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Japan, the birthplace of visual kei: "Westerners doing visual kei? Fxxking spicy, but what is visual kei, again?.. Z-z-z-z"

Patrik stop lurking.

I was in the first row for MUCC's culture center live in Mito last week, and when they switched parts for their first encore Tatsuro played the bass and I could see there was a guy holding a big cardboard sign in the gap between the seats and the stage, running after him as he moved on stage. Then I saw the sign had bass tabs written on it. He was still messing it up and it was very cute. It got even funnier when they used the smoke machine during Ranchuu and he was squinting to look at the tabs through the smoke. I'm a sucker for silly gags like this so it made me really happy.

yes because mh is full of whites. nothing but whites. this forum's color should be white instead of black. Fucking idiot, living up to both his name and the band's name (Bataar, more like Pataar, amirite).

Dunno about you guys, but every time I see people calling VK art I let go a tiny, but sincere chuckle

well as a useless baka gaijin I guess I'd better quit listening to vk and following vk bands and buying vk bands' CDs and merch and just giving a shit about vk at all then, if I can't go to lives ever, even though this is 2017 we're living in and everything gets consumed internationally these days through this magical invention called the Internet

I never thought of it that way before, but I'm totally fine with the idea of visual kei remaining a primarily Asian thing. I mean don't get me wrong, I have thought about it before. But Patrik's outburst really got me thinking about what visual kei is and why none of us can settle on a coherent definition. That's where the magic lies for me. I grew up as less than in a Eurocentric world, and was programmed to think of white as default. Everyone in my country is. History was white people history. World history was "this is how Britain almost won this last game of Civilization, but then America came from behind with a bullshit victory". Asian culture always felt more distant and is still marketed as more niche and ~exotic~. For me, there's a layer of separation between how I perceive the two cultures. I will always feel more familiarity with Britain or Scandinavia than Laos or Cambodia, even though I have never been to any of those places. In theory, I would be okay with visual kei becoming a world wide thing. In practice, outside of Asian circles it crosses the layer of separation in my mind and becomes something too familiar to be visual kei, and so it just doesn't work for me. Also I'm high as fuck whats up?

Iirc there was a pretty horrendous south american visual kei compilation that was uploaded on this board way back. They were kind of nu-kei-ish I recall, and also I think one of the bands had a member who posted here ( he might have in fact been the uploader. ) I do like how everything written here has been reduced to "white elitism." The only way shitty local rock bands can cope with flopping like they do is by telling themselves that everyone is a hater and that they're doing a public service by existing.

when people confuse elitism with actually having taste, oops

Yoshiki's water bottle hit me in the head.

unexpected spotify gems

idk how i missed this thread but

mods!

AvelCain: During gyakudive i was almost lying on vocalist's box (idk how to call it) and accidentally touched Karma's foot. He looked at me like a psycho and slapped my face with his palm. It was like more pushing palm into my face. Duuuuude. Saw how Kisaki and Karma hugged each other because Sui told them to do it (?). It was the coldest hug i've ever seen. lol Before that live i was lost and asked for a random people for help. They showed me way and stopped while saying "This is this place". I raised my head and saw AvelCain in front of me. So i thanked these people and was pretending i don't know who is AvelCain. SAVAGE: During gyakudive i almost didn't broke my nose because guitarist catched my hand and pulled me on someone. I felt pain in my nose for few days. At live i thought i was bleeding. Injured my back because Ryuka used my back as a table or a chair and the next day i was not able to sit or move. Chariots: Jin thrown smal sausage into me. D.I.D.: I came to venue before live because i want to check where the venue is because i'm a stupid gaijin and i'm always lost. And at that moment i saw D.I.D. arriving in their van in front of me. I got scared and started run away. Sel'm guys saw this stupid gaijin running like a crazy. lol. Lolita23q: After live one awesome guy gave to me his atari ticket and i've met Sou face to face twice. Lycaon: Fans wanted to go to toilet but toiled doors was occupied by Satoshi and surrounded by BORN members. Trans Note: Riding metro to Suzuya's live together with him. I wouldn't realize that if he wouldn't be staring at me TOO much. Like having literally no shame, turning to me and staring like a weirdo entire time till we left metro. etc. etc. so many....

I'm happy Mejibray is taking a break. I really agree with the fact that they haven't really put out anything too great for awhile now and it could do their music wonders. Think about the Gazette. Whether you hated or love their Dogma project, it was a HUGE refreshment from what they were putting out prior. That almost 2 year gap between releases helped them tremendously. ----- that's all I have to say opinion wise on the matter. If you want to continue reading after this, I just jumped into the most recent debate for a quick spell. Nothing serious. ---- To say that the opinion of a fan who buys their products, but doesn't see their lives is unimportant is wrong though. Whether buying their ticket and seeing them live or buying their stuff, that money IS what keeps the band going. I don't think the band really would care if 5 people didn't show up to a show, but 5 people bought their DVD, CDs, posters, etc. at the same value as the ticket. Also, some people aren't able to make it out to a show (small venue, tickes sold out. Work schedule conflicts, etc, etc) or can't even get to be in Japan to see these bands. Their opinion might not matter to you, but it does matter. But I'm sure you've seen EVERY band live before you decided to criticize them or like them, right? I agree with this statement, except the studio album part. With the technology available to sound engineers, you can take someone who sounds as nasally and flat as Sakito (ex. Duel e Quartz) and make him sound as godly as Asagi from D. You can take anything from the "CRAPPY songs to cure people from rare indies bands obsession" thread and make it sound like L'arc en CIel or Dir en Grey gold. It has no indicate of the skill. In conclusion, all of your opinions are valid to a degree because that is what keeps the band alive. Buying tickets, buying products, and SPREADING THE WORD about the band whether good or band KEEPS THE BAND ALIVE because it all leads to monetary value for the band to continue. Sorry to go on and on and on. lol.

Saw MERRY in Liquidroom for their 2009 Underworld [BURST]Tour final and during the set, I was sub-consciously digging my nose (I know, I know....) and my eyes and Gara's met (I'm a Asian dude). Gara then smiled and proceeded to violently dig HIS nose with all his fingers, one at a time and then licked all his fingers while glancing in my direction with a crazed look. Good times!

Lycaon should have disbanded when Mío and Eve left.

I'm saying just because you haven't see a band perform live, it doesn't mean you can't criticize them. Studio albums are indicative of an artist's musical skill and songwriting capabilities. If a band has five albums and I only like one of them, I think it's fair to say that I don't like the band's music. Seeing them live won't change anything.

Haven't been doing much VK on my channel in the last few years, but I felt like returning to it recently. Hope you enjoy!

why white ppl gotta destroy everything first dabbing and now vk smh

I loathe the constipated vampire aristocrat gimmick so everyone from gackt to klaha to post-lareine kamijo and their ilk I can't stand for one bit. Klaha especially was only gauged to do good stuff with Gardenia because of the song writing, for which I presume he was not responsible. His previous band is terrible bush league nu wave and they even ripped off Billie Jean for christ sake.

He was singing in his natural voice. What he does in Versailles is forced as fuck imo.

cant wait to see japan debut at eurovision next year w/ this band

"live-limited" after all the waiting..ugh

Trinity is my winner. I love Sasha more but theyre not gonna let an art queen win.

you know mashiro is damn underrated when at 20 replies in no one still remembered THE LEGEND

Y'know what I'll bring this up with the rest of the staff. I mean, you're right, we gotta come correct and all! Correctness is everything. Also, those bataaaaaaaaaaar dudes are bullshit personified

I'm legit sizzling @ this, they actually got the aesthetics part right and it's a pretty authentic deal visually (given an all gaijin band with a matina production budget) the actual music tho

kazuki from screw spat in my eye it got really red and irritated for a couple of days

That's true. 2017 vk has been pretty average, so far. The only release I believe is an actual stand out was ORCALADE's debut. Solid as fuck. on unpopular opinions: DADAROMA gets more praise than they deserve. For each killer song, they have 5 or 6 that are forgettable at best. And its a shame, cuz I really liked Crazy Shampoo and NAINE...

Okay, I've been reading a lot of people here saying they were one of the most successful and popular bands out of this latest generation and my question is: were they? I've always felt they are far more successful among the western fanbase than in Japan, which honestly means absolutely nothing to determine their status in the scene. They don't seem to sell that well, the biggest place they held an oneman was Zepp Tokyo (in 2014; other than that they seem to have reached a plateau at Akasaka BLITZ, meaning they've been stagnated for years now) and it doesn't look like they're leaving much of an impact within the scene (if any at all).

I don't know how unpopular this is but K-Pop >>> J-Pop. God, I hate so much, I had forgotten about it until I went to a japanese music event and they put a lot of that awful J-Pop, then I remembered why I could never listen to that. The voices, I just can't do it, nope, they make me want to rip off my ears and the music is soooooo corny. At least K-Pop singers sound like normal people.

Even live DVDs don't fully capture a live performance, especially since those end up being edited and polished just like anything else. I fully understand the idea of some bands being better live than on record, but it's silly to imply that you can't judge a band until you see them live when they don't perform internationally.

Sure, but it's not like seeing Mejibray live is just a matter of buying tickets and driving to a local venue for anyone outside Japan.

$”Casper. new single "ケミカル少女" will be released at 2017/04/08 (1,000yen) TrackList: 1.$”Chapter#2 2.ケミカル少女 3.現代的幸福論

not sure where you've heard that * ;D * but i am totally willing to upload a sample of the song when i'm back home from japan if people want/it's still not shared online.^^ but at first (since i'll be arriving in tokyo on 20.05.2017) i hope that the live won't be sold out because i need to buy the ticket at the door...

It's decent. Anyway even if they sometimes do some forgettables songs, they never did and never will do really "bad" songs. But i must be honest, except the solo and the verses... I was like, "and ? nice collab for a 2 sec bass slap", and i was waiting for some "scream drop" during all the song, i love their soft songs and i don't mean they must add screams to make a great lynch song, but here it could make it more powerfull. The refrain is quite boring and the song is too long. Overall it's a bit disappointing, but let's see the rest of the mini. NIGHT was a so much better title song for the previous EP (one of my favorite song by them). And after an interesting album, with "deeper" sound and new things like Deftones vibes (FAREWELL, PHANTOM..) we can feel indifferent ...

oops yeah i fucked that up. just swiftly googled and was 2 lazy to copypaste the original titles from the files. I wrote what I look forward from them, and then what I perceive they gave regarding this paradigm ( this is why I don't score also, to emphasise subjectivity. I just don't feel like pussyfooting and adding I THINK or IN MY OPINION in front of every sentence just to appease people ). Don't give a shite what anyone else wants or thinks, and 3 was indeed not what I was hoping to see. From them I pray for one thing only, which is indeed a certain stylistic direction that is not this one but what they've done a few times before. I call it like I see it. Listened to it probably five or six times now, i think it's tired af save for masturbation

Lmao I wonder what private information was leaked? Deep dark secrets or bank account numbers?

DIMLIM coming out of nowhere. Best VK debut in 2017?

Because 'visual kei' and 'quality control' are mutually incompatible

That was great guitar solo with a 3.5 minute intro... this is like, a little bit more tapwater than the usual tapwater track on Lynch albums..

Preach!

Note that Malice Mizer is also on hiatus.

I'm not necessarily all that impressed but I'm not all that disappointed either. I'll probably be really obsessed with some of them for a week or two and then forget it exists.

Would Asobi Seksu count, or would that be cheating?