Tokyo Star Melville DJ Mix

Between 2007 and 2010 I played countless Thursday night sets at the Tokyo Star in 4th Avenue Melville (plus later, a few in Greenside) and was privileged to share those with some amazing DJs like Sassquatch, Data Takashi, King of Town, Casioheart, Youngsmuts, and many others.

It was a real scene driven by Myspace and early Facebook with a very flexible soundtrack that covered everything from retro goth/post-punk to new indie and indie-dance driven by disco-punk, a resurgence in dance sensibilities laid over angry indie/alternative sounds. Remixers (and artists or labels in their own right) like Rory Phillips, DFA, MSTRKRFT, SWITCH, Soulwax, Kitsune, Sub Pop and others were the order of the day.

There would always be 3 or 4 DJs a night which meant relatively short sets of 60-90 mins, but the range was huge. There was no build-up (except for the opening DJ) and one went in and finished on a high. When compiling this mix, it was originally 7 hours long, and that was just the stuff I played over the years. The venue had a simple set-up of 2 CDJ100s (or CDJ200s, but they were one of the entry-level models) and a Stanton mixer.

Tokyo Star Thursdays was an eclectic but forgiving crowd. Us DJs and collectives would always arrive with flyers to promote our next parties and there was always so much happening, not just in JHB but also Pretoria. Magazines like STAGE and SL would send out people to take photos and report back on these events. Check out ‘Kids on the Street’ Blogspot HERE for some of the fashion.

My favourite part was that it was a 3-minute walk from home and an excuse to play some tunes (where I could actually mix properly again) and talk shit on a school night.

There is also a playlist…unmixed, but with more tracks, but by no means definitive.

Found this post from a blog site promoting a Domino Records party I did in early 2008 with Sassquatch and Data Takashi.