shiroihana

I'm sure many of you older VK fans have also noticed this, unless I'm imagining things, but I don't think I am. What I noticed is that the indie bands of the current VK era are playing at a level that they didn't about a decade ago, and I mean in terms of sheer skill. Bands of the present day are blowing bands from about 10 years ago completely out of the water by this metric. They are playing faster, heavier, and more complex riffs. Vocalists have become much more polished singers, and the ability to growl has become much more common in a vocalist's skillset, whereas 10 years ago there weren't many decent growlers in the indies scene, and most of those who were, still didn't perform at the level of guys from bands like Deviloof, Nocturnal Bloodlust, DIMLIM, DEXCORE, D.I.D, etc. I'm wondering if anyone has noticed this, and what the reason may be? Has the VK scene just gotten much more competitive? Are all the average bands simply not being noticed? What's causing this massive skill increase? Another thing I've noticed is that band members don't have zillions of past bands in their resume anymore. It's as if they've reached a high level much more quickly than they used to. Back about a decade ago, the best musicians would usually work their way up to reach a high skill level, having played for years in previous bands before finally reaching a more major status, and continue to improve from there. Nowadays, it's very common for musicians with little to no known band history to play at the level of those with years of history behind them. So I'm just curious to know what you all think, but I'm sorry if this has been brought up before. I have no doubt that this has been on people's minds, especially jaded fans who have been involved for a decade or longer, and have noticed several shifts in the scene within the current era. Lastly, I don't think the skill increase is a bad thing, although I did enjoy the slower, simpler sound that bands used to have. It wasn't as impressive, but the tunes were fun. I don't think bands with my favorite type of sound will ever emerge again, but it doesn't bother me. I still have those bands, and they still exist as a part of history, with music that can still be obtained. Everyone has different taste and I'm happy w/ the scene. Here's a random song I just dug up to show off my taste, just for the fun of it.

So I've been watching La:Sadie's videos on Youtube, and I couldn't help but notice all of the KISAKI vs Toshiya comments. Many people over there really do not like KISAKI and the two bassists are often compared (obviously in Toshiya's favor). I chose to write this thread because I was genuinely curious whom the community feels is a better bassist over a medium where I could more hopefully gauge productive conversation. We all know that KISAKI is a shit person, and that's not what I'm aiming to talk about in this thread. I'm simply curious to know which La:Sadie's/Dir En Grey member is better on a technical and creative level, or any other relevant metric to discern proficiency. Now first of all, KISAKI has been a professional bassist since the early 90s, and has played bass consistently. I believe he is quite good on a compositional level, I've always enjoyed his style of visual kei. I think he is a good example of what you look for in a visual kei bassist, loud and harmonic playing. He plays the bass like a bass, not like an electric guitar, and he wants you to hear him. Toshiya plays a completely different style of music - although I have to to admit, I haven't really listened to much of Dir En Grey's recent stuff so I can't offer much of my own opinion on Toshiya's playing, but I hear he's gotten real good over the years (which of course makes sense, given that he's been playing bass for such a prominent band for over two decades now). KISAKI on the other hand probably hasn't dramatically improved in quite a while.

Hey guys! It's been quite a while since I posted here, and I hope people hear me out and read this whole thread. First I'll introduce myself, I'm known by some people here as Yasu, and I was a moderator quite some time ago, briefly, by the name of Yasupon. I wouldn't say I was the best moderator of all time, but I left a mark on the community during the time I was around due to my activity within the social aspect of the site (mostly within the minichat, last.fm, and tt.fm areas). I was probably well known for having written comments on every indie band on last.fm, but yeah enough about me. So as you all know, the visual kei scene is extremely niche; I can personally say that I've never met a single visual kei fan irl by pure chance. The reason I joined this forum many years ago on my former account was because I wanted to meet other visual kei fans, because of course, meeting them in person is almost impossible. I really enjoyed this forum, and for a while I was a minichat regular, as that was the best social outlet for me to make friends and express myself as a part of this community. We had many regulars whom would use the minichat actively, including myself, Biopanda, Haunted Jealousy, Senedjem, Zesshoku, CAT5, Furik, and plenty of others. So somewhere around 2013, drama struck me, and I left this community while I still held a moderator position. It was honestly ridiculous, and I don't want to talk about it because it was truly quite silly, but I left without a word (what an immature teen I was), and two years later I returned to see that the minichat was no longer what it had used to be. The minichat was barren, and it wasn't as active as before. Soon afterward, I discovered that MH actually had its own discord server, which had been started by OriginalSaku (whom I believe is still a moderator here?), however that discord group wasn't promoted very actively, and ultimately went inactive. I am writing this thread because one of my biggest passions in life is to make friends with other visual kei fans, and with the minichat being inactive for quite some time now, the discord group not really being a paramount cornerstone for the community, and no other discord groups filling the void that I sought after, I took it in my own hands to create what I had been so desperately looking for, so I did. I run a server which is currently called "J-Music Community" which is focused primarily on two things: visual kei, and social interaction. Our goal is to bring people together to discuss the music, and just have fun together. We have custom roles, custom colors, voice channels, a j-music and general radio, and many 'channels' for members to use as a means to discuss various topics of interest, and I would be extremely honored to have members of this community to join, and try us out. Our members are friendly, and most are quite mature. We currently have 175 members, and most of them joined only within the past week alone. I have been advertising very passionately all over the internet because that's how much I care about bringing visual kei fans together. If anyone would be willing to at least give us a shot, I'll supply the link right here: https://discordapp.com/invite/wE56xDx If this thread is considered advertising, then of course, I apologize. I intend to create conversation, so this is not solely about driving traffic to the server. A dialogue concerning visual kei fans and unifying them is the premise of this thread as well, because it appears that we're a very niche group, yet we're quite divided from my perspective, and it saddens me a bit. Last.fm has died down over the years, and other community websites dedicated to VK I feel have died down as well, so my goal has been to basically attempt to change that single-handedly to revolutionize things a bit.

How do you look at the world and humanity? What is the meaning of life? Do you have a philosophy? If you do, what is it, and why? I'm an existentialist whose belief is that life has no meaning, but people can attribute meaning to their own lives. This is different from nihilism, which suggests that there is no purpose to life, period.

This is a big deal guys. Kisaki's influence in VK goes far beyond only the bands he's been in. This guy is the founder of the MATINA and Under Code labels. He has composed music for tons of well known visual kei bands. This shit is really bad for visual kei, really.

Pretty big deal. Hibari is one of the best vocalists in the indie VK scene I'd say, and both his past bands (Schmelz Cure and MiD DERACINE) were really cool. This band is definitely worth watching out for.

Ya I try to avoid Maria Cross too. She already haunts my dreams enough. Welcome to the forum. If you like chatting bands discord is a great place to meet and socialize with some of our members.

I don't watch Ru Paul, but this is just plain exciting. Kaya is such a bae.

Beer: Taste by itself is lame, although I have never had a "good" beer so take that with a grain of salt if you've never had beer. I do use it to cook food, like "fish and chips" on occasion, since beer makes a very good light batter due to the carbonation and flavor, but I wouldn't drink it for taste and I certainly wouldn't drink it to party. Wine: I like red wines, and am not too picky. Red wines are great for braised red meats and have other culinary uses. I recently finished off a red wine blend which tasted pretty damn good. Pinot noir is pretty good, it tastes sort of like cherries and has a high resveratrol content. White wine works well for chicken and fish. I don't drink white wine by itself though, only red. I figure if I'm going to drink something unhealthy I should at least pick the healthiest wines. Spirits: Can't stand these by themselves because of how strong they are, but Irish cream, margaritas, matinis, rum mixed with coke, pina coladas etc taste pretty good but are a fucking nightmare if you're trying to watch your weight because of the ridiculous amount of calories lol

While talent / skill is imperative to at least some degree for a band to be objectively good, overall I find that passion is still more important. In other words if a band's members have very little technical skill, they can more than make up for that by pouring their heart out and releasing otherwise sick tunes. I feel this way as someone who listens to a lot of very indie visual kei. I can totally dig horrendous vocalists if the music resonates with me. I'm probably explaining this poorly.

No photos yet but I ordered this rare ass V.A called Screen of Culminate Vol.1 and I dunno if anyone here would appreciate the bands or not but it's really my style. http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/product/HLD-29 Screen of Culminate Vol.1 / オムニバス クラッチ、Veronica、アンデット、PARFAIT、悪いヤツ!、℃、Garret、PHANTOM、Feather、Grieveの楽曲を収録。 Here is one of the songs from the V.A, and again I dunno if people here are into this type of shit but I really like it and can't wait for it to arrive so I can rip it immediately.