What does one do on their birthday if on tour in Japan? Why, go to a film studio theme park and watch a live ninja show of course!
The studio is a real one, Toei, and is still making productions there, I think mainly for TV these days. But it’s a name I’ve been familiar with for years through yakuza and samurai movies so it was cool to go visit.
A selection of vintage Toei film posters at the studios.
I turned 30 in Tokyo. Does the time difference fudge it a bit?
The wonderful promoters/hosts Kamba & Fumie provided the perfect cake at the gig - note sheep wafer.
Rob Brydon looking for lies.
Christopher Waltz in Inglourious Basterds on the hunt.
And I’m still jonesing to see Basterds again!
Hold on, we haven’t had a post tangentially relating to The Shining for a while so here’s a particularly tenuous one…
In a case of life imitating art, this posh shop in London has used the same line as the eerily elitist manager of the Overlook hotel, Stuart Ullman, did when telling Wendy Torrance about past guests of the hotel…
Stuart Ullman: Four presidents, movie stars…
Wendy Torrance: Royalty?
Stuart Ullman: All the best people.
Way to go ‘ad’ people – you’ve invoked a demonic, genocidal, patriarchal force in your attempt to hock some threads to wannabe socialites. Well, actually, if the glove fits…
So last Friday, before another epic session at Matter, London Elektricity, Logistics and myself, took part in a special event at the British Music Experience at the O2 Arena – the first ever Q+A+E. Hosted by Radio 1′s Nerm, we each gave a little talk about how we approach making music, followed by questions from the audience about whatever they wanted. It was a lot of fun and I hope to do another session like this again. Video of the whole thing should be up soon.
The highlight of the event , however, came when a 15 year old guy asked if we thought ‘Drum and Bass Step’ would catch on in the UK after it’s popularity around Europe. To which we all replied ‘What the hell is drum and bass step?!’ Well, apparently it’s a dance craze – and we got the kid to come up on stage and give us an example of it. And hats off to him he smashed it! Check the vid.
Played an under 18′s gig in Oxford t’other day, which are always fun and pure mayhem. This one was actually a foam party on the exam results night. You can imagine. But the best bit was in the dressing room before going on, there was a bunch of peeps hanging out and one guy had a pack of cards. Now, I’ve started doing magic tricks lately ahem and so busted out my top card trick. Ooh Aah. Then the guy whos cards they were went into his own routine and he musta been a pro cos that was the best up close magic I’ve ever seen. If the iPhone had a damn video camera on it I woulda filmed it for y’all. But to suffice to say we were all mighty impressed. So big up Tom the magician!
I say, magic should now be the backstage pass-time of choice – no more coke and hookers, guys, get with the program and learn yourselves some find-the-lady and rabbit-in-the-hat.
You know you're at an under-18s show when the guy on after you has this sticker on his laptop : )
OK, there’s no actual surfing insurgents in The Hurt Locker but director Kathryn Bigelow’s masterpiece of action and bromance, Point Break, certainly sprang to mind whilst watching her latest effort. Here too we find a love/hate relationship between two diametrically opposed alphas – one playing by the rules, the other pissing on the book. Jeremy Renner, previously unknown to me, creates a complex and nuanced character in his role as the maverick US bomb diffusal officer in Iraq, at odds with his straight laced partner. And the character is revealed mainly through action, not through dialogue and backstory. The action/suspense sequences come thick and fast. This female director knows what makes guys tick. An artists gender really shouldn’t affect how you think of the work but the fact that Bigelow is the only female making action movies in Hollywood today really does make you sit up and shout ‘You go, girl!’, especially as she’s doing it better than any of the boys right now. She understands what Michael Bay and McG seem unable to grasp – we don’t give a toss about the explosions unless we care about the people getting blowed up, duh. And The Hurt Locker really does make us care about the people in the firing line.
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