Ged Carroll

Category: culture | 文明 | 미디어와 예술 | 人文

Culture was the central point of my reason to start this blog. I thought that there was so much to explore in Asian culture to try and understand the future.

Initially my interest was focused very much on Japan and Hong Kong. It’s ironic that before the Japanese government’s ‘Cool Japan’ initiative there was much more content out there about what was happening in Japan. Great and really missed publications like the Japan Trends blog and Ping magazine.

Hong Kong’s film industry had past its peak in the mid 1990s, but was still doing interesting stuff and the city was a great place to synthesise both eastern and western ideas to make them its own. Hong Kong because its so densely populated has served as a laboratory of sorts for the mobile industry.

Way before there was Uber Eats or Food Panda, Hong Kongers would send their order over WhatsApp before going over to pay for and pick up their food. Even my local McDonalds used to have a WhatsApp number that they gave out to regular customers. All of this worked because Hong Kong was a higher trust society than the UK or China. In many respects in terms of trust, its more like Japan.

Korea quickly became a country of interest as I caught the ‘Korean wave’ or hallyu on its way up. I also have discussed Chinese culture and how it has synthesised other cultures.

More recently, aspect of Chinese culture that I have covered has taken a darker turn due to a number of factors.

  • Free party clampdown

    An old clubbing pal of mine from Birkenhead Si forwarded on this interesting article in the Western Morning News. According to the article police are preparing to use the wide ranging powers of the Anti Social Behaviour Act 2003 to clamp down on unauthorised open-air gatherings – a free party; in conjunction with provisions already made by sections 63 – 67 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. With its definition of music as an emission of a succession of repetitive beats, thus allowing unscheduled opera performances but not young peoples music.

    While I can understand people’s concerns over noise; I am more concerned about the right to associate, freedom of expression (by speech, music or visual media) and the two standards allowed in the law making free party attendees second-class citizens.

    And politicians wonder why so many voters are apathetic?

    May it have something to do with:

    • the persistent erosion of voters rights?
    • a lack of clear differentiation between many of the social policies of both major political parties?
    • legislation that no longer represents the social mores of much of the electorate?
    • a collectively small amount of life experience amongst professional politicians, the significant majority of which are trained lawyers?
    • a cynical political process that means that politicians go after softer targets rather than dealing with the big policing issues in the UK, such as organised crime, rise in violent crime, white collar and corporate crime?

    Si also generously included a link to lots of information on where there might be a local free party here, just remember its free as in speech; the parties do cost money to put on. More culture related posts here.

  • Donkey Bong and other curios

    I’ve had a number of links sent to me that were too good not to share with you all: Donkey Bong, Graff Jewellery, PBS on porn and more.

    Donkey Bong

    JoeCartoon clogged up many networks in the late 90’s with his un-PC and puerile flash animations, creating characters like the Cheech & Chong ‘Stoned Fly’ and Gerbill. The most memorable animations like the frog in the blender and gerbil in the microwave allowed office workers to unleash the passive sadism that lies beneath us all and put the phrase Who’s ya Daddy? into popular English usage. His work has defined what a viral campaign is. He is back with another dollop of surreal weirdness and ultraviolence in Donkey Bong. More on it here.

    Graff Jewellery

    No not Graff – the most fabulous jewels in the world, but graffiti enabled by the reverse setting on a diamond ring by Tobias Wong. Get caught making use of your ring to make your mark on the world by tagging car and train windows, luscious pearlescent paint work on a TVR or your boss’ computer screen. You can see Tobias’ diamond project here.

    PBS On Adult Entertainment industry

    OK, we are currently pitching for a UK-based adult entertainment orientated television channel and web site, this this website designed to complement a PBS Frontline documentary on the adult entertainment industry was useful for research into the business . Seriously though, looking at this, there are some scary people out there, interesting facts – a starlet in the industry has an average career lifespan of just 12 months. Sombre, disturbing and yet compelling reading here. Glamourous like Boogie Nights it ain’t.

    Supercharged Records

    Email text from Supercharged Records: “Click on the link below to hear an exclusive preview of all the tracks from the forthcoming Freestylers ‘Raw As F**k’ album!

    Turn audio off on the front page and click on ‘album info’ and then ‘preview album’

    http://www.thefreestylers.com/

    We would also like to take this opportunity to say thank you to all of you how have purchased Push Up. Thank you!

    The album is out in the UK on the 5th July, contact you local record store to pre-order a copy!”

    More culture related posts here.

  • Sleeping problem

    Japan has a sleeping problem. On the face of it, you might think that the sleeping problem was that people were getting too much sleep. It is a high trust society, so you occasionally see drunks safely left alone where they are to sleep. A drunken salary man can rent a catacomb like sleeping capsule to crash out, if they can’t make it home. You see people sleeping on the commuter train in the morning.

    But that is only half the story of sleep in Japan. In a society famous for its neon cities, long office hours, high stress levels and horrendous commutes. Since the start of the economic miracle there were some who indulged in even more methamphetamine abuse than an Australian roadtrain driver. And some parents enroll offspring in cramming programmes for infant schoolchildren.

    You may expect insomnia to be a problem. You’d be right.

    Its also big business, Matsushita (the mega-corp behind Panasonic, Technics and JVC) will be launching later this year a ‘sleeping room package’ that consists of a plasma screen TV, a tricked-out bed and ambient sound recordings. This is expected to sell for about 20,000 GBP.

    In the UK we have an assortment of reality TV shows to send us to sleep. For more Japan related content click here.

  • Flying Records recommendations

    Over the past few weeks I have ignored shopping for new vinyl as I have managed my house move.I got a rare opportunity to go over to Flying Records in Soho and found a few great tracks across genres.  To correct the lack of music on this blog, I have a few Flying Records recommendations:

    – Chez Damier – Spiritual Warefare v.1 Trackmode competent well produced mellow house with mellow R&B lyrics, good but no cigar

    – Double U – Secret Love Sonar Kollectiv – great deep track with Moni Love type sassy New York vocal samples over a tribal beat that would have felt right at home in the Sound Factory

    – J Rocc / Steinski – Ain’t no thing / Say ho Stones Throw – not a new track but an excellent re-release. Cut-and-paste production pioneer Steinski complemented with old school block party lyrics. No Bentleys, no Lex coupés, no bling, just dope lyrics and amazing production. This is based on hip-hop made in Connecticut from 1979 to 1983. J Rocc and Steinski made their own cut-up montage. The whole project was produced by Stones Throw’s Peanut Butter Wolf.

    I slaved away in the listening booth so that you didn’t have to!

    2020 update: Flying Records like much of the well loved independent records shops in Soho no longer exists. Founder Charlie Chester was responsible for a good deal of London’s club life in the 1990s and was a key promoter of the British scene in Ibiza. By the time I shopped there as a regular, the internet had taken off, but the shop still had a great mix of vinyl and highly knowledgeable shop managers. Something that Amazon haven’t managed to synthesise yet. Dean Thatcher was also involved and the shop logo was used on a short lived sub label for Cooltempo then owned by Chrysalis. The sole release on the label was a remix of an Ian Dury & The Blockheads song. Thatcher & Chester formed the early progressive house record label Cowboy Records.

  • Dance Music Industry

     Many dance music labels have closed down, particularly those owned by the majors like Strictly Rhythm and Credence. Cream runs festivals and restaurants rather than clubs and looks to Latin America and Eastern Europe for growth, Home is looking to be let out as retail space and the giant screen on the side of the building sits there in darkness

    – Young people are listening to rock now, yes they are but they also have varied taste – which is why dance music festivals are doing well

    – People want live music, the amount of live music venues in the UK dropped way below what it should have done and it is good to see it come back

    – People want R&B, R&B has always been popular

    – The dance music scene has stagnated, much of it has and UK record labels have been guilty of churning out more rubbish than most. The mash-up is a classic sign of creative bankruptcy in the industry and Hoxton’s tastes do not play well thoughout the rest of the UK. I cannot remember the last record I bought from a UK label, I suspect it was probably this time last year. I have however, kept buying imported records from the US and Europe

    – US labels like Nervous, Guidance or even going back to Trax Records and DJ International, survived in a hostile home market by selling abroad, why can’t the UK labels

    -US labels on the west coast are surviving an onslaught on to their scene by police using draconian crack house laws to shut the parties down and send organisers to jail for ten years, they are still making good music and selling records worldwide successfully

    – Young people are drinking and not doing drugs: that’s why cocaine seizures are up, MDMA is plentiful and cheap

    There are labels that are thriving: Defected is licensing American content from the likes of Miguel Migs. While there is much of the input like Junior Jack that is not my cup of tea you have to hand it Simon Dunmore that he is managing to walk the line between quality and commercial success for his label

    AATW – all around the world. A label based in Blackburn, Lancs that realised what Pete Waterman discovered twenty years ago. You can run a record label on single sales. Like Pete Waterman the records are well produced tat that know their target market really well. They are down market and the listeners are disparaged as ‘Northern Pill Monkeys‘ by London based record executives, and their acts are criticised as ‘a plumber with a tired lap dancer’ but they are getting out there and buying the singles.

    I personally don’t believe that you have to provide customers with a ‘crap’ product, that a well crafted one will sell, but you have to know your marketplace. Many of the tastemakers within the industry have lost sight of that and need to move on.

    One person that seems to have it right (all be it on a small scale) is my friend Nick Lawrence’s label Altered Vibes that has gone from strength to strength by not compromising on quality and developing its artists. Something that is hard to do when the majors like EMI are dropping 30 per cent of their rostered artists in one fell swoop and putting less and less each year into development. More media industry related posts here.