T-Tune T-House

Thanks to all who showed up for the slideshow at NAC last night. I was suprised and very happy to see so many people turn out to watch me show a few photos! A lot of foriegn faces showed up as well, which made me wonder if I should do my talking in Japanese or English of both…. Ended up doing the whole things in Japanese, so very sorry if some couldn’t understand what I was talking about. Have only done this slideshow style presentation a few times so I am still trying to work the bugs out, but it is a lot of fun. I used my very old slide projector and even showed a bunch of my old family photos that were given to me by my Mother.

As always I don’t have any photos from the event itself, I was too busy talking/setting up/DJing etc.,

After the event I ended up visiting Takeda (T-Tune) house and crashing on his sofa. A classic Niseko style vacation house that was built about 30 years ago. It had a lot of local flavor so I snapped a few photos to share with you here.

Check it out the movie selection at T-House, TB2, and Sapporo Classic beer!

Hayato and Yamauchi thanks to those guys for coming to every single event!  Appreciate the support guys!

The drive home this morning was quite nasty.  It was raining or snowing most of the way.  A slushy layer of crap was on  the roads and made the drive a swerving style affair.  My trusty camper was not liking it very much at all.

 

Many thanks

Many thanks to everyone who came out for the Blueblood 10th anniversary party on Monday night.  Great turn out and a lot of people picked up a copy of my book, Bluetiful,  which made me feel good.  I was too busy to take many photos, but here are a few.

Check out the festival type set up that was created for the event.  Tents with store windows.  Free curry, drinks and more.

Thanks to all who came out to buy a copy of the book.   It was fun to sit and chat with you all and hear what you think about the book.

Since it rained on Monday, the Blueblood team riders made a dash to buy the tarps seen below.  It worked out to be the perfect set up.  The rain was pretty light right up until the end when a sudden downpour came.  The tarps saved the day and made the party.

The peak of the party, I never even got to eat the curry!

Big thanks to Higashida Tomohiro for the live performance!  As always he made the crowd one!

Next afternoon in Shibuya from the 7th floor of the Tower Records building.

Tower is selling “BLUETiFUL” right alongside my Car Danchi series, very close to the register, check it out if you are in the Shibuya area.

Thanks to Matsuoka for a nice interview, which will be coming out in the street mag Hidden Champion next month!

On a final note, this is what happens to good people after drinking  too much Tequila!  The after party on Monday night got a little out of hand and we emptied three bottles of Tequila.  The casualties were two guys passed out and Mino Yuusuke pictured below wearing a jacket he should not have on for a photo session!

Tokyo TNF Fall Winter

In Tokyo now for the Fall Winter product showing that The North Face Japan is putting on right now in Harajuku.

The recently opened STANDARD store in Harajuku is being used as the location for the product exhibition.  This is by far my favorite North Face store in Japan.  Earthy, cool, lots of wood used in the design.  Product look great and are easy to find and the space works really well for events like this collection.   Check it out next time you are in Harajuku.  They are selling my photo-T there as well right now!  Yoroshiku!

In the evening after the product showing a nice crowd gathered in the Press Room for a showing of the cult climbing film El Capitan.  Filmed in 1968 it follows three climbers as they make there way up El Capitan in Yosemite.  Was great to watch this rare film from a wonderful period in history.  The innocence and purity from the late 60′s and early 70′s is well captured in the movie.  Check out Paper Sky magazine for more info on this film and the story behind it.  I came away feeling refreshed and excited to get to work on my own film projects.

Hirayama Yuji was a guest and chatted to the crowd after the event.  He recently climbed El Capitan in a world record time of less than 3 hours!  The guys in 1968 took three days to climb the same face.  Progression!

TNF Standard Reception

A few more shots from the reception.

The crowd overflowing at the end of the party

Full Moon opening

I had forgotten about the full moon until @DaisukeOguchi mentioned it last night during the opening of the new North Face store.  The last two weeks have been a whirl wind of activity and work and it all seemed to come to a head last night at the opening.  The turn out was great, lots of people there to check out the new store and I was super busy trying to capture photos and video of the store and the reception.  I don’t know if the company staff actually planned to have the opening on the full moon or not but it worked out perfectly.  There was certainly a lot of powerful vibration in the air.

The mini concert session with Kuniyuki and Itabashi-san (Jazz Pianist) was impressive.  They completely ad-libbed two songs and then did a third from Kuniyuki’s new album.

DJ Muro was spinning records, the first time I have heard him play.  Also very good, you can feel his experience speaking through his volume control and song selection.  Also great to see someone committed to using vinyl!  Love the analog records!

Here are some photos I shot of the store.  I cropped all photos to 6×6 size to fit with the theme of the store.  ”Standard”

The 4th floor gallery space

First floor counter and stock boxes

Tent and gear display for the opening reception

The Standard tag that come with all products sold in the store.

The coolest fitting room on the planet.  Only two in the world both made for this store. 100% Gore-Tex zipper opening fitting room.

All the product display rack were custom built for the store.

Third floor rack.

Entrance views

Nagano Fundays

Spent the day traveling with a headache and some stomac pain yesterday, seems like a stomac cold is going around.  A few people told me they had the same thing recently…

Anyway arrived in Nagano, Tsugaikei in preparation for the Blueblood “Fundays” event happening this coming weekend.  Will be shooting in Tsugaike until the 18th!  Stop by for the event and riding session on Saturday and or Sunday.  The whole Blueblood crew will be there!

HF live in Tokyo

Was able to catch HF live in Tokyo on Friday night.  Nice acoustic set kicking off a month long tour he is doing around Japan.  Snapped off a couple of pics while I was there.

Also caught up with AK who I have not seen for a while!  Here he is seen through the Olympus Pen camera.

Also big up to Deka-Jun who I have not seen for too long either.

Next level Google street View

UK Snow Film Fest

Big thanks to Ben the crew who put on the UK Snow Film Fest recently.  They were kind enough to include Car Danchi 4 in the line up along with major movies like “Black Winter” by Standard Films.  Apparently Car Danchi 4 was well received by the crowd, check out what Ben has to say about the event.

“The UK SNOW FILM FEST took place last week, and the 2 nights were a huge success with a turn out of over 250 people on the night of Car Danchi and I have to say it went down a HUGE SUCCESS!! Car Danchi 4 RENT stole the show from Standard films and Alterna!  After the film finished we had a rush of people asking where they can buy a copy, and the hand outs you gave me were gone within 5 minutes. I think Brighton was the Ideal crowd for Car Danchi’s first EU screening, as its known as a bit of an arty city, and I think the audience really appreciated the artistic vibe of the movie.”

Check out some pictures from the evening.  Next year I hope I can make it over to check out this event and the Brighton crowd!

Niseko rocks!

Car Danchi and “Signatures” showing in Niseko went down on Saturday night at the Hilton!  Fantastic crowd of over 200 showed up for the event and the reaction was great!  At least half of the crowd was non-Japanese, and there was a great mix of long time locals and seasonal staff.

Big thanks to all the staff involved at Hilton and the Niseko promotion board for making things happen!  The extra shuttle buses back to Hirafu made a big difference in getting people to stay for the after party!

Somebody getting some air off of the pure action set up in the main hall.  The jump was set up for the first hour before the showing, it was great to see everybody going for it throwing back flips etc.,

Here you can see how big the room is, massive space.

The screen the seats and lots of people

The Car Danchi crew on stage saying hi.

My first time DJing in a long time.  Thanks to “Apres Bar” for the last minute loan of the turntables.  Was fun to play some records for the crowd.

Bar Ezo at the Hilton, great location overlooking the bottom chair lift.  Saturday was opening day for the bar as well.

Big thanks to Kei for these great photos!  Well that is the end of our promotion tour for Car Danchi 4!  It is now time to start the whole process over again.  Got to get out the camera and snowboard gear and start getting ready to make number 5, the final installment in the Car Danchi series.  Hope to see you at a showing next year!