Three events involving Betwixt & Between this month – first up is the 7th Tano*C Strike event, this coming Saturday. A great looking lineup includes Betwixt himself, kenta-v.ez, Alabaster and umbrella, while the event starts at the get-home-in-time-for-tea time of 12.00pm.What with a section of the Tano*C crew going increasingly down the Betwixt/FINRG-influenced road, I’d like to make it to this one – but that pesky work-shaped thing is blocking the way as usual.

Next up is Touhou Carnival 6, which is taking place on the 13th at Studio Cube. The lineup looks good for this one too, including Technetium, Betwixt, Alabaster, t+pazolite and many more – and also among the slightly excessive five VJs you’ll notice the name of Thanatos. I didn’t know he went in for that sort of thing…could be interesting. The door charge of 3500 yen is a bit hefty, mind (*ADVERTISING ALERT* turn up on the following night and I can get you into Hell’s Gate for a knockdown 2000 yen, after all). Once again, looks enticing, but I’ll be pretty busy getting things ready for my own set the next day, so I doubt I’ll be able to get to this one either…

Finally we have Tokyo Hardcore Construction, a consistently good event for gabber fans. This time the presence of Lunch, Kanon and Betwixt & Between alone make it worth a look, but there are plenty of other big names. Cube is hosting this one too, and I could well be heading that direction on the 27th of the month.

Click down below for the full lineups for each event.

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Apologies for the lack of posting last week – I’m back from Kyoto, Gifu and Nagoya now, and just about survived the weekend while somehow managing to get to NRGetic Romancer (with DJ X Lab 4, so well worth the effort).

Now we’re stepping into a time machine, going back, back, back….all the way back to…er, the 14th June. Cogi has kindly provided me with some photos, so here’s a quick sum up of what I can remember from the last but one event (photos/video from last weekend coming soon, I think). By the way, the photo (taken by Cogi) at the top of this post is me – or at least, my t-shirt – it’s become my regular NRGetic Romancer uniform, and will probably get another airing next month while I clang through some tunes at Hell’s Gate.

You might remember that Betwixt & Between had an impossible schedule that weekend, playing at Hardcore Tano*C (if I remember correctly) earlier in the afternoon? Well, he came up with a novel way of coping – er, don’t play at NRGetic Romancer. It wasn’t looking very feasible, really, and so Guld, Cogi and Yousuke raided their tune collections and played for an extra 30-40mins or so each instead.

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I hope everyone enjoyed the week or so without Thank You For The Horse? Sadly (?) the site hasn’t been bought out by a group of freeform loving millionaire Russians, or anything like that – instead, the domain name expired. Oops, eh? Anyway, everything is shipshape now, so I’ll try to catch up on a few things from the last week or so.

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Yesterday ended up being a really good event, even if a group of us did disappear two thirds of the way through for dinner…. The DJs of interest to freeform/NRG fans had already played by then, mind, so I didn’t miss too much.

It was my first trip to Club Asia (next door to the fabulous ATOM), and the main floor is nice enough, if a little cramped. The second (Hardcore, this time) floor is a different story though – feeling like someone’s refitted living room, there are only two tiny speakers perched up at the back of the room – resulting in a weak sound that seems to be coming from the wrong direction. Not the best idea, eh?

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I don’t think any photos were taken at this event, but here’s a quick sum up of what went on last night (or the night before, as it’s 1am now). As I expected, Zio’s set was the highlight, but there were some other nice performances from DJs that I haven’t seen much of at all until now. Alas, the venue and a few other things did however take the shine off the night slightly. I was warned pre-event about ATOM, and now I see why – a classic mix of Shibuya girls tottering around on high heels and Thursday evening office folk, all jiving away to cookie-cutter trance. Add hilariously over-zealous staff/security, and it’s obviously not going to have quite the same atmosphere as the dedicated nights at Cube/Kinoto etc.

Anyway, the DoD vs HG DJs themselves played a nice mix of styles, and Ayako’s hard house set in particular was very good. She’s playing at the next Hell’s Gate, and probably hard house again. I was a bit disappointed that Dance or Die’s DJ Ozawa didn’t play any Finnish tunes, as I’d been told beforehand that his speciality was freeform. This time seemed to be high bpm happy-ish tunes, almost UK Hardcore but not quite… Zio’s set, while short, was excellent – starting off with some tech dance, he finished up with some of my favourite tunes. Getting Lab 4’s Falling Down, Remo-Con’s Narky Light and Code of Silence into a 7 track set is pretty impressive, no? He even took on the challenge of mixing the impossible-to-mix Lacrima at the end.

Only another week until Hell’s Gate, and the Bootek event’s the day after tomorrow. Good thing I’ve got next week off, eh?

Yes, it’s someone dancing. But I’ve heard that this style is slightly unique to Tokyo/Japan, and so I thought it might be of interest to those who are wondering what it’s like at Japanese freeform events. I was actually at this NRGetic Romancer (the one I bullet-trained up from Hiroshima to get to), at Studio Cube, but was camped upstairs on the dancefloor for the whole time and didn’t see any of this. Keen-eared listeners will be able to hear Betwixt & Between’s Skybreak playing in the background, too. On a good night there will be a fair sized group of folk dancing like this, which when combined with the glowstickers, is pretty impressive, I can tell you. The less said about my own ‘dancing’ the better, though…

By the way, this video came courtesy of the Hard Dance Ravers, and you can check out a few more videos on their site.