Events

Tokyo Hardcore Construction, 2nd November

Posted by PlasmaDancer on November 4, 2008
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Saturday was my first THC, and it turned out to be a storming event – I was expecting a lot more speedcore/other undanceable genres, but it was mostly dark and nasty gabber, plus Technetium’s slightly incongruous Happy/J-Core. It was probably getting on for 1am by the time I finally arrived, so I’m not sure what was happening in the first couple of hours – but I was just in time for Stanfield’s set, one of the main reasons I was keen to get to this one. Relatively slow for gabber, it was a great set even if there were a few technical problems towards the end. Most of the tracks played were new to me, or I didn’t know the titles, and so Technetium’s set was pretty welcome. It took me back to my brief spell of mixing Tano*C-style Japanese hardcore a few years ago, and I picked up on some RED ALiCE classics, especially.

Of the other DJs, Kanon again played a great hour or so, with really top-class mixing and excellent selection. She played Lunch’s recent Tokyo Hardcore Construction track (heard in the recent promo video), and while I didn’t know many of the tunes, there was a fantastic track around the halfway point with a long female vocal/guitar breakdown, mixed in at just the right moment. Lunch was as good as expected (actually the first time I’ve seen him play live, I think), although I actually missed the changover from him to NDE, through a combination of dancing like a madman and recovering next to the air conditioner. Anyway, they played one of my favourite gabber tunes at some point – featuring the vocal line ‘Clap your hands if you want to die!’, the title escapes me right now…but truly a classic for all the family, that one.

I forgot that THC actually runs until 6am the following day, so this was a long night, even with my late arrival. It’s a great event though, and a few of the NRGetic Romancer crowd also made it along. Next one is January 2009.

DJ Yousuke – Live @ NRGetic Romancer, 18th October

Posted by PlasmaDancer on October 31, 2008
Posted in: Events, Japanese, Mixes. Leave a Comment

Here’s the first news from this month’s NRGetic Romancer, and well worth waiting for – DJ Yousuke’s solo set. This could his best set for a while, and the first few tracks are just fantastic, building up a brilliant atmosphere. I haven’t got a tracklist handy, but it’s mostly UK-styled freeform, and even if you’re not into that sort of thing I urge you to give it a listen, it really is good stuff.

Download here

I have another mix or two waiting in the wings, and so if/when I get permission, those’ll be on the upload too.

Guld @ Sade, 22nd November

Posted by PlasmaDancer on October 30, 2008
Posted in: Events, Finnish, Japanese. 3 comments

Not long at all now until Guld’s second appearance in Finland, and he’s recently posted up the excellent flyer design for the event at Helsinki’s Sade (I don’t know how to type the ‘special a’, sorry). Playing alongside Proteus, Neon, Friik, Inch b2b with Triton, and Tritium, not to mention Kuroshio Current, it looks like a great event in the making. Those of you in Finland, make sure to take lots of photos/video for us back here in Tokyo.

NRGetic Romancer, 27th Dec

Posted by PlasmaDancer on October 26, 2008
Posted in: Events, Japanese. Leave a Comment

The flyer for December’s NRGetic Romancer is all ready, and it’s yet another great one for the collection. As we’ve already mentioned, Android Lime is the ‘NRG Friendship DJ’ for this event, joining all the regulars for the last Romancer of the year.

Speaking of flyers – work is underway on the effort for next month’s Hell’s Gate, and it should be well worth waiting for. Coming soon…

Android Lime @ NRGetic Romancer, 27th December

Posted by PlasmaDancer on October 22, 2008
Posted in: Events, Japanese. 2 comments

There will hopefully be some material from the last NRGetic Romancer to post up before too long (where have I heard that before), and it seems like there were actually a lot of new tracks played, not only from Betwixt & Between.

Anyway, I wasn’t sure when this was going to be official news, but Guld has just announced that South Africa’s Android Lime will be playing at the last NRGetic Romancer of 2008. Given Android’s mixing style, it continues the same line of hard NRG guest DJs from Proteus to Lab 4, and also Adam/DJ X’s solo appearances. He’s sure to go down well with the NRGetic Romancer crowd, who are very familar with that kind of dark and hard mixing (we have Guld playing every time, after all), and so it should be a great event alongside the regular DJs.

No NRGetic Romancer this time/Japan Times – the link

Posted by PlasmaDancer on October 19, 2008
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I’ve had to miss my first NRGetic Romancer for a long time – I actually had a job interview this morning, and thought it might be pushing things to go to NRGetic Romancer last night, and then be suited up and heading for an interview at 11 the next morning… I’ll do my best to get the news on what happened in my absence, though (I already know that Betwixt played some new tunes).

Anyway, I bought a couple of copies of The Japan Times this afternoon, and the Hell’s article has a prime spot in the Time Out entertainment/reportage section, complete with a photo of Zio (and a slightly weary-looking me). It’s been posted up on the JT website too – complete with the photos that you will have mostly seen before – check it out here. By the way, when I’m talking about ‘the kick anchoring the track etc etc’ in the article, I was actually trying to explain hardstyle, not hard dance as a whole – just in case you’re wondering… I tried to shoehorn in some comments about the Finnish scene too, and they just about made into print, plus a reference to Alek Szahala.

The Japan Times/Event photos

Posted by PlasmaDancer on October 16, 2008
Posted in: Events, Japanese. 1 comment

Hard to believe, but Sunday’s edition (19th October) of national newspaper The Japan Times will carry a small feature on last month’s Hell’s Gate! One of the JT’s esteemed writers was at the event, and had a few words with me, Zio and some other ravers while taking in a few of the DJ sets (take-de-x, Zio’s hardstyle, mine and Stanfield’s). Aside from an article or two about Guld in Loud magazine, the scene is much too small to have been picked up on by any other media, and so this sort of publicity really is great news for Hell’s. I’m guessing that the article might appear online too – I’ll make sure to post up any links, if so.
You might also remember me mentioning some upcoming photos from the last event? Well, here they are, a couple of which might even be used in the upcoming article. All credit goes to Our Man Hickey.

[above] Cogi, PlasmaDancer, Guld. / Me again – mid-set this time.

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Tokyo Hardcore Construction, 2nd November

Posted by PlasmaDancer on October 13, 2008
Posted in: Events, Japanese. Leave a Comment

There seem to be a lot of THC events lately, and here’s another – once again at Studio Cube, the lineup’s looking very tasty. No Betwixt & Between, but DJs of the calibre of Lunch, Kanon, Technetium, Stanfield and others means that this is one not to be missed. There’ll also be a free mix CD for anyone turning up, so that seals it for me, I think.

Lunch (TOKYO HARDCORE CONSTRUCTION/S.H.C.)
NDE (NIGHTMARELAND)
DJ Stanfield (IROCEP)
Kanon (A.I.N.)
狗神 (NIGHTMARELAND)
DJ WILD PARTY (赤線企画)
DJ Technetium vs. MC Tyrant (Cis-Trance)
LALA (LoveScreamTerror/SUPER GABBERS)
Yusuke & Gokuraku (adrenalin)

Massive – The Resurrection Party @ GALLERIA DEI SERPENTI, 17th October

Posted by PlasmaDancer on October 9, 2008
Posted in: Events, Italian, Japanese. 1 comment

Here’s the first of what I hope’ll be many Italian-related posts – the upcoming Massive event on the 17th of this month. DJ BRK (the man responsible for bringing Guld to Italy next month) will be playing alongside Plus DJ, Child of Sorrows and AKT, and as you can see from the back of the flyer, pretty much every hard dance genre is covered. You might also notice that Thank You For The Horse is listed among the event’s supporters (as well as Hell’s Gate and NRGetic Romancer) – it’s a real honour, and hopefully this will be the start of a link between events here and in Italy.

[above] Here’s the banner image from the Massive flyer – awesome, no? You might have guessed that I wasn’t the one who came up with this, so a million thanks are owed to Nightforce this time, instead.

[above] While this is the new Hell’s Gate logo, courtesy of Pecori. The flyer for next month is under construction at the moment, so there might be a few changes for that version.