Koalas and Pandas

Some Peter Giodani's photos from Safari vol.3. Thanks to Qualiass, Yanoosh and Loutseau for great performances, Peter for photos and everybody who came for dancing and being so awesome:) See you next time.

SINISTER

So, yesterday I found this entry on Make Believe Melodies blog that made my day. It's about my song Schokoladige Disko. It says it's the most sinister J-pop cover and best reimagining of the year! Well that's a cool award category, isn't it? 

I think what people find interesting about this song is that I turned a really sweet Japanese pop song into a creepy one. If I take the words from the song's review: "This is shadow-draped dance music with a sinister streak, the chorus that Perfume delivered with such glee turned into this dead-eyed thing that is really quite hypnotic. The lyrics on Caroline’s version stay pretty faithful to what the lyrics in the original focus on, but delivered in an icy way that turns them from innocence to desperation."

The original song: 

And my interpretation of it:

Schokoladige Disko feat. Kaki- Zana by zanacaroline

Make Believes Melodies is a blog about Japanese music. It featured articles about my songs already in the past. Here are some links where you can find them.

This is the latest one: 

http://makebelievemelodies.wordpress.com/2011/12/15/the-satanic-verses-honor-for-most-sinister-j-pop-coverbest-reimagining-of-the-year-zana-carolines-schokoladige-disko/

The previous one was also about Schokoladige Disko, when the song came out:

http://makebelievemelodies.wordpress.com/2011/06/29/new-zana-caroline-schokoladige-disko-featuring-kaki/

And this one is about my first song Looksmelltasteheartouch:

http://makebelievemelodies.wordpress.com/2011/05/05/ensemble-cast-of-the-self-zana-carolines-looksmelltasteheartouch-featuring-kaki/

And a link to my old blog entries when I write about songs and Kaki, etc.:
http://zanacaroline.blogspot.com/2011/06/orchestration-of-self.html
http://zanacaroline.blogspot.com/2011/05/kaki.html

I really hope I'll put up some of my new songs soon (they will all feature Kaki of course) and don't forget- THE NEW 'TRINITRON' EP is coming out even sooner:).

Safari vol.3

The month goes around really quickly and here we have Safari vol.3. This time we will host two cool Slovenian producers Qualiass and Yanoosh. As their facebook says: "Sometimes we have to kill one- thing to start another- thing... with an a(ss)titude!" They will DJ and do a live set together as well. Loutseau will take the place of a guest/ warm up DJ and then there will be N'toko, PlankTon and me as usual. We'll also give away a free ticket- for the whole year 2012, as a pre-Christmas gift:) Well, I'll also pretend it's my New year's party since I'll be all shanti shanti and far away from the dance floor on the actual New year's eve:)

Where: Gromka, Metelkova, Ljubljana

When: December 15th, 2011

Time: 22.00.- 4.00.

entree fee: 3 euros

V decemberski ediciji Safarija v goste prihajata producenta Qualiass in Yanoosh, ki bosta postregla z live actom in DJ setom hkrati. Za ogrevanje bo tokrat poskrbel Loutseau, kot vedno pa bodo za mešalko PlankTon, N'toko in Zana.

Kot se za praznično obdobje spodobi bomo izvedli tudi nagradno igro. Lastnik izžrebane karte bo vse Safarije v letu 2012 obiskal zastonj.

Live: Qualiass & Yanoosh (Qualiass Records, Rx: Tx)

Qualiass & Yanoosh= En hud producent + Še en hud producent= Live act + DJ set= Dance + Headband

http://soundcloud.com/qualiass-records

http://soundcloud.com/ohmfat

http://soundcloud.com/yanooshmusicproductions

DJs:

PlankTon 

https://www.facebook.com/DjPlankTon?sk=app_178091127385

N'toko 

http://soundcloud.com/ntoko

Zana 

http://soundcloud.com/zanacaroline

Loutseau 

http://www.mixcloud.com/loutseau/

Visuals:

Koala (Trajna) 

http://www.eurocrem.blogspot.com/

on facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/events/139226102853079/

And here is a video clip of Qualiass & Yanoosh:

Come and play:)

Zombie Nation

'Decemberfest' will be an event in K4 organized by Smetnjak and I'm really happy about our Safari crew getting the honor to DJ with Zombie Nation, an artist I admire a lot. I think I've never played a Dj set without one of his songs in it. I'm gonna see him for the first time and I'm already excited about it:)

Here is more info on the event:

location: K4, Ljubljana

date: 9th December 2011

time: 11.00.pm- 6.00.am

main floor:

ZOMBIE NATION

 (http://soundcloud.com/zombie-nation ) 

NubiS (Smetnjak)

Mr. Gucci (Smetnjak)

Small floor:

N'toko (Safari)

PlankTon (Safari)

Zana (Safari)

Shekuza (Moveknowledgement)

Video:

Mina Fina (Smetnjak)

Dekor:

Kitsch-Nitsch.com (Smetnjak)

Dresscode is not zombie, but nation!

Entree fee:

before midnight: 7 euros.

students, dress-code, with flyer: 8 euros

everybody else: 10 euros
http://www.klubk4.org/?subpageid=1&contid=384

And here are some videos, to get a taste of his music:

The first video is Gizmode. I actually saw the dancers from this video at one show in Tokyo. They were supporting the pop/electro pop singer Tigarah. It was really funny when I saw this video later on and I went: Oh, those guys! And I also saw them a few weeks later on the street in Harajuku. Small world:)

The next video is for Kernkraft 400, I played the remix of this song when I deejayed for the very first time, because my favorite DJ at that time had it in her mix and I wanted to be like her. She was so unbelievably cool and pretty, well she still is but I wouldn't necessarily play her songs again, even though she is still my biggest inspiration.

And the latest Zombie Nation's project ZZT (together with Tiga):

Come and play:)

Explosions in my head

Last month I met Katarina. She is an AGRFT (Academy of Theater, Radio, Movie and Television) student and had a project to do for her school: a portrait of a person she doesn't know. We saw each other before at some gigs but never really met so she asked me if I could help. Sure, why not:)

First we went for a coffee to Kino Šiška, then we had a tea at my place and then again a coffee by Ljubljanica. We talked a lot and she took photos- the point of her work was to present different interpretations of me just by changing the order of the photos.

In this blog I don't want to present just photos from our shooting, but also Katarina's other work. You can find her under the name Kukla Kesherovich (or Katarina Kesherovich or Katarina Rešek) and you can check out her photography on: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kesherovich/.

She also has a musical project Napravi Mi Dete. It's funny that I was a big fan of hers even before I knew who she was. I saw her videos months ago and I thought they're really cool. Check them out!

Lions and Zebras

Here are some photos from our gig in Kino Udarnik in Maribor: N'toko, PlankTon and me as DJs, BeatMyth as live act and we had Koala from Trajna again to do the awesome visuals. Thanks to Srđan and everybody else at Kino Udarnik, and thanks to the photographer Nejc Ketiš, you can find more of his work on: http://cargocollective.com/shine

(the last photo is by Žan Lebe)

Safari vol.2

On Safari's second edition we will host New Wave Syria, one of my favorite Slovenian indie bands. As it's written on their Myspace: "Analogue synthesizers, DIY philosophy and circuit bending were the main influences that had a strong impact on their music. These influences lead them into circuit bending and creating of unique musical instruments, some of which they use in their music. New Wave Syria’s approach is closer to rock’n’roll rather than the typical electronic and DJ scene. When making music and performing live they use various synthesizers, drum machines and other electronic gadgets."

I'm really honored to have them at our event. DJ team Mad Vada will take care of the warming up and PlankTon, N'toko and me for the after party:)

V drugi ediciji Safarija se bosta DJ formaciji PlankTon/N'toko/Zana pridružila New Wave Syria, za ogrevanje pa bosta poskrbela DJ duo Mad Vada!

Kdaj: četrtek 17. november od 22.00. do 4.00
Kje: Klub Gromka, Metelkova, Ljubljana

LivE:

New Wave Syria:

Rok.√
Urša.√
Ritem mašine.√
Analogni sinti.√
Distorzirani vokali.√
Hudi komadi.√

(www.myspace.com/newwavesyria)

DjS:

PlankTon (www.soundcloud.com/djplankton)

N'toko (www.soundcloud.com/ntoko)

Zana (www.soundcloud.com/zanacaroline)

Mad Vada: future garage. bass. electronica.

VisualS:

Koala (Trajna) (www.eurocrem.co.cc)


Vstopnina: 3evre

Come and play:)

Safari goes to Maribor

Next week our Safari crew is taking a trip to Maribor. We will host a party on November 12th in Kino Udarnik. We'll repeat Safari vol.1's formation that we had in Ljubljana in September. Live act: BeatMyth. DJs: PlankTon, N'toko, Zana. Visuals: Trajna. Come and play!

 SAFARI

DJ crew.

N'toko, PlankTon, Zana.

Rolamo muziko, ki bi jo radi v klubih slišali več.

Preferiramo novo, svežo produkcijo.

In komade, ki so namenjeni plesu.

Electro. House. Breakbeat. Techno. Hip Hop.

Živi nastopi elektronskih glasbenikov.

More= More.

https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Safari/212922772101558?sk=wall 

SAFARI GOES TO MARIBOR

12. november 2011.

Kino Udarnik.

štart: 22.00

Live act:

BeatMyth

http://soundcloud.com/beatmyth

DJs:

PlankTon

http://www.soundcloud.com/djplankton

N'toko

http://www.soundcloud.com/ntoko

Zana

http://www.soundcloud.com/zanacaroline

Visuals:

Koala (Trajna)

http://www.eurocrem.co.cc/

Po premierni predstavitvi v Klubu Gromka se ekipa Safarija tako z DJ seti kot tudi z live actom seli v Maribor. BeatMyth je avtorski projekt DJ PlankTona in Mike-a Preetersa z N'tokom na vokalu. V Udarniku bosta PlankTon in N'toko predstavila tako nekaj materiala iz lanskega albuma "Your Own Two Heads" (http://beatmyth.bandcamp.com/album/your-own-two-heads ) kot tudi še neizdane pesmi.

Funky India

Many people is asking me why do I keep returning to India. Is it yoga? Spirituality? Food? I found a sentence that I can use as an answer just a few days ago in the book I'm reading for the third time this year. 

"If we were to calculate the average time per day different populations of the world spend smiling, Indians would rank top of the list." (Patric Levy)

And since smiling is contagious, India is a nice place to be.

And if you look closer to India's great movie/ music/ marketing production, you can get at least a glimps of why this nation is so funky. Here is just a few examples that always makes me laugh and remind me why I love India so much. Enjoy:)

First video is the ultimate movie scene in the world! Action at it's best!

Another brilliant action scene, even better then The Terminator. It's worth your time for sure. In the land of mystics and superpowers, everything is possible.

Let's stick to the superheroes. Indian Superman? Indian Spiderwoman?

Well, the next superhero has to be Indian Michael Jackson.

Love. Life. Death. Eternity. Super funny commercial video that includes some ethnological education as well.

And of course let's not forget Benny Lava, a superhero of dance. Maybe this is the funkiest song in the world and it dangerously raises the level of happy hormones. Be aware:)

But Indian superheroes don't live just on big screens. They are real. This is the video of a flying yogi, filmed in Tiruvannamalai. He flies like a rocket:) Even better than Superman. 

While I was working on this blog entry, I realised something. It is about spirituality. As Swami Sivananda said: "A good sense of humor is a sign of spititual growth." And of course, all these superheros... How did they attain their powers? It must be yoga:)

Tokyo indie part 3

And this is the third part of a video selection of my favorite bands from the Tokyo indie scene. Check the following links to see the first two parts. http://zanacaroline.blogspot.com/2011/10/tokyo-indie-part-1.html, http://zanacaroline.blogspot.com/2011/10/tokyo-indie-part-2.html

Many compare Puffy Shoes with their more famous sempais Afrirampo. But some songs remind me of Coco Rosie, which is quiet the opposite. A wonderful band to watch. And it always amused me how one of the girls' boyfriend looks exactly like my ex roommate Rok. How can the same face appear on the other side of the world? I guess it's true that we all have doubles somewhere...

I don't know how long Milla and the Geeks exist but I got the impression that they are the new hot thing in town, since everybody talks about them with so much excitement. New or old, they are hot:)

She talks silence is two cool girls, sometimes described as bedroom pop or fuzzy garage rock. I've seen them a few times and it was always brilliant. 

I've only seen Tacobonds play together with Acid Mothers Temple in this crazy psychedelic jam session and they seemed cool. But then I heard this song and I fell in love with it. You hear it once and it sticks to your head and gives you this melancholic but kind of happy feeling. Like autumn or something... 

Anisakis describe their music as alternative noise. Another very inspiring band. And this video is worth your time for sure:)

Frap Frap Fraps is DJ Mince's band. Their music is a chaotic mix of rock and electro. Mince on the guitar and programing and two girls. Cool singer and a cute tiny keyboard player (the previous one was called Petit and the new one is even tinier, but wears super platformed shoes- I really like both of them).

See you at Praha Depart's concert in Slovenia:)

Tokyo indie part 2

This is a second part of the video collection of my favorite Tokyo bands, just before Praha Depart gig in Ljubljana on Thursday. You can find the first part here: http://zanacaroline.blogspot.com/2011/10/tokyo-indie-part-1.html

Otocompo is a true indie boy band. With indie boys dressed in sailors. What is more perverted than that? Anyway, it's an amazing band to watch: almost like a live cartoon with songs, for example, a cover of Radioactivity by Kraftwerk- very up to the date music basically:)

Plasticzooms is a band that inspired me and my friends to form a goth band called RavensChurch. We don't have any songs yet, just the titles for them and for the album. Watch out for it, I guess it's coming out next summer when I return to Tokyo to do some recordings:) It's gonna be awesome and even more 80's than Trinitron!

Bo Ningen is a band that is currently situated in London. They are an interesting mixture of what I imagine Japanese ghost stories and Blair witch project. A Japanese band with long black hair playing 'seventies' stone rock- that's my thing!

The Mornings are just awesome. They're one of the craziest bands I've seen live. They would start their gig with stage diving (even at 5.pm if necessary) and would often hurt themselves physically but still stay happy and crazy until the end.

Safari is a band with an amazing actor Asano Tadanobu on vocals. I've seen them only once but it was so hardcore, the greatest mash up in my life. I started in the front row but I had to move far back in order not to get hurt. And we thought the band's  name is so cool that we stole it for our Dj event in Ljubljana:)

Hyacca is another great band that knows how to rock (without the smooth). They're from Kyushu but have a record label in Tokyo. This girl is so tiny but she always reminds me on a quote from my shampoo: "Enough raw energy to power a small city!"

That's it for the second part. One more to come.

Tokyo indie part 1

I'm all fired up about Praha Depart, this truly amazing band from Tokyo coming to Slovenia this week. They're playing two shows here, one in Ljubljana on October 20th and one in Maribor on the 22nd. Then they're off for a European tour together with N'toko. If you have time, please check them out. Irresistible gipsy punk? A Japanese band with Eastern European aesthetics? It's even better than it sounds:)

All this excitement about them playing in Slovenia makes me a bit nostalgic about Tokyo indie scene. I saw so many great bands when I was there, bands that will probably never be heard outside of Japan (with a few exceptions).  So, thinking about them, listening to their music over and over again, watching my poor quality videos from the gigs, I decided to make a blog entry with some videos of my favorite bands that I've seen play in the live venues of Koenji, Shimo- Kitazawa, Shinjuku and other cool parts of Tokyo. Not much words, just videos. In three parts. And there will be nothing objective in the post, just a tribute to the bands that I like.  If you want to read more about these bands and the gigs we've been to, please visit N'toko's old blog on Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/ntoko/blog

First: Praha Depart and my favorite song by them, it always gives me the chills.

Andersens are the band I think I've listen to the most of all bands in the last few years. Their music reminds me of Koenji, probably my favorite place in the world (besides Varanasi an Sentjernej, of course).  Small bizarre venues in Koenji where they played... My house in Koenji where I played their records on repeat every morning... My friend Ian said Onozaki-san (the leader of the band) is the best song writer in Japan. Well, I think so too:)

Melt Banana are not just a local band, they're world famous and we even had a chance to see them in Ljubljana about a year ago. They are AWESOME, the singer is so charismatic and the shows are pure punk!

Acid mothers temple were the first Japanese gig that I've seen in my life, that was in Ljubljana in 2004. Well, apparently it changed my life:) I went to their concert a few month ago (Enban summer Jamboree in Shibuya) and it was crazy. The gig turned into a bizarre hippy black magic freak out: Kawabata-san burned his guitar and destroyed it into pieces, the guitar's neck flew directly into my head, yes, rock'n'roll can be dangerous:) But I still keep that piece of guitar, it's one of my favorite souvenirs from Japan:) (oh, just a note- they're not from Tokyo, but from Nagoya)

Boris is another band that is more famous out side of Japan than at home. But they had a great crowd at the gig that I've been to. Doom/stone/grunge/rock/pop/metal something. Unique. Dark and fascinating.

That's it for this post, there's more to come soon!

Freak

There is an interview with me in a Japanese magazine Hiragana Times. Felicity Hughes talked to me about my love for Japanese music. Since this is a topic I can talk about for hours, the interview appeared in a shortened version. It tells the basics: I started liking Japanese music when I heard Otomo Yoshihide and Hikashu on Slovenian Radio Student, later on I became a dedicated fan of Boredoms, when I came to Tokyo, I got into the city's indie and club scene. Praha Depart, Andersens and Nakata Yasutaka are top shit:)

That's not my name

There was a photo of me in a Slovenian magazine Mladina, in the street style section.

Well, that's not my name!

In the wild

Some photos by Peter Giodani from Safari vol.1 in Gromka, 15th Oktober 2011. DJs PlankTon, N'toko and me, live act Beatmyth, visuals Trajna. It was fun:)