24 hour party people at Tokyo’s secret hangout Mixrooffice

24 hour party people at Tokyo’s secret hangout Mixrooffice

31 January, 2008 | 10.00AM

• Section: Music News Topics: Beatport Blog
• Written by: Yuko Asanuma

The place opened two years ago, initially, as an office for Ukawa Naohiro and his crew, and it closed its doors last Monday morning after a 24 hour closing party.

Ukawa is a renowned contemporary artist, graphic designer and writer. However, among the club goers, he’s most recognized as the best VJ in town.

He has played countless nights at the legendary Liquidroom for many years with the finest domestic and international acts, as well as at almost all major clubs, festivals and raves such as Womb, ageHa, Unit, Fuji Rock Festival, Wire and Metamorphose.

If you are in the scene, he’s unavoidable.

So, nobody was surprised when he rented an unordinary office space in the basement, accompanied with a perfectly sound-proofed studio.

He named this place Mixrooffice (reads “micro-office"), and installed top notch DJ gear and the best sound system (Funktion One and Master Blaster) into the small studio which could barely fit 50 people in.
Now, the place was all set for some parties.

During the short history of this private club, he invited all kinds of his favourite talents from the extreme noise experimentalist Merzbow to Steve Bug, the Detroit Techno legend Juan Atkins to Michael Mayer, the Minus collective to M.I.A. to play there.

He did charge people to get in, but only to cover the rent and pay his staff whose work hours could often get extended well into Monday noon.

He basically had this space available for all sorts of occasions that he finds exciting enough. For after parties, birthday parties, musical experiments, receptions and sometimes for talk shows.

The place actually looked like an office with a few desks and computers aligned at the opening, but after a few months, he must have realized that the place was a little too wild to concentrate on his work - the desks were gone.

Since it’s a private club, you have to become a member (an “employee” at the “office") and receive their email announcements to find out about the programme.

These announcements are often released on the day of the event, so you always need to be alert.

No official websites or flyers exist, so you also have to make an effort to find out the location.

One of the record setting nights was when Luciano played there on a Wednesday night after Metamorphose in 2006.

As many as 300 dancers turned up and crowded the quiet neighbourhood in Shibuya. Less than half of them were allowed to go in due to the space limitation.

Mixrooffice is also known for their ambitious series of DJ nights called Half Days, where they invite only one DJ to play for half a day, i.e. 12 hours straight (usually from 11pm to 11am the next day).

The most recent one took place on Saturday with DJ Eye (of the Boredoms).

They have hosted over 130 parties in two years, and they are just about to get kicked out of the building as their tenancy expires at the end of this month.

The final party took place last Sunday, and the first DJ on the roster to begin the party at 6am was Sven Vath who made a special appearance after his gig at Club Womb.

16 more local DJs followed him and played a 24 hour party.

The party was supposed to end at 6am on Monday, but it went on till 8:30.

A total of more than 500 people was admitted the place, and the dancefloor was completely packed until the very end.

Some of them changed into suit on the spot and commuted to work.

Mr. Ukawa is currently looking for a new location.

Video: Denki Groove x Scha Dara Parr ‘TWILIGHT #2’

For those who are interested to see some of Ukawa’s work, here’s the video he has directed for the Denki Groove x Scha Dara Parr’s “TWILIGHT #2.”

電気グルーヴxスチャダラパー “TWILIGHT#2 ふぞろいのネジ屋敷”

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Some of his music videos are available on his latest DVD ‘Intoxicating Music Clips of Ukawa Naohiro - MAD HAT LAUGHS!!’ (Sony Music Japan).

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