Just couldn't resist this beauty from Apple...Too bad it won't work with a Windows PC! :/ In other news, my camera seems to have broken...you know it's bad when the only advice you can find online for a particular problem is "try hitting it or dropping it on the floor to see if it fixes it!" (which I for the record tried but it didn't help). Maybe I somehow crossed the limit of how many gadgets are allowed on my desk or something...:(
With my new work schedule I have had more time to think about different things, one of them being how I can be more productive with my music making and also better promote the end result when Anders and I actually manage to finish a song. The album that we are just finishing up now has been in the works for about 6 years - way too long to have been working on the same batch of songs! Of course, it is not like we have been working non-stop, on the contrary jobs and other commitments preventing as from focusing on the music is probably one of the major reasons why it has taken us so long (or maybe I should only speak for myself here!)
I personally am trying to rectify this with a changed weekly schedule but there is another issue that needs to be addressed: The role of www.subdelay.com.
Sub Delay has been an online outlet for our music for the past 4 years or so. Originally when we started out building the site, the plan was merely to have a website to promote the band online. However, things soon took off and all of a sudden we found ourselves having created a fully fledged music store, with support for multiple artists each having their own discography, blog etc.
The original reason for designing the site so it could contain more than one artist, was really an effort to make it easier for the two of us to produce and publish several types of music, rather than being based on any sort of ambitions of running an iTunes style music store. We would categorize compositions that were radically different in genre and sound into separate artist names (essentially aliases for the two of us), the idea being that we then wouldn't have to worry about "tainting" the image of a certain band/artist name when releasing a new track. Thus the site originally featured:
- Tsurankeparenki - The pseudonym we half-heartedly decided to use for an Asian-inspired album that was based on recordings I had made in Japan.
- Zonelet - My own electro(ish) tracks that were all made in a very short time mostly just as fun experiments.
- Section Four - Supposed to be the monicker for our next "serious" project, the one we are only finishing up now.
Since the shop framework was already in place, we began discussing the possibilities of adding music made by other people and after a bit of searching, two more additions were made to the site:
- Ovia - An acquaintance of Anders' who creates ambient music.
- Freesscape - A Japanese/British band based in Tokyo, who's music I had come across online.
As a result the name "Sub Delay" ended up being the name of the (admittely small!) "record label" run by us, on which we released music that we liked, including our own compositions. This was all great and made sense for us for a while, but as we soon found out, it also came with its own set of problems, for example when trying to promote our own music.
When pointing people who showed interest in our music to the site, we would more often than not be met by questions like "Which songs did you do?", "What is your band name?", "Is your band called Sub Delay?" etc. It obviously wasn't clear from looking at the site what music we were responsible for, and also when creating accounts on other music community websites, we were faced with still more problematic questions such as whether to create an account for every band/project, or just one for our "label" and so on.
We are now getting ready to redesign not only the site, but our identity as a band as well, and it is this process I have been thinking about recently. Although the site still remains unchanged at the time of writing, we are planning to change things around a bit in the coming months, thus the title of this blog post.
Our first decision has been to consolidate all the music we make under one artist name. For this purpose we have chosen to reappropriate the name "Sub Delay" from being the name of the store/label to being our new (and perhaps final?) band name. It has to be said, we definitely never have been masters of thinking up good names, which is probably another reason why we change them so often! As with most of our other aliases there is no deeper meaning to the words (my friend Michael says it reminds him of sandwiches?) but "Sub Delay", for what its worth, is the name that has survived the longest so we will probably be able to live with it in the years to come.
Another issue (that we haven't actually talked about yet since I just thought of it 10 minutes ago) that will probably dramatically affect the layout of the site, is what "format" we are going to present and sell the songs in (that's "format" as in "style" or "arrangement", I am not talking about MP3 or Flac!).
Although the implementation on the original site was perhaps flawed, I still think there was some sense to the idea of having the freedom to create different "projects" without having to worry about whether it fit within a certain genre or image we had established. Having constraints like this can actually be good for productivity in some cases, but I believe that having more creative freedom may be quite crucial in staying motivated and excited when it comes to music composition (at least for me) and I would like the new site to support this aspect.
I think one major failing with the current site is that we are presenting the music in the form of "releases" consisting of batches of songs complete with their own original cover artwork and descriptions. In essence what we need to figure out, is a way to be able to easily release new tracks, without having to go through the extra work of packaging them, while still leaving room for the occasional "milestone" album release, since I believe even in this the age of the iPod Shuffle there is still definitely something to be said for being presented with a carefully sequenced collection of songs supporting a common idea or theme.
And...we have to do this in a way that makes sense within a website and is easy to understand and navigate through for visitors to our site...Lots of stuff to get started on!
I guess it's high time I formally introduce one of my small "for fun" projects that I have been working on in my spare time:
MapDiary provides a simple way to upload small messages and pictures from your GPS cellphone as you move about during the day, track the route you took, and see your posts plotted on a map. The way I originally envisioned it was as a tool that you could use for example when traveling in order to see where you experienced what and for friends to be able to follow along in real time (below is a shot showing a recent trip I went on to Tochigi and Ibaraki).
The reason for making this was basically that it was something I wanted to use myself, but at the time there was nothing around that did quite what I had in mind. Thus, I decided to make it myself. I imagine there are loads of apps with similar capabilities around by now though, but I guess I still kinda like the simplicity of mine!
The application works as an extension of Twitter (a Twitter account is required - anything you post to MapDiary is also automatically shown on Twitter) and runs on a number of platforms:
- Using a web browser by selecting your position on a map manually: Not much fun but what else are you going to do without a satellite in space keeping track of where you are!
- Using a native iPhone/iPod Touch application: This is probably the smoothest way of doing it and the way I originally intended it to be used (I'm an iPhone user and therefore biased...)
- Using a 3G cellphone. Currently only Japanese models from AU and Softbank are supported, but I would love to add support for more types of phones in the future. If anyone is willing to hook me up with the GPS documentation for their particular phone and help out with testing please do let me know!
Using the service is free, although I do charge a small fee for the iPhone version (I had to shell out on a Mac to create it after all! ;)).
I would like to go into more detail about the different functionalities of the application in a subsequent post, but for now you can have a look for yourselves at www.mapdiary.com.
Hey! As I am sure you have noticed by the time you read this, things around here have changed quite a bit. I have spent the last couple of weeks reorganizing Balvig.com and the result is what you see before you. The main reason for this change is actually related to a change In Real Life that happened a few weeks back.
Since April I have begun working part time for my current company in order to allocate more time to doing my own projects. It is not that I don't enjoy the work at Export Japan, but the fact that working 5 days a week from 9am-6pm was preventing me from spending time on things I used to love doing (such as music, creating new web sites/applications etc) had been bothering me for a while and thus after having several talks with my boss last year I finally made the decision to go part time.
With this change I realized I needed a platform to write about these personal projects and this blog seemed like the perfect place to do it. However, the blog in its previous incarnation wasn't really suited for this, so last week I finally found time to think up a better format resulting in the following changes to the site:
- The posts on the blog have been split into two major sections, which (for want of better names) have been dubbed "Work" and "Play" respectively.
- The "Work" section covers anything related to, well...work! Not the best name for it perhaps, since the border between work/play isn't crystal clear, but I am sticking with this naming scheme until I can think of something better. In this section I hope to write about my music, programming and perhaps even some of the projects I work on for Export Japan. You may consider this a collection of my "output" to the world if you will. So far I only have one project in there (Sub Delay) but expect to see more added as I get around to it.
- The "Play" section is where I post all the other stuff that goes on in everyday life that is not strictly related to work/projects. Trips, food, random articles about life in Japan, in other words the "inputs" I receive on a daily basis (continuing the fairly weak analogy from above :P) In the sidebar of this section you can also see my Flickr pictures, find out what music I am listening to (Kenneth Bager
right now actually), read my Twitter feed, and so on.
- The "Home" top page shows posts from both sections.
- I have moved the whole blog from www.balvig.com/blog to www.balvig.com and gotten rid of that boring (and unnecessary) splash page that used to reside at the top of site. Please update any bookmarks/rss-feeds (although you should be redirected automatically)
On a final note: After having been "catching up" for almost two years and still not actually reaching the present, I realize it is time to give up this endeavour and start focusing on The Now. Thus, I am officially putting an end to this series as of today!
In 2008 I finally got myself a Japanese driver's license (in Japan you can use an international driver's license only for the first year of your stay). Getting the license itself was a fairly easy process although it did require a couple of trips to the Danish Embassy in Daikanyama to get my Danish license translated, before handing everything in at the Driving License Testing and Issuing Center in Shinagawa. Apparently the rules are different depending on where you originally got your driver's license but carrying a Danish license meant I did not have to take additional lessons and/or tests, even though they drive on the opposite side of the road over here.
My newly acquired driving rights were soon put to use on a trip to Choshi, a pleasant seaside area in Chiba known for its ocean views and good seafood.
...Well actually it is not that well-known at all but that's what I imagine the travel brochure would say if they had one.
On the way there we somehow managed to run into "Tour De Chiba", an amateur bicycle race. Thankfully no riders were hurt as I did my best to commander our little rented "rice-cooker" safely past them, after not having been behind the wheel for more than a year.
As usual, pics are on flickr.
Yup. Well in to 2009 and am still "catching up". Hopefully the brand new iPhoto 09 software I bought the other day will help me sort out all my pictures and catch up to "now".
Karuizawa Bicycling
September in Japan is usually quite warm but also marks the end of summer and thus last chance for doing something like...say, a bicycling trip in Karuizawa?
Karuizawa, a mountainous region located north of Tokyo in Gunma prefecture, is known as being a great area for bicycling, thanks to its beautiful open countryside setting, hilly landscape, and lack of cars!
Going up and down the many mountains was certainly a lot of fun (the latter more so than the former...) and my newly acquired iPhone came in surprisingly handy as we relied on its GPS capabilities for navigation! (wow, two Apple plugs in one post...I should enroll in some kind of affiliate program). Here is a rough map of the trip:
[googlemaps https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=116784441307494107165.000456a9aadd0a40dcfe7&ll=36.42326,138.550601&spn=0.161437,0.169516&t=k&output=embed&s=AARTsJr-4HGcNeR8b2U0Fwc7TMdgSRsZzQ&w=425&h=350]
The rest of the pictures can be found here!
Since everyone in Japan has their week (at best) of summer vacation at more or less the exact same time, the prices of plane tickets skyrocket during this period, and so one can either choose to pay exorbitant amounts of money for a trip overseas or just lay low and chill out for a while in Japan. This year my vacation was spent doing the latter in Kofu, Yamanashi.
The days in Kofu basically consisted of eating, drinking, playing darts, driving/bicycling around the Japanese countryside, and sleeping. Can't think of a much better way to spend way to spend a much need vacation! The action-packed pictures to document all this excitement can as usual be found on flickr. Oh, also snuck a couple of Tamagawa barbecue pics in there, taken in "my backyard" on the first day of summer vacation.
The first test of my newly acquired knowledge in the-art-of-not-drowning was to come only a week after having received lessons in Izu. Armed with only a photocopied "temporary license", the course was set for Okinawa - a large group of tropical islands found several hundreds of kilometers south of mainland Japan. Specifically we were headed for "Miyakojima", which is basically a tiny island inhabited exclusively by people passionate about diving and the sea in general. Even the taxi driver who drove us from the airport said he had moved there just to be able to go scuba diving every day!
Having started my diving career in the muddy waters off the coast of Izu, the Okinawan diving experience turned out to be a completely different one. The warm, tropical water was filled with fish and coral gardens, and had an incredibly transparency that almost gave me vertigo upon descending into the ocean for the first time, as you could clearly see all the way to the bottom, 20 meters below.
Some of the dives took us through labyrinthine cave systems which boasted spectacular "laser light" shows, as sunlight penetrated through the cracks in the ceiling and refracted on surrounding rock walls.
One of the tunnels surprisingly led us to an inland lake that I imagine must be more or less concealed if you approach it from land. Not that anyone would be around to actually try that, since apparently the island was being used by Japan Airlines pilots to practice take off and landing, a fact that was made evident when a large passenger jet passed right over our heads as we were getting ready to return to the boat.
In addition to all the underwater action, some of the most memorable moments from Okinawa actually took place on the surface, eating freshly prepared noodles for lunch on the open sea or having a relaxing float in the warm water while waiting for the other divers to return.
All in all I must say it was a great experience and seeing the pictures from the trip again makes me sure that this won't be my last diving trip, nor my last time to visit Okinawa!
As if dolphining out in Mikurajima wasn't enough, the following summer holiday saw me take part in another two diving escapades, the first taking place on the Izu Peninsula. Here, about 100 kilometers south-west of Tokyo, I was to receive scuba lessons as part of an PADI Open Water Diver Course in order to obtain a diving license.
Although it may be hard to tell from the pictures, this was in the middle of the Japanese summer season, and thus ridiculously hot which meant that probably the hardest part of the training was dragging yourself from the preparation area, accross the street down to the beach and eventually into the ocean wearing several kilos of diving equipment.
In the water we went through various drills, such as what to do if you lose your respirator, how to clear you mask of water and so on. As you can see in the underwater shots, the water around Tokyo is not the cleanest in the world. In fact, as our instructor pointed out, it bore a remarkble resemblance to miso soup...but thankfully I would get a chance to see how beautiful it can be underwater only a week later in Okinawa.
The whole course took all of two days and at the end I was the proud owner of a PADI diving license!
During May, in what was going to be the first in a series of underwater adventures this year, I was somehow persuaded to participate in dolphin snorkeling. The action took place on Mikurajima, a small island that is technically in Tokyo but in reality is several hours away by boat and as you can see bears no resemblance whatsoever to the metropolis it shares its address with.
Before going out to meet the dolphins, our instructor had arranged for a brief training session, which turned out to be more like a kind of private lesson as it became apparent that I was the only one in our party without any kind of diving experience. Snorkeling I realized was kind of a rough way to start ones diving career and I pretty much spent this first hour in the water using my snorkel as a drinking straw connected to an all-you-can-drink sea water buffet.
However, when we later actually got to see the dolphins, they would come so close to us that not much diving was really necessary, and merely sticking your head in the water would bring you face to face with the long-nosed creatures.
As always, I've put up a photo set on Flickr with the rest of the pictures.
Soon after returning from Hokkaido I was greeted with a visit from Daneland in the form of Dr. Lemke and thus I took another few days off work to travel Japan with my distinguished guest. The following days brought us across mainland Japan to Kansai and back, with many a random encounter on the way, not forgetting the Jazz-savvy bartender of Pontocho, working away at his tiny bar that seemed to be made up entirely of a chaotic collection of boxes, fans, books, old records, and other knickknacks seemingly accumulated over several decades. Or the company president we met in a hot spring on top of Mount Kurama that bore an uncanny resemblance to Mr. Burns of The Simpsons and was about to hire us both once he'd learned that we were both engineers (is that what we call ourselves?)
Whether Lemke returned to Denmark with the firm belief that all barbecue restaurants in Japan force you to dress up as ninjas and/or superheroes I do not know. Either way you can see the rest of the pictures I took during his stay here, but to be honest you are probably better off looking at Lemke's version.
Soon after Lemke left, cherry blossom season came to Japan and with it another set of obligatory "hanamis". I believe I write about hanami EVERY year so I think I will just leave you with the picture above and congratulate myself that I now have only 7 months left to go before I catch up to "now"!
I spent the first couple of days of March trying to kill my self snowboarding in Tomamu, Hokkaido. At the time of writing, even while planning another trip this December, I have no clue as to how the intricacies of getting safely down a mountain strapped to a thin, hourglass-shaped board work. Suffice to say I was even more clueless half a year ago and it ended up being three painful but fun days.
Tomamu is a popular snow resort, particularly recognizable for its strangely out-of-place tower-shaped hotels, aptly named "The Towers". The area also boasts an entire village made from ice (including an ice-bar, ice-hotel room and ice-church!) and a giant pool/onsen complex for recovering from a hard day on the pistes.
Oh, not exactly Hokkaido-related but I took this picture on the way there and I thought it was neat. A tender moment between a police officer and a random bald dude:
The rest of the pictures can be seen on flickr as usual!
Finally! My "Catching up"-series arrives at this year. New Year's Eve 2007 was spent in Osaka (featuring among others a certain Canadian friend who gets very upset when he fails to gets mention on my blog) and that inspite of it being a fairly disorganized affair turned out to be a lot of fun. Most memorable from the rest of January and February was the unusually low temperatures that eventually let to a regular snowstorm - a rare sight in Tokyo!
Looking through my pictures I suspect that much of these winter months as a result was spent indoors, with the odd trip to Chinatown in Yokohama.
In February my coworkers threw me a birthday party in the form of an improvised indoor picnic with Kiwi (as in "New Zealand") delivery food and even fake grass! (well, a green plastic sheet, but in Nihombashi that is more or less as park-like as it gets). Food was delicious by the way, we need to order from them again!
Christmas. Sigh, it is almost Christmas again here in The Present but allow me to do a brief time slip to last year's Yuletide for another installment of "Catching up" (I am determined to reach this year by...this year!) Actually I don't think a lot of horribly exciting things happened during that time but rummaging through my badly organized picture folders, I did find a couple of snaps documenting a semi-successful attempt at creating that old classic of Danish Christmas desserts: Æbleskiver.
...The making of which took the most of a day (at work, erm...) and resulted in a pile of tiny æbleskiver (of questionable taste, but jam is your friend) made on a pan that is usually reserved for frying octopi into takoyaki.
Just wanted to point out the addition of that "thing" over there on the right (or upper right, depending on when you see this post...) to the site. Yep, "BalvigRealtime": A DIRECT link between my brain and Ze World through the magic of Twitter, Google Maps, TinyURL, TwitPic, my iPhone and some nasty php regular expressions. Using my phone's GPS and camera capabilities I will from now on be able to do little "mini updates" to the blog, whenever I get the urge, regardless of where I might be in the world. (Everyone: "Boooh, way to be the LAST PERSON ON EARTH to get on the Twitter bandwagon")
Came back from Denmark late August but although technically autumn was knocking on the door there was still enough summer left to go on two trips to Osaka/Kobe and Izu respectively. The trip to Osaka was once again partly work-related while the trip to Izu was pure relaxation spent at a ocean-side hotel with a large pool and complimentary hula-dancing (!)
This must be one spectacular toilet for it to have such a prominent sign...Never found it though. Hm.
Summer vacation. Yey!