Alex Brooke

The Weekender 40th Anniversary party was a success. We had a great turn out at 57 and I think all had a good time. Keita, Ethan and I did a live set that wasn’t too bad although we were told to “play something a little more up tempo”. The guests were polite enough to not throw bottles and I think they even clapped at one point. Yes, even a bunch of reggae hippies can connect with the urban hipsters of Tokyo.

Guy Perryman did a great job on the decks and MCing the prize give away which at one point seemed as if it might get out of hand. All behaved however and the police didn’t have to be called.

I was interested to see that most of the party-goers were young urban hipsters in their 30s and 40s perhaps a little younger than the traditional demographic of the Weekender. Are things changing?

All in all I had a great time and I’m pretty eager to get another party happening. Any takers?

You can check out the Weekender Website here. Check out the latest 40th Anniversary issue. And here is the Weekender Facebook group.

I’ll write and update here when party pics are posted.

In Japanese “忘年会” – bōnenkai -  literally means “forget the year gathering”. While we’re about it could we forget the last ten years too? Seriously, the naughties were pretty naughty. Sometimes I forget to forget. Here’s what’s been going on over here in Tokyo.

Learn Japanese Pod Year End Party

A huge thank you to all of you who came out to the Pink Cow to experience the Japanese Lounge Event and the Learn Japanese Pod Year End Party. I had a great time and it was great to catch up with you all. We will be holding more of these meet ups every month from now on. I was also happy that we had more Japanese people participate as this is of course Learn Japanese Pod. お疲れさまでした。Stay tuned for dates for the next one. Thanks to  Jim, Yoko, Keiko, Arden, Akaki, @tamegoeswild, @sandrajapandra, @kimiecat, @tomoakiyama and @AdySan. And here are some photos from Ady.

Tokyo Weekender 40th Anniversary Party

Lordy, lordy, looks who’s 40! Tokyo Weekender Magazine will be holding its 40th Anniversary party to celebrate its long legacy and the people who made it possible.It’s going to be a great party including food, drinks,  live music, prize draws and Guy Perryman spinning the vinyl for us.

Location: 57, Roppongi

Date: Jan 15th 2010

Time: 8pm onwards

Entrance: 4000 yen (in advance) 5000 yen (on the door)

DJ & MC: Guy Perryman

Other: Free gift bags for all participants

They will also be announcing the winner of the Tokyo Photo Contest who will receive a free return ticket to the UK.

Not bad eh?

My life used to be an extended vacation. Now I’m working like everyone else it’s always a struggle to find time to do the things I want to do… In the meantime here is an update on the various goings on in this corner of Tokyo…

Guitarists I’ve been listening to

Recently I’ve been pretty inspired by Toronto based guitarist Maneli Jamal. He has a great youtube channel with videos of him playing his own original compositions.

I was intriguied to learn that he is selling  MP3s and the accompanying music scores and guitar tab if you are up for the challenge of attempting these pieces. I was thinking of doing some online guitar tutorials. However I like the idea of publishing one’s own original works as opposed to just guitar lessons. It stamps one’s unique creativity on the whole endeavor.

Great stuff, check him out and watch this space for some original compositions.

Places I’ve Been Eating at

Thanks to the suggestion of my friend Kelly from Tokyo Weekender, I have discovered Frijoes, an awesome restaurant that does deli-style burritos and other kinds of wraps. It’s super delicious and they do cheap lunch sets which is pretty special for the Azabu-juban area. If you are a hipster I am told it is just “Juban”.

I got talking to the manager, a cool Japanese guy who had lived in San Fran for a long time. He came back to Japan and opened this place just recently. It’s a damn good wrap and I might go and stuff my face today.

Ch-ch-check it out kids.

Music I’ve Been Listening To

I’ve been listening to the Japanese indy rock band Natccu pronounced Nachew. Great energy, arrangements, melodies and guitars. I featured them in the last Learn Japanese Pod Fun Friday Podcast.

They’ve been touring all over the place in recent years including their UK Debut last year.

I managed to find these cats through my friend Ethan who writes the Tokyo Werewolf blog which covers the underground Tokyo music scene. Ethan also happens to be one of the masterminds behind Pongzilla which is Tokyo’s first beer pong event.

Wouldn’t be cool if Ethan could get Natccu to play at one of those?!

And…

No that’s it. I haven’t got anythign interesting to say. I guess when I can pull another 10 hours out of the day with my magic hat I will be embarking on changing this site to have a more guitar oriented feel. It should include guitar tutorials and my own original pieces.

Oh yeah, and then there’s my Flash tutorials…

Let’s slow the earth down so we can have more hours in the day…

Brain Machine Workshop A Success

According to Karamoon, the Brain Machine workshop at the Tokyo Hacker Space was a success. Check out  some amazing pictures here. You can also see some pictures of Brain Machine workshop I went to at the make fair earlier this year here. The Tokyo Hacker Space run courses for anyone interested in tech, software, hardware and just about anything else they can think of. I’ll be going down there to check out what’s going on and perhaps make a video about it for Learn Japanese Pod.

Learn Japanese Pod

We’ve been getting back into the Learn Japanese Pod saddle after a long summer break. I was getting a few emails asking me what the hell was going on. Fear not, Waka sensei is back to teach you some new and useful Japanese phrases. We just put Fun Friday up and lesson #96 is almost ready to go up.

I’ve also installed moodle onto the Learn Japanese Pod server with a view to developing some Japanese language learning courses. Apparently it is quite a powerful system although I still need to study the documentation into how to use it. I started a thread on this topic for people to discuss and contribute to this project.

Tokyo Guitar Guild

The Tokyo Guitar Guild was a group I set up for guitarists in Tokyo to network, play together and teach each other a few tricks with their axes. The good news is I have managed to find a space in 青山一丁目 Aoyamaichoume where we could meet. If you are interested in coming, please send me an email @ mail(at)alexbrooke(dot)com or contact me here. The location is fantastic and I am thinking of using it on Saturdays.

I’m also thinking of doing some guitar tutorial videos. If you have any suggestions or requests please contact me.

Poster Competition

If you want to get your hands on a cool “Do it at home” poster from Japan Rail go to Japandra to find out more details. A big thanks to Sandra who appeared on last week’s Fun Friday.]

That’s all for now folks.

Last Friday I was joined by Daniel, Yukki, Jim and Sandra at the Pink Cow to record the Fun Friday for Learn Japanese Pod. I don’t know what happened but we achieved a record with over 1900 downloads in the first 24 hours it was put on line. You can check out the episode here.

It was definitely a fun Fun Friday as Sandra told us about her recent Japanese poster give away competition. Claytonian won the latest poster but she is giving more out. If you want to find out how you can win a crisp clean poster from Japan, check out her blog at Japandra.

Another point we talked about is the Japanese Lounge event at the Pink Cow which will be held on Sunday 18th October 2009. You can see traditional Japanese music including shakuhachi and shamisen performances. Entrance is free so you really have no excuses not to come. If you are interested in coming please sign up to the event on Facebook.

Looking forward to seeing you all on the 18th.

Here is a video of my band doing a gig at Game in Shibuya Tokyo.

Live @ Game Shibuya Tokyo from Alex Brooke on Vimeo.

This is a great video about Tokyo Hackerspace by Joseph Tame from Pokya fame. This explains what they are doing and some of the cool projects they are involved in. Don’t forget the up coming workshop for the Brain Machine, a device that Karamoon demonstrates in the video. All very interesting stuff and a well made video. Enjoy.

WHAT: Learn to build a Brain Machine

WHEN: Sunday 11th October 2009

WHERE: Tokyo Hacker Space, Shiroganedai

HOW MUCH: 2500 yen for members / 5000 yen for non members. (Includes all material and tuition costs)

RESERVE A PLACE: Places are very limited so please send an email to daac2000(at)yahoo(dot)com to reserve your place

Interested in building a brain machine? The cool cats at the Tokyo Hacker Space are running a workshop on how to make them. Also called Trip Glasses, these spectacles have flashing LEDs and headphones emitting sounds programmed at various changing frequencies to induce meditative brain states. They also cause mild hallucinations as your visual cortex tries to make sense of what is going on.

These are seriously good fun to make and use. Check out this video I made at 4nchor5 La6 (Anchors Lab ).

The workshop includes all materials and full instruction and assistance.

I made my own Brain Machine at the Make fair in Tokyo in May this year. The inventor Mitch Altman did a workshop and showed us basic soldering skills and how to put the device together. It was great fun to make it myself and as an added bonus, the damn thing actually worked.

So check out the workshop in October, it’ll be a fun and different way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

(English)昨日コーヒボットと一緒にTokyo Guitar Guildの最初の打ち合わせした。ていゆうか二人のギター飲み会だった。これから東京に住んでいる素晴らしいギターリストのサークルを作るつもり。それでいい情報や技を交流できるクラブを作ることができる。ギター学校もできるかも。頑張って見る。FacebookのTokyo Guitar Guildのグループも作った、是非見て下さい。興味のある人是非連絡してください。mail{at}alexbrooke{dot}com

今回Regan Perry の”chill”というジャズっぽい曲のコードを練習した。基本のコードはEm7, Dm7, Gmaj, Cmaj7, B7。後でもっと詳しく説明を書く。

I hung out with the famous Coffeebot yesterday as we had our first Tokyo Guitar Guild meeting. Or rather, it was just two guys drinking gin and playing guitar. So from now on we are looking to make a society for guitarists in the Tokyo area for sharing information, tips, tricks and networking. We might even be able to make a guitar school too. For those who are interested please contact me at mail{at}alexbrooke{dot}com

We worked on some jazzy sounding chords from Regan Perry’s “Chill”. The basic chords are Em7, Dm7, Gmaj, Cmaj7, B7. There are a few extra chords he adds in there which I will write the tabs and manuscript for soon.

Hello Geeks. Flash geeks to be precise. Today I attended Spark which is a monthly meeting for like minded flash programmers to share, learn and hang out in Tokyo. I was introduced to the group by my good friend Mariroom who is involved with Adobe  Japan and Flash.

The reason I wanted to get the word out about this group is to build some bridges between the Japanese and English speaking communities involved with flash and tech in general. Some of the members are eager to learn English and I’m sure there are plenty of people abroad wondering what some the latest Flash programmers and designers are doing in Tokyo these days.

I believe Colin Moock did a skype conference with the Spark members before I turned up. If you don’t know who he is, he’s like the Darth Vader of Flash Programming. I mean that in a nice way.

Check out their main site here: SPARK

Hopefully I’ll be hanging out with some of those guys and gals again and seeing if we can’t come up with some interesting projects perhaps involving flash and some kind of language exchange.

After the meeting, I got back on my Specialized Rockhopper and somehow cycled home without getting killed on the crazy roads and sidewalks of Tokyo…