Charlie Brooker

Charlie Brooker is always worth a read on Mondays in the Guardian. If you haven't heard of him, clicketh there, or here, or if you're pushed for time, just have a chuckle at today's description of British PM Gordon Brown;

Ghastly and nightmarish though Miliband may be, he's got nothing on gloomy Gordon Brown, who increasingly resembles a humourless, imposing old butler slowly creaking the mansion door open in a Frankenstein movie. Prime Minister Igor, the shuffling fun-free zone. No wonder the nation's fallen out of love with him. Imagine playing a carefree game of frisbee with Brown at a summer barbeque. You can't. That's why the poor bastard's doomed.

Drinking strong alcohol in city centres

Yesterday I stopped by the Sake Paradise event by accident after bumping into a friend who was on his way there. I'm not much of a Sake drinker and wasn't really enthused by the idea of lots of people drinking it in Alice Gardens but went along anyway.

One of my least favourite Japanese stereotypes is the salaryman, drunk or sober, I'm not fussy. Now, I say stereotypes because I ofcourse know many very nice salarymen but we all generalise, however enlightened we feel ourselves and when I'm in the mood to generalise, I like to generalise about annoying salarymen. For the sake of this post, let's focus on the drunk variety. Loud, obnoxious, thinking it's hilarious to chat to a Gaijin. I'm sure a lot of us have been there. The thing is, after being here a while, this starts to grate and more importantly, I forget about drunkeness back home. Last night however brought it back to me for a moment.

Now, I know there are beer festivals and the like in the UK but like this? Completely open to all, from 4 in the afternoon, Sake being downed amongst shoppers and school kids on their way home. Where were the sirens? Where was the blood? What's all this good natured drunkeness? Not tipsy or tiddly, but properly, commitedly, studiously drunk. I had wondered why my mate enjoyed this event so much but it quickly became clear. It was just really nice, and no one was fighting. As another friend commented last night; 'Beer gardens? Nomihoudai? At home? You must be joking.' (He's from NZ)

So it was nice. Nice to realise again, one of the finer aspects of living here. No doubt the next time a salaryman staggers over to me in an Izakaya I'll have forgotten, but I'll try at least, to remember.

3K@Bar Edge Sat 24th 10pm - ?am FREE

Sick of sitting on the door whilst people enjoy themselves and in an attempt to ride the wave of the moderate success we've been enjoying at Lotus recently, 3K have decided to book Edge for the night and throw it's doors open (not literally, the neighbours would complain) for free.

We'll be joined once again by the shy and retiring boys ;) from Sleepyeye. It shouldn't be a night for the wall huggers and head nodders.

Seriously though ladies and gents, we're hoping that this could be a bit special and more importantly, a lot of fun. Cos that is, after all, why we do it.

You can check out some of the kinds of tunes we play over at the 3K website or if that's just a couple of clicks too much, here's a DIRECT LINK to the last one.

よろしくね！

WC goes Pro

I haven't taken to hanging around on street corners under lamps yet, no. Today I heard that one of my tracks was commisioned to be used in an online game. 'Audition' it's called apparently although I am not 100% sure on that.

It's not much (it really isn't) but it's the first time I have really received anything like cash money for any of my music, so, I might have a beer tonight.

It's all thanks to Beatpick where you can stream either of my 2 E.P.s or indeed BUY them from my own little page there - HERE -

ah pareee

I've just watched the wonderful (going all language student on you there) movie (when did I stop saying film?) Amelie. It's been sitting in my drawer for over a year and I was in fact downloading Spiderman 3 when I remembered I had it, right here, to watch, right now, on DVD. Sake. Although I'm sure I will enjoy Spiderman too but, I am a man of many, er, what's the word?

Whatever. Really, really, lovely stuff. Loved it. Although it did make me feel very depressed at one point. Apart from it's cinematic qualities it was all so, well, French. What an accent. WHAT. AN. ACCENT! To think, I was also downloading 'This is England' and could have been listening to English skin heads (better music though probably).

And Paris. It really does do exactly what it says on the tin, and that's, be Paris. Yeah, hordes of tourists and miserable (Les Miserable?? Sorry.) shop assistants, but it's so beautiful. You might avoid the dog shit if you weren't looking around you all the while. And you'll shrug off that 4th slippy step of the day with a gallic shrug and a booooffff so what the heck?

Beautiful beautiful city. It gets a WCBlog 'Thumbs Up!'.

Who needs Michelin stars?

Toilets I have loved #1

There's been a few 'classic' Hiroshima toilets on the WCBlog before and it's high time we had another. This one has even got me in it which is unusual and a bit rich (winks at Kiwi chum).

This lovely loo is in Bar Toronto which is a new place (or at least under new management) and so doesn't have a sign yet. It's in the building next to Barcos. Somewhere.

It was the venue for last Saturday's secret gig by 3K pals Sleepyeye which we DJed at alongside DJ D-Vine and Monsieur Flip and ofcourse, the 3pi boys. Lot of a fun, great tunes and a secret room with sliding bookcase door!

End of May we are doing a free party at Edge with Sleepyeye. It should be massive.

British haute cuisine

Incredibly some people still labour under the impression that the UK lags behind the rest of the world when it comes to food. Well, feast your eyes on that Paris.

Jealous? I think so.

Full story here.

Can't help but think that Alan Partridge had some hand in the inspiration of this dish.

That video...

Wondering whether the video that had my music in had been re-uploaded without it, I came across the original one that some paint ball enthusiast had put up. God knows why, the link to the activity is tenuous. Anyway, if your desperate to hear Windcheater set to images.....there ya go ; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZBqq9Z8J9c

An apology

Apparently the handsome fellow to your left was a bit embarrassed to be presented with a print out of the picture from this post at the beginning of a class last week.

Windcheater can only apologise for this violation of image rights and would like to assure the injured party that it won't happen again.

And talking of violating rights the youtube video in the post below this has been taken down. Beatpick decided it was a bit cheeky seeing as it did advertise their company and they didn't link to my site or to Beatpick's, which is fair enough. I imagine they wouldn't want their photo being used by all and sundry. Personally I didn't mind them using it but people like the guys at Beatpick work very hard making music available for free or at low costs and so it makes sense to do it properly.

So I suppose that puts me at the same level as Jamiroquai now.

Windcheater beats off competition from Jamiroquai

Not really, but, my track Penalise 'em was used in the above video in place of the guy with the big hats cos, well, it's obvious really isn't it. They didn't pay for it. My stuff however, is available for non-commercial use through www.Beatpick.com . Have a look if you're in need of some music for whatever project, there's all types of music and it's all of a very high quality....that's why I'm on there naturally :)

P.S. I'm reminded by this of once talking with an Australian mate of mine who asked me if I liked Jamie Rock Y.

tee hee

A whole Lotus fun

Sorry for that terrible terrible pun. What can I say, I strayed and read a News of the World article the other day that, if you stripped it of all it's word plays, would have contained only the words 'the', 'and', 'a' and 'he/she'.

Anyway, last Saturday we smashed it again at Lotus as the dancing shoes came off, feet stepped up onto the seating area, and the dancing socks most definitely came on.

Many thanks to moco, Eiji-low and Sakaguchi of ELECTROCKERH for helping us have such a good time.

Looking forward to the next one.

Oops I did it again

I haven't shaved my hair off or wandered around drunk on stage at the MTV awards. Yet.

Keeping a blog it's interesting to look back on what I've been up to the past 3 years and also to see how I sometimes repeat myself.

Last year I bought back some omiyage for the kids I teach and ended up scoffing the lot. Well, this year, before I went back to the UK I had seen a friend of mine I don't often see and his very cute, very cooly named boy. He happened to mention that they were big fans of Jaffa Cakes (see pic) . At Sainsbury's one day I spied the Chocolatey Orange biscuit/cake (which side of the debate are you on?) and remembering what they'd said bought a packet to bringback. As I said, I don't see them often....and I don't have a contact mail or number.....and today it occurred to me to check the best before date.....5th of April. Shit!12 days out of date, I can't give them them now. But I can't just throw them away....so, I ate them. Old people eat out of date stuff all the time and old people never die do they?

Another thing occurred to me whilst I was eating them. Something that an alert blog reader might have already noticed. It's not April is it? It's March. They were fine. A genuine mistake, but I've just done half of the packet. Can't give them an opened box now can I?

Oh well. Maybe next time. On a side note I see that they now make 'Zingy' Blackcurrant and Lemon and Lime Jaffa Cakes, which, I have to say, sound disgusting.

This week

This coming Saturday we're being joined by ELECTROCKERH at Lotus for another of our free little parties. The last two have been great fun so if you haven't been and like a bit of electronic music (whatever that is) come on down.

Expect to hear a mix of Electro, Breaks, House and a little bit of Dubstep early doors.

Some pics from our last events there can be perused here.

We're also at Mugen this Wednesday for 'Hug a Speaker'. Expect a heavily reggae influenced night where the ladies can get a drink for free (after buying one).

Perhaps see you out and about....

Clicking irritants

Grrrr, first Microsoft decides there's no need for a delete icon in explorer anymore (whose idea was that?) and then the Guardian go and get rid of the Football link on it's front page. Apparently there are other sports I now have to navigate my way through. Ug. Life, my friends, is tough.

Anyway, the days are getting warmer, the light lasting longer, the blossoms are a-sprouting, my snot runneth ceaselessly and as of this week my eyes are definitely starting to itch. Yep Spring is coming and so is the pollen. I have never been much of an allergy sufferer until 3 years ago and I learnt one of my most used phrases かふんしょうです. Bloody hell, it's a nightmare. Last year I would wake up with my eyes stuck together. Ironically this was the nicest part of the day as they wouldn't itch then. So, I would lay in bed, for 10 minutes or so, with them safely sealed from all the goo they'd oozed. Mmmmm goo.

Anyway, I eventually got my pathetic arse down to a Doctor and he gave me some medicine and er, it got better. But it's back! Luckily this year, remembering the horrors of last, I went back to the good doc and got the same medicine over a month ago (I had a cold I thought it had started). It's been sitting on my kitchen table ever since and I think I might just crack it open tomorrow.

Which leads me in a wonderfully vague way to encourage anyone suffering in silence to get yourself to a doctor. Doesn't matter if you don't speak Japanese. Just sniffle and say Kafunshou desu. The one I went to is called something like the Hiroshima Respiratory and Alergy clinic and is behind Hiroshima Eki (Shinkansen side). Cross at the lights and go straight and take the first or second right. Then look out on the right hand side, about 5 floors up for some kind of clinic. How's THAT for 'sketchy'.

Bless you

Shouldn't laugh, but....

A Japanese man who turned up at a school dressed in a girl's uniform and a long wig was arrested for trespassing, police said.
Tetsunori Nanpei, 39, put on the uniform he had bought over the internet and took a walk near the high school in Saitama, north of Tokyo, on Wednesday.
Students standing outside the school gates caught sight of him and started screaming, local papers reported, at which point Nanpei rushed on to the school grounds hoping to blend in with the crowds of teenagers.
When pupils in the school began screaming the man fled, losing his wig in the process. A school clerk pursued him and stopped him at a nearby riverbank.
Police confirmed the man's arrest but gave no further details.

'hoping to blend in'! :)

Back in the days...

I've been wallowing in nostalgia of late. There's me on the left, aged around 16, banging away on the drums in my former space rock meets the Stranglers type band, Food.

Most of this recent sepia tinted memory-fest has come about because of Facebook. I only joined it to play Scrabble, but it certainly works in a kind of, browse your mates photo albums way and, it throws up a fair few people you haven't seen in a LONG time. One add of an old friend lead to another and another, and then one of those old friends put up a photo or two, which inspired another friend to do the same, and, well, you get the picture (or I did :BOOMTISH:). I now have a growing collection of photos, that I'd never seen before, of me, fresh faced and fancy free.

You also get groups...I have joined a few. Basically related to my social circle here. The other day though, I noticed, amongst all the frigging pokes, that one of my friends had joined a group called 'Spiral Tribe'. Spiral Tribe were (are) the sound system I had some of the best nights/weekends of my life with, and there, in their group/on their website are photos of some of those events. Not brilliant photos it has to be said, but photos none the less and recognisable....parties in fields and warehouses from 17 years ago that I could still see more or less in my mind's eye, but now there they are on my computer screen. Torpedo Town, the best rave I ever went to, Worthing, which I remember for dancing for around 8 hours solid, and the New Year's Parties at the Round House in London, the first being brilliant, the actual New Year party being a bit of nightmare.

At times like this I really do love the internet. I imagine though that future generations will be able to call up almost anything, anytime, anywhere. I remember reminiscing, at around the time the top picture was taken, with friends about kids programmes we used to watch. I never thought at that time that I would see them again. Perhaps that was before nostalgia TV and video/DVD re-releases were so popular. More importantly though, it was before YOUTUBE. Hands up who's wasted many an hour on Youtube watching music videos/TV Shows from their youth? I have to say I love it, and it outdid Facebook in the nostalgia stakes when I discovered these videos of Nirvana playing at Reading festival in 1991. It's a gig I remember really well because they were so good on that day, but my god, the whole thing is there. My 17 year old memories, not just captured in a frozen image, but the whole bloody thing, audio an' all. It's like watching it projected from, or on to, as Alan Partridge would say, 'my mind's curtain cupboard'.

And why has most of this come from August 1991? Dr Emmett Brown might hypothesise about the cultural significance of that but for me, it represents a very (pleasant) surprising look back, and now record, of one of the most enjoyable times I've had. I never jumped into my drum kit like Kurt though.

Hajimemashite

Seeing as I'm trying to be slightly more regular in my posting I figured it might be an idea to put the blog out there, just a little you understand. If I'm going to waste my time writing it, I may as well waste your time by getting you to read it. I joined up with Japan in Motion after picking up a flyer one night last week, sooooo, if it's your first visit, you'll be cockerhoop to find I've linked to some past entries that might give you a rounded view of the 'whole boy', me. Well the blog anyway. Enjoy. (If you get beyond the first one)

Where I live
When WC learnt to dance
Listening to music
The day job
Hifana come to town
The Noro virus
Buy my music :)
Golden Week
Long weekends with Dangerous Drums
GH Festival
Dancing in Japan
I love Tokyo
Blighty
Trying to find the normal people
My year

A farewell to Roxis

It would be nice to report that we went out with bang but our last night at Roxis really only underlined why we can't be arsed with it anymore. Richard and Dai-chan have been great to us but at the end of the day, noone comes down for the event itself despite a few nights being busy with people on the dance floor. It seems that a lot of people go down to Roxis with a kind of unplanned private party in mind, bringing their own music and looking a bit put out when they realise they can't get comfy. A couple of times I've felt sorry for Dai-chan that we are there which isn't really what you want when you're doing an event!

So, no more regular nights but look out for irregular events at Lotus, Edge and the occasional spot at Mugen from us at 3K. Will ofcourse, keep you 'all' informed.

BRAINTAX Feat Dubble edge - ANTI GREY

qualla UKHipHop

An ode to tea...

PG Tips (warning: website includes slightly disturbing talking/staring monkey) tea to be precise.

An American colleague asked me if I ate lots of nice food while I was back in England at xmas. After I'd stopped laughing I did concede that I always enjoyed the bread and cheese back home, and do try and go for a curry just cos I can have it with rice other than Japanese rice, which I don't really find goes with curry. Oh, and bacon. Then there's tea. Now the tea in Japan is fine. It's not quite as nice as PG Tips, but then again neither is Tetley, but it is tea. It's pretty cheap aswell and very drinkable. So, no problem there, and what with Marmite being available in Jupiter and the high quality of food here (Asian or European) there really is nothing I miss foodwise about the UK (apart from your cooking Dad naturally....and you're not even English). I dread to think of a life without Ramen, Sushi, Okonomiyaki, Onigiri, Yakiniku, Soba, Kirin Lemon tea and Dars 100 yen chocolate. Oh and yakitori. I could go on.

Anyway, back to tea. This year's Omiyage involved a lot of PG Tips for expats and locals alike. I never really realised how NICE tea from England (not strictly from England obviously, you know what I mean) is until I lived in Madrid. Good GOD tea in Spain is undrinkable. Hideous tasteless dishwater. Emergency flares were sent up and luckily a steady stream of visitors kept us well in supply of our drug of choice. I think we even discovered you could buy PG Tips at an Asian food store. I suppose it is from Asia. Anyway, 2 tea stories that should leave you in no doubt as to the strength (brew) of a good cuppa...

1. In tea hell, Spain, I used to work for a British English language school. As you can imagine a lot of tea 'went down' in the staff room as most of us kept up the supplies with regular shipments from back home. Isabela, our secretary, eventually succumbed to the pressure of her peers and started taking the odd drop of cha. I remember her coming in one day to be offered a hot drink. Tea please she said only to break into a classic Madrilena sneer when she saw me reach for the only tea we had left (Spanish), 'Errrr not those ones, I want the ones you all usually drink' said the former dedicated coffee drinker. Don't think she'll be swapping her morcilla for black pudding though.

2. Concerning the omiyage I brought back this year. I presented my chum with a box of PG's finest at Opium the other day. Sometime 3K DJs Kazu and Daisuke where there with their lady friends. I don't think I have ever seen Kazu get so excited as when he spotted the box of PG. Jumping over to our table....EHHHH! Nani Kore? PG Tips!! Nande!!? Kazu used to live in England you see. His excitement drew the others over and for the first time in my life I think, I saw a Japanese person praise part of English cuisine......BARI UMAI! You should have heard him wax lyrical on how good it is. After that review we dolled out a bag each. Later on I noticed Kazu had 2 bags infront of him....one for his girlfriend he claimed.

Maybe I could become a PG pusher?