Every week for the past eight years, I have compiled a weekly club listing for an online infozine called Tokyo Q ( www.tokyoq.com ). For the first few years I had to walk around and collect fliers to generate my data. But these days, organizers use the Web to get the word out and I can now simply surf around. No fuss, no paper.
Hot spots or certain clusters of activity invariably appear in the data stream. Think "The Matrix," where patterns begin to emerge in the endless walls of green code. Or William Gibson's book "Idoru," where every individual generates unique "data nodes" and the job of interpreting them becomes a profession.
I've learned how to "see" when an area gets hot, both in terms of openings and police crackdowns. It is also easy to note when a hot new DJ has hit the circuit big-time -- suddenly his or her name starts popping up more frequently. That was how I saw Mike McKenna -- as a steadily growing flare in the stream of Tokyo club data.