As I mentioned yesterday when I posted episode 9 of the Codex, it’s only after I was done that I thought it would be a good idea to do a Christmas episode, and I wanted to get it done as soon as possible. Here we are then, an extra-sized holiday episode with 20 yuletide tunes that I hope make for a Christmas soundtrack that’s a bit different from what you tend to hear everywhere.

As I said on the show, a lot of the tracks were found thanks to a great holiday music round-up post on Pitchfork. Here are also links to some of the compilations I mentioned, that you can download for free: The Christmas Gig, Ho! Ho! Ho! Canada Deux, and A Familyre Christmas Volume 3. Also, you can still download the Christmas episode of Radio OK Fred (15) we did last year (me, along with my co-hosts Yoshi and Ay2).

You’ll find the link to download the episode below, along with the complete playlist, and you can subscribe to an RSS feed so as not to miss any future episode. The show is on the iTunes Store too.

Codex 10 (61.8MB)

1. James Kochalka Superstar – “Christmas in Dimension X”
2. Pine*AM – “Snow! Snow!”
3. Blazer Force – “Electronic Santa”
4. Sufjan Stevens – “Put the Lights on the Tree”
5. Low – “Taking Down the Tree”
6. Bishop Allen – “You’ll Never Find My Christmas”
7. Best Coast/Wavves – “Got Something for You”
8. Coconut Records – “It’s Christmas”
9. Summer Camp – “Christmas Wrapping (The Waitresses Cover)”
10. Los Campesinos! – “Kindle a Flame in Her Heart”
11. Dressy Bessy – “Hopped Up on Xmas”
12. Dent May – “Holiday Face”
13. By Divine Right – “Mall Santa”
14. The Zolas – “Snow”
15. Paper Lions – “Jingle Bells”
16. The Mountains & The Trees – “My Favourite Sweater (Happy Holidays)”
17. Ben + Vesper – “Planet Witness”
18. Rachel and Jon Galloway – “Glory”
19. Joshua Stamper – “To Us a Child of Hope Is Born”
20. Halcali – “Strawberry Chips”

Every month or so, Warren Ellis puts out a post on his site in which he explains where you can find him on the web and elsewhere — sort of a monthly updated FAQ on what he’s up to — and I figure I should do one as well, since I’m sure that someone who has just arrived to my site for the first time might have trouble understanding what exactly I’m up to these days.

First off, this week saw the launch of my latest project, The Magaziner, a new site that will cover the growing push of magazine into the digital world — something I’ve been covering here for a couple of months now, but realized it made more sense to create a proper space for it. It is also accompanied by a Twitter account, which I’m now using for my magazine-related tweets, and has a Facebook fan page too.

Last month I also launched a new weekly music podcast I call Codex. It’s usually me playing a selection of 10 tracks, but I’ll have the occasional themed shows (like the next one), guest episodes (soon), and I’m also going to start adding what I call the Codex Coda, short guest mixes. You can download all previous episodes here and subscribe to an RSS feed — it’s in the iTunes Store too.

Radio OK FRED is the long-running music podcast series I do with Editions OK FRED‘s Yoshi Tsujimura and Audrey Fondecave, and although it’s been on yet another extended break (apologies for that), it still pops up every once in a while, and I’m hoping we’ll be able to make 1 or 2 new episodes this month.

Then there’s PauseTalk, my monthly creative talk event that takes place at Cafe Pause here in Ikebukuro. We’re on a bit of a break this month and the next (due to the holiday slowdown), and so the next edition will take place February 7. If you’ve never been there, it’s a very casual salon-like atmosphere, where a bunch of “creatives” basically get together and discuss topics that affect us, share projects, ask for advice, etc.

SNOW Magazine is the natural extension that was launched at the start of the year for all of the Tokyo/Japan-related art/design/culture coverage I used to do on this blog for many, many years. Although most of the content is provided by me, it does include the occasional guest columns and feature. SNOW also has a presence on Facebook and Twitter.

That means that this place, JeanSnow.net, is again a hub for all of my activities, so don’t come looking for Japan-related news, really. I’m on Twitter as well — where some say I actually tweet too much — and of course Facebook.

On the book side of things, while I’ll remind you that my previous contributions — Arcade Mania and Tokyolife — make for great holiday gifts, next up will be the release early next year of the fifth editions of The Rough Guides to Tokyo and Japan.

And although it doesn’t get updated as much as I’d like, my little gaming corner — simply called GAME — still features a host of games that I like a lot. I’ll try and get back to adding a few each month.

The PLAY series, where I would spin virtual discs at Cafe Pause every once in a while, is also on hiatus, and I think it has pretty much been taken over by Codex. I actually want to occasionally record some live Codex shows from the cafe.

You can also still catch my monthly design column for The Japan Times, “On Design,” which is published on the last Thursday of every month. It focuses on product design, and each one usually has me recommending five new items. I also contributed two items to the Japan Times‘ holiday gift guide piece, which was published today.

And even though I don’t really contribute anything in the written sense, I would say that I’m a “spiritual” contributor to Néojaponisme, David Marx‘s web journal that covers social and cultural aspects of Japan, which explains my editor-at-large title. Although the site has slowed down a bit this year in terms of new content, expect a bunch of great year-end reflections to appear later this month.

I’m also a proud member of Luis Mendo’s Goodfellas Network, and more specifically part of the GOOD Inc. Japan team. If you’re looking for a terrific group of people to work on a magazine-related project (print or digital), then please get in touch.

Last, but CERTAINLY not least, I continue my work as Executive Director of PechaKucha, where my role is mostly behind-the-scenes, but I also provide a public face through the PechaKucha Daily blog, and on Twitter. Local PKN organizers from around the world are the people I mostly deal with, but do feel free to get in touch if you have any questions regarding all things PechaKucha, whether it’s about holding a one-off PK event, starting a regular PKN series in your city, or anything else you may have on your mind. Since the organization is run as a non-profit, sponsorship enquiries and collaborations are also VERY welcome!

So there you have it, and if all of this wasn’t enough, do feel free to email me with any question you may have.

I gotta say I’m getting a kick out of this: In the past 24 hours I conceived of a site, a name, bought the domain, got it working, installed WordPress, imported posts from this site, found a theme that I modded to my liking, and have now launched my latest project, something I’m calling The Magaziner. What’s a magaziner you ask? Here’s my made-up answer:

We hereby define a new term, that of the magaziner, described as a person who exerts an unhealthy amount of love for all things magazine. The Magaziner is a site that mostly focuses on the intersection between magazines and the digital frontier, and what it means for the medium. This does not preclude the inclusion of a healthy amount of print love.

It all started last night when I was reading a comment on Facebook by Craig Mod, who suggested that all of the magazine-related coverage I’ve been doing over the past couple of months is getting lost within the rest of what I post here. I think he made a good point — and god knows I have a lot of respect and admiration for what he’s accomplished over the past year or so — and so I decided to launch a new site that would be exclusively for all of the magazine stuff. Expect the same kind of coverage you’ve been seeing here — commentary, news, new release announcements, reviews — that weighs heavily on the emerging digital side of the magazine publishing industry, something I’m quite passionate about (although I do still love my lovely print publications, thank you very much).

So this site returns to being a hub for news on me and all of my various projects, which on top of The Magaziner includes Codex, my new weekly music podcast, Radio OK Fred, SNOW Magazine, PauseTalk, and other fun stuff. Hope you’ll continue to follow what I’m up to here, and if you really enjoyed the magazine coverage, then please head on over to The Magaziner — and you can of course subscribe to an RSS feed. There’s a Twitter account too (@the_magaziner) that I’ll be using to post magazine-related news as well.

Oh, and one more thing about The Magaziner, please consider this a beta version of the site. As I said at the top of this post, it all came together rather fast, so over the coming weeks I’m sure I’ll be changing things here and there, fixing things I missed, and maybe coming up with new features or sections to add.

A long, long time ago in a country far, far away (that would be Canada) I used to have a college radio show. I had two of them, actually, first when I was truly a college student — believe it or not, it was called The Jean Snow Show — and then 10 years ago when I was back in Canada for a year, I did another show on the same station (CKUM) which I decided to call Codex (for a reason I can’t quite recall). I’ve long missed those days of doing a weekly music show — in a proper studio — and although I can’t replicate that same environment, I’m feeling like it’s time to start doing something again like that on the net.

This doesn’t mean the end of Radio OK Fred — we’ll do some more shows eventually, when we can all get together — but this is something I want to do on my own, although I wouldn’t be opposed to the occasional guest. I’ll be using the same setup I use for recording Radio OK Fred, meaning it’s done live in one take using the Djay software on my MacBook Pro. Right now I’m just missing my mic — my trusty Zoom H2 Handy Recorder — which my fellow OK Fredders were recently using for interviews, but as soon as I have it back I’ll get recording.

As for content, it’ll be a weekly mix of 10 tracks I’m into, with me chatting in between — basically the same format we use on Radio OK Fred, although I may occasionally record them live at Cafe Pause. I’ll of course have an announcement here when the first show is ready, and include the track list as well as a prepare a feed for subscribing. Hope it’ll be something you’ll want to listen to, but more importantly, it’s something I need to do now for myself I think.

Episode 23 of Radio OK Fred is now up, and as you can probably tell by the photo, I unfortunately couldn’t make the recording because of scheduling issues. But it’s a terrific show, featuring special guest — and our good friend — Missla Libsekal, founder of Another Africa. All selections on the show are by her. The link to the episode is below along with the setlist, and you can subscribe to a feed as well.

Radio OK Fred 23 (46MB)

1. The Very Best (feat. Ezra Koenig) – “Warm Heart of Africa”
2. Malcolm Mclaren – “Double Dutch”
3. Miriam Makeba – “Pata Pata”
4. Madou & Mariam – “Sabali”
5. South African Gazelle – “Chic Afrique”
6. DJ Mujava – “Mugwanti”
7. MC Afrikan Boy – “Lagos Town”
8. Pasto Mbhobho – “Ayobaness”
9. Dirty Parraffin – “Aha – Mind Over Matter”
10. Schlachthofbronx (feat. MC Spoek Mathambo) – “Too High”
11. Spoek Mathambo – “Mshini Wam”

Endtopic has been an amazing supporter of Radio OK Fred, and I absolutely love the cover they created for the post about our last episode (“Robots”).

As promised, here we are with a brand new episode of Radio OK Fred (22), the “Robot” episode. Yes, that’s us trying to act cyborg-like with a few wires sticking out — and from the looks of it, I’m a pretty broken machine I think. Below is the link to download the episode as well as the playlist, and you can subscribe to a feed too.

Radio OK Fred 22 (50MB)

1. Kraftwerk – “The Robots”
2. Prefuse 73 – “Robot Snares Got No Cadence or Balance”
3. RJD2 – “Chicken-Bone Circuit”
4. Playdoe – “Neolectro Afrobotic”
5. La Chatte – “Cosmique Cosmétique”
6. Universal Robot Band – “Dance and Shake Your Tambourine”
7. Cornelius – “Brazil”
8. Röyksopp – “The Girl and the Robot”
9. James Kochalka – “Monkey vs. Robot”
10. Breakbot – “Happy Up Here (Breakbot Remix)”
11. Dan Deacon – “Jimmy Joe Roche”
12. Born Ruffians – “I Need a Life (Four Tet Remix)”

Don’t you just hate posts that refer to the lack of posts on a blog? Oh well, such is what you must deal with on occasion, as your humble blogger feels the need to assure everyone that it “ain’t dead yet.”

I’m coming off what has a been quite a project — it’s no secret that I’m a contributor to the upcoming updates to The Rough Guide to Tokyo and Japan, set to come out in early 2011. I still have a bit of follow-up work to do, but the bulk of it was handed in the other day, and so suddenly I have a bit more breathing room.

Throughout this I continue with my work for PechaKucha — for those who don’t know, part of what I do there is update the PechaKucha Daily blog, but I do a lot of stuff on the administrative side of things as well. And without going into details, I can tell you that I’m lining up a lot of interesting things for PK this year, and I can’t wait to see it come to fruition, and be able to share it with everyone.

Part of this involves the fact that this year I’ve associated myself with Amsterdam-based art director Luis Mendo, a good friend I’ve mentioned on this blog a few times, and who I met just last year when he came to Japan for a 3-month “inspirational retreat.” Luis runs his own company, GOOD Inc., for which he pulls help from the Goodfellas Network, an amazing collection of potential collaborators who work in pretty much all fields. Not only am I a “Goodfella” — both professionally and personally, me thinks — but me, Luis, and graphic designer and artist Hiyoko Imai have formed a Japan branch of GOOD Inc. Our expertise is magazine-related production, so do get in touch if you are interested in working with us. And yes, we are currently developing something PK-related (which is how this paragraph came about).

Other than that, SNOW Magazine continues at a fine pace, and if you missed it, here’s a media kit we recently put together for the site — it includes details about advertising on the site, both pricing and placement, as well as a few reasons on why you might want to do so. I’m of course very excited about the upcoming “SNOW Magazine Cafe” event as well, and have already gotten lots of amazing contributions — imagine my surprise when the first email I received after announcing it came from The New York Times Magazine! If you’d like to participate, please get in touch. Oh, and there’s a great collaboration with the site Poolga coming too.

I think that’s enough for now. Yes, I’ve got my hands in other things — of course — and I’ll try to cover more of it here in the days/weeks to come. For all you Radio OK Fred fans, a bit of good news: me, Ay2, and Yoshi are getting together next Wednesday to record a new episode, so expect that to be online very soon (very likely on that day).

This week’s episode of Radio OK Fred (20) is the “Dark” episode, something to listen to during these cold winter months. Below, a list of the tracks played as well as a link to download the episode — or subscribe to the feed.

Radio OK Fred 20 (41MB)

1. Tricky – “Broken Homes”
2. Siouxsie and the Banshees – “Christine”
3. Misfits – “Where Eagles Dare”
4. Rick White – “Darkland”
5. Eric’s Trip – “Hate Song”
6. Louis Prima – “That Old Black Magic”
7. Curtis Mayfield – “Right on for the Darkness”
8. The Gossip – “Dark Lines”
9. The White Stripes – “Death Letter”
10. The Velvet Underground – “The Black Angel’s Death Song”
11. Yo La Tengo – “Black Flowers”
12. Joy Division – “Love Will Tear Us Apart”

Even though we were all stuck in OK Fred HQ here in Tokyo — in Yutenji to be more precise — this week we get to travel a bit by way of our track selections, with “Places” being the theme for Radio OK Fred 19.

You’ll find the full track listing below, as well as a link to download the episode — although you may want to subscribe to the feed instead.

Radio OK Fred 19 (36MB)

1. Flin Flon – “Ukraina”
2. The Books – “Tokyo”
3. Bran Van 3000 – “Montreal (Featuring Youssou N’dour)”
4. Hibari Misora – “Under the Rainbow”
5. Unknown – “Piso Somalim #2″
6. Luna Parker – “Tes Etats d’Ame… Eric”
7. Serge Gainsbourg – “New York USA”
8. 3rd Bass – “Brooklyn-Queens”
9. Vampire Weekend – “California English”
10. The Magnetic Fields – “In My Secret Place”
11. Milosh – “The City”
12. Tahiti 80 – “Chinatown”

And so as promised last week, here we go again with a new episode of Radio OK Fred (18), this time an episode that was recorded in Paris last year, featuring music selections by Marie from Colette. The link to download is below, and remember that you can always just subscribe to the feed.

Radio OK Fred 18 (48MB)

Time to ring in the New Year with a new episode of Radio OK Fred (17), the “New” show. Well, it’s our take on new, and you’ll just have to listen to the show to find out how we justify some of our selections. Before you comment, yes, there’s a bit of technical issue at the start of the “1999″ track (sound is too low), but hey, it was done live, and so that’s that. Hope you enjoy!

Also, please not that I made a mistake with the numbering recently. The “Christmas” episode was in fact #16, as I forgot to count the special episode Audrey recorded in Gothenburg this past summer. We already have the next episode in the can, and it’s another special one, this time recorded in Paris and featuring Audrey and Marie of Colette, with a terrific selection of tracks. It will be up next week. Below, a link to download #17 and the track listing — and you can subscribe to the feed as well.

Radio OK Fred 17 (44MB)

1. Radiohead – “The National Anthem”
2. Depeche Mode – “New Life”
3. New Order – “Blue Monday”
4. American Quartet with Billy Murray – “Casey Jones”
5. Sentridoh – “That Kind of Year”
6. Prince – “1999″
7. Happy End – “Haru yo Koi”
8. Dirty Projectors – “New New Attitude”
9. Fishmans – “Atarashii Hito”
10. Lhasa de Sala – “Rising”

Tonight (December 18) is PLAY 03 at Cafe Pause, 21:00-23:00, the last one I’ll do this year. As I mentioned before, I’ll probably play some of the selections from this week’s new Christmas episode of Radio OK Fred (15).

It’s been another very long hiatus — obviously due to me breaking my spine — be the OK Fredders are finally back for a new episode of Radio OK Fred. It’s episode 15, and it’s our special Christmas show. Also, thanks to Djay — which is what I’ve been using at my PLAY events — this marks the first time we record a show live, which means we were able to prepare, record, and have it online all within 2-3 hours — for me, it was the editing that always killed me. So yes, apologies if we’re far from professional, but we’ll get better, I promise.

Below is the full rundown of what we played, as well as a link to the episode. Also, we have a new feed for the show now, so if you were subscribing to the old one, please make sure to switch.

Radio OK Fred 15 (36 MB)

1. James Kochalka – “Beautiful Christmas Lights”
2. Run DMC – “Christmas in Hollis”
3. Yoko Ono and the Plastic Ono Band – “The Sun Is Down”
4. Karen O and the Kids – “All Is Love”
5. Gayla Peevey – “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas”
6. Vince Guaraldi Trio – “Linus and Lucy”
7. Yuji Ohno – “Holy But Easy”
8. Naomi & Goro – “Presente de Natal”
9. Jose Feliciano – “Feliz Navidad”
10. Tokyo Panorama Lounge – “Winter Wonderland”
11. Ryuichi Sakamoto – “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence”

I’ve been threatening to DJ — well, “music select” — somewhere for a while now, and I’ve decided to finally make it happen this week. On Friday (November 27) I’m introducing something I’m calling PLAY, in which I’ll be setting up my laptop in a corner somewhere at Cafe Pause, and make people listen to a selection of tracks by me, from 21:00 until 23:00 (when the cafe closes). This is not an event proper, it’s just a casual invitation to come hang out and listen to (what I think are) some good tracks. I don’t know if this will become a regular thing, it might, and I may invite others to join me in the “selection” duties in the future.

If you’re wondering how I’m doing this, today I found what looks like the perfect software for my needs, something called Djay. All I wanted was something that would let me transition tracks, and also allow for pre-cueing, which I’ll be able to do courtesy of my ZOOM H2, using it as a USB audio interface. If this all works as well as I’m hoping it will, I can also see us recording a live episode of Radio OK Fred this way.