Critical Slide, a.k.a TCSS’s, Japanese tour #brandontherun was a wild ride. Celebrating Critical Slide’s rebranding at a Greenroom Festival was the main feature. Alongside collaborations with American psychedelic band The Allah-Las, and Big Sun Surf, the fast times didn’t stop. The team felt like they had lived a year in one week, bouncing between Chiba, Shibuya and Yokohama, living off rice triangles, ramen and lemon sours.

The crew was TCSS co-founder ‘Jimmy Slide’, designer Matt ‘Muddy’ Waters, all round legend and master Taoist Chris ‘Hope’, Ryan Glover a.k.a ‘Big Sun’ and the deadliest animal of them all, director, Sam ‘Kristoski’. The Greenroom Festival was two days of live music, art exhibitions, and branded surf booths. Tony Alva was there, so were the Allah-Las, Leon Bridges and stand out art exhibits by The WaxOff Collective and Luke Taaffee.

Earlier in the trip was spent filming the black sand groins of Chiba Precinct. A Typhoon had whipped up the best surf Chiba had ever seen. It was a day in the sun and then back to the bright lights Tokyo. Suddenly it was 3am on the last night and we were howling into that noisy black stick the Japanese call ‘Karaoke’. A second later it was 5am and we were stumbling about Shibuya Crossing trying to hail a cab, and up came that big ball of light in the land of the rising sun. Sayōnara, arigatō - Japan.