This weeks mix of the week is by Cosmo Vitelli, from I’m A Cliché Records, a special DJ, with his own very eclectic, yet very dancable, electro disco sound.

Born in 1974 in Montreuil, France under the name of Benjamin Boguet, and raised in Africa, he named (and perhaps, styled) himself after the character who plays a Sunset Strip nightclub owner in the 1976 film The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, by John Cassavetes.

The mix is from Tim Sweeny’s Beats in Space, one of my favourite mix sites, constantly topping up the old ipod with quality sounds.

Sit back and enjoy. Here it is, mix of the week: The Beats in Space Cosmo Vitelli mix.

Tracklist:
1. Dub Narcotic Soundsystem - Dub Narcotic Renew - K Rds
2. Barry de Vorzon - Theme From ‘The Warriors’ - A&M
3. Lee Douglas - Breakwind - Wurst
4. Rhetta Hughes - Angel Man(Disco Devil edit) - Disco Devil
5. Pete Shelley - Many a Time(dub) - Genetic
6. Model 500 - Play it cool(Instrumental) - Metroplex
7. Skatebard - Supersoul
8. Robert Görl - Eckhardt’s Party - Mute
9. Jackos - Xorsister - Street Trash
10. Bot’Ox - Babylon By Car - I’m a Cliché/DFA
11. Poni Hoax - Antibodies (Chateau Flight remix) - Tigersushi
12. Supertramp - Canonball(Instrumental) - A&M
13. Chez Damier - Can You Feel It (M.K. Dub) - KMS
14. Dave tech Nice - Nasty(Seduction Mix) - Sleeping Bag
15. Ame - Balandine - Innervisions
16. Straight Shooters “My time, Your Time” (Cosmo Vitelli’s instrumental edit)
17. Andrew Powell & The Philharmonia Orchestra Plays The Best of The Alan
Parsons Project “I Robot Suite” - Dutch
18. Phantom Band “Relax” - Sky rds
19. Can “Sunday Jam” - Harvest

We ranted and raved about Theo Parrish a few weeks back, and I know you took our reccomendation to heart and went to check him out at Yellow the other day. Here’s a Theo Parrish mix for your listening goodness. (I’m afraid you have to have Real Player installed).

Here’s the tracklist:
Jaco Pastorius - ‘Portrait of Tracy’ (Sony)
Hanna - ‘Hanna’s Waltz’ (?)
Blackbyrds - ‘Mother/Son Talk’ (Fantasy)
Common - ‘It’s Your World’ (Good Music)
Jean Luc Ponty - ‘Between you and Me’ (Atlantic)
Ojeda Penn - ‘Happy People’ ((?)
Al Jarreau - ‘Take Five’ (Warner/WEA)
The Crusaders - ‘Chain Reaction’ (MCA)
Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers - ‘Cubano Chant’ (Philips)
Herbie Hancock - ‘Sleeping Giant’ (WEA)
Herbie Hancock with Bill Laswell Feat Chaka Khan - ‘The Essence’ (Transparent)
Miles Davis - ‘Ife” (Sony)
Lenny White - ‘Venusian Summer Suite’ (Wounded Bird)
Haki Madhabuti & Nation - ‘Medasi’ (Third World)
Theo Parrish - ‘Love is War for Miles’ (Peacefrog)
The Rebirth - ‘This Journey In’ (Cajmere Sounds)
Fertile Ground - ‘Yellow Daisies’ (Blackout Studios)
Dee Felice Trio - ‘The Cricket Sing’ (?)
Hanna - ‘Laughin’ (?)
Ronnie Laws - ‘Tidal Wave’ (Blue Note)
The Heath Bros - ‘Smilin’ Billy Suite’ (Strata East)
Georgia Anne Muldrow - ‘One For the Funk (Stones Throw)

Wicked video of Japan vs Korea B-boy battle teams fighting it out. Link via tvinjapan.com

A few highlights so far:

The boys from !!! turning a few thousand people into frothing lunatics

The Cure playing 2 hours and bringing back a thousand high-school memories

A steel drum orchestra covering the Jackson 5

Deerhoof playing a muddy side stage the size of my living room

Iggy Pop nearly breaking his neck only to get up and wail some more

Omar Rodriguez Lopez touching the moons of Saturn

Kaiser Chiefs vocalist leaping the stage gates to lead a fan-chase onto an unsuspecting Pocari Sweat stand

A didgireedoo and three drummers making kickass techno/trance

A crowd for the Lily Allen show that you couldn’t wedge an icepick into

Alien mummies on bamboo stilts.

Cavemen with sharpened sticks rolling a boulder down footpaths

and that’s just off the top of my head…

back to work. No time to upload any vid clips now, but my reports (under “jinki”) and many, many others HERE

Mr. Pop took a spill off the stage a little while ago – he finished the set, but may be hurt. more info later…

From British production house Neo comes Salaryman 6, the tale of a salaryman who looses his memory.

Gonna try to post some video clips here. All depends on how much time and bandwidth I have: only 10 of us have to cover the entire fest for the English side, and because we work out on a tent and an off-season ski lodge, the net service doesn’t win any blue ribbons.

Until then, you can check out our staff blog

Plenty of Fujirock clips already on youtube

Here’s my favorite place of the fest.

Just a few days left to see the Chocolate exhibit at 21_21 Design sight.

It’s great, but it’s no chocolate jesus
Tokyo Art Beat page
The 21_21 site
More info
Someone took some video
Tom Waits has a chocolate jesus, too.
And don’t forget, 6-time Grammy-winners,
Sexual Chocolate

What will the world be like if the world looked more like a retirement community? Japan will probably find out first.

The latest episode of the incredibly great Radiolab podcast was about mortality, so naturally there was a segment on Japan – the fastest aging country in the world. They touched on ways Japan is trying to care for legions of senior citizens and keep them happy. My favorite idea is combining a daycare with a retirement community, but one of the most popular options is Paro, the robotic seal. Until kids run on batteries, I’m guessing Paro will retain his number-one spot.

I’m keen to check out Deerhoof again this weekend at Fujirock. Last show I saw was off, but they’ll play twice this weekend, and I’m betting on the tiny Naeba Shokudo stage as the place to be. The stage and place to stand is less space than my apartment, and that kinda vibe will work for them, I reckon. Here’s an interview in the Japan Times from last year.

Apparently the etchi have now grown bored with looking up girl’s skirts and now want to look through them. Wired’sJapanese Schoolgirl watch article this month is about the infrared panties Tokyo’s finest young lasses wear to foil freaks with tricked-out infrared gear attempting a glimpse within. Really, guys. If you are spending the time and the cash to make some kinda coochie-goggles, shouldn’t you have moved out of your parent’s house by now? Next up: underwear thieves attain their prize via ultraviolet rays.

Fujirock is just round the corner - our staff bus leaves Thursday morning. I and 9 other gaijin will do live reporting from the fest from Thursday evening till Monday morning. Will send the site address once it’s ready, so until then, the schedule

Japanese farmers in the town of Inakadate Aomori Prefecture create some amazing crop art in their rice fields. The works should be visible until harvest in September.
http://www.am.askanet.ne.jp/~tugaru/z-inakadate.htm

Link via Pink Tentacle

This artsy-craftsy couple won the award by a mile.

Blade Runner turned 25 last week. Not only was this the greatest SciFi movie ever made, but its relevance hasn’t expired in the least. There was some interesting analysis of the movie on my favorite podcast, On the Media last week - basically talking about how Blade Runner was a large analogy for racism.

Another conspicuous birthday is for another harbinger of doom: the AK-47 assault rifle. It turns 60 this year. OTM analysts broke down how the ol’ Kalishnakov became a weapon of the media-savvy, and how it has become a symbol of rebellion of the oppressed (and those who want to appear oppressed).

The Red Box events are a great example of where club culture and art collide. Carlos Gibbs, the guy behind Deep House Project and Red Box, pulls together killer DJs, VJs, painters, photographers, sculptors, etc and throws them all in a room for the evening, with the image of a Red Box as the common thread (add your own symbolism here).

HYPTYO faves, Rimpa Eshidan were there, too (you may know them from their intro to Youtube Japan.). I wondered how they would translate their sped-up painting exercises into a live performance. So what did they do? Red Boxes, of course. BIG ones:

These rotated throughout the evening, taking on different images and patterns. Great stuff. Only problem was this jackass wanted to perform with them.

Everyone tried to avoid the guy (he started hugging people), but it was unavoidable that someone got house paint on their clothes. Myself included (and on my favorite shirt, dammit). Once they got under control, the painting continued:

Phil Brasor’s review of the new Justice album is right on the money.

One of the DJ acts I’m most anticipating at Fujirock is French duo, Justice. I love the animation in this video:

Their label, Ed Banger, uses something similar in a promo here:

Been getting geared up for FujiRock next week. I manage the English-language component of Fujirockers.org, and one of my duties every year is to write the schedule - basically, telling writers where who they should cover. Everyone gives me their top requests and alternatives, and every year I’m always surprised that one particular band either lacks requests or is inundated by them.

For example, this year I was SURE there would be at least 3 or 4 writers wanting to cover the Cure. Nope. Only one, and it was his alternate.

And who would be the most popular this year? It’s a tie between Blonde Redhead and Battles.

Both on my list, as well, but c’mon! Have you seen the schedule?

My money’s on !!! to bring the serious party.

Great night this past Saturday (7/14): Asobi Seksu, Sphere and Cruyff in the Bedroom. This show was put together by On the One, a new promoter connecting western indie bands with like-minded local acts. They were spot-on here, all three acts and the DJs in-between flowed seamlessly together.

The common thread between all three bands is their shoegazer influences. Cruyff in the Bedroom perhaps most of all:

Sphere were a pleasant surprise, but they’re working it a bit too hard.

The visuals projected over them in this clip? Pretty cool stuff, except that text would roll across every so often: song titles or lyrics, and then at the end “SPHERE, NEW ALBUM OUT NOW!”

Nice try.

Asobi Seksu sounded great in a small club like Chelsea.

My memory card cut off at the end, which is a shame, cause tiny little Yuki Chikudate got behind the drumkit and bashed something fierce while strobes flashed in seizure-inducing mode. A sight to behold.

Hitotoki is a great new site from some of the same guys that created Tokyo Art Beat. Here you read/write about the Tokyo experience. Some are quite good - few of them are crap - and best of all they’re mapped-out (use the cursor to move it around) and stories are short enough to gobble up several at one sitting.

Dunno how many of y’all kept up with Stippy.com’s story of “George,” a gaijin who spent a couple weeks in a Tokyo holding cell, but he’s at it again, with a straightforward expose on his marriage strife. The comments are almost better (and longer) than the article itself.

I really liked their show at the Misako and Rosen Gallery, but it’s borderline too far away for most people (near Ikebukuro, 10-min walk from the station). Worth it for me. Must be my salaryman state of mind, but when I first saw Okumura’s self-portraits, I thought he was being eaten by his desk instead of being “transported” through it, Doraemon-style.

If you haven’t been watching the New Yorker’s 2012: Stories from the Near Future series, you should. You can get them from the links here, but I just subscribe to them on iTunes.

Broadside subjects like genius, morality, cities, regenerative medicine, gaming and design are examined by today’s experts, talking about what they’ll be like 5 years from now. Especially recommended are the presentations/conversations on Power with James Surowiecki and Serendipity with Malcomb Gladwell.

The mobile technology presentation was disappointing. Not only did Nokia’s Younghee Jung turn it into a Nokia commercial, buut her information was fresh and interesting if you’ve NEVER been to Japan or Korea. Nearly every innovation she speaks of can be seen in one walk down Takeshita Dori. So I guess we’ve already arrived at their forecasts? 2012 already? Shit - that means I’m 40…ouch.

Korehiko Hino paints portraits of himself and others with these swollen bug-eyes and blank expressions, like a muppet after the hand is removed. They’re large canvases, too - bodies probably 2x actual size.

We Make Money Not Art has a review of the book The Loving Machine, a guide to Japanese robots. They also have this amazing photo above.

Slate has an interesting interview with two authors putting out books on sushi history and culture. They both stress how influential the American occupation was towards spreading sushi round the world, but dunno how much I trust them on that – anyone who says that the Japanese don’t eat salmon must have not spent too much time here.

I’ve really been digging all the High Dynamic Range Photography popping up all over the web. Especially shots of Tokyo like this mind-blower I found on Octopus Dropkick:

Also, Yong Fook’s Flickr has some amazing shots of Hong Kong.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/yongfook/sets/72157594263154572/

Samm Bennett wears many musical hats: bluesman, avant-guardian, percussionist extraordinaire. He and his wife, Haruna’s project, Skist, is a dark and mellow affair. Here they are performing at Loop-line, a cool little gallery-cafe in Sendagaya:

Sequencers and percussion are the basis, but they also played bells, a jew’s harp even candy wrapper. Here they are using little electric fans for effects on the mic:

I want one of these drums Samm uses:

Two things stormtroopers excel at: taking orders and gettin’ DOWN.

Spotted first by Jean Snow