Hi, Heather again. 

I’m going to try and make reports on all the major events I go to each month 

Last Sunday was SEF Delux and it was the 4th anniversary special.  I think it was Alex who made a comment recently about how SEF lives in the present and I think that’s very true.  SEF itself has been around for ages, but they’re only celebrating the 4 years since SEF Gold became SEF Delux.  On the other hand, Starfire also has an anniversary this month, their 11th anniversary.  Starfire has changed venues countless times but it’s always continued as Starfire.  They keep a lot of connection to their past, ie always mentioning Twinstar. I think it’s good that they remember where they’ve come from.  But I guess SEF does things a little differently.

SEF had a prize raffle as part of the anniversary celebration.  I’ve never won anything in any of these raffles(;_;)  They gave out two bags of avex goods(avex logo hand towels etc), two bottles of champagne, free entry to SEF for a year(I wanted this!) and a trip for two to a hot springs resort in Hakone(this would be nice too but I don’t have anyone to go with  ;_;) But that was the only special thing they did for the anniversary event. 

Starfire is doing a raffle at their anniversary event as well and I love the Starfire raffles because the dancers bring personal items from home to give away haha.  But I heard that Starfire might be giving out a one year pass that lets you get into Starfire for 1000 yen.  That would be nice.  Starfire always goes all out for their anniversary – performances, special guests, etc.  I’m looking forward to it.

There was a good turnout for SEF this month.  Recently SEF has been turning into a gyaru circle hangout place because Uga invites all his gal circle friends.  9LoveJ used to be the place to see drunk teenage gyarus but no one goes to 9LoveJ anymore. 

The lessons this month were:
WHEELPOWER AND GO! / DEJO & BON
Ecstasy / EROTIC

SEF is so serious when they teach the lessons.  Uga was a little bit late getting on stage when it was time for the euro lesson and Yano chewed him out on stage… >_<  And they’re so meticulous when they go through the song with the count.  Starfire lesson time is more like watching a stand up comedy routine. 

After the lesson they had tequila matsuri time, which is when they give out free tequila shots to everyone.  I never make it through SEF sober what with the tequila matsuri and the evil bartender who makes my drinks 90% tequila and 10% orange. >_<

Next month SEF is on the last Sunday of the month which means the big 3 events are all back to back in one big parapara weekend. Sounds tiring, especially on the liver!

I don’t know if these reports make sense to people who have not experienced paraibe in Japan but I hope they are somewhat informative and interesting. ^^ 

coming up next:  Starfire 11th anniversary report!

DNS vol. 4
Air date: 2/17/11

Tonight’s special was BEST OF 2010 and DIMA.

There’s been a lot of controversy lately over the shift SEB has been taking in lowering its BPMs.
This time I wanted to see how well those songs deal in a setting alongside parapara-style tracks.
A few don’t work very well, but the majority of the tracks seem to fit right in when adjusted.
Almost as if they were meant to be faster.
Maybe my ears are fatigued by high-speed BPMs now!

To help push Dima’s digital release campaign, one of tonight’s sets included his most popular from the last few years.
The label is currently publishing unreleased, previously released, and original versions of tracks, all in extended format on popular download services such as iTunes and Juno Download.

1. David Dima – Yoko (Extended Version)
2. Max Zero – Loved In Tokyo (Extended Version)
3. Dream Fighter – Stormbringer (Extended Version)
4. Big Warez – King Of Samurai (Extended Version)
5. Aleky – Labyrinth of Love (Extended Version)
6. Judy Crystal – Tell Me Why (Extended Version)
7. Stephy – Speed Demon (Original Version)

This is definitely worth it for Yoko and Tell Me Why (if you weren’t around during music-master.tv) alone.
If you missed out on the stream but still want to hear Judy Crystal’s last known (I think?) track, Dima Music has samples, artist updates, and more on their FB page.

Read the rest of this entry »

Hi everyone, Heather here.   I’ve heard that people like reading reports about parapara events in Japan so I’m going to start putting event reports here. 

As I think you’ve all heard, last week avex held an event to promote the release of Super Eurobeat vol 210.  The three big parapara clubs (SEF, 9LoveJ, Starfire) came together and all together danced 210 songs nonstop on a live internet show broadcast on niconico douga (kind of like Japanese Youtube).   They had a similar event last year to promote SEB 200 but it was a much bigger scale this time. 

I was really happily surprised when the Starfire organizer Bancho invited me, Max and Jasmine to dance with the Starfire members in the niconico douga show!  It was definitely one of my to memories in Japan.

We got to go to avex headquarters and surprisingly you can just walk in.   In the waiting room each club had their own table  (J, SEF, Starfire) and the top dancers from each event were there. We were with Starfire of course.  Starfire’s team
was all three members of T-rrex, Hitoshi, Ke-tan, Harumi, Take, Negiko, Bancho and Piyokan. 

Choushu Koriki, the comedian who helped spark the 4th boom with his comedy act using Night of Fire, was there too and it’s always fun getting to see celebrities in person     It looks like he’s gained weight.  

Also, it was cool seeing all the work that goes on behind the scenes at nico douga.

The “nico nico dancers” also danced a few songs in the show but it was really kimoi.  Otakugei is scary stuff.

We were told to bring a costume for the filming.  SEF and J put a lot of work into their costumes but the Starfire people didn’t have much.  They had to stop at Donki on the way and buy outfits. The yellow aprons the girls wore were pretty cute. There were boxes of costumes there that you could choose from but they were all Juliana’s bodycon/avex race queen type outfits. The black sequin dress I wore was something I found there. I’m glad I wore that and not the maid outfit I brought.

SEF went first, then J, then Starfire was last. I was expecting SEF to be really well practiced and serious business but they were pretty casual about it. The viewers loved Luigi(Uga). (no wonder, he is pretty hot). 9LoveJ was super serious business. They were in the bathroom rehearsing all the songs on the list before they went on. Meanwhile Starfire started drinking at about 10pm haha.  It was true Starfire style as everyone was saying.  Hitoshi had Korean makkori and campari…campari shots made me want to die >_<

Harumi-san is so nice♥ Even though she’s a parapara veteran superstar she’s so friendly. She always says hi and when I took a picture with her she said “nakayoku shite kudasai.” I told her “Harumi-san daisuki” and she said “Everyone says that but they’re actually Satomi fans.” haha no I’m a Harumi fan really!

Shota (ex-waros) randomly showed up after hearing about the event online. Somehow he got stuck with the job of holding the sign in the back but he was pretty popular with the viewers. 

And speaking of ex-wltp members, Eri was there with Matsuno-san. I guess they’re still together, if that’s the right way of putting it. Eri looks better in person than she did on wltp. She seemed nice from the little bit I talked to her.

Starfire went on sometime after midnight I think. We had a Starfire team huddle before we went on and Bancho talked about how parapara is about having fun and that tonight is a chance to spread parapara to people outside of the scene. I think our set was very true to the Starfire spirit and it was so much fun. It was amazing dancing on the same stage as the professional Starfire dancers. I messed up so bad on so many songs.   After watching the videos from the show I realized a lot of things I need to improve about my dancing.   I was trying to smile while I danced but after seeing the video I actually wasn’t smiling much at all.  >_<But it was still amazing.

Max was super popular. The screen was full of people commenting “makkusu kitaa” haha

They interviewed the 3 of us gaijin but I rambled too much.   They asked how foreigners learn about parapara and I tried to explain about the Parapara Paradise game arcade but I was just rambling.   The viewers just wanted to see Max anyway so that’s ok. I have no idea what if any comments people made about me but it’s probably better that way.

For the last 5 songs everyone came on stage and danced together. The last song was Night of Fire with Choshu Koriki of course

Afterwards we signed SEB 210 posters and took a group photo. They said that a total of 90,000 people watched the event, compared to 30,000 for the SEB 200 event last year. That’s 3 times more, wow! Matsuno-san said that it’s thanks to Starfire. He said he really wanted to include Starfire in the SEB 200 event too but wasn’t allowed to (when avex and Starfire were not on good terms).  Also, SEB 210 sold out on amazon during the course of the show!

It was after 3am by the time we finished and 7A said that she was taking everyone to an izakaya for the after party. It was all courtesy of avex, nice. Everyone couldn’t fit into one room so we had a Starfire room and a non-Starfire room. We were sitting by Shintaro and it turned into English conversation hour. He has really good English which is cool, but after 6 years in Japan I’m really sick of having the “What Japanese food do you like?” conversation… At least no one made any comments about chopsticks :p It’s tough because being gaijin is what got us on the show I’m sure but I also want to be a person and not a side show act.

I’d say the show was a great success and thank you everyone who watched and took video.  I really hope that they have events like this more than once a year, and hopefully it can be used somehow to bring more attention to the parapara scene. 

DNS vol. 3

Air date: 2/2/2011

What better way to kick off National Aishuu Month than with loads of Elena Ferretti and Annerley Gordon

In preparation for the Bemani section, I had to wade through a gross amount of pseudobeat Konami lets pass as EUROBEAT in their games. It’s that generic sounding (as if eurobeat wasn’t enough already) “euro” that doesn’t -quite- carry the authenticity that SEB tracks do. I think out of all of the offenders, Akiba Koubou’s sound is the most believable (not including Y&Co.). That said, there’s still something about their music that rubs me the wrong way. Maybe it’s the fact that Nagisa gets the majority of their better produced tracks…or that their intros all sound the same synth-wise….or that they have the word AKIBA in their label’s name.

As usual, thanks to everyone that stopped by tinychat and took some time to listen to the stream! Your continued support keeps us going

Read the rest of this entry »

I know, I know, it’s technically not Friday anymore on the east coast. You wanna know what? It’s Friday someplace in the world, so I’m technically not late XD

What is Formspring Friday you may ask? Well, a lot of people have been doing it on their personal blogs. Formspring is another social networking thingie where you ask questions on a users profile, and then they answer them. So I decided to make one for Disco NRG. I spammed the link via our facebook fan page, twitter and Para-Center.

Some of these were pretty interesting, I look forward to seeing more of these in the future. Questions will be in bold pink text, with the answer in regular text. Please enjoy! I know I did! Haha!

Hi! Who’s gonna be answering these? are you gonna sign with your name? I’d like to see some questions answered by JAYZOO

Well for starters, me, Steve will be answering these. At least for now. If you want to ask a question specifically for J’s then go for it. I’m sure he’d love to answer them.

I’m getting ready for a convention in July and need so badly to lose weight! I heard that para para style dancing was really helpful, so I looked into it! What songs do you suggest I learn to lose the most weight??

First off, I have to say, I’m not really the one who should be answering this, since I’m pretty fat. I am in the same situation though, I’m over weight and I’m trying to not only lose some extra pounds but feel better about myself.

Parapara alone isn’t going to make you lose weight. At least in my opinion. It is pretty good exercise if you do it for an hour or so a day, but I’d throw in some other activities as well. Eat better, cut out all the bad stuff: sweets, carbs, lard, soda, etc.

I’d go with a non-stop video. Something you can dance straight through. May I suggest the Para Para Paradise series? Start there. OR if you’re learning from our media section/other sites, maybe you can make a mix or playlist of the songs you know and just keep dancing them everyday.

D~tan’s answer:

I think hard techpara would be a good workout. There are some parapara dances that involve a lot of work, like Dancin’ Alone/Pamsy. Heaven Is A Place On Earth is a good workout too since it has line dancing. Dancemasters/Dance Central is probably a better workout, also ddr. Mami and Rena from SEF bought arm and ankle weights for Jim because it was his birthday. They made him dance with them on at the SEB 160 party!

Who made your website?

Maggie did!

What inspired you guys to form a circle? What is the benefit of having a circle rather than a group or team?

I’m not going to go into our full history, since that’s already on our website. Basically, we’re all best friends. More like a family. Forming a “circle” gives us all more of a chance to be individuals and be creative and supportive of parapara in our own way, not just as a whole. Within our circle we do have groups/teams (Two Hearts, ex-American Dream, etc) but we do have the freedom to do other projects as well.

D~tan’s answer:

I agree, being a circle is more like a family thing. Also we looked to the Japanese circles for inspiration, because they did a lot of parapara things as well.

Will Disconrg ever hold an event?

I think it’s safe to say that we’d love to hold another event. Given the time and finances we will. Not sure when, but we will.

~*~Yiff Yiff~*~

No.

Next filming Vintage Story is when?

Judging by the last two Vintage Story volumes, I’ll say this summer sometime. If not sooner.

Will we ever see the 3rd Generation members in a video? And why does Jason not film anymore?

3rd Gen?! I sure hope so! Maybe we should all harp on them to film some solo videos until we can all get together next for a Maniac Fiesta/Vintage Story filming.

I too miss the days when Jason would shit out 5+ videos at a time. Unfortunately he’s been super busy

Are you going to any conventions this year?

D~tan and Billy usually take over Anime Expo, details will be posted when the con gets closer. For any other cons, I really don’t know. It honestly depends on who’s doing what and when and where.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

. . . and that concludes the first installment of Disco NRG’s Formspring Friday! See you next time

Way back in the day, in Tokyo in 2007, I went to Starfire at CODE! It turned out to be the last one at CODE but it was a ton of fun. Max and Heather were there with me and we had a really fun time that weekend, hitting up Disco 90′s and 9LoveJ as well.

Tonight, Jim linked me to a video he found. I forgot my friend Cathrine had come with me to see what para para was all about, and she uploaded videos to Youtube. Check them out everyone!

In other news, I’m living in London at the moment. I’ll be visiting Oslo soon and I’ll write a bit more soon. Photo post to come

D~tan here, hoping everyone is currently having a great new year so far! We had a Disco NRG meet in Southern California recently, where Jason, Jim, Maggie and Coleman joined Tony and I for a fun filled long weekend Unfortunately we didn’t get so many pictures from the weekend (too much fun!!) but here’s a few from the time plus a day by day recap~

Thursday
Jason, Coleman and Maggie arrived from NYC and Dallas and all we really did that day was eat at Roscoes Chicken and Waffles for lunch, Louks to Go for dinner and Tokyo Table for late night drinks and dessert. We hung around my house and set up lights and danced ParaPara to Super Eurobeat 210. We slept early because we were going to be going to Disneyland the next day~

Friday
Before we left for Disneyland we stopped by Cream Pan, a local Japanese bakery in my area. We got some nummy food including baked goods, coffee, juice and sandwiches for lunch. Shortly after we arrived at Disneyland and met up with Jim and Bree there I usually only go for a few hours since I have an annual passport but we ended up staying the whole day (12 hours!!) since we had people from out of town.
I couldn’t find my Marie hat at home so we went to one of the Disney shops in Tomorrowland after Space Mountain to get some Disney gear~

After that we did Astro Blasters, where I totally decimated Jim on:

When we got off the ride Jim and I had to go back to his hotel to pick up his luggage, but by that time Bree had joined all of us and we left the rest of the group so she could take them around~ When we got back to Disneyland with Jim’s luggage Tony was waiting for us at the front (he had to go to work), so we got back together with everyone and hung out.

At night time we went to Disney’s California Adventure to go on Toy Story Mania and enjoy elecTRONica, where we got to dance and drink alcoholic beverages!

We didn’t have too much time at Amoeba since we had a late night reservation for The Gorbals, but I picked up a few things and we sped off to downtown LA~ The Gorbals was AMAZING, also don’t mind my tagging of the photos for my own blog :3

Chef Ilan Hall working behind the counter~ His restaurant is pretty affordable and is meant to be hip and casual. The menu changes weekly and his dishes have a lot of thought put into them, because in order to have the full experience of his dishes you must eat all of the components together!

We had a lot of dishes, but I’ll share the photos of his poutine (a Quebec delicacy) and sticky toffee pudding:

This is his curried goat poutine, featuring some housemade pickles on top. I always thought that the flavor of goat was going to be weird, but in his dish it was very similar tasting to lamb and was actually quite good.

The sticky toffee pudding sprinkled with a bit of salt and ice cream we all shared~ It was really tiny but we all just wanted to get a small taste of it. The salt worked with everything surprisingly and was very good!

After eating there we realized how ghetto the area got after going down one block, we hit skid row but everyone enjoyed seeing it :P

Sunday

We spent time shopping in Little Tokyo, eating ramen at my beloved Foo Foo Tei and going to Round 1 and Arcade Infinity.
Maggie and I had a lot of fun shopping, we both got clothes and NYX makeup from boutiques along with magazines at Kinokuniya. I’m kind of trying to get her back into gyaru (she used to be in Bulaklak Tribe) with mode style and she seems to like it so she picked up Edge Style magazine~
We headed to Foo Foo Tei after shopping since we knew we were going to have to wait… and we waited over an hour!! But it was okay because we witnessed a car accident and had really good food. Everyone thought the food was really good and they even commented that the ramen and gyoza were better than what they had in Japan, which is definitely a compliment!
Round 1 was next, and we played some games and took purikura of course I will share the set we all took together:

After we went to Arcade Inifinity, because it was originally going to be closing this week (but it got saved!). We played some ParaPara Paradise and IIDX and went home~

We all stayed up too late and then we took Maggie and Coleman to the airport the next morning. Jason stayed for an extra day so we went to Book Off and Marukai on the way home and then he met up with one of his former co-workers so I could take a nap since I barely had sleep He had to change his flight because his original flight home was canceled and he spent a large portion of the night trying to call the airline to get his money back/put him on another flight but it took them 2 HOURS to get back to him! By that time he already booked another flight with a different airline so that was kind of stupid. But nonetheless he made it home and I enjoyed everyone’s company!

Whassap everybody?!

It’s been a hell of a long time but I thought I’d share something not Para-related but all about dancing nevertheless.

Last Friday was my work x-mas party and let me tell you this thing is a pretty big deal. Complete formal wear, people from all over out of town coming up for about a total of 200+ people, and a WHOLE lot of alcohol 8D.

My boss had the brilliant idea of having her management team (myself inlcuded) break out into a choreographed dance number in the middle of a speech during the dinner. It started off with Usher’s DJ Got Us Falling In Love Again booming over the speakers during a “speech” my boss was going to give. Then the choreographer, hip hop dancer/choreographer Giulia, stands up in the middle of the hall screaming “I LOVE THIS SONG” and dragging me on stage (playing the unexpecting innocent by-stander) to dance with her. To all those watching this looks like a drunken hot mess at a formal Christmas party but soon enough once the chorus comes in… bahhhhh why don’t you just watch the video!

***CLICK HERE ===>Work Christmas Party Choreography<===CLICK HERE***

Fucking awesome time and definitely one of my favorite moments ever! The coreography was very simple so everyone could learn it quickly and easily but what a good time!

FALLING IN LOVE! *POSE*

All right all right, I have to tie this in to para somehow. A cookie goes to whoever can guess what Para routine inspired me for that pose I’m doing in the picture above. v

~Posted by Alex

All in favor of more blog updates please comment!