I read a great one today on twitface (oh you kow what I mean). “The king of pop is not dead, Mark King of Level 42 is alive and well”. But that hasn’t got much to do with todays post.
Recently I have been wondering about what direction to take my Learn Japanese podcast. At least I know crappy, semi pornographic anime isn’t my thing.I started my Learn Japanese podcast to be a resource for those wanting to study the language and learn about Japan and it’s culture. However, I get the feeling that most people are more into the podcast for the entertainment value. And that’s fine with me because it means I can turn up the goofing around and turn down the overly serious gramar lessons. Plus, I never really learned to speak Japanese from text books, more from falling off bar stools in izakayas across Tokyo. So one way we depart from the normal language podcast is the Fun Friday episodes we (try to) put out every week. They feature, news, views, Japanese bands and general banter related to life in Japan. We just put up the latest episode which features music from Natccu and Yugo Sato two awesome acts from Japan. Incidentally I was introduced to Yugo by a good friend and general music know-it-all who runs the Tokyo Werewolf website which covers the underground music scene in Japan. Ethan is a talented guy, someone, give him a job, please!
In the future I’d like to concentrate more on the music scene here and interview artists and play their music on Fun Fridays. You never know, we might even learn some Japanese accidentally during the process.
Another project I am working on is a new website called Blow Your Speakers. I am doing this with a good friend, DJ, master brewer and all round talented fellow called Stone. We dig around dusty records, make mix tapes and stick them on the site. This site is dedicated to Stone’s talent for finding awesome music and me pretending to be a DJ when really I am an HDJ, hard disk jockey.
So check out Blow Your Speakers and our latest mix tape.
The picture above is of my trusty iPod digital recorder and a Ramune flavored Kit Kat. If you want to find out more you’ll just have to listen to the latest Fun Friday.
I’m currently doing an experiment at BlowYourSpeakers.com. In an effort to get the site a little more community orientated I’m letting people sign up for free blog accounts on the server. I’m hoping that musicans, DJs and general audio files will use it to promote their own music, network and just meet other like minded people. Who knows what will happen but that’s why it’s called an exeperiment. If you are interested in getting your own blog then please sign up here.