This&ThatThis&That Café Vol.6

This&That Café Vol.6

“Introducing TokyoDex”

Tokyo Dex is the brainchild of D.H. Rosen, a Tokyo-based artist/producer who has spent the past two decades in Japan as a writer, visual artist, curator and creative director of events, films and multimedia projects including the ever-popular This&That Café.
Come celebrate the “soft launch” of TokyoDex as we prepare to officially kick-off in 2012.

Featuring: Ryutaro Kaneko (Wadaiko), Winchester Nii Tete (African Drums), Samm Bennett , Akihiko Ohashi (Ukulele), Smily (Didgeridoo), Roddy, Johnny Wales (Live Art), Rhythm Collective, Ryan Mizuno, urasizu、SASAI、ANKH、Jay Horinouchi、D.H Rosen / DJ: James Hadfield + more!

This&That Café

This&That Cafe is a free event open to the public in which artists from all genres and backgrounds donate their time and talents in the spirt of sharing. It is a place where music and visual arts meld in unexpected collaborations. A forum for artists from afar to meet with local luminaries amidst the dense and eclectic pool of talent in Tokyo. A venue to gather, exchange ideas, share artistic inclinations and wax poetic in a causal community of old friends and new acquaintances. Come early to get a seat and take advantage of the fetching fare on the SuperDeluxe menu, or just pop in for a drink on your way home from work. All are welcome. If you have an idea for a future This & That Cafe event, please drop a line to <thisnthat@tokyodex.com>. We look forward to hearing from musicians, DJ, visual artists et al looking for a new and exciting venue for their expressions.

Artist info:

Ryutaro Kaneko

In 1987, Ryutaro Kaneko became a member of Kodo, the internationally acclaimed taiko group based on Sado Island in Niigata, Japan. He has been performing both throughout Japan and around the world ever since. Ryutaro was a central player in Kodo, performing with them in 32 countries on six continents. Beyond his stage work, he was also a key figure in both composing and arranging pieces for the stage as well as recordings and held the positions of musical director and artistic director for the group. From early on, Ryutaro began performing in unique and different styles, both individually and collaboratively. His performance contradicts the traditional image of Japanese drums that is predominantly based on sheer stength, and instead also expresses delicacy and richness in various types of rhythm and sound. He has been involved in a great number of on-stage jam sessions and collaborations with artists from many different genres, such as jazz, rock, world music, traditional Japanese music, and dance to name a few. Ryutaro left Kodo to become an independent artist in 2007. He continues to perform and teach both in Japan and around the world.
Homepage

Winchester Nii Tete

Master percussionist Winchester Nii Tete hails from the honorable Addy-Amo-Boye families of drummers in Ghana. His finely textured repertoire is centered around exuberant traditional rhythms and his performance is a true testament to his technical finesse and sensitive expressiveness. He has performed with the Ghana National Troupe, Sachi Hayasaka, Yoshio Harada, Takasitar, Naoki Kubojima, Tsuyoshi Furuhashi and many other. He has played in various genres, including jazz, hip-hop, reggae, pop and world music. Accomplished on the kplango, talking drum and many other instruments of Ghana, he is a brilliant young star who is certain to follow in the footsteps of his legendary uncles Obo Addy and Aja Addy as he gains international acclaim.
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Samm Bennett

Whether using drums, percussion, voice, electronics, jaw harps, mouth bow, strumstick, toys or random objects, Samm Bennett has spent the last few decades trying to put the right sound in the right place at the right time. He is a frequent performer on the Tokyo scene, where he is known as both a masterful improviser and a unique singer/songwriter. His original songs are presented with stark, simple accompaniment, and draw equal inspiration from music traditions of the American south (such as Appalachian folk and Delta blues) as well as from African traditional styles.
polarityrecords.com

Johnny Wales (Live Art)

Torontonian Johnny Wales is an illustrator, sculptor, puppeteer – and lately, animator – who has lived for many years on Sado Island. His regular clients include JAL, Kodo and the world’s largest circulation newspaper, Yomiuri Shimbun, for whom he has contributed a weekly painting of Tokyo for over 15 years. He has illustrated 6 children’s
books, one of which won the 1990 Lucy Maud Montgomery Award. He was selected for the VII Premi International Catelonia D’Illustracio and he was a finalist for Canada’s premier literary award, the 1996 Governor General’s Award for Childrens Book Illustration.
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Rhythm Collective

This collective began as a simple conversation between percussionists Daiduke Tashika and Kenji Yishiura: “I bet if we got a bunch of percussionists together, something interesting would happen.”

Daisuke Tashika
Born in 1979, Daisuke Tashika began playing drums and percussion as a high school student in Osaka. In 2003, he participated in Leonard Eto’s high-profile “LeoProject” and moved to Tokyo the following year to apprentice with percussion legend Kiyohiko Semba who taught him about traditional Japanese percussion. Presently he is active in Tokyo
as a percussionist and session musician.
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Kenji Yoshiura
Percussionist Kenji Yoshiura began to play classic percussion and drums when he was 15. Later he studied hand percussion and jazz composition at the Berklee College of Music (Boston, U.S.A.) During his time at Berklee, he toured in Kenya as well as Brazil. Today he resides in Tokyo where he works with many musicians, performs Percussion solos in tandem with performance art, and organizes the Music Event “World Rhythm Summit”.
Homepage

Akihiko Ohashi

ki started working as a musician in 1991 when he was a high school student. He played hard rock, folk songs, flamenco, classical music, etc on many different kinds of guitars. At the age of 24, he moved to Hawaii to start a music business. After returning to Japan, he found an ukulele at a music shop on Tokyo and the sound was sweet, making
him reminiscent for Hawaii. He brought along a Ukulele to his next concert as a joke, but to his surprise, the audience’s response was very positive and he realized that the instrument has the power to truly move people. He has been playing ever since.
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SMILY

Next-generation Japanese didgeridoo performer SMILY first heard the otherworldly tones of the quintessential Australian wind instrument while studying abroad in Oz. He continued practicing the “didge” on his own after returning to Japan, later adding beatbox and drum and bass rhythms to produce an unimaginable range of sound. SMILY says he’s obsessed with the didgeridoo’s simple charm and its deep integration with beatbox sounds. He gets solid respect in the instrument’s land of origin, where major player Didgeridoo Breath recently called him “an incredible didge player [who] taught us some great tricks.” SMILY is active as both a solo artist and in collaborations with a wide range of artists, including Finnish beatbox phenom Felix Zenger and UK cabaret singer/jazz gypsy Gabby Young. He also finds time to help with the family business—a pension near Shirahama Beach in Izu.
Homepage

Roddy

Core member of the didjeridoo-based band “Gipsy didje!!,” Roddy plays mainly the “slide didgeridoo.” In his solo activities, he collaborates with a diverse range of renowned artists across multiple genres.
myspace

Ryan Mizuno

Ryan was born in Seattle, Washington in 1978. He began playing trumpet at 10 years old. In High School, he was a soloist in an orchestra that won many awards and toured Russia and Canada. In 1999, he moved to New York City to pursue a professional career in music, where he produced music for artists like Elisha Laverne, Black Buddafly, Raekwon (Wu Tang Clan), Mobb Deep and Fat Joe. In 2010, Ryan moved to Tokyo, Japan performing as a trumpet player and singer. His music is a blend of R&B/Soul, Hip Hop, Funk, Electronica and Jazz.

urasizu

urasizu is a Tokyo-based fashion team that does everything from design
to production. Members haru, izu, yuriko and sarya make street
clothing and stage costumes that defy the ordinary.
Inquiries: uras0326@gmail.com

SASAI

Working with resin, wire, beads and other ornamental objects, ANKH
makes colorful and fantastical accessories designed to enhance
everyday life. She also makes clothing to suit her accessories (No,
not the other way around!)
Inquiries: akari126@gmail.com

ANKH

Working with resin, wire, beads and other ornamental objects, ANKH makes colorful and fantastical accessories designed to enhance everyday life. She also makes clothing to suit her accessories (No, not the other way around!).
Homepage

Jay Horinouchi

Born and raised in the Bay Area, California, Jay spent a couple years studying art in Napa County, then moved down to Southern California and graduated from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena in 2006. He then worked as a professional artist and designer in Los Angeles for a few years before moving overseas to Tokyo in the spring of 2010. Duality is a theme that Jay constantly explores with his art. Being a bilingual Japanese American, there is a duality in thoughts, words and translation. He also receives a lot of his artistic inspiration from the Japanese culture itself, and how that differs from his American life. His art is a mix of abstract watercolor and hyper detailed robot technology, constantly questioning the balance between man vs nature, old vs new.

James Hadfield (DJ)

Writer, editor, dreamer, James plays saxophone and other things with Ecchi Shoushin, Shit!, The HNK Experience, Jahilyyah and Human Wife, and co-organizes the monthly Fashion Crisis party in Koenji.
Twitter: @JamesHadfield

D.H Rosen

Tokyo-based visual artist D.H. Rosen loves to play with analog and digital media. His live sets are a combination of prepared digital imagery and spontaneous collage.
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