Monday, February 26, 2007

3KBreaks back in (almost) full effect

What with last years crack downs and the subsequent shutting down of a couple of smaller venues here in Hiroshima we've been content to lounge about at lovely Lotus for the past few months or so, and no doubt we will be back for more 3KL action in the near future. For now though, 3KL's bolder, badder, bigger (3B?) brother (4B), 3KBreaks is back.
After much searching for a permanent venue we have finally ended up in Roxis. The sound is pretty good and there's a lot of space, so who knows, as people begin to relax again, maybe the dreaded 'D' word might return to Hiroshima's smaller clubs.

It all starts this Saturday (3rd of March) and from then on, every first Saturday of the month the 3K Breaks crew will be taking over Roxis for a night of Nu-skool breakbeats over a surprisingly robust sound system. Expect to also hear some of the better side of Drum and Bass, UKGarage, Grime and the kind of Hip Hop you usually don’t hear on a saturday night.

It’s free so there are no excuses, and we start picking up the tempo from about 23:00. We'll be there until late....

Labelled “nu-skool” these tunes have a higher tempo than orthodox breaks, and feature samples and effects from just about every genre of dance music slapped on top of beefy basslines. So, rather than hearing the same thing all night, you get elements of everything from rock to rap and techno to dub strapped onto lovely, wobbly beats.
If you’re indering what the sound is, you can download the last 3KBreaks mix, selected by yours truly, RIGHT HERE.

Residents will be your usual hosts GHB, CA2 and Windcheater. Expect to see some monthly guests too.

Read more about Roxis

Friday, February 23, 2007

naked fat man - YES!

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Straight outta Brighton vol.2

Pigeonhead - Battleflag [Lo-Fidelity Allstars Remix]

Saturday, February 17, 2007

Straight outta Brighton vol.1

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

PCs Vs Macs

One strictly for the geeks and I can't say he's speaking for me but Charlie Brooker is good inee?

I hate Macs
Charlie BrookerMonday
February 5, 2007
The Guardian

Unless you have been walking around with your eyes closed, and your head encased in a block of concrete, with a blindfold tied round it, in the dark - unless you have been doing that, you surely can't have failed to notice the current Apple Macintosh campaign starring David Mitchell and Robert Webb, which has taken over magazines, newspapers and the internet in a series of brutal coordinated attacks aimed at causing massive loss of resistance. While I don't have anything against shameless promotion per se (after all, within these very brackets I'm promoting my own BBC4 show, which starts tonight at 10pm), there is something infuriating about this particular blitz. In the ads, Webb plays a Mac while Mitchell adopts the mantle of a PC. We know this because they say so right at the start of the ad."Hello, I'm a Mac," says Webb."And I'm a PC," adds Mitchell.They then perform a small comic vignette aimed at highlighting the differences between the two computers. So in one, the PC has a "nasty virus" that makes him sneeze like a plague victim; in another, he keeps freezing up and having to reboot. This is a subtle way of saying PCs are unreliable. Mitchell, incidentally, is wearing a nerdy, conservative suit throughout, while Webb is dressed in laid-back contemporary casual wear. This is a subtle way of saying Macs are cool.The ads are adapted from a near-identical American campaign - the only difference is the use of Mitchell and Webb. They are a logical choice in one sense (everyone likes them), but a curious choice in another, since they are best known for the television series Peep Show - probably the best sitcom of the past five years - in which Mitchell plays a repressed, neurotic underdog, and Webb plays a selfish, self-regarding poseur. So when you see the ads, you think, "PCs are a bit rubbish yet ultimately lovable, whereas Macs are just smug, preening tossers." In other words, it is a devastatingly accurate campaign.I hate Macs. I have always hated Macs. I hate people who use Macs. I even hate people who don't use Macs but sometimes wish they did. Macs are glorified Fisher-Price activity centres for adults; computers for scaredy cats too nervous to learn how proper computers work; computers for people who earnestly believe in feng shui.PCs are the ramshackle computers of the people. You can build your own from scratch, then customise it into oblivion. Sometimes you have to slap it to make it work properly, just like the Tardis (Doctor Who, incidentally, would definitely use a PC). PCs have charm; Macs ooze pretension. When I sit down to use a Mac, the first thing I think is, "I hate Macs", and then I think, "Why has this rubbish aspirational ornament only got one mouse button?" Losing that second mouse button feels like losing a limb. If the ads were really honest, Webb would be standing there with one arm, struggling to open a packet of peanuts while Mitchell effortlessly tore his apart with both hands. But then, if the ads were really honest, Webb would be dressed in unbelievably po-faced avant-garde clothing with a gigantic glowing apple on his back. And instead of conducting a proper conversation, he would be repeatedly congratulating himself for looking so cool, and banging on about how he was going to use his new laptop to write a novel, without ever getting round to doing it, like a mediocre idiot.Cue 10 years of nasal bleating from Mac-likers who profess to like Macs not because they are fashionable, but because "they are just better". Mac owners often sneer that kind of defence back at you when you mock their silly, posturing contraptions, because in doing so, you have inadvertently put your finger on the dark fear haunting their feeble, quivering soul - that in some sense, they are a superficial semi-person assembled from packaging; an infinitely sad, second-rate replicant who doesn't really know what they are doing here, but feels vaguely significant and creative each time they gaze at their sleek designer machine. And the more deftly constructed and wittily argued their defence, the more terrified and wounded they secretly are.Aside from crowing about sartorial differences, the adverts also make a big deal about PCs being associated with "work stuff" (Boo! Offices! Boo!), as opposed to Macs, which are apparently better at "fun stuff". How insecure is that? And how inaccurate? Better at "fun stuff", my arse. The only way to have fun with a Mac is to poke its insufferable owner in the eye. For proof, stroll into any decent games shop and cast your eye over the exhaustive range of cutting-edge computer games available exclusively for the PC, then compare that with the sort of rubbish you get on the Mac. Myst, the most pompous and boring videogame of all time, a plodding, dismal "adventure" in which you wandered around solving tedious puzzles in a rubbish magic kingdom apparently modelled on pretentious album covers, originated on the Mac in 1993. That same year, the first shoot-'em-up game, Doom, was released on the PC. This tells you all you will ever need to know about the Mac's relationship with "fun".Ultimately the campaign's biggest flaw is that it perpetuates the notion that consumers somehow "define themselves" with the technology they choose. If you truly believe you need to pick a mobile phone that "says something" about your personality, don't bother. You don't have a personality. A mental illness, maybe - but not a personality. Of course, that hasn't stopped me slagging off Mac owners, with a series of sweeping generalisations, for the past 900 words, but that is what the ads do to PCs. Besides, that's what we PC owners are like - unreliable, idiosyncratic and gleefully unfair. And if you'll excuse me now, I feel an unexpected crash coming.This week: Charlie watched some episodes of Larry Sanders (on his PC). He played the customised Fawlty Towers map for Counterstrike (on his PC). He listened to the Windows startup jingle every 10 minutes as his PC repeatedly rebooted itself.

Rushing my shacks off


Went to Ed Rush and Optical last sunday on my own, but had a lot of fun. Once again, big respect to Heartbeat of Dragon for getting such big names down here of a sunday even. Also on the bill, downstairs at Mugen was 3K's very own CA2. Whilst almost everyone was upstairs they really were missing out on some much better music. The turn out was perhaps a bit below average but then again you really never know with a sunday night and at the end of the day, it sounded very good and I had fun so what more could an international DJ want?

In other developments, I should have another EP out on Beatpick by the end of the week. The follow up to my massive selling last one....

Oh, and I seem to have somehow got roped into DJing at the Shack at their 4th anniversary party.....better get some music that people like then...

Monday, February 05, 2007

Sometimes...

Just sometimes, I find it within my very unpatriotic heart to be very very proud of being English....

click here to find out why

Friday, February 02, 2007

Dj Shadow This Time (I'm Gonna Try It My Way)

what a great video

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Ping pong!

Why the frig do delivery men always come around when I am having a shit or am in the shower? Two came today! One after the other. Still, the lucky guys got to see me in a towel....