Tokyo Thursdays Live Again!

Tokyo Star is welcoming in a revival of Tokyo Thursdays - and if the rad music last night wasn't enough to prove there has been a revolution, then this interview with one of our fave DJs, Sassquatch, will! Read on:


1.What’s the idea behind the Tokyo Thursday night revival?

The idea behind the revival is to start breaking Thursday's up into two month blocks. Each Thursday of the block will be uniquely themed with guest DJs brought in to match the sound of the night. There'll be special visuals for every night as well as dress-up themes, decor, giveaways, performances and drinks specials on certain nights.

2.What do you want to achieve with it?
When I started coming to Thursday nights way back in old 2005 they were hands down the coolest weekly party I had ever seen. There weren't as many people as there are now and the dancefloor was a lot smaller, but there was the coolest, friendly vibe between everybody, kids made such effort to dress up and the dancefloor used to rock so hard.

Nowadays Tokyo Thursdays are still the best weekly party to go out and dance to disco-punk/ indie-dance/ electro-rock kinda stuff, but it has started feeling more and more like the nights aren't what they used to be. A lot of the cool kids have stopped coming because there seem to be a lot of people there who aren't really interested in what's going on and would be happier dancing to Rhianna or Christina.What we wanna achieve is to take Thursday nights back, make every week exciting and different and get kids really amped by dressing up and going out dancing on Thursday nights!

3.What do you love most about Tokyo Star?

Seeing Greg smile, hahaha!

Seriously though it really is all about the people and the vibe of the place. It's great that there's cool decor, a fast bar and a nice spacious dancefloor with good sound, but I wouldn't love partying at Tokyo so much if the people that make Tokyo Tokyo weren't there.

4.What can we look forward to over the next few weeks on a Thursday night?

The "Electo! Electro!" party on the 28th of Feb is definitely gonna be one to look forward to if only becuase The King Of Town is gonna be playing Tokyo for the first time in almost a year.The night I'm most excited about has to be the 6th of March which will be the launch party for the music videos that Kidofdoom and Desmond and The Tutus have been working on for the past few months. The videos (which have a connected storyline) will be screened at midnight, plus Shane from the Tutus will be DJing one on one with Data Takashi and Joe from Kidofdoom will be going head to head with me - it's gonna be one crazy night!

5. Any cool give-aways we should know about?

Yeah we'll have two huge nights of give-aways between February and March!

The first will be the "Ke Ai, Japan Pops!" night on the 21st of Feb where if you dress up asian style you'll get a free goodie bag from Ke Ai.

The other big giveaway night is on the 13th of March. This cool indie band from the US called Redflecks are gonna be throwing a really rad party to start off thier South African tour. They'll be performing some live remixes of their songs as well as giving out 50 copies of thier EP! It's gonna be an awesome night.

6.When did you first realize you had a DJ living inside you?

Hahaha! I dunno, I guess from a very young I age I knew I had a dancer living inside me, but I don't know if I ever realized I'd be good at making other people dance with me!

7.What is rock n roll music to you?

Rock music is music that breaks rules and makes you wanna do the same.

8.Who is Ben the DJ?

Sassquatch!

9.What’s the one most essential item to take with when going out for a night on the town?

Dancing shoes!

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It's photo time again!

Blane Venter

Gordon Lindsay

Ryan Dick

Tyron Janse van Vuuren

Blane Venter

What do you think of these pics? Leave us a comment...

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This week’s movie review is of the drama “Martian Child”.

Plot?
A science-fiction writer, recently widowed, considers whether to adopt a hyper-imaginative 6-year-old abandoned and socially rejected boy who says he's really from Mars. “The story of a man becoming a father...and a boy becoming a son.”

Rating?
8 out of 10

Feel good?
A touching movie, without being too cheesy – even the guys liked this one! The little boy drew us in and held our attention as he desperately tried to find his place on earth, and come out of his ‘box’.

Surprises?
Unlike many other movies in which a man is widowed, this one doesn’t end up focusing on his healing through finding another lover. Instead of a romantic embrace between man and woman, this movie ends on an embrace of understanding and trust between a father and son who’ve finally come to accept each other.

Pet hates?
Joan Cusack playing John Cusack’s sister in the movie. Her role (as always) was over-done, type-cast and predictable. Any other B-grade actress could have filled her role without drawing so much attention onto herself.

And?

The film is not burdened with too much subplot or extraneous emotional scenes, however it still gives you the chance to form a connection with the characters, and see the fantastic connection between man and boy develop. "They are the same, though different in that one is grounded in reality and the other up in Mars some where. Both are individuals in a world that doesn't want different, they want everyone to do exactly as they are expected to." (http://www.imdb.com/)

What did you think of this movie? Post us a comment and let us know!