| Saturday, April 13, 2002 |
|
PATA PAN TINKERD.I.E. CAPTAIN YOSHIKI MISTER TOSHEE and HIDE as THE ALLIGATOR
with TAIJI as WENDY DARLING
Also With:
Featuring Cameos by:
And Special Guest Appearance: [Author's note: OK this is pure randomness and craziness...it was 2 in the morning and Moonsong and I were bored. Not all the characters mentioned above have made appearances yet, but they will soon enough. XD]
- Comment - |
| Friday, April 12, 2002 |
|
And apparently Hideki will be the first one to get his butt in gear. He's gone solo...the Siam Shade webpage (for which he was the webmaster) has been taken down and he's put a link up on it to his new website, http://www.hideki.ch. There's not much there at the moment but there are some entertaining diary entries which you might enjoy...he sounds very excited. ^^;; Also, according to Kotori of Dreamless World, Hideki changed his name on April 1. Not the pronunciation, but the kanji...the kanji in "Hideki" are now the two kanji for the word "mirai," or "future." However, the name is still pronounced "Hideki"...at least he didn't announce a change of name from hideki to HIDEKI. *glares at MACHI*
- Comment - |
| Wednesday, April 10, 2002 |
|
Probably old news to any Shiina fans, but she's apparently coming back to the music scene (she had a baby a while back) and is releasing a new album on May 25. This is going to be a 18-track cover album with classic rock and jpop songs. Go to CD Japan for more info.
- Comment - |
| Monday, April 8, 2002 |
|
Most of you know that Sakura (former Laruku drummer)'s band Zigzo broke up about a month ago. On the Zigzo site, they've posted news of what the members will be doing. Apparently Sakura is still working and is going to hold a drum clinic in Tokyo on April 27. Also, there was a little news blurb about a Sakura video on sale now. I've translated this, as it might be of interest to some of you who are L'Arc~en~Ciel fans. [Note that I'm not entirely sure that my translation for some of the sentences in the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs is exact, but it should get the general point across ^^; "Sakurazuwa Yasunori" is Sakura's real name] "ARENA 37 C SERIALIZATION "SAKURA'S TRUE FEELINGS!" NOW ON SALE The serial story by Special Music Company Arena 37C covers 32 episodes from July 1999 to February 2002. The "Fickle Sakurazuwa?" that was popular has now become "Serious Sakurazuwa!" Between now and Zigzo's debut 2 years, 8 months ago, for this serial drama, Sakura joined a "cabaret" in Shinjuku in a rundown theatre. He went to many places such as bankrupt barber shops, Kamakura, ruins, shrines, apartments that have been there since the days of Showa, amusement parks, Nara, Asuka... There, as an amateur, saying he disliked himself, traveling and beginning to realize himself through music, he asks the reason for this darkness. Through birthdays, once in a lifetime chances, cherry blossom viewing, that incident, members, he pursues romance and love, dreams and reality, and Sakura's trademark....he talks about many things. Sometimes you'll laugh and sometimes you'll cry.... Here is Sakura and Sakurazuka Yasunori's various faces and various truths packed closely together. The entire 32 episodes of the serialization is an entirely new addition to the history of Sakura, with many new pictures every time!" I really can't think of what "Fickle Sakurazuwa," "that incident," and maybe even "members" would refer to if it wasn't referring to Sakura's break with L'Arc~en~Ciel. It seems like this "serializtion" was maybe a way to "redeem" himself in the eyes of music fans? Anyway, it just sounds interesting. More details are at the Zigzo site. And lastly...click HERE!. Apparently, he's dyed his hair...^^;;; I guess it must have been dyed a little before their last live, but I just can't process the existence of a blond Sakura...he's had black hair for so long...
- Comment - |
| Sunday, April 7, 2002 |
|
I was going to wait until there was actually *content* to post this but since some of you were wondering... Yoshiki's latest project, Violet UK, has an official website. Please note that there is NOTHING there right now except an option to sign up for the mailing list. As far as updates, release info, etc., nothing has been determined yet. Yoshiki is composing for this group and it is HIS project, not someone else he's just producing. From what I've heard (and these are just rumors going around, mind you), these song(s) were/are being recorded with mostly female vocalists and there's an album/tour in the works. A snippet of a Violet UK song can be heard on one of the Japanese 7-11 commercials featuring Yoshiki. Very new age, very interesting. Aside from that, no news on releases, tours, whatever else but there's usually some discussion on the Extasy Records Message Board if you really want to keep up. Hope this helped. We'll post more info whenever it comes in.
- Comment - |
| Sunday, April 7, 2002 |
|
News from Japan! XD Gekka was nice enough to let us post this. It's a bit long so I just linked it off AD.net. Lots of interesting little tidbits about they guys and there's even a Gackt reference! *L* Enjoy!
- Comment - |
| Saturday, April 6, 2002 |
|
We've been getting a lot of referrals from people searching on search engines for "Gackt + Neuromancer + Lyrics" and so I thought I'd clear up something. The song Neuromancer is NOT by GACKT. It is by GLAY. The mistake stems from someone mislabelling the mp3 and distributing it over Napster a few years ago. The song has evidently spread and now has made it all over the net and on other mp3 search engines as "Gackt-Neuromancer.mp3" It would do a whole lot of good for the online jrock community to #1: re-label the song as "Glay-Neuromancer.mp3", and #2: search for "Glay + Neuromancer + Lyrics" instead. Cause if you search for Neuromancer by Gackt, I guarantee you won't find the results you're looking for. ^_^ Just a friendly tip from your neighborhood jrock patrol.
- Comment - |
| Friday, April 5, 2002 |
|
(this is kind of long ^^;;) Tonight, I want us to start at the beginning all over again. Rock is a Western music style, and it is safe to say that rock in Japan was brought over from the West around a decade or two after its conception in the United States and Europe. Thus, the rock image in Japan in the late 80's and 90's was a direct carryover from the Western image from the 60's and 70's, and today's image might still be called rather 80's-ish (not necessarily the music, but the image. Different things. Ever had a friend come over, glance at your jrock posters, and go, "What 80's band is that?") With that established, let's move on to the next step of our analysis (yes, this mini-essay is going somewhere.) Just as the West had Elvis, the Beatles, and Led Zeppelin, to name just a few, to inspire them, Japan must have had some great early bands to pioneer the tradition as well, correct? So who would those bands be? I know the answer that is probably in the forefront of your mind right now. Does it begin with "X" and end with "Japan"? Well, as you X Japan fans will hopefully see by the end of this, you are both right and wrong. Much of the Western view towards jrock as been skewed towards canonizing X Japan as THE founders of jrock, and this wasn't necessarily true. There were mainly three founding bands of rock in Japan that stick out in anyone's mind who was around during that period and was old enough to remember. The first is Boowy. The second is Buck-Tick. And the third is X Japan. In a group of struggling bands all floating in the uncertain sea called "rock music," these three groups managed to make it big and hold on. How did they do it? What is their legacy to the rock world? And where do they stand today in the history of jrock? Below, we'll catalogue the success and failures of each band, their contributions, and where they ended up. I'm not going to bother as much with history as with content. Each of these three bands has been reviewed in their own separate section earlier on Shiroi Heya, so go dig through the archives if you want history. So here goes. The first band we'll examine here is BOOWY. Boowy's music is 80's music, plain and simple. In an era where 80's music was mainstream and the way to go, Boowy managed to rise above the rest. How did they do it? I'm not really sure. Even if I had been exposed to jrock at the time, I would have been in diapers and not really in any condition to examine the musical qualities of Boowy's music. To make this even harder, not many people outside of Japan have heard of Boowy, so there's a shortage of Boowy sites and analysis. I don't believe that there are ANY English Boowy sites around at all. This is probably because the Boowy fanbase is made up of older fans who were teenagers around the time of Boowy's meteoric rise to the top in the mid-80's. These fans are fanatically loyal to their favorite band, as evidenced by the fact that the Boowy website is still up, and also the fact that any new Boowy compilation or "best" albums sell like wildfire and always top the Oricon charts. The band might have drawn in some younger people who are fans of the 80's music genre, but all in all, their music style is extremely dated and doesn't appeal to the majority of rock fans today. Boowy was, all said and done, a band of their generation and their time. They were the spearhead of the rock movement in general because they wholeheartedly embraced the simple concept of HAVING a band and HAVING the guts to go for it. There are other 80's era bands such as Unicorn and Red Warriors, to name a few, who had the same general concept, but for some reason, it was Boowy who grabbed the spotlight. Boowy is kept alive today by its legion of loyal fans who became fans almost 20 years ago and haven't stopped being fans since. The place of this band in rock history is really that it was at the right place at the right time and became the symbol of an attitude, a generation, a musical movement. Our second band is BUCK-TICK. Most of you will probably be more familiar with the name Buck-Tick than with the name Boowy, but if I were to take a poll and ask which of you have actually listened to any of their music, (and Gessekai from Nightwalker doesn't count) I would bet that the number of hands would drop dramatically. It's not that Buck-Tick isn't talented or that their music isn't good, but it is perhaps the sheer fact that their music isn't made a big deal of. In the West, as I said above, most people have heard of them but few have HEARD them. In Japan, many prominent musicians admire Buck-Tick and they have a huge fanbase, but neither of these categories are flashy about it. Perhaps this is because Buck-Tick is not flashy. Buck-Tick is one of those bands that has been around forever and will continue to be around, as far as anyone knows. Because of this, they've amassed a large and varied fanbase. Unlike Boowy, their music doesn't just fit neatly into one category, so they've been able to attract fans of all ages and generations. They're also more experimental than Boowy, being one of the first rock bands in Japan to depart from the 80's music style and begin to find other styles to play with. What is interesting is that Boowy greatly inspired them to begin their journey as a band together in the first place. Buck-Tick's downfall is that while they are varied, they are not nearly varied enough. All of their songs are solid, well put together, and thought out. Atsushi is a marvellous vocalist, and the other musicians are talented. However, that stand-out quality is missing. They are passionate about their music, but the music itself does not seem to be passionate about them. If that makes sense. Buck-Tick's contribution to jrock is that their rise to fame wasn't a quick trip to the top like Boowy's. They rose slowly but steadily, and today, they are still there. The one word to describe Buck-Tick would be consistent. They always deliver what they promise. However, many Western fans don't seem to be too excited about what they DO promise, and this results in Buck-Tick's lack of a Western fanbase. And now thirdly, X JAPAN. For a while, I was puzzled as to the stunning effect X Japan has had on the jrock community worldwide. Listening to some jrock fans, you'd think that X Japan was the best thing that had ever happened to the world, and that bashing any X Japan member, especially Yoshiki or hide, is equivalent to blasphemy. I thought long and hard on this and have come up with a few reasons to why this might be, as well as a few facts and figures to (perhaps unfortunately) debunk a few myths. Fact #1: X Japan was not the first ever jrock band. Our analysis above should have made that clear. Boowy was founded in 1982 and Buck-Tick in 1983. X Japan was formed around 1982/1983 but didn't actually go on to do anything until 1985, with I'll Kill You. Fact #2: hide was not the best guitarist in the world. Most of you probably accept this, but I've seen this time and time again on hide tribute websites. As a guitarist myself, I admit that hide is a wonderful guitarist, but there are plenty of jrock guitarists who are more talented (Tak Matsumoto, anyone? Or even Pata, hide's much-neglected counterpart.) When a rock star dies, his/her popularity is usually escalated, and that is what has happened to hide. Now with those two little points out of the way, here are my thoughts on X Japan's wild popularity through the 80's and today. 1. The image. As opposed to Boowy and Buck-Tick, which stuck with a darker image but little else (though Buck-Tick's hair definitely was a shocker), X Japan went all out. If you have seen any of their concert videos from the 80's, it's difficult to reconcile them with the clean-cut, romantic band of the late 90's. To young people, X Japan symbolized rebellion, with their chain smoking, heavy drinking, tatoos, caked-on-makeup, and wild and colorful hairdos. To top it all off, they classified themselves as a metal band. It was hard to get more rebellious than that in Japan in the 80's and be considered within propriety (granted, X Japan wasn't exactly...but anyway) Their later romantic image was also all-out and over-the-top, thanks to Yoshiki. Most importantly, X Japan can be said to be the father of the visual rock movement in Japan. 2. The talent. As mentioned above, hide was not the best guitarist in the world, but he, Pata, Taiji, Yoshiki, and Toshi (and later Heath) made a formidable five-some. In no band in Japan since has there been such a veritable lineup of musical geniuses. X Japan's members were more than solid musicians: they were musicians completely sure of their craft. That's hard to find in a band. The members of X knew how good they were, and they used it to their advantage like no other. 3. The sound. Called a metal band but known for their ballads, X Japan is a stunning contradiction in sound and style. As opposed to Boowy and Buck-Tick, their music, like their image, was a study in extreme opposites. From headbanging metal to tear-jerking ballads, they have a little something for everyone. This gives them a wider audience, and even people who don't necessarily have a thing for the weird visual image can identify with the music. 4. The drama. Let's face it; life in X Japan was probably like a soap opera, with Yoshiki as the resident drama queen. But this is the kind of thing that fans like. Who doesn't enjoy reading interviews where Yoshiki waxes eloquent on his relationship with hide or Toshi? Who doesn't like to avidly follow a career like hide's solo one, with all it's wild side adventures? What about the quietly enigmatic Pata, who hides from the spotlight as if it were the plague? Why exactly did Taiji leave, anyway? The breakup of X Japan could be a whole soap opera season in itself. X Japan had tons of personality and they flaunted their popularity. Maybe most of this was building mountains out of molehills, but with their inner politics pretty much laid out bare for everyone to see, it was the perfect opportunity for fans to dig their grubby little fingernails in and find out all about the secret lives of their idols. 5. The vision. This is perhaps the most important of them all. Where Boowy was in the right place at the right time and Buck-Tick is consistent, X Japan definitely does NOT deserve to be called "consistent" and really wasn't in the right place at the right time to do much. Indeed, if you look at the band annals of the day, they are the exact opposite: they did all the wrong things at the wrong times and delighted in confusing and surprising their fans. Their costumes were bizarre. Their music was strange. Their bassist quit in the middle of their rise to fame. Their average song length is around 10 minutes. But though they seemed an odd mix and match, X Japan drove through their 10-odd year reign with a mission to take rock music to the next level. And even those who hate X Japan have to admit that there's something about this band. It's not just talent, it's not just show, and it isn't just tenacity. Much of this "vision" may be attributed to Yoshiki, who was determined to show the world that Japan could produce music that was just as good as the rock coming from the West, but it couldn't have happened without the talents of the rest of the band. And even when the band fell apart, the vision kept going. Yoshiki and hide went on to almost single-handedly founded the next generation of bands who would go on to make it big: Dir en Grey, Oblivion Dust, Transtic Nerve, and Glay, just to name a few. So there you are. One band that got lucky. One band that worked hard and got what they deserved. And one band that was like a shooting star: they fell fast and disappeared quickly, but they were brighter than anything else in the sky when they were still burning. It's not really about who is "better," because great music can take different forms. Boowy, Buck-Tick, and X Japan affected fans in different ways, but the correct question is probably "what can I take away from this?" Boowy gave us a beginning. Buck-Tick gave us the power to dream, to persevere, and to believe. And X Japan gave us the heart of music. Interpret that as you will.
- Comment - |
| SHIROI HEYA |
|
TOP 100 SONGS POLL FEATURES ARCHIVES JROCK BIRTHDAYS WEEKLY TRIVIA NEW RELEASE MP3 |
| VOTE FOR TOP 100 |
|
Shiroi Heya is conducting a poll of our visitors to see what YOU think are the greatest 100 jrock songs ever written. To make your voice heard, simply fill out the fields of the form below with your name, address, and your top 5 favorite jrock songs. We'll tally the results after we have a considerable amount of votes (poll ending date TBA) and post the results here!
|
| JROCK BIRTHDAYS |
|
Today: APRIL 12 Today's jrock birthday is: KOJI Band: La'Cryma Christi Position: guitar This Osaka native is generally considered "the shy one" of La'Cryma Christi, at least until provoked. After he loosens up, he can get as loud as the rest of them, hamming it up with his Osaka-ben accent or playing the guitar line of "Mirai Koro" behind his back. Long time childhood friends, Koji and Levin (dr) joined the band together and still share quite a few of the same interests. Link: In Forest [fansite] |
| JROCK TRIVIA |
|
Week of: Mar 24-30
"Looking back on the Indies Last Live...
~ Mana [Malice Mizer] |
| NEW RELEASE MP3 |
|
Spotlight on recently released songs. This is a rotating mp3 list and will be changed regularly to make room for newer songs, so get 'em while you can!
[Buck-Tick]
[Hyde]
|
| LINK TO US |
|
|
| RECOMMENDED SITES |
Weblog courtesy of 