Video highlights from the 2008 Asakusa Samba Carnival in Tokyo.

The event started off hot and sweaty then the clouds opened up and the rain poured down. The samba performers kept going though they were soaked to the bone. The Samba girls looked none the worse for it though.

Tokyo’s Asakusa Samba Carnival dances on despite showers

A Rain-soaked Samba Dancer defies downpour

Tokyo’s traditional Asakusa district once more swayed and bopped to the exotic strains of Brazilian samba music. Asakusa’s annual Samba Carnival festival took place this past Saturday, August 30th. Asakusa has been holding this event on the last Saturday of August for over twenty years and it never fails to draw a huge crowd.

Here’s a trilogy of videos on Japanese beer – one on beer vending machines in Kyoto, another one on a draft beer vending machine in Tokyo, and a final one on historical beers – beers with labels of famous people in Japanese history with short bios.

This first video is from BusanKevin in Kyoto talking about the wonders of outdoor beer vending machines in Kyoto on a hot day:

In response, I did a video on a draft beer vending machine I discovered in a pool hall in Tokyo a few nights ago.

Taste was not too bad but it gave me a huge head of foam which is quite common anyway even with live servers:

Background music by Super Girl Juice.

Later that same night I came across some “Historalicious” Japanese beer which were beer bottles with labels depicting famous people from Japanese history. Get your drink on while learning some Japanese history with Historalicious Japanese Beer – if you can read the bloody small cursive writing on the label:

Crack open a cold one and enjoy the Japanese Beer Trilogy!

Take a dip into the surreal and the avant-garde with the Taiwanese performance group – the Eyeball Love Globe group.

The Eyeball Love Globe performed at the Tokyo Design Festa this past May and have done so a few other times before being one of the popular re-occuring performances at the exhibition.

Eyeball Love Globe

the music for two of the segements is from Seven Cycle Theory:

Seven Cycle Theory

It’s also up for votes on Current TV:
Eyeball on Current TV – Register and Vote please!

Here’s a small slice of the music scene in Tokyo.

This vid is brief snippets of three bands I caught at Tokyo Design Festa.

Mimi-Unagi

Luxury

Tsubaki

Crazy Angel Company

Here’s a bit of a big band I caught at Tokyo Design Festa called Crazy Angel Company.

They have a lot of energy and it shows in their performance.

Crazy Angel Company

Soma Nomaoi is a samurai festival in the northern Japan area of Fukushima. It’s a 3-day festival with parades, horse races, mock battles, and wild horse catching.

This is a vlog account of the festival. I plan to get around and making a more in-depth one sometime in the future.

The cicadas are freaking loud in the background so they might drown me out at times.

The following is a look at a mostly foreign rock band, the Sushi Cabaret Club, based in Nagoya, Japan.

The members hail from Scotland, England, Australia, and Japan. They talk about their music, what brought them to Japan, what it’s like for bands in Japan, and what it’s like playing for Japanese audiences. They dispel a few myths like how easy it is for Western musicians to make it big in Japan as well. Also, few of their fans talk about their interest in the band’s music.

The Sushi Cabaret Club site

Here are two videos the band made themselves while they still had their first drummer:

This footage is from the Tokyo Design Festa of the female Taiko Drum Group known as Usagi. Usagi means rabbit in Japanese.

These stealthy assassins of yore…what lurks deep in their hearts?

Their whole lives are dedicated to their craft…to stealth, to sabotage, to espionage, to theft, and to assassination.

But what do they dream of when they allow themselves to succumb to sleep’s gentle embrace?

What is it that they secretly yearn to do?

Watch this short documentary or “ninjumentary” and learn “The Secret Desire of the Ninja.”

It’s also up for votes on Current TV but some pretentious little snots have voted negative on it because they’ve got no love for the Ninja. Go over there and show your support for the Ninja and vote green.

The Tokyo Design Festa is a semi-annual event where artists, craftsmen, performers, musicians, film-makers, and what-not gather from all over the world to exhibit their creations.

It’s a weekend of artistic chaos!

It’s up for votes on Current TV.

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