Javantea in Japan

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Rave Blog from Tokyo
by Joel R. Voss aka. Javantea
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April 27, 2006 13:10 JST
[permanent link]

I went to a great rave last saturday. It was at Stella, which is a DJ Bar and Restaurant. The rave was reasonably priced (1500 yen ~= $12) which came with 1 drink. The drinks were ok even if they were a bit expensive. The room was small, but fit the group of people pretty well. Don't get me wrong, this was a small rave. It has bar stools and small counters on the left and right and a sofa in the back. The show was supposed to start at 23:00, but the guy at the front said it really started at 24:00. The first DJ started spinning at 23:15.

I'm a wild and crazy guy, so I take Ginsing Energy pills before I dance at a rave. 3 pills == 1 tall glass of water is the rule. If you don't follow the rule, you'll probably be in trouble. The active ingredient that makes me high as a kite for 24-36 hours is yerba mate, which is a very energy packed tea. In the US, they sell these at nearly every convenience store for $1 or $2. In Japan they prefer the bottled energy drinks. I expect that they have similar stuff. The incorrect Japanese word for this is 薬 [くすり] kusuri/(n) medicine. The kanji is very useful to know because it's used all over the place for drugstore. Definately don't use the word 薬種 [やくしゅ] yakujyu/(n) drugs/ because it is quite similar to 麻薬 [まやく] mayaku/(n) narcotic drugs/narcotic/opium/dope. The word 草本 [そうほん] souhon/(n) herbs/ might be better, but it is still not very descriptive.

I always get the kanji 薬 [くすり] kusuri/(n) medicine mixed up with the kanji 楽しい [たのしい] tanoshii/(adj) enjoyable/fun. It's funny because totemo tanoshii was the only way I could really describe the rave.

Before the rave started, a guy came up to me and introduced himself, giving me his CD. His name is DJ Seki-lala. His CD, Spring Gale Mix 06 is totally awesome. I can't express my joy of meeting him. He's a great guy and speaks plenty of English.

The music was particularly sweet. The first DJ started with vinyl and moved onto CDs. I really liked the first set. It moved back and forth from pop techno to trance. Two songs really got me: "World of Anarchy" and another that I'm forgetting. The second DJ sticked with CDs and did a good job at spinning some good trance. The third was a pair. They played 1 CD, the rest was without CD or vinyl. What the hell were they playing? One guy was on the keyboard and did a good job with some wild effects /live/. The other guy made the rest of it work with a Korg padKONTROL. Sofmap is selling these for 19740 yen ($180) and so is Portland Music Company. This device is friggin wild as hell. They did the entire set live and kicked so much ass that everyone was shouting, dancing, and whistling.

The next DJ was the second friend I met, DJ Matsunaga who was also the organizer of the show it seems (or just a really helpful guy). He played for several hours (2:30-5) and played a lot of fun stuff. He played the crowd well. The last song he dedicated to me and was John Robinson "Tokyo GO!". It really summed up the night nicely.