All-Mix

One of the most frequent questions I get relating to my blog comes in one of the following forms:

• What's "vj army"?
• What's "vuh-jarmy?"
• Where did you come up with "vjarmy"?
• What's "vjarmy" mean?
• Is your site about an army of Viewtiful Joe?

I figure it's about time to reveal the "whole story" of the domain.

First things first: If you haven't heard by now, I play a little game called Beatmania IIDX (that's "two dee-echs"). IIDX is a "dj simulation game", with some connections to DDR (both games are made by Konami). I'll save the verbose descriptions of the game for another time, but one of the key reasons I play is the tremendously nice music. All the songs are around two minutes each, and the genres tend electronic (trance, techno, two-step) but also run eclectic (piano ballad, french bossa) and occasionally imaginary (cuddlecore, forktronica, techno chop). All the music also has an accompanying music video

Having listened to a number of the soundtracks long before I started playing the game, I found songs I found pleasing and started listening to them like crazy. One of these songs was, of course, "VJ Army" by good-cool. The song was interesting to me because it crammed four genres (and tempos) into one song: drum'n'bass, techno, trance, and two-step. The genre for VJ Army is listed in-game as "ALL MIX", due to the inability to confine it to one of the four genres. Even the video had four distinct portions, each done by a different resident VJ that works at Konami.

(I should note, a "VJ" is a video jockey - someone who does to video what a DJ does to music.)

If you're wondering what VJ Army sounds like, you can listen to the mp3 from the Beatmania IIDX 6th Style Original Soundtrack.

When I was making the move away from my csoft account back in 2003, I had to start thinking about domain names and where I wanted my blog to be permenantly lodged. The domain name I had named my site after for a few years - remy.net - was taken in 1998 as a personalized page for a baby girl. So I was a little stuck for ideas, and the IIDX bug had me looking at song titles, wondering what would be apt.

It didn't take long for the connotation to hit me like a ton of bricks with VJ Army and my site. Like the song, I have a hard time being confined to one genre or topic. Believe me, I've tried - it's just too hard not to randomly jump from topic to topic to topic.

So that's the story - VJ Army is an ALL MIX of music styles I enjoy, and my blog is an ALL MIX of my life. (cue fanfare)

As for the "Primary Vivid Weblog" thing - also a point of inquiry - it's also a IIDX holdover. The game, like most Japanese games that tap into western culture, has a fair amount of Engrish. One of the games had the subtitle "The Primary Vivid IIDX", and something about the phrase stuck.

And regarding the Beatmania IIDX score site I run having the same name as the domain - that's just a lucky coincidence that the name of the domain fit in so well with the ideals of the score site.

Any more questions?