton and many African descendants rocking it in St Pauls. Last but not least was Manchester. It's a cool, modern post-industrial city that's home to some of the best art and ideas to come out of the UK. The Northern Quarter is home to many record shops, clubs and clothing stores. If you head south from the center it's good all the way down through Rushholme, Fallowfield and Withington to Didsbury.

After another three-year spell in AK, I now live in Shimobe. It's a tiny mountain town and I don't even live in the busy part. I'm in this kind of stretch of houses near the school that has just a couple of old-fashioned shops with a river running down the middle and mountains on either side. Shimobe itself is famous for onsen (Japanese spa baths) and has a world-class steak house and a superb sushi bar. It's only a five minute drive away but I don't drive.

Animal

2004-01-03T01:10:00.000+09:00

Straight out of NYC, this magazine is very street. Street life, street art, street photography, street writing, street ideas, street fashion. It's an ideal cafe/coffee table publication because most of the content is visual. And its global appeal is further enhanced by the fact that some of the text is translated into Japanese and Spanish. The most recent issue I've seen has a page that features a cute child-like sketch beside the words "Make Love to the Present, Fuck the Past", which I like very much. The issue is their 4th and the theme is armageddeon. They have this to say about it: The concept of armageddeon begs two fundamental questions: If it is the end of the world, have you lived your life to the fullest? In the cosmic battle between good and evil, what side are you on? http://www.animalnewyork.com

Arena

2004-01-03T01:09:00.000+09:00

When The Face was suspended by their publishing group in April '04, my subscription was automatically transferred to Arena. I wasn't at all happy about losing my favorite magazine, particularly because I didn't think it boded well for my own writing career that something I rated so highly was failing so miserably in the market. But it seems logical to at least partially attribute falling sales to the proliferation of online alternatives even though, personally, looking at a computer screen will never beat the experience of holding a heavy, glossy, fresh magazine in my hands, just as downloading digital tracks will never match the joy of flicking through vinyl... That said, you could do a lot worse than reading Arena every month. The men behind it are obviously very self-assured: the writing is eloquent, the content is comprehensive, the design is smart and sometimes it's funny as hell.

The Face

2004-01-03T01:08:00.000+09:00

The Face was suspended in May '04 due to a lack of dedicated readership, which I frankly find shocking and depressing. Otherwise known as the style-bible, it had been around since the early eighties and always captured the essence of popular culture before it actually becomes popular, like the seminal article on E in 1985 or the Kate Moss cover in 1990. Some of its cover stars were fairly predictable toward the end - from Justin to Beyonce - but the stories usually painted them in a different, often less flattering, light. They also blatantly took the piss out of people and ran excellent features such as "A Vicodin Odyssey in Vegas" and "How Not to Have a Shit Life", making for an endlessly entertaining read. I am sad it is no longer to be found in a good book shop near me.

Vice

2004-01-03T01:07:00.000+09:00

Having just published it's 100th issue, Vice is no longer the hard-to-find, coveted thing it once was and now includes a lot more advertising. But it's still free and uncompromising in it's review of the arts and disdain for all things wack, gay, naff or dull. Sometimes I still flinch when I read certain things though I think you'd be stupied to think they're out to intentionally shock you, it's just a bunch of bold people have managed to get their fingers in a dirty little pie and are all enjoying the orgy of finger fucking.

Jockey Slut

2004-01-03T01:06:00.000+09:00

An English magazine that used to be based in Manchester and cover all manner of cutting edge music as it happened. A few years ago it relocated South and then it announced it would no longer be supporting house music, which is absolutely fucking ridiculous. Presumably that meant they would have more time to focus on the highs and lows of all the sub-genres that come and go through fashionable, fickle London but, apparently, the magazine has now officially shut down. I think that's a shame even if I didn't 100% agree with their recent approach.
What the fuck's happening in the world? Does nobody like EDM anymore? Or is it that nobody reads anymore? Is everyone just too glued to their computer screens? I'm still totally into chilling with a magazine, a spliff and some tunes: what about the rest of you?

Dazed and Confused

2004-01-03T01:05:00.000+09:00

Dazed is definitely one of the best magazines available in terms of cutting edge coverage of shit as it happens: from music, to fashion to political movements. They aim to showcase grassroots talent but you'll also find features on well-known luminaries in any field. The writing is brilliant and the images are beautiful. Rankin and Jefferson Hack allegedly started the magazine as a means of getting in on London's top party circuit and it seems they succeeded. Rankin is now a famous photographer in his own right and Hack is the father of Kate Moss' baby. The Dazed group also publishes limited edition specialist books as well as a car mag called Intersection and a glossy quarterly simply named Another Magazine.

Tokyo

2004-01-03T01:03:00.001+09:00

Tokyo is the name given to the massive area that surrounds the actual district that bears this name, which is actually rather non-descript besides having a very large train station. So when Japanese people talk about going to Tokyo they will usually mention another specific area, in the same way we would specify which city we're going to in a country. It is a vast ultra-urban megalopolis with energy and madness buzzing everywhere amidst the endless gray and brown buildings and the glittering neon lights. Dope as fuck. Shinjuku: Almost a city in its own right, Shinjuku is the hub of Tokyo with one of the world's largest railway stations at its center. Roughly speaking, the northwest is corporate, the east is busy and sordid and the south is good for major shopping and getting to the park. Shibuya: The famous youth-orientated area, home to one of the busiest pedestrian crossings in the world. It's not that big but its bright winding streets can be overwhelmingly busy with hipsters just hanging out and laughing. The many record shops are excellent, ranging from major modern stores that stock all the latest cuts to small rooms full of cardboard boxes of classics. Harajuku: Just up the road from Shibuya, it's the best place for street fashion with big branches of Adidas and Gap on the main streets and numerous quirky boutiques and 2nd hand stores on the back streets. If you're lucky you might catch some of the extreme looks like witchy-goths, rockabillys and milkmaids. Aoyama: Connected to Harajuku by a wide boulevard lined with flagship stores for the likes of Dior and Chanel, Aoyama is Harajuku's upmarket cousin. It has some quality independent stores and delicious bakeries. Roppongi Hills: It sounds like a district but in fact it's the name given to a modern skyscraper complex just up the road from Roppongi proper. It has several floors of shopping and a floor of restaurants at the bottom, apartments in the middle and the Mori Art Gallery at the top. Unfortunately I was hungover on the day and made the decision not to wait in line to go up and see the modern Japanese art exhibition that was showing at the time. But we had a nice enough afternoon soaking up the serene vibe in one of the restaurant courtyards of the The Hyatt Hotel, which is annexed to the main building on the same level as the dining floor. I imagine a short weekend could happily be spent staying there, eating every meal at a different place, checking the art and the panoramic views of Tokyo and making several quality purchases in between. Pure class. Akihabara: Known as the electric town, Akihabara is where you go to buy discount electronic goods like cameras and phones. There's not a lot there other than those shops though and you may find things just as cheap in other parts of Tokyo or indeed at home, as a friend recently found out. Still, it's worth a look. Daikanyama: Just south of Shibuya, Daikanyama is a lovely little neighbourhood with all the interesting fashion boutiques and people but none of the crowd or hype. There are some superior sneaker shops along one of the main roads into the district and the central area has a lovely ambience. Check it when Shinjuku and Shibuya have driven you mad.

Sleaze Nation/Sleaze

2004-01-03T01:03:00.000+09:00

The latter is the new incarnation of the former, though I'm yet to get my hands on a copy. Sleaze Nation was a very underground mag that I believe began as a London club guide so there is a big emphasis on music. They aren't afraid to criticize things by inference or by name and rarely champion huge stars of popular culture, preferring their subversive counterparts.

Staple

2004-01-03T01:02:00.000+09:00

I've only seen one issue of this NZ title but it seems reasonably promising. They have a fairly unique take on design and the writing is decent, but the main attraction is the content. NZ features prominiently (not just Auckland and Wellington) and the magazine covers more areas than the arts and fashion usually featured in lifestyle publications. They get extra points from me for detailing a trip around my old neck of the woods - the East Coast of the North Island - but lose points for a music review in which it was claimed Simon Grigg was the nice part of Nice n Urlich, instead of Bevan Keys. I wouldn't normally complain about such inaccuracies but Mr Grigg is one of my heroes.

Remix Magazine

2004-01-03T01:01:00.000+09:00

This used to NZ's major EDM publication but now its bi-line is "nu urban" or something to that effect, which I think is rather wack. However, the mag still has a free CD on the cover and discerning people will probably still buy it for that because they are often excellent and get thrashed all over the country for months. i dunno, I guess the magazine does fill a certain niche but I would've preferred comprehensive coverage of club culture to lightweight mentions of popular stuff... guess there just aint enough money to be made in t'underground.

Pavement Magazine

2004-01-03T01:00:00.000+09:00

This is the best NZ has to offer. It was founded by Bernard D. McDonald and Glenn Hunt and they are still the editors in chief. As well as showcasing new talent in Aotearoa, Pavement always features interesting achievers from around the world, often before they get their big break. The magazine is now published quarterly rather than bi-monthly and is bigger and brighter than ever. Music, fashion, art, books, products, obscure people, infamous people: everything you could ever want and more.

Divine Prescriptions -- Doreen Virtue

2004-01-02T01:17:00.000+09:00

This lady is a trained psychologist and everything but she also has a strong communication thing happening with the angels up above, so uses a combination of traditional practices and divine inspiration to tell people what they need to hear to get on track. I 100% believe in this kind of stuff and, although some of the example maladies didn't relate to me, it is very well-written and insightful throughout. The best bit is at the end where she gives you the lowdown on Who's Who in the angelic realm and spells out the difference between Angels proper, Ascended Masters and Deceased Love Ones or something like that. It's really good! Honest to God.

Bonfire of the Vanities -- Tom Wolfe

2004-01-02T01:16:00.000+09:00

What a fucking book! Nevermind histroy lessons or facts and figures and buiness analyses or any of that kinda shit; if you wanna know what was up in NYC in the 1980s, this is the story for you. I struggled at first to really get into it, perhaps because I didn't really empathize with any of the main characters - Wolfe is brutal in his satirization of a WASP Wall St guy, a vain DA, an alcoholic journalist, a righteous self-styled savior, and various accompanying women - but eventually I got sucked into this slippery slimey world and it didn't matter whether I actually cared what happened to anyone or not.

The thing I liked best was Wolfe's description of the city itself: the buildings, the homes, the restaurants, the clubs, the transportation, the power strutures and behind-the-scenes goings on... He just has such a way with words that sometimes I'd get a kick out of the way he said something more than what he was actually saying. Classic black literary comedy.

Tokyo -- Mo Hayder

2004-01-02T01:15:00.000+09:00

This book really is quite special. It has a unique approach to narration, switching between male and female narrators, from now to the past, from Japan to China; the writing is excellent, the plot is tight, and the themes are deep. It raises questions about the events that occurred in Nanking, China, in 1937 in a very real sense and - given that the matter is still unresolved and there is still much mistrust between the two nations - this has got to be a good thing for everyone. Japanese people seem to have very poor understanding of their own history and until they do understand it, and claim it, they cannot sincerely apologize to anyone concerned. Other subtle aspects of Japanese culture are illustrated beautifully and the foreign hostess scene and Yakuza are both portrayed convincingly. At times creepy, at times fucking hideous – this book is never dull.

Story of the Eye -- Georges Bataille

2004-01-02T01:14:00.000+09:00

I bought this book on a whim while in City Lights in San Francisco because they published it, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, though it is very bizarre. The shop used to be a key hangout for the beat poets and this review by Sartre is taken from the their website:

"Bataille denudes himself, exposes himself, his exhibitionism aims at destroying all literature. He has a holocaust of words. Bataille speaks about a man's condition, not his nature. His tone recalls the scornful aggressiveness of the surrealist. Bataille has survived the death of God. In him, reality is conflict." –Jean Paul Sarte

http://www.citylights.com

The Road Less Travelled -- M.Scott Peck, M.D.

2004-01-02T01:13:00.001+09:00

It's an unfortunate fact that most people have neither the time nor inclination to read any of the many excellent books that have been written about the nature of reality and human consciousness and the possible links between the two, and the various ways in which some kind of higher entity may be interpreted to have an impact on either of these things... I cannot recommend Conversations With God by Neale Donald Walsch any more than I have already done - I essentially recontextualized it in if god were a manc - and now I have another book to recommend. It was published in 1978 and has since acquired cult status in circles of people who care for such things, but I only read it for the first time recently. I also read Peck's book Searching for Stones this year and am now thoroughly convinced that the man is clever, perceptive, sensitive, humble and eloquent.

The Road Less Traveled essentially suggests that the mind is a three-fold creature with one part acting as superintendent in the superficial world and one being rooted in the the universal, permanent thing sometimes called God, and one serving as the interface between the two. Mental illness occurs when our tiny, conscious part is at great odds with what the infinite, unconscious part knows to be best. The interface may then conjure dreams and such as a way of indicating to the conscious self what is wrong. If you're not familiar with any of Freud's ideas or anything of a spiritual nature then this may be poorly explained and sound very unlikely but it makes perfect sense to me. However, I am still very much unsure whether our mental growth in this life is taken with us into the next; I'm rather more inclined to think that out soul (possibly the interface between the universal unconscious and our human conscious mind, possibly a particular portion of the universal part itself) is perfect before and after our human life and the work in between only affects your success as a human, rather than also impacting the essential development of your soul as Peck suggests.

Peck maintains a soul's success in a human life may be measured by how closely it was able to get the human to behave in accordance with God, but I think it is more to do with how closely it was able to get it to resemble your soul's pre-conceived notion of what it wanted to experience during a life - good or bad. That is to say, people may have chosen to come to life as a troubled, morbid, suicidal artist and if they fully do that then they win the game [NB: I'm not so sure I think this anymore: starting to think maybe we really are supposed to be all be happy...] Peck on the other hand says that we should all strive to be mentally healthy and good. This may well be the case but, if so, many of us are failing!

I believe self-expression, not goodness, is the goal. But this, too, involves a great deal of effort and self-responsiblity because it implies that if you are miserable for any reason, you chose it. And if you're not happy about something, you've got to change it. There is no common ideal for which we should all aspire; we each must experience what our soul chose prior to our birth... I actually wrote an essay that's kind of about this when I was at university but it doesn't seem to be on my computer, so here's one about enlightenment instead, though I doubt many of you are still reading...

Japanese Philosophy
Question 8: Critical philosophical discussion of the concept of “enlightenment” as it pertains to the (ideal) Zen Buddhistic style of awareness.

Zen Buddhism is not so much a philosophy as it is a way of life. For this reason there is no definitive explanation as to the concept of enlightenment, though there are innumerable writings which hint at it and much critical analysis besides. In this essay I will therefore explore what it means to be enlightened in a way which will inevitably miss the point for a true practitioner of Zen. I will begin by discussing the original Buddhist context out of which Zen developed and the differences between the two. Next, I will summarise the Zen conception of enlightenment, then evaluate the problem that the ego-mind presents. This will lead to a discussion of the Zen theory of “non-thinking” and the implications this has for modern life. Finally, I will present the practice of zazen as the epitome of enlightenment, accessible to masters and beginners alike.

According to Suzuki, “Enlightenment occupies the central point of teaching in all schools of Buddhism... because the Buddha’s teachings all start from his enlightenment experience about 2500 years ago in the Northern part of India.” The Buddha’s enlightenment was not sudden, however, rather it was “the combination of a mature response to the traditional learning that he received as a student and a penetrating understanding of human life and the nature of our existence”. His fundamental premise was that life equated to suffering and he was said to be enlightened after realising certain truths about how this suffering could be avoided. Since then various sects of people have followed his ideas in the belief that “the Mind of Buddha” is a necessary mediator on the path to enlightenment. Suzuki clarifies the Zen position with respect to this when he says “all the Buddhist teachings propounded in the sutras and sastras are treated as mere waste of paper whose utility consists in wiping off the dirt of intellect and nothing more”.

However, you must know the rules before you can break them and, as Masao said, “although intellectual understanding cannot be a substitute for Zen’s awakening, practice without a proper and legitimate form of intellectual understanding is often misleading”. The ultimate aim of the Buddha and Zen Buddhism is the same, that is, to be aware of yourself as a unified whole in a way which makes you present to the eternal moment of now. Unlike Buddhism, Zen does not wish to do this in order to escape the suffering which arises through our attachment to objects and results. There is no reason to follow Zen except that, quite simply, it is consistent with reality. Many of the masters became enlightened after an experience which involved “a direct apprehension of the sensed stimulus, an acceptance that completely fills the individual’s consciousness”. Similarly, “Clear sight has nothing to do with trying to see; it is just the realization that the eyes will take in every detail all by themselves, for so long as they are open one can hardly prevent the light from reaching them”.

If the Zen conception of enlightenment really is that simple, then surely we are all already enlightened? Wrong. For most people there is a significant obstacle between their experience of reality and satori, namely, the ego. Much like the Buddha’s seemingly negative claim about life and suffering, Masao claims “self-estrangement and anxiety are not something accidental to the ego-self, but are inherent to its structure”. Zen seeks to overcome the ego-self and awaken to the real-self, which is “a kind of metaphysical self in opposition to the psychological or ethical self which belong in a finite world of relativity”. It is the ego-self which asks, 'who am I?' And this is quickly followed by the question, 'who is asking who am I?', which continues in an infinite regress, the real-self always standing behind the questioning ego-self, ever eluding our grasp. “The true self must be the true Subjectivity which is beyond objectification,” writes Masao. In typical Zen fashion, however, the ego cannot try to intellectually solve this “objectification” dilemma. “There is no continuous path from the first stage to the second, but rather a discontinuity which can be overcome only by a leap in which the ego-self is radically and completely broken through”. As soon as one acknowledges that the “true self is unattainable” one is free from restlessness and “the self and its related world are grasped in the light of detachment”.

I accept the Buddha’s teachings about suffering and I agree that Mindfulness in a momentary existence is a logical way around the problem. However I find it difficult to believe anyone could ever genuinely overcome the suffering caused by the death of a loved one, for example, simply by being mindful of the fact that it is a consequence of “interdependent arising”, and therefore out of your control, and therefore not worth worrying about. That is to say, I find Buddhism unsatisfactory because of its total disregard for any facts except those which are “empirically verifiable and morally significant”. Likewise, I understand the Zen problem of the objective-ego standing in the way of a subjective-true-self experience of life. However, once confronted with your very self-ness I fail to see how you can then proceed moment to moment whilst being totally ignorant of the facts as to where you came from or where you are going. According to Masao this kind of teleological quest, which sees the individual moving “from potentiality to actuality while seeking the form of a higher dimension outside itself”, is rejected by Zen. He then cites a Zen work which suggests that once all kinds of discrimination have come to rest, duality, and assumably our curiosity, ceases of its own accord. I do not believe the Christian notions of Adam and Eve and heaven and hell have served the world particularly well and I admire the fact the Buddha “continued to oppose the idea that there can be absolute knowledge”. In fact he maintained that an enlightened person was someone who had overcome these very “perversions of knowledge and understanding”. Nevertheless I know that, personally, my ego-mind would never entirely submit to the moment in the absence of any investigation as to what it is all about.

So, how to stop the mind? There are a number of common sayings, often loosely attributed to Buddhism, about being in the moment and living in the now but, unfortunately, the ego is very attached to remembering the past and imagining the future. Both these activities necessarily involve splitting yourself into at least two parts, one that is there thinking and one that is the subject of the thinking and which, in that moment, does not actually exist. One of the key problems, then, is that even if you accept the fact that your true self is elusive and must not be sought and momentarily manage to experience yourself as a whole, the ego will soon return and again alienate you from your actual existence in real time. Just as the self slips further away with each 'who am I? who is asking who am I?', so the present moment slips away each time the mind tries to label it now, and now, and now. Masao goes further to say that it is only after the true Self is realised in the absolute present that a “temporal sequence can legitimately begin”. Indeed much of “real” life is lost through our playing of the past and future in our mind, but is it really possible to stop thinking?

Hakuin said that any conscious attempt to try not to think involves the objectification of one’s thoughts, which clearly indicates the ego is still present. Furthermore, trying not to think is frustratingly difficult. One must therefore practice the art of “non-thinking”, or pre-reflective thinking, or without-thinking. “The without-thinking act supplies the raw material out of which the later reflective, thinking act develops” says Kasul is, rather like when you go out and get drunk and don’t think about what you are doing, then the next day piece it all together. What this means is that you allow yourself to think but you do not attach importance to your thoughts. Watts observes that the body continually performs the most complex of actions, like walking, without our consciously thinking about it. Similarly, the mind thinks without our thinking about it. The point is to let it do so without getting “blocked” on any one subject.

The often beautiful but nonsensical poetry of some of the Zen masters is the product of doing just that, for example: “If you have one, I give you mine; if you have none, I will take it away from you.” As Suzuki said, “there is no rationalism in this”. He goes on to say that such verbal riddles are naturally exuded or secreted by the mind, which must mean they are embodiments of life itself, rather like leaves or puddles. This is all very well for an ego-less monk or a baby with only a rudimentary grasp of words and meaning but how is one to be enlightened and still function in the real world? Masao claims non-thinking “can express itself without hindrance through both thinking and not-thinking as the situation requires” and that “Zen will have to make full use of it if it is not to stay within a monastery, but to deal effectively with the many agonizing problems plaguing the contemporary world”.

I fail to see how unattached non-thinking is a solution in itself but Hakuin suggests that “whether one is sitting in zazen or doing bureaucratic paperwork for the shogun” you should concentrate in a deep, psychophysical way with “the mind focused... and the breath centered in the abdomen”. He concludes by saying that such a life is open to anyone in any circumstance. I assume, then, that this deeply focused thinking is an acceptable form of “non-thinking” which means we may put our minds to a conscious purpose, on the one hand, and allow it to naturally produce artistic representations of ourselves, on the other. Indeed we may allow it to do anything except worry about some abstract thing in the distant future, or regret some incident in the past. Perhaps the rule is that if the thinking pertains to the moment, or if you need to think about something now to effect something in the future or correct the past, then it constitutes legitimate thinking for an enlightened person.

At the very least it seems likely that even a Wall Street lawyer could practice zazen for at least a few minutes of their day. This simply involves sitting in a posture conducive to the body’s normal processes and allowing life to go on around you. Dogen was the greatest advocate of zazen (or proper seating), insisting “it is not a technique by which to achieve enlightenment; it is enlightenment itself”. Such a statement continues to imbue zazen with a certain kind of ritualism but in fact it is “perfectly natural [for humans] to remain sitting, so long as there is nothing else to be done, and so long as one is not consumed with nervous agitation”23. All of this seems very common place and that, precisely, is the point. Enlightenment does not involve a radical transformation, rather it “is a continuous process, not a single event”. Furthermore, “it is only at first an experience of intense emotional release... in itself it is just the ending of an artificial and absurd use of the mind”.This means that you may be truly present to the moment of now at one moment, then descend into egotistical thinking at the next. Be enlightened, then thoroughly human. We do well to remember that masters are those who remain wholly present all their lives, perhaps as a warrior, perhaps as a participant in the tea ceremony, perhaps as a street sweeper.

Ultimately there is nothing supernatural in the Zen conception of enlightenment. It is not concerned with transcending reality and it does not aspire toward some alternative plane of consciousness. Its only hope is that we relieve ourselves of the shackles of the past-future ego-mind and “seize the day”. It is realising that all the activity taking place in the recesses of your mind is a mere figment of your imagination, that for every moment you spend in your head you lose one in the world. If there is any difficulty in this, it is that there is nothing to consult but yourself. You will not become enlightened by learning the Buddha’s teachings, nor will you attain it by sitting like a lotus beneath a tree in imitation of him. You must simply be aware that there is nothing else, before or after, anywhere, but what is right here, right now, all around you.

The Garden of Eden -- Hemmingway

2004-01-02T01:13:00.000+09:00

The thing I liked most about this novel is that it's a realistic reflection of what it means to be a drinker. Not necessarily an alcoholic, but someone who drinks with most meals and celebrates everything good with a nice tipple and gets over anything bad with a stiff one and knows the relative consequences of drinking, say, a bottle of champagne as compared to a few glasses of absinthe. The story is also very intriguing and, of course, the writing is sublime.

The Working Poor -- Invisible in America : David K Shipler

2004-01-02T01:12:00.000+09:00

Shipler has written a number of other non-fiction books on similarly heavy themes: Jews and Arabs, Blacks and Whites, and Russia. If they are all as sophisticated as this one then he is a credit to the world, delivering hard-hitting facts in fluent prose with relevant examples and opinions to support his own lucid and intelligent thoughts on the subject. The final sentence of The Working Poor is: "It's time to be ashamed."

Life is so Good -- George Dawson & Richard Glaubman

2004-01-02T01:11:00.001+09:00

This is a delightful story about a "colored" man who was born in Texas in the last years of the 19th century and lived into the first years of the 21st (and is, I believe, still living). His grandparents were slaves but his parents were able to buy their own farm and George was raised on that with his brothers and sisters, only to be joined by eight of their cousins when his aunt and uncle died. The chapter where he goes to New Orleans and samples the pleasures of life for the first time is particularly cool. But it's not so much what happens to him - or what he makes happen - in his life that makes the story so lovely; it's his attitude toward it all. Impressively, the only regret he has is that he lost his temper and threw something at the family mule, making it blind in one eye.

I have made many, many mistakes in my life but I'd like to think most of them were over-determined (to use Dr Peck's expression in Searching for Stones). That is to say, there were a number of causes and effects at work; I'm not plain evil. However, there's no getting around the fact that I wasn't always very nice to the four successive horses I owned: I never even met the person I sold any of them to because someone else took care of it for me, and I definitely used to lose my temper when they wouldn't jump some ridiculous obstacle at short notice or canter perfectly in a cute circle. So the fact this was the only thing George regrets about his life hit me quite hard.

The reason the book is co-written is that George only started learning to read when he was 98 so you could hardly expect him to write it himself. In fact, the whole thing was Glaubman's idea and George didn't much mind whether it got published or not; he's already pretty famous in his hometown. Nonetheless, it did get published and Glaubman did a good job of writing the whole thing from Dawson's point of view. Life is so Good book should inspire you to be a better person.

31 Songs -- Nick Hornby

2004-01-02T01:11:00.000+09:00

Hornby is probably one of those authors you either like or you don't, and I like him. I've read all his major stuff - High Fidelity, Fever Pitch, About a Boy and How to be Good - and I think he's smart, funny and talented. Like Fever Pitch, 31 Songs is non-fiction and autobiographical without being an autobiography. My musical knowledge has large gaps in it and I'm not too familiar with many of the artists he discusses, yet alone a particular guitar riff in one of their songs, but I was able to appreciate his sentiment all the same. Throughout the book he also mentions his young autistic son, who cannot speak much but calls music "gogo" or something, and this adds another dimension to Hornby, I think, as a person and as an artist. There are many beautiful turns of phrase in all his work but what I found most entertaining about 31 Songs was his obvious disdain for both Oasis and house music, which happen to be my favorite band and genre respectively. The edition I read also included some essays he wrote for the New Yorker and the one about the Billboard Top 10 is fucking hilarious.

Clockwork Orange -- Anthony Burgess

2004-01-02T01:10:00.000+09:00

I thought I read this in my teens but it turned out I didn't, so I just read it for the first time. It's very clever and made me feel better about being so influenced by Irvine Welsh because there's no doubt this book was the precursor to him in many ways, from the use of slang and accent to the treatment of brutal subject matter and even the description of drug experiences. The underlying premise that free choice is essential to human life will always be valid too. I'm now going to find some of Burgess' other work because the author claimed at the start of the edition I read that CO was far from his best and was too didactic to be considered worthy of true art, which is a flaw of mine too. Essential reading nonetheless.

Last Night a DJ Saved My Life -- Bill Brewster & Frank Broughton

2004-01-02T01:09:00.000+09:00

Everyone should read this book. Even if you're not crazy about club culture, the authors are eloquent, intelligent and entertaining so the subject matter resonates with life experience and well-researched facts. I don't think a DJ has ever saved my life as such, but they've certainly changed it.

Eats, Shoots, and Leaves -- Lynne Truss

2004-01-02T01:08:00.000+09:00

if you dont care about punctuation and never really got the hang of it at school and are really happy that many people dont use it much any more then this book probably wont appeal to you much and i wouldnt bother reading it but i think its really funny and worthwhile and helpful because i love the english language and i love writing...

Ms Truss would probably have a heart attack if she ever came across a copy of my book, if god were a manc. For one thing, the title is written in lower case. Two: I attempted to depict the many different accents that abound in the Manchester area, and they are very inconsistent with each other and within the dialogue of a single character. This is because I was still making my mind up about to do it while I wrote it and so any time I changed my mind I would inevitably have to go back and change what I had previously written, but would miss some. Three: the dialogue is contained in single apostrophes, not double speech marks. Four: my use of the comma can definitely be yobbish in places and just plain wrong in others.

The good news is, however, I'm now almost finished writing another book that has no customized depiction of speech other than the characters' individual lexicons; and I'm paying grave attention to my commas, colons, and semi-colons. Sometimes I use the oxford comma (as I just did in the previous sentence) and sometimes I don't. Here's hoping it will be a work that would make Truss smile rather than cry.

The Count of Monte Cristo -- Dumas

2004-01-02T01:07:00.000+09:00

When I told my dad I was reading this he expressed surprise that I hadn't already done so because it's such a classic. I had, however, already seen the movie and so I thought I was prepared for the plot but the ending left me a little baffled. What happened to the showdown with all the murderous bad guys? Who's the blonde boy? Am I stupid? Maybe I'm thinking of the wrong movie or maybe they took the liberty to have it end in an infinitely more exciting fashion than the anti-climactic, mysterious final pages of the novel. In any case, the translation I read was a pleasure to behold - I can only imagine how lovely the story would be in the original French - and I love that era of civilisation.

Post Scritpum: Maybe I'm thinking of the movie The Man with the Iron Mask? The lesson here is not to read a book with the film in mind (and not the other way around either). But the end would still have been unsatisfying if I hadn't been expecting something else: I need to find someone who can set me straight.

Trade Up -- Candace Bushnell

2004-01-02T01:06:00.000+09:00

I still haven't read Sex and the City but I did read 4 Blondes, and loved it. Trade Up continues the story of one of those blondes - Janey Wilcox - as she attempts to rise and rise within the cream of NYC society. Bushnell manages to convey the extent of her egotism in a fashion that is so convincing you get genuinely annoyed with the woman and just want to give her a good slap around the face. But, like all good authors, every character is brought to life in such a way that no-one is strictly good or evil: nothing is black and white. I haven't yet been to New York but people say she does a fine job of portraying the ruthless maneuvering of the privileged set who are constantly competing to be the most sophisticated, most rich, most fashionable, most famous, most talented etc etc. Wilcox's past is cleverly weaved into the story so that we are aware of the significance of the silly little screenplay she wrote the previous summer, when 4 Blondes was set, and so we can further understand the way her mind currently works. Eventually she falls hard and Candace brilliantly depicts what such a fall entails for people in the public eye, while her resurrection is nothing short of genius. Her books may be chick-lit but they are also a witty, insightful reflection of a particular way of life - one that is coveted by people all over the world.

Sherlock Holmes -- Conan Doyle

2004-01-02T01:05:00.000+09:00

I recently read my first Sherlock Holmes stories and so now I can finally understand what all the fuss is about. Like why his silhouette is all over Baker St station in London and why he's so famous that people think he was real, and Watson really was his biographer. The technique of using Watson as Doyle does is very effective. It means we are able to get close to the character without losing the mystique of when a complex person explains themselves directly to us. In fact, we are probably able to get a better view than if that had been the case because it's undoubtedly true that people often see in us what we don't see for ourselves, good and bad.
As one critic said, it is not the stories themselves which keep people coming back for more because, although clever, they are utterly formulaic and even predictable. Rather, it is Holmes himself that people love, myself included. He is egotistical and egocentric, has terrible moods, uses cocaine, drinks, smokes and adores music. What more could you want of a classic hero?

Life of Pi -- Yann Patel

2004-01-02T01:04:00.000+09:00

This is the first book in a while that I simply couldn't put down and finished in a matter of days. It is beautifully written and detailed in its account of the plight of a boy stranded on a lifeboat with a Royal Bengal tiger. But most enjoyable was the buildup to the shipwreck and the short account of what happened after. I believe it is a fictitious account of a true story but my friend disagrees and I have no desire to find out the truth, preferring to believe what pleases me. At its core, the story is an eloquent illustration of the fact that people choose to honour God through a mutliplicity of established religions and there is no way of ever determining which is right and which is wrong. We must all simply find an explanation for life that best suits our purpose or, better yet, simply appreciate it for the mystery that it is without the inherent complications of trying to articulate a universal definition. Animals can co-exist well enough but it seems men will always seek to outdo each other, destroying the environment for everything else in the process. Okay, so I'm totally rambling now: this book is very thought provoking. A memorable sentence? "Hunting whales is a heinous crime."

Tender is the Night -- F Scott Fitzgerald

2004-01-02T01:03:00.000+09:00

I have mixed feelings about this book, and about any book or film that starts brightly and ends badly. I know that art isn't obliged to endlessly entertain us with pretty escapism and I like a good tragedy as much as the next man, it's just that there are certain scenarios that I hate to see go wrong. The Talented Mr Ripley is an excellent example of this. Many people probably enjoyed the psychological tension that ensued after Jude Law's character was bashed in the head, but I didn't. I would have much preferred to continue watching him charming everyone with his beauty and talent at the jazz parties and beach soirees of 1930s Italy, or whenever/wherever it was. Cate Blanchett and Gwyneth Paltrow in stunning frocks sipping wine? Yes please.

Similarly, Tender is the Night begins brightly on a beach in 1920s France. We meet a young film star and a set of wealthy people who love to get a little tight drinking champagne and the dialogue and social commentary is brilliant. As the story progresses we are brought to the realisation that something is a little amiss with the wife of the central character, Dickie, and Fitzgerald cleverly ends Part 1 to go back and outline the situation for us. It isn't a happy tale but worse is to come in Part 3 when he brings us up to the present again and we see the rest of their lives played out. It would be difficult not to draw comparisons with Fitzgerald's own life at this point. He too was a huge drinker and had a mentally unstable wife. He too hit a peak in his career and social standing then disintegrated personally and financially. The difference is we know what happened to Fitzgerald whereas Tender is the Night ends by telling us Dickie had returned to America and was thought to be working as a doctor somewhere in the New Jersey area, or something. But why could he not have collected the highest professional accolades and retired in Paris in a grand mansion overlooking the River Seine?

Henry James is another author who went in for this kind of ending. Portrait of a Lady anyone? No thanks. They are genius authors who seem to doubt that gravitas can be achieved in times of perfect harmony. Dickens, on the other hand, delighted the masses by inventing all kinds of improbably happy endings for his long-suffering characters, Bleak House being a prime example. After a series of misfortunes, including losing her looks to small pox, the central character is asked to marry her old benefactor and accepts. However he knows her true heart and gives her to a young doctor instead. Dickens was writing during the Industrial Revolution in a time of great poverty and alienation. Would it really be fair of him to have indulged his fantasy of writing Great Literature by sourly destroying the lives of his own heroes and heroines?
Happiness need not be shallow. Life will always have its ups and downs but we must believe in the probability that all really will end well.

It is tragic that Fitzgerald died thinking himself a failure considering how many admire his work and have emulated his style, and most of all that high fashion will forever refer to flowing, glamourous, beautiful costumes as Fitzgeraldian. The Jazz Age which he so embodied sounds like one of the best in history and I think it's a shame he wasn't able to enjoy it without the wheel of fortune turning on him quite so badly. And that he wasn't able to write of it without turning the same wheel so forcefully on his characters.

if god were a manc

2004-01-02T01:00:00.001+09:00

This is Spear8 productions first product. I started writing it in 1999 after I'd moved from Manchester to my aunt's house near Watford, where I was working mindnumbing jobs to save for a trip to Scotland. But it wasn't actually my first lengthy piece of writing.

On New Year's Day 1997, after spending the night at Calibre, I began writing a strange autobiography called Myriad Reflectionz because I realized I had zero hair and a black eye and I wanted to figure out why. Somewhat unusually, the story starts in a pre-womb location and is written in the first person. My monologue is then followed by two short stories I wrote in an attempt to convey an experience I had on acid later that year (Ed Rush at The Box), when I was taken away in an ambulance after going decidedly insane. The point being that when I came to write another story I wanted to get as far away from myself as possible.

So I set it in Manchester, based it around boys, and had it full of dialogue. Manchester had been a tough time. I didn't know anyone, had no qualifications beyond high school, and no work experience besides a bit of waitressing and food prep. My dad helped me out occasionally but usually I was poor and uncertain of what I was doing there, though the truth is my wish had come true: I was experiencing Northern working class life first hand. My worst temping jobs were serving hideous sausages and scrambled eggs at 6am in the Manchester Youth Hostel, then crossing town to serve slop at the cafeteria at Manchester Hospital. But mostly I worked as a paper shuffler at Friends Provident.

Anyway, while I was there my mother sent me Conversations with God by Neale Walsche, and I had an epiphany of sorts while reading it. Kind of like the character in Being John Malchovich, I realized that "I" was actually something besides my body and I peered around the room feeling like an alien guest looking through a particularly complex pair of binoculars, namely a human being. I have never felt the same since and "if god were a manc" was my attempt to recontextualize the truths in Conversations with God for people who are unlikely to ever read the book themselves, or any others like it.

My mother kind of raised me as a Sannysan under the guidance of Osho/Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. The name he gave me is Deepika and I'm on a mission to help raise awareness of stuff I think is true. Essentially, I believe I'm God. But you are too.

The Crimson Petal and the White -- Michel Faber

2004-01-02T01:00:00.000+09:00

This book is really long but I couldn't put it down and finished it in less than a week. The writing is superb and the author employs an interesting technique of talking to the reader as if you are a tourist in another age. The setting is late-19th century London and he does a fantastic job of depicting it in all it's filthy, industrious glory. Interestingly, the main contrast is between a reasonably high-class prostitute and the son of a major manufacturer, rather than the total extremes of a poverty-stricken homeless person and a titled aristocrat. So the gulf is wide but not unbridgeable and it is that bridge which is explored in the story. Eventually, of course, it is swept away by a tide of social convention after a couple of mortalities. I didn't particularly like the ending but at least it's not your typical soft-focused resolution. Sample sentence: "Up Great Windmill Street Sugar goes, past Saint Peter's where the best of the child prostitutes will later congregate, past the Argyll Rooms where even now the cream of male aristocracy lies drunk and snoring, interleaved with snoozing whores drunk with champagne."

quinton

2004-01-01T01:16:00.000+09:00

quinton has a penchant for lemurs and technology

q is a brilliant Alaskan jewel just waiting to be discovered and whoever finds him shall be granted an infinitely greater reward in heaven than the governmental pricks seeking oil from the bowels of that same land. His music is delightfully funereal with bubbling basslines, rogue synths, pretty keys, and old school claps. He also raps. The subject of his rapping is oftentimes wimmin because he is a sensitive emo boy at heart, but this is belied by his cuntish style of internet. Check his quality website: mowthelawn.net

WTF is Deep / Funky House?

2004-01-01T01:15:00.000+09:00

In NZ and Australia, the label Deep House basically refers to any house that doesn't clearly fall into a category like hard or progressive or whatever. But some house is actually kinda deep, whether you be talking about slow bpms and melancholic keys a la some of the shit that comes out of SF, or the Chicagoan gospel tracks that hit on important themes. Places like NZ should therefore use the term Underground House to refer to house that isn't wack.

The term Funky is also all fucked up. It's often used to refer to the upbeat, cheesy, vocal house you're likely to hear at overground bars full of underdressed girls and overdressed men. So, to avoid confusion, I will henceforth use the word "funkladen" to refer to house that has an extra funk factor.

The New House Sound of Chicago

2004-01-01T01:14:00.000+09:00

Brought to you by seminal nightclub SmartBar and Igloo Records, and mixed by the marvellous Miles Maeda, this CD is quality. The tracks are mostly produced by native Chicagoans with a few close pals / highly influenced other peeps thrown in for good measure. Plus Colette lays down some lovely additional vocalage... All and all tis a resounding statement that everything is sweet and bumping in Chi-Town in 2005.
www.milesmaeda.com

Rithma

2004-01-01T01:13:00.000+09:00

I already mentioned Rithma's album Music Fiction under my post about Om so this is just a general heads up: he makes fantastic music! Obviously the house is key but you should check the rest too. http://www.rithma.org

Annie

2004-01-01T01:12:00.000+09:00

Annie has got the sweetest voice in the whole world. You'll probably know her track Greatest Hit, which featured on the excellent Robodisco compilation that came out a few years back, and which was thrashed by many a DJ and radio station. You may also be familiar with the hauntingly beautiful, deep house remix Joshua did of one her tracks a couple of years ago. Well, at long last, she's released a full album entitled Anniemal. I first found out about it in Arena magazine - they called it "the pop album it"s okay to like", and I think it's okay to love it too. It's now general knowledge that the long hiatus between releases was because Annie (understandably) became depressed and dejected after the death of her young boyfriend, who was also her producer. I'll happily admit to liking Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Annie's music is infinitely more underground and classy than hers. She's also really hot! Check shit out at http://www.anniemusic.co.uk

Blur

2004-01-01T01:11:00.000+09:00

I was 15 when the Brit Pop wars began and like many girls of that age I had a massive crush on various members of the leading bands: Liam Gallagher, Alex from Blur and Jarvis Cocker in the wake of Morning Glory, Parklife and Common People respectively... But, contrary to most people, I've loved nearly everything Oasis have done since whereas Blur kind of lost me with their experimental punkrock and other noodlings. I liked a few songs on Blur and 13 - particularly No Distance Left to Run - but on the whole they didn't ring my bell. Then along came Think Tank and I feel in love with the band all over again. It's a fucking great collection of songs! There's even a bit of dnb in there, kind of.
http://www.blur.co.uk
http://www.blurtalk.com

EDM Vocalists

2004-01-01T01:10:00.000+09:00

Like any field of expertise, there are many people in the world who excell at singing; it's what they choose to do with their talent that sets them apart. I imagine many of them do nothing at all but luckily some of them are down with electronic dance music and contribute vocals about all kinds of relevant stuff: dancing, cheating lovers, hot booties, danger, basslines, god, partying, washing machines, life, knowledge, fucking... the list goes on. I love all those classic house tracks featuring Keith Thompson, and Tali's doing a good thing where drum n bass is concerned, but most of the time I've got no idea who's singing, rasping, talking or rapping over the tunes - I'm just happy they're doing it. Whatever the detractors may say, electronic music parties have often got a seriously evolved thing going on and it can get a bit surreal out there on the dancefloor sometimes, whether you're straight as a mormon or wasted as a junkie. Vocal tracks make sure everyone knows what time it is.

20/20 Vision

2004-01-01T01:09:00.001+09:00

This is definitely one of my favorite record labels. I'm not very familiar with many of their artists but I like everything I hear: squelchy, funky, glitchy, interesting house music.
http://www.2020recordings.com

Intellect DVD

2004-01-01T01:09:00.000+09:00

This project consists of two discs, one a DJ tutorial and one featuring interviews with DJs, so there's probably something here for everyone. The tutorial starts right at the very beginning, literally, by helping you get a turntable out of its box and put it together. It finishes up with showing how you can get a Technics to play a record backwards by turning the needle upside down and raising the record off the plate. You also get instructions about beat matching, counting phrases, the usage of odd acappellas, and everything in between; competent DJs might just find it interesting to see what they already know explained so concisely. The interview disc has major interviews with the likes of Derrick Carter and Derrick May as well as snippets from many of the scene's greats. Watch out for Phil K's tips about how to organize your record box according to chord and BPM: I had to have a friend explain it to me and he claimed it would mean you could effectively play your box like a piano. A breaks and progressive version is apparently in the making. http://www.stepfilm.com/intellect.htm