akadjblaze

Funny how life changes

November 18, 2016 by akadjblaze, posted in A day in the Life

So, time for an update, things have been interesting in the last few months to say the least!

So, in August I had decided to start on this whole training thing and to take up competitive archery. I started training strength wise while also sorting out my weekly schedule etc etc and started doing some long term planning for it. However in September that got totally flipped on its head.

So, in September I got picked up by Gangnam Gamers to be a part of their team and to help with content for their various social media outlets which has been a very exciting opportunity and something I have always wanted to get into. Being a gamer most of my life, having an opportunity to get myself into the gaming industry has been sweet!

Now luckily as this started off, things were relatively quiet on the DJ front, so I could focus on GG and get our podcast up and running and put in a lot of work towards that, just setting the ground work and my schedule to make life easier since I would still have to teach and DJ. And as always, things decided to get busy again and I picked up a second DJ residency as well as a heap of one off events all in the space of a few weeks, so needless to say, the back half of October and start of November was stupidly crazy. But now things are looking like they will finally settle down so I can start settling into a regular routine.

While I haven’t had a chance to start going to the archery range in awhile, I have managed to keep up with the gym, not as often as I had planned but 2-3 times a week has been ok for now and I will start going to the range towards the end of November as well as increasing my gym work. DJn has settled down now too, so I have 2 sets on Friday night and 1-2 sets on Saturday night which should allow me to make the most of the days now in the weekend. Podcast once a week and a live game-stream once a week. I am also working on a fortnightly off-shoot of the podcast where I bring in friends and other guests to talk games etc as well as a few other ideas I am working on as well to further increase my portfolio in the gaming and ‘podcast/radio’ industry and of course to try and make GG successful.

As they say, when an opportunity arises, take it, but you also need to be ready for it and know how you want to use that opportunity. I have been given a great one here and I am going to use it fully to my advantage and make the most of it! Chur!

DJ Blaze – SKE Ladies Hip Hop Mix

January 31, 2016January 31, 2016 by akadjblaze, posted in New DJ Content

So, I finally got this mix done and finished, took awhile and I kept putting it off as other things came up (story of my life really) but got to the point where I just decided to put it down as a simple mix rather than mess around with scratch, juggles and acapellas otherwise I would have put it off even longer. So, a little bit of history behind this mix…

Initially I was asked to make a work out mix consisting of all female artists since the good people over at show kings have been interviewing and working with some of the local female Korean body sculptures/builders so having a work out mix catered to them would have been a nice fit. However therein lay the problem, finding enough songs done by female rappers that people not only know but that were also up-tempo enough with a strong enough beat to serve as good work out music. Needless to say, it was a bit of a fail. Why?

Well, think about it, how totally under represented are females in Hip Hop, name your top 20 artists, are any of them female? I highly doubt it, maybe 1 or 2 might sneak into some peoples’ lists but even if they do (Lauryn Hill would have to be up there), that’s still barely 10%. So my song pool was extremely limited, too limited to make a full mix of workout style songs so instead I decided to make it more of a Hip Hop/RnB classic cross mix so I could feature more female artists and still include songs that people would know (Using female artists from current music is even less of an option given how bad they are)

Still, even in doing so, there are obviously a few artists who feature more than others which is a testament to those artists but it is also sad that the industry has really relegated female artists to a mere after thought. Even more sad when you listen to what some of these very talented females artist had to say in their rhymes back then acting as really positive role modals for young females, a far cry from the female hip hop artists of today who are either too caught up on image or no one can understand what the hell they are saying (yes I’m looking at you Iggy)

Ill attach this article as well about Missy Elliot that gives a really good and clear view of how influential some of these female artists were and the legacy they have left behind

Why Missy Elliot’s Legacy is Criminally Underrated

D’s Horizon – 2016 Madness

December 16, 2015January 7, 2016 by akadjblaze, posted in Anime

So it is finally 2016 and oh boy are there some movie bangers coming our way! So to help you (and myself) keep track of whats coming up and when, here is a list of the movies Ill def be checking out this year along with their current trailers and release date, clicking on the movie name will take you to the IMDB page where you can of course check out more up to date information and individual country release dates, so, straight to it…

Kung Fu Panda 3 – January 29

Starting off the year we see the third instalment of this popular franchise hit the screen. The trailer looks like a lot of fun and this will be a nice family fun movie to kick start this crazy ass year of movies

Deadpool – February 12

Highly looking forward to this, the promo so far has been spot on and Reynolds is perfect for this role, should be a lot of fun

Batman Vs Superman: Dawn of Justice – March 25

Still have concerns for this movie, I really hope it’s good and does well so it can secure the DC universe in the cinematic form

Jungle Book – April 15

Well it is about time they bought this old but popular movie to the big screen in proper fashion. There has been various incarnations of this story during the past so will be interesting to see how this one fairs. The trailer hits all the right notes and as a fan of the old cartoon I’m looking forward to this and it looks like it should be a good family movie

Civil War – May 6

Avengers 3 in all but the name, this movie is in danger of being too overloaded but given the success seen from the MCU so far, it should be a safe and good movie

X-Men: Apocalypse – May 27

Not sold on apocalypse at all, feels to early to bring him to the forefront, the Xmen franchise has been a mix bag, it has potential but will keep my optimism low

Alice Through the Looking Glass – May 27

The first Alice movie in this series was enjoyable with fun characters and a nice representation and interpretation of the book, so I am interested to see how the second movie goes

TMNT: Out of the Shadows – June 3

Finally we get decent versions of Be-bop and Rocksteady on the big screen, apart from that it should be your typical Bay movie but still a bit of fun

Warcraft – June 10

The trailer looks epic, but it might come off as just another fantasy adventure movie akin to a Tolkien movie, I hope not as the Warcraft world has some good stories and epic battles

Independence Day: Resurgence – June 24

A loooooong time coming, was a bit worried about Smith not reprising his role but the trailer looks epic and the casting should be more than enough to make this a huge movie

The Legend of Tarzan – July 1

Prob my least interesting one on the list, a movie that again has had many iterations, however the trailer has peaked my interest slightly with this one and could end up being pretty good

Ghostbusters – July 15

An all female cast of this classic movie is an interesting take but the casting is good, let’s just hope the story is as well (Trailer to come)

Star Trek Beyond – July 22

Never been a huge Trekie fan but still enjoyed the movies, this looks like it is more akin to the original series which will appeal to some and not others

Suicide Squad – August 5

Was very excited when this was announced and have been impressed with what I’ve seen so far, the big question still remains over Lettos Joker but the rest looks dam good

Gambit – October 7

Still not sold with Tatum as Gambit, don’t mind if I’m proved wrong but still to early to tell if this will be good or not, I have my doubts that this will fill Wolverines shadow in the Xmen universe and after a bit of pre production drama… (Trailer to come)

Doctor Strange – November 4

It’s hard to imagine this movie not being awesome with the stellar cast involved, Cummberbatch as Strange is like Downy as Stark, it just fits (in theory at least). The pictures released look amazing and I am itching to see this one (Trailer to come)

Moana – November 23

As a Maori it’s nice to see a pacific based Disney princess style movie, I’m hoping this ends up being a hit similar to Frozen (Trailer to come)

Rogue One – December 16

This could be an interesting sleeper movie, the premise behind it is really cool so this movie has great potential if done right and could be a very positive lead in to expanding the Star Wars extended universe onto the big screen (Trailer to come)

Assasins Creed – December 21

Still far out but movies based on video games have never had much luck, however with the rich story lines available in the Assassins Creed universe, there should be enough material to make this movie work, at least in theory. (Trailer to come)

December Update

December 10, 2015 by akadjblaze, posted in A day in the Life

Update time! Yeah it has been awhile between things so time to give a little catch up of what I have been doing the last few months… Nothing! Well that’s not entirely true, had a DJn gig usually every other weekend, had a few big parties here and there, but apart from that, I’ve been making the most of having some time off during the weekends and just relaxing, playing video games, catchin up on anime and working on some home projects. When you have been DJn basically every weekend straight for the last 4 years (only taking weekends off to travel or party) it’s nice to actually have a few weekends in not doing anything for once, thou in saying that, it still feels weird not going out on a weekend night, but I have tried to make the most of it since that’s about to change and it looks like my weekend dance card is about to fill up very quickly.

So as far as DJn goes, I haven’t been idle and have had a couple of gigs in the works for awhile now, unfortunately they got delayed thanks to water leaks and other things but now things are all set (barring any other unforeseen complications that can always arise)

So the first confirmed gig is for every Friday night in no other than HBC at V-Lounge, a nice neighbourhood venue (right next to Bonnie’s) where myself and Kiredmik will be holding it down between 10-2am on Friday nights with a mix of new and old Hip Hop, Funk, Soul and whatever else we decide to bang out. Being in HBC this should prove interesting but its nice being so close to home and could be a lot fun with the local crowds. The first night will be the19th of December

The second gig confirmed for now (just not the DJ line up yet, but I’ll be there at least for the beginning) is a new club opening up in Itaewon called Villa, located across from the fire station in the building basement next to Helios, Villa is going to be an upscale looking but affordable drinking house club aimed at Koreans and Foreigners playing a mix of new and old, popular and underground house tunes. With the vision and plan for this place it has the potential to be a hit (basically think of it as a second House Ming except more house orientated) The opening date is the 23rd of December and there will be a lot planned for the initial opening and over the Xmas/NYE week.

I do have a couple more things in the works but still up in the air weather they will go thru or not and when they will start but hopefully can get these 2 under way first and then the others will fall into place

D’s Horizon S02 Episode 1

September 23, 2015September 26, 2015 by akadjblaze, posted in Anime

So its been awhile between posts so time to get back into it again, so why not start a new season just as the new TV seasons kick off. They all start within a few weeks or so of each other plus some other shows are also just on the horizon, so lets take a quick look at whats coming up!

Gotham, Season 2, Episode 1 September 22nd:

Well last season left us in an interesting place to start the second season off with. My hope is that they continue to sort the show out and start to focus on the story more rather than trying to set up everything so fast to keep people interested. The first season really did just start of name dropping as many Batman related characters as possible abd it was till half way thru the season did we really see that start to drop off and get some really good character development. Everything is there but theplot execution is still way out. They have a good set of characters cast well who suit their roles well but it was just a let down story wise. I am really hoping they can pull this together for season 2 because the show has a lot of potnetial

Agents of Shield, Season 3, Episode 1 September 29th:

Well season 2 def cemented this as a great show and it left us in a very interesting position at the end. It looks like we will come into season 3 with the knowledge that Inhumans could and will be all over the world now as well as the world dealing with the backlash of the AOU fallout. It seems like we will have possibly 2 teams running around now but my real question is, what is Shield going to become now that the Avengers seems to have become a fully fledged agency unto itself and also with that in mind, how will Civil War shake things up again… Im eagerly looking forward to this season

Flash, Season 2, Episode 1 October 6th:

I love how they have done flash with the only exception of the whole Iris story, she annoys me, but the rest of it I am totally loving. looking forward to seeing how they progress the second season especially with Grod! The first season had a lot to like about it both character and story wise but of course also there is the bigger universe to contend with as well and the crossover episodes are especially enjoyable. Cant wait to see more cross over episodes while also enjoying season 2

Arrow, Season 4, Episode 1 October 7th: While the first 2 seasons were really good, season 3 fell down pretty flat in comparison, not that it didnt have some very exciting and great moments and finished off relatively nicely, it really felt like an interlude season that has hopefully tied up a lot of lose ends and will make way to season 4 being more enjoyable and hopefully more meaningful as well. Again the corssovers are something very special so along with those and the promise of a new villain, lets hope season 4 can get arrow back on track again

Walking Dead, Season 6, Episode 1 October 11th:

It gets a mention because again it is based on a comic book and it has been a pretty good zomibe TV show thou of course it has its faults. The trailer looks pretty epic and gruesome so it looks like the show is going to keep up with its traditional values. Will be interesting to see how this season pans out and just how long they plan to keep this show going, thou we all know, once Daryl dies, its game over!

Fear the Walking Dead, Currently Screening: So I haven’t started on this showy but will start it next week. It looks good and have heard it isn’t too bad so far but we shall see.

Further out shows we stil have to look forward to are:

Supergirl, October 26th:

Wasn’t overly impressed by the trailer however this might not be that bad, will have to see the first episode in its entirety till can give this any real review but it does look interesting.

Jessica Jones, November 20th:

The next inline from the Netflix series that will eventually lead to the Defenders, Jessica Jones is set to hit very soon. After the huge success that was Daredevil, people are hoping that this will carry the same weight and punch that DD did. It is hard to know what to expect as we are yet to see a trailer but it will be coming soon as the premier date gets closer

Legends of Tomorrow:

This show just looks and sounds freaking awesome! If you have seen the trailer then you will no doubt agree. The characters are all pretty well known and we know how they are and the dynamic between them is going to be great!

Agent Carter Season 2:

While it wasnt a huge success, the first season had a lot to love about it and Peggy Carter is a great character. There was some really great moments during the first season esp the reunion with the Howling commandoes. After watching Ant Man there is def a lot of scope they can work with while dealing with this series and the foundation of shield, i really hope they keep this going because it will make as a nice history piece for the MCU

Once again, Winning is Fun!

August 9, 2015August 9, 2015 by akadjblaze, posted in Events

So, that was a long weekend! As Im sitting on the train heading back up to Seoul after a week in Busan, it allows me a bit of time to reflect over the week that was. Firstly, I love Busan, I would love to live there if the Seoul DJ scene wasn’t so good. The weather while I was there was almost perfect, had plenty of time to relax, catch up with friends and oh yeah, compete! So in case you missed it, on Saturday was the 3rd BeFm DJ comp, after coming second the previous 2 years, this year I finally managed to get that elusive first place that I had narrowly missed out on the years before. Now while the victory did have a small hollow point for me, overall it still felt pretty good and a relief that I managed to clinch first this year. Going into the competition as a pretty strong favourite wasn’t exactly a fun feeling for me, I’ve always preferred the underdog status and have been pretty used to that in the years now since Ive been in Korea, so knowing coming into this comp that I should win was def a bit of added pressure that didn’t really allow me to relax as much as I normally would before such a comp.

Anyways this year was a good group of DJs, we mostly knew each other already so at least before the comp it was easy enough to hang out, joke with each other while hanging around on a hot ass day in Busan. The weather was seriously great thou esp. compared to last year! However we were still waiting and waiting for Pinnacle to show up, which he finally did, just as he was due on stage! Poor bastard, gets on stage and then has a huge equipment fail, yeah that really rounded off his night, so the order got bumped and he got relegated to performing last.

So, quickly thru the DJs.

First up was ColdChillin, I remember his set from the first year where he managed to get 3rd place, this year again he came again with a nice set, struggled to get the crowd into it (an on-going theme all night) but still managed to set a nice medium ish bar.

Next was myself, after making a bit of a meal of my intro… (stupid CDJs, again, another on-going theme all night) I settled into my set well enough, I sold my soul and played Coco… which ended up being a total flop (fml so that pissed me off) but that was where my set abandoned being too technical and went straight to crowd service which worked exactly how I expected it to. With the exception of that stupid coco song, everything went exactly how I planned

After me was the Chinese entrant, DJasce, again he played a nice set with some good tracks and good transitions, but once again struggled to get the crowd into it, for his first outing thou Im sure he will learn from it

Next was Idub, another Seoul DJ and also his first year in the comp, again had some good tracks and nice set, managed to get the crowd a bit at times but again struggled to really keep them but did enough with his set to come in 2nd place

Next another top DJ, in his second year competiting, Kiredmik was up and came with a pretty intense set, something like 28 tracks in 9mins, dude playing like the world was about to end! However that kind of play style was quickly lost on the crowd and the medley style of set fell a bit flat and just never gave himself a chance to impress on the crowd

DJ Rell back again was up and again had some nice tracks and had a set a bit more crowd orientated and managed to pick up a few cheers along the way but once again nothing sustained and failed to maintain it throughout but had a couple of good moments up there which was enough to get him 3rd

And finally Pinnacle got back up this time with little technical difficulties aside got to try and bust out his set. He started out with the Next Episode juggle routine made famous by Jazzy Jeff, while I applaud the effort, it is a difficult routine to pull off and he struggled to make it work leaving the crowd standing there just gawking. The rest of his set didn’t bode much better either and in the end you could tell he just wanted the hell out of there

And so that was it, I was only partly paying attention to everyones sets but the overall theme of the night was poor track selection and an inability to get in the crowds face and really control them from start to finish. Oh and shitty CDJs… seriously, one of these years can we get the proper and reliable equipment, just once?

Anyways, after the winners announcement I was called to play a set on stage.. yeah all the preparation! But still I was in the ‘I don’t give a fuck’ stage of mind, just happy that I won so jumped on, played a heap of bangers, had more fun with the crowd, trolled them a little bit cause I now could! Got the other DJs up on stage with me, took a mean selfie that Rell missed out on and overall just rocked out, should prob have planned a set before hand but it didn’t matter in the end.

After the comp we all went, had a mean feed, then basked in free drinks at a club down the road before heading to another club where a couple of us were playing. Overall it was a dam good night!

So that is pretty much it, a great week away of chilling and DJn by the beach, catching up with friends, eating some good food and enjoying life! Here is a copy of my final set, its a rough version I just used so I could practice it in my head.

Also waiting on a copy of my interview with Chad on Nightrider on Busan eFM on Monday night. It was nice to finally get in the studio with him and hang out. As for next year, will I enter again… Well we shall see, I was thinking after this year I would like to make way for some other DJs to enter and try their luck but at the same time, the prize money and the chance to come back to Busan again is a pretty good incentive!

3rd time lucky?

July 9, 2015 by akadjblaze, posted in New DJ Content

Yup, so once again I decided to enter BeFm again (Busan FM expat DJ competition) This year it’s on a Saturday night so should be more fun than last years Sunday night (thou it was still stupidly busy) Still waiting on the line-up but will add the poster later on. I will be heading down to Busan a few days before to hang out and staying around for a few days later. Should be a blast! Anyways here is my entry set (my final set will be nothing like this, once again it will be a festival style set)

June Update 2015

June 1, 2015 by akadjblaze, posted in A day in the Life

So again its been a hectic few months, it seriously always seems that way but this time even more so than usual.

So lets start with first things first, Redbull Thre3style Korea… Once again Thre3style returns to Korea… and once again it is plagued by your typical bullshit Korean judging style, I’m not going to even pretend to pull punches on this one, while at the end of the day a good DJ won, the lead up to that and who ended up in the finals was really nothing short of atrocious and to me really kills any integrity the competition has in Korea. While I myself am not mad I didn’t get thru (thou I prob have a good case to be angry) out of the 4 DJs who made it thru only 1 def deserved to be there, while another one got thru due to their high vote count, so that is acceptable, however the other 2 DJs should never have made it thru. Ill post more about this later but yeah, thats where I stand on that. Anyways here is the video of my entry so enjoy it!

<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/124940692″>DJ Blaze 2015 Thre3style Korea 5min entry</a> from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/akadjblaze”>akadjblaze</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p>

So after that I did manage to get away on holiday to Hong Kong! Been on my to do list for awhile since being in Asia, mainly because I wanted to check out the infamous sneaker street… yeah its not as good as one would have you believe, in saying that it is still pretty good and managed to pick up some dope kicks!

Back from Hong Kong, next up was WDJ Festival, again playing in the DJ Korea tent thou this year was much better than last year and more reminiscent of the first year I DJ’d there. The festival itself thou was rubbish, the DJs were average and I think I head all of them make mistakes, that along side the fact that it was relatively a small crowd, I can’t imagine it happening again next year. But at least I managed to have fun during my set and then MC’n for the DJ after me!

Among this madness was the bombshell that my job was being terminated and that I would need to find a new job… In your typical Korean bullshit way, I was told that there wasn’t enough student numbers (thou they new the numbers at the start of the semester) and that they were cancelling the program, much to everyones annoyance and of course to the detriment of the kids, but its ok, the only thing that matters is money… Such bullshit. Anyways I was luck enough that the company I am still with managed to find me another position, so at least I have a job…

The good news with the new job is that I get a month off in July/Aug… the bad news is I don’t have enough money to do a big trip so will have to try and take a short one week trip, looks like China!

I did almost get a new residency as well in a bar that I would have loved… but that lasted all of one weekend…

I managed to finally get my bow!!! And its a beast! Thou maybe I should have got one that is also sold in Korea… That could come back to bite me in the ass later on.

And finally looks like BeFM is doing the expat DJ comp again… Guess I will try for third time lucky!

Please Vote!

April 21, 2015 by akadjblaze, posted in New DJ Content

Only a day left to vote, voting closes I guess at midnight Wednesday night, prob Korean time, so if you haven’t yet, please vote and check out the video while your at it and let me know your thoughts!

Here is the link to vote, just click the Blue Button to Vote, then click the Grey Button to share!!

http://thre3style.redbull.com/redbull/vote_view/62

You can also view the video from there too!

I want my surprise dam it!

April 18, 2015 by akadjblaze, posted in Anime

Less than a week till Ultron! With that in mind and the mention that there will only be a single post credit scene at the end, time for a short write up about Post Credit Scenes and just keeping surprises in general in a world where everything seems to get leaked and information and spoilers are too readily available.

So, post credit scenes and dropping big surprises for us at the end of a movie, this is something that Marvel has been very adept at doing and has done an awesome job esp with the MCU, the first being Stark and Fury at the end of Hulk and Iron Man, both scenes had fans talking for ages about the upcoming avengers possibility. Then by far the biggest and most bad ass reveal to date, Thanos at the end of Avengers, that had us yelling and celebrating at the end of the movie (much to the confusing of the other Koreans in the theatre who had no idea lol). While there has been some fun reveals since (Howard the Duck, Strucker and the ‘Twins’) there has been no big OMG moments since Thanos, and with Marvels line up already revealed till the end of infinity war, the opportunity for another OMG moment is severely limited.

And other movies have really missed the opportunity to make another OMG moment, X-men DOFP was the pinnacle of a failed opportunity when they announced Apocalypse 2 weeks before release date making that ending scene pretty dull. But at least Marvel has a few more opportunities coming up…

Spider-man could potentially be one, if they reveal the casting for him as a post credit.

But apart from that only other option would be another character reveal (my pick as I have said before is Wolverine to be revealed as post credits for Infinity War Part 1!)

Another one I might put my money on is Beta Rey Bill end of GOTG 2.

Inhumans have already been introduced, Panther will get his introduction (and has been announced and cast), Ms Marvel is another one who will get a post credit intro if not a bigger one.

The problem with creating big reveals at the end of the movies is first keeping the casting a secret, then trying to manage any leaks and lastly and prob most importantly, when someone is signed, studios like to release that information right away to not only create hype but also I guess from a business stand point to let others know that an actor is tied up already with a role etc etc, they were lucky with Thanos since all they needed was a face so keeping it secret was not hard, but something like spider-man, keeping him secret till say Civil War in a years time… How much of a mission would that be… But I still have hope that they can give us one more big OMG moment, unlike DC who failed miserably having their whole line up basically revealed at a share holders meeting (in contrast Marvel held a big ass event for their line-up)

In this day and age, I really feel like a lot of the magic and anticipation not to mention the surprises are taken away from us all too soon, information is so readily available to us now and we have become a culture of now now now, it feels sad that secrets cant be kept anymore (thou Marvel does a great job of trying to, I really respect them for that) and it feels like companies have stepped away from the straight up shock and awe approach of giving us a huge surprise to slowly spoon feeding us information thinking that it will slowly gain pace and create hype and interest/anticipation but honestly I think this approach dulls the excitement, E3 is a prime example of this, we get spoon fed information about everything before hand that once we get there, we already know all the shit that’s going to happen, we already know what to expect, not that is always a bad thing, but there is nothing like knowing you are among the first people to find out something totally huge that no one else even had a clue about, it was like that for us at the end of Avengers when Thanos was revealed and I am sure others felt the same at their prospective mid-night screenings across the world because you know, the second the movie was over, that reveal was all over the internet. So let’s hope there are still some more fan service surprises ahead of us