ABCD @ VRP 5

ABCD totally rocked the house at VRP 5 last week. A clever blend of jarring chords and punchy beats, both polished and rock at the same time, brought everyone together for a great final act. Reminiscent of a garage Sonic Youth, these guys are definitely a band to behold as they prepare for world domination..

Bono in Tokyo

U2 singer, humanitarian and and philanthropist Bono Vox is in Tokyo this week, and yesterday took part in a tree planting activity with Japanese and International elementary school children. Also present were (everyone's favorite) Tokyo Governor Ishihara, designer Tadao Ando, Japanese astronaut Mamoru Mori, and ex Miss Japan Norika Fujiwara. There were environmentally orientated speeches, the kids sang, and then all took part in the initial stages of a tree planting project designed to create a forest on a man made island in Odaiba. Bono is here for the African summit, where he will encourage Japan to pledge more aid to ailing African nations. Bono was also recently nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian work in Africa.

Photos by uber photographer and friend Andy McGovern.

Inside the.. Supermarket?

Continuing the tradition of bringing to you the most cutting edge images from inside this exceptionally interesting mega-city:

Maruyamacho Poraroca, aisle 3..

Monitor @ VRP 5

Shambolic.. That was probably the most honest reaction I heard after the Monitor set last week. It's not unusual for things to go wrong during a show, and there are a myriad of possibilities: leads losing contact, strings breaking, dodgy mixes with no-one looking out, unpaid stage dancers having cat fights.. This time lots of things went west, but luckily none of them dampened spirits or took away from the energy as the band ripped through their up-tempo set of electro-pop loveliness..

People of the night..

Tokyo is most definitely a night city, to some extent almost defined by it's restaurants, bars, and clubs. One thing I have realized after all these years is how this inevitably effects your (already insanely busy) lifestyle, in both good and bad ways.

Which brings us back to Tasuichi. I can't give this place enough credit for it's consistent energy and its virtual guarantee of providing a platform for almost random interaction and fun. This place rocks, every night of the week.

People of the night..

Come to my Party @ VRP 5

Valentine Records presents vol. 5 was a rockin little shindig to say the least. Lots of people drunk, dancing, picking up, putting down, and the lines of acceptable behavior being blurred a little around the edges, or recreated if you must as all the bands rocked another great Ruby show! Come to my Party opened up the evening with their sweet bass driven electro-pop swirliness.

Inside Love Hotels.. 03

Who designs these places??

Don King in Tokyo..

Uber boxing promoter Donald "Don" King was in Tokyo Monday night for the World Boxing Association Lightweight title fight between Jose Alfaro and Yusuke Kobori at Differ Ariake. The infamously flamboyant ex-bookmaker took time off from being sued to watch Kobori win by TKO. Don King has been jailed for murder and sued no less than half a dozen times, more often than not by his equally famous clients. He made promotional appearance for Bush's 2004 re-election campaign, represented Satan in the South Park episode 'Damien', and wears bling like it 'aint no thing'. Don King is 77 years old!

Andy McGovern shot the fight and caught these great pics of the cigar toting legend..

Jamaica Festival 2008: Redux

The One Love 2008 festival was SO great I'm gonna dedicate another post, this time to all the party people that got and stood up throughout..

Wayoooo...

The Durcus One

My new pride and joy was finally put together by the guys around the corner at Triple Rock Bicycles Shibuya. W-Base is the local distributor for Durcus bikes here in Japan, and I got loads of cool parts from a huge shop in the states called Dan's Comp. I surely be enjoying being back on the bike!

I also added a little blast from the past, from back when lake jumping wasn't thought of as being insane, and the Shepparton lake wasn't full of crap..

One Love: Party guy

I have no idea who this guy was, but totally encapsulated the energy of the festival, and even managed to get up on stage with the Panorama Steel Orchestra, until the friendliest security guy in the world smilingly asked him to rejoin his dancing compadres in the audience..

The Jamaica Festival: Panorama Steel Orchestra

I think I have a new favorite festival.. The One Love Jamaica Festival rocked yesterday, the highlight for me most certainly being the Panorama Steel Orchestra, a 30 strong steel drum ensemble that had everyone inescapably dancing along to a fine blend of up-tempo beats and luscious melodies. The red stripes were appropriately chilled and as the sun made a somewhat rare appearance all were seemingly transported to that place where movement and smiles become the order of the day..

In the immortal words of Bob, "let's get together and feel alright.."

Cosplay Hotels

Cosplay is well documented as being a Japanese institution, it permeates into the decor of society so naturally that you eventually start to not even notice it. At the more famous end of the scale of course is the manga or gothic orientated style, which is usually well represented in places like Harajuku or Akihabara, but it goes further than that. Certain love hotels offer cosplay rental as a way to spice up the experience, of course the schoolgirl uniform is used as the advertising default, closely followed by the nurse, race queen and maid outfits, and I'm pretty sure it gets a lot spicier than that..

Random night shot.. 06

Shitamachi house, Maruyamacho..

Valentine Records Presents vol. 5

Valentine Records is presenting yet another extravaganza of amazing talent on Friday May 23rd at everyones favorite Ruby Room. Kohei from Come to my Party made this super cool cm for the event.

We hopes you like it!

Bridgers

A great vantage point from which to watch just about any action that goes down at NHK park. The main Yoyogi bridge offers safety, anonymity, and somewhat of a birds eye view of everyones favorite festival and flea market venue..

Yoyogi park raves..

The summer is on its way.. There were two post-Thai festival mini-raves at Yoyogi on Sunday evening, and many many people getting down to the cool tunes and laid back evening vibes. It won't be long before the parties are pumping beats through the park every weekend, making Mondays even more difficult than they already are..

Thai Festival 2008

My favorite of the many cultural festivals held at Koen dori/NHK park, the Thai Festival 2008 was once again a great weekend of eating, drinking and battling through crowds (to get said food and drink). Saturday was unfortunately rainy and cold for the second year running, but the skies cleared on Sunday and made way for a fantastic afternoon.

Maybe too good of an afternoon for some..

Inside Love Hotels.. 02

Hotel Fifteen Love, situated somewhere down near the lower end of the scale..

Park life: So you wanna be a Pop Star?

I love Koen dori for all the talent that comes out on the weekends to develop their craft and hopefully expose themselves to a wider audience, the sad part is that the scene so often looks like this: cute babes singing their hearts out to a bunch of old scary looking otaku guys with huge lenses zooming in on god knows what.

Having said that, rock on girls..

Shibuya Flower Festival 2008

So I'm a week or so behind with this one, and it didn't really move me so much but for this amazing collage (?) of rose petals that greeted patrons at the entranceway to the festival. The idea apparently comes from Italy, where once a year an entire street is decorated with glorious patterns consisting entirely of fresh rose petals.

Beautiful, to say the least..