For about 5 years, I lived less than a 10 minute train ride away from Kichijoji and remained completely oblivious to the fact the I lived so close to what is probably Japan’s premier
Chip Music event. Quarta330, Coova and Saitone held the first Lo-Bit Playground 5 years ago. Since then pretty much every major Japanese chip act has played there. A fair few guests from the US (Bit Shifter, Bubblyfish and Nullsleep) and Europe (Covox and Role Model) have also appeared over the years.
I don’t recall exactly where but I heard rumors that the venue 4th Floor was kind of hard to find to I did a little research. I Armed myself with a Googlemap, first hand directions from two people and a phone number. Pretty confident that the venue was “1 minute from the station” I arrived 40 minutes before the first act and couldn’t find the place at all. I know the local area pretty well but it is an incredibly dense commercial area, there are probably 2000 shops within a minutes walk of the station. Ten minutes before the doors opened I found the venue.Little did the world know that down that spooky little corridor just visible to the right or the stairs, on the unmarked 4th floor of the building, another Lo-Bit Playground was about to happen.
The venue is pretty cool, very cool in fact. It’s not large but it managed to accommodate about 100 people and gear for 7 acts without feeling claustrophobic. A quick apology before we go any further, Lo-bit playground is very very hard to photograph. Its very dark with almost no stage lighting and a the venue has a very low ceiling so the pictures aren’t quite as dynamic as I would have liked. On with the show!
(more…)
