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Hi all, I wasn't aware that there is such an elaborate forum for J-rock/VK stuff! Glad to be here! I'm Ken; I live in rural Ibaraki, Japan. I've been a fan of visual rock since I was in high school (early 00s!) These days I work all the time but I occasionally find time to go to shows or play as a support bassist for local bands. Recently I'm working on a YouTube show about late 90s/early 00s VK. In addition to doing reviews, I would like to analyze various tropes and aspects of the genre . It's still a little rough but I'd appreciate any kind of feedback or support. Thanks! episode 1 episode 2

The band will break up and they will each go their separate ways. Many of them already have secondary bands (DECAYS, Seraph, sukekiyo) and clothing lines. Kyo will release more overpriced poetry books and put on art shows that no one will attend. He'll continue making music in some form or another until he dies. I imagine that Kaoru will form another dark doomy br00tal band that takes itself far too seriously, possibly with Toshiya. He might do soundtrack work or possibly get in bed with Opeth or something. Die will make bouncy pop-punk. Shinya will turn into an eccentric new-age hermit and will somehow still be with us in 300 years looking exactly the same. Also, there will be schisms in the fanbase, gnashing of teeth, beatings of breasts. The curtain in front of the temple will tear asunder. The dead will rise from their graves. etc.

Any fans of Esprit D'Air here? Apparently, they reformed last year, but that's when I found out about them. I'm going to their London show tomorrow at O2 Academy ! Here's their latest song If you haven't heard them before, you should check them out!

Their new single 「ゴーストマンション」(Ghost Mansion) will be released.

this band sounds like how i wish gossip sounded

Anyone here like "Esprit D'Air"?

early darker Kagrra is one of the best things this scene ever had

Yeah, Shinya is too br00tal for his own good!

You can ask your college/uni if they have G Suite for Education tied to a student email, so you can have an unlimited Google Drive storage for a lifetime for free. Some may not last for a lifetime, it depends on the institution. It'd be great to have one because it doesn't have a monthly/yearly cost with an unlimited storage. One con is the admin can access your files unlike your personal Google Drive account, but I don't care about it because I don't keep anything personal there.

We're going to shoot for a free-for-all plug session today @ 3PM EST/8PM UTC. So roughly an hour from now. Feel free to join! https://plug.dj/monochrome-heaven

I separate English and Japanese I then have a folder for each artist In each folder, I have the artists' releases and release dates (I don't differentiate between what is a single, mini-album, album, etc) If I have to make changes to the tags, I do it in iTunes and just drag the new version into the folder and overwrite what was originally there.

This is a really good idea, I may have to try it. Especially since there is a lot of music I want to keep for posterity's sake but I don't listen to very often.

The auction stream is up! We are pre-gaming with video from the Sweet Trance omnibus. www.rarezhut.net/stream

@WhirlingBlackhad this nice post to back it up: Also, mixed colors are RARELY (read: NEVER) read in kun'yomi. In this case it is Ranshishoku that means "Deep Indigo" and not "Ai Murasaki Iro" that means "Blue Purple Color". I never heard Diru calling 業 as "Gō" nor "Waza" though...

need jesus

There's a spoken word version of Sangeki no Yoru, some covers (INSANITY, Shinainaru DEATHMASK, etc.), an unnamed vocal solo and a song with literally no information. Also, Setsuna changed a lot before it became UDaL. Oh and the name is Ranshishoku, not Ai Murasakiiro^^ Perhaps they also played other songs during the lives w/o terekos, but there's no way to know that. And if you count the indies versions of all those songs as well, then there are two or more versions for each song^^

We can trade, if you have any terekos I don't have. :] Why would I ruin my reputation for a troll, though? I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one here who has DEG terekos, so maybe others can confirm my words? The song was known as 新曲2 on setlists, my plug said that Re:birth was used once in an interview, but I wasn't able to confirm it so far. According to someone from batsu, it was a fake title, though.

I SAID NO

This is the ultimate "fuck you Issei"

Really like track 6 ❤

couldn't decide which one I like more

SINGIN IN THE REIGN OH MY GOD I LOVE IT

could have thrown an urn with ashes of D talent for that shipping weight tbh

I'm feeling this tbh side A: 「Re:quiem ～for career～」 side B: 「 Re:tirement Age」 (guest dr.: Yoshiki)

Musically, their old stuff is great but yeah I know what you mean. The guitarist is singing now and has a much better voice. Strange that he didn't do it before... Looks like they're re-recording The Hunter for their next album:

^ well, there are quite a few bands who sound like they could be from that era. It‘s not so obscure as actual 90s style oldschool bands. See DEZERT, Kuroyuri to kage, Gossip, AvelCain, Crimson Shiva, Sibilebashir, etc. The 00s sound hasn‘t completely died out yet. In fact, some of the bands of this era managed to survive way into the early 2010s. I remember there were still enough Gazette copycats around in 2010. True it‘s slowly starting to fade away as Metalcore has become the next big thing, but a few bands still clinge to it. Being a hopeless nostalgic I can understand where you are coming from, but can‘t agree 100%. The style has changed and the scene is pumping out one Royz-clone after another, but it would be wrong to idealize the past and say, that everything was better back then. The video and production quality seems to be the scapegaot in most discussions, but honestly: it wasn‘t as good as we claim. That doesn‘t mean that all PVs in the 90s and 00s were Matina-style low budget crap filmed on a shaky handcam with the band dancing around in the forest or wrapping themselves in toilet paper, but there wasn‘t as much budget as today. PVs nowadays look a lot better, because the technology may have become more affordable. I also don‘t think that the production has gotten worse (it can‘t be worse than the ‘production’ some obscure VK bands had in the 90s when they recorded their songs in a 5m2 bathroom), maybe their instrumental just happen to sound bad. One thing I noticed with many indies VK bands emerging since the early 00s were the boring 3 chord (or less) riffs. Those were particulary bad in some low budget Nu Metal bands (plus half assed growls). My main beef with modern VK is that the bands want to play Nu Metal or Metalcore so badly, but either don‘t have the skill or the will to learn it. I am not an expert on this issue, since I am not really a big Metal fan, but I am sure that 90% of these VK bands don't even scratch on the surface of what are good growls or ‘harsh vocals’. I really can’t stand listening to random or reptitive guitar slamming and growls and screams so bad it gives me a headache. Which is the main reason why I stay away from this music (even though I listen to AvelCain and Karma‘s voice sometimes exhibits the same problem. I then often just skip the song or part…)

Both parties sure have points, but what bugs me more is that so many people paint the "elders" of the scene as narcistic assholes who are jealosuy of other bands and who try to overestimate their own success. Because his is not true. Of what should the elders be jealous? And why? After all, groups like LUNA SEA, KJamaitachi, X Japan and Pierrot were extremely popular and influential on the genre. It wouldn't really make sense if they were jealous of all these bands in the VK scene that started out (in one point of history) as their copy bands. New Visual kei is vastly different from old VK, but if you trace back the history of any modern band, epecially big bands like the Gazette, you will always end at LUNA SEA and their peers from that time. Also I am sure that most modern VK musicians are aware of the influence those old bands had. I am sure too that they all admire their elders. Therefore painting the elders as ignorant, envious assholes is pretty mean and not right. Also: why aren't they allowed to give their own opinion on VK? They were pretty much the creators, the fathers of VK. If it wasn't for them, VK wouldn't even be a thing nowadays. So they have all the reason to talk about it as they want. You don't have to agree with them, you don't even need to listen to them. It doesn't hurt you either that most of them disllike what their "baby" has grown into. I don't really understand how sensible one can be when the opinion of one musician makes you so angry that you have to talk bad about them. But maybe I am just growing sick and tired of people banging their heads against each other, just because their precious Kyo has said something about VK which they didn't like. (Also sure that in at least 20 years the popular VK bands of today will say the same about the next generation of VK bands) And on a side note: LUNA SEA and Co. were definitely original, at least in their time span, when VK wasn't really thing and not many bands played in this style. In my opinion they are even original today. There may have been a lot of copy cats, but no other band actually reached the same level they had. Their impact on the japanese music scene was pretty big too, and wasn't just limited to futire Visual kei, but probably japanese rock music in general. I doubt that Sugizo is envious of "modern stuff" as their music is timeless and perfect as it is. And show me any modern day VK band that has reached the same legendary status, influence and fame that LUNA SEA have, please. And I am saying this as someone who isn't such a big fan of them. But I am not an igorant idiot and claim that they are a forgettable band who didn't pull of anything. (I may agree with the statement about Angelo, but not Dir en grey. The latter don't even have any connection to VK anymore, so comparing their current stylistic direction with the stagnation of today's VK scene is far-fetched. And them playing their old songs form time to time doesn't really count and doesn't make them VK)

ono not this shit again. blackdoll, please, stop being an ignorant kid and trying to pin on your bullshit to others. you won't go too far with all those ridiculous arguments of yours. respect people's opinions and maybe your opinion will also be respected. and who the fuck stole flash-fab-supernova's account? curious to know, really.

1. Everything those old schoolers say is true. VK is in a period of stagnance run by money and looking cute to grab the tweens who want drag queens to drool over. 2. VK music was COMPLETELY different back then than what it is now. The music had diverse sounds rather than the same old shit being rehashed over and over. Visual Kei has become a conglomerate of pumping out over produced over done tacky bitches. 3. How are they being hypocritical? Their bands could never be easily compared to the sound of another. Now almost all VK bands are just overdone copypasta. And it's the TRUTH. You just don't want to accept it because you aren't mature enough yet to see it. But don't worry, you'll get there soon. We've all been in your position of haughty egoistic opinions. 4. Calling them pricks and saying they should be spat on shows you are wildly immature and need to sit back and take a deep breath and actually THINK before you type. Especially when you are insulting the forefathers of your supposed loved genre of music. With out any of those "pricks" there wouldn't be VK. 5. Anything Pierrot, Dir en Grey, Luna Sea, Kenzi did were all VASTLY different than the generic manufactured VK that is running rampant in the market today. Maybe I'll make an infographic that will show you the lines of descent between these bands and the new acts that are stinking up the place with their shoddy guitar riffs, clang-bang drumming, and cartoon styled vox. 666. Get some salve for that bruised ego of yours if you get upset over the opinions of others. You can't change them. And if ANYONE has a say on what VK has become it's definitely the people who laid down the ground work for what is here today.

VK died when people stopped dressing like nazis. No nazis, no VK.

I prefer the old Visual Kei, the one from the mid 90's to early 2000's when most bands ended up breaking up (around 2002). In my very personal opinion this era was the best for Visual Kei because it kind of attained a more distictive sound and bands tended to be more dramatic/theatrical on stage among other reasons. Today's VK bands don't appeal to me that much with a few exceptions. But most bands have that nümetal sound that makes them sound dull and all the same and if I compare them to older bands, current bands don't have much to offer that I might feel interested in listening to. I actually don't care much if a band sounds "crappy". One of the things that attracted me to Visual Kei was that most bands in the 90's had that "mental insanity" sound with those hypnotic guitars that I just cannot find in today's bands. As an example, listen to Verfe~gorl's Kindan Shoujou. That song is amazing and can be used as a reference of the 90's sound of Visual Kei. I don't find that sound today. There are and have been bands that I like and have liked today, but I usually forget about them after a time. It all depends on personal taste. However I wish there were more bands like the ones of the 90's and early 2000's.

Gross.