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I honestly don't know what there is to gain by white knighting some high school dropouts rockstar dreams in the year 2020. The world is in lockdown, the polar caps are melting; I think if you're making art for profit in this age then you can fuck the right off and get a real job, even if it's visual kei where half of the appeal of this niche comes from the weird economy that sustains it.

It's a grey area for me. On the one hand, it's way easier to chuck $2.58 at a single on iTunes than it is to spend $30 to have it physically imported from CDJ. But at the same time, sometimes record deals fall through or the band splits and then their material is gone from streaming services. For example, GE+IM's digital single is now gone, and all of UnsraW's materially used to be streamable, but that got removed a few months ago. Unfortunately, being available digitally comes with an asterisk that says *(for now)

Then the majority of their income comes from their job as a physics professor or as a host, I reckon. This horse has been beaten to death on this forum. When children are starving and people are being droned and shot all over the world with the compliance or the guns of the governments most of us belong to, then even considering to pose downloading music as an ethical question is stupid and embarrassing. There's no reason for anyone here to care, those who download will dl and those who won't won't. I stream bands on spotify when they are there, I bought Anfiel's second album digital because i liked them back then, I wouldn't pay a buck for david if it's able for purchase online because I think they suck, but I'll still dl it to know what it's about — everyone else will continue to do more or less the same unless they have a mental disorder where they live vicariously through their fave bandmen.

Today we have an exclusive interview with new vkei band Astaroth. Astaroth is an orthodox visual kei band who revealed themselves at what was advertised as a solo oneman by vocalist MISAKI, on January 16th of this year. The members have a strong connection to the Kansai (関西) scene, and they've drawn favor thanks to their promising first single. The band talked to us about their inspirations and how their first steps toward activity have been so far. Astaroth, thank you very much for agreeing to this interview. https://vk.gy/blog/an-interview-with-astaroth/

Are they ever going to surpass Homura Uta?

As the person who belatedly brought this to the foreign limelight and who as also spent a ridiculous amount of time listening to Ray C, Otoiroha, and ジグザグ, I'll see if I can clarify some of your points. That being said, I'll prepend my further statements w/ additional fan-research done here: https://www.kokusai-singlemama.com/columns/wands-uehara1/ https://sebunoda-goodjob.com/2020/01/04/wandsの上原大史は命様なの！？ていうか、ジグザグ/ I find them pretty much identical if you put them side by side with Otoiroha pics. The distance from the chin to the lower-lip, jawline, etc. He's put on a little more weight (healthy btw) since Otoiroha (which is why he might appear differently.) I had a good comparison image in my initial status write-up, but it appears to be broken right now. If you want something more definitive, his left lateral incisor tooth is identical (and the rest of his teeth.): *Also jawline tape is also a possibility. Japanese makeup is a hell of a thing. He uses a different vocal inflection with WANDS, which is a bit "safer" and more appropriate since it requires him to be more technically accurate. His highs, however, are a dead giveaway. He's not actually "frustrated" but more aloof (in typical Japanese fashion) of the subject. I draw parallels with mafumafu (まふまふ) in my status update because they have similar scenarios. They're both guitarists, constantly conceal part of their face, in extremely popular bands/groups, and for mafumafu's case, he's the vocalist of "神様、僕は気づいてしまった" where all the members of the group are in full costume/masks. They want that separation, and in Mikoto's case, between his indie and WANDS presence, the latter of which is pretty much being a j-idol. - Trying to piece together what I wrote before, it is rumored in the time between Otoiroha and Zigzag that he was scouted by Daikō Nagato (former Being Group CEO and musician) for his indies-era voice. He's credited on a ZARD tribute album and participated in some music festival in 2018 prior to being inducted into WANDS (also from Being Group.) Also attesting to this, since I've posted a large chunk of Zig Zag's earlier live-limited discography on YT, I'm able to view analytics and comments... There was an absolute flurry of viewership + comments in February indirectly mentioning WANDS which confused tf outta me. Comments ranging from older women who were 90's gya having rekindled interest in vk to how good his vocals are in Zig Zag. Other videos have comments stating how handsome he is and how he should stick with WANDS, etc. In summation, they're absolutely the same person and he's just creating separation between his two careers.

I'm talking either awful mixing because someone is a shit engineer or the kote kei kind where they deliberately make something sound like it's from the 90's when music production in VK was bare bones like La'veil MizeriA (might not count since Starwave record songs in an empty tunnel or something) or Crucifixion and the Matina label who did such a thing deliberately as it's a part of the aesthetic. I personally have times where I really like it and times when it's unlistenable compared to more well produced bands.

So, me and another user have been talking about this issue. Lately, more and more visual kei bands have been putting their music on streaming platforms, usually at a very low price. But still, some find a way to upload them to YouTube and other places. Personally, I don't think it's doing anyone a favor. There has always been talk about how vk bands don't take advantage of more modern ways to share their music, how they're only pandering to the Japanese audience and don't care about making their releases available for the overseas public. But lately I feel that the trend is changing, so I think we should support them buying their music legally instead of uploading their stuff and sharing it. I could see why people would do it when the releases are hard to get, maybe live-exclusives, but when it comes to these recent active bands that are willing to use other means to let their music known, I think that it may just discourage them from doing it in the future (and back to the old ways we go lol) What are your thoughts on the matter?

If you can easily get the music in a legal way, then I don't really see the point of downloading it illegally. It will only hurt the musicians.

Tell that to Yuu (ex-Zodia and a bunch of other bands) and his master's degree in mechanical engineering. The whole "high school dropouts that live off their mitsus" stereotype is so outdated. Most indies in this day and age have an education and have day jobs to support themselves, otherwise with what they're making they'd be begging on the streets. You guys really can't help yourselves from being judgemental and sassy for no reason huh? Of course everyone is free to do whatever, uploading and downloading definitely won't stop, but I just wanted to reflect on how this affects the scene, especially for the western fanbase. This may be beating a dead horse for your, but I haven't seen a topic for discussing this, so might as well hearing everyone's opinion in just one place.

Digital releases no. I decided since last year to dont share nothing when comes available on iTunes worldwide. in case of Plastic tree new album, was available to all world. Cmon today u can buy a gift card online by itunes japan or other type and pre order or buy it. Ex: The new album of pura cost $8.99... REALLY GUYS, is it expensive to buy it ?

Sakura (new version) Usubeni MV

Clack inc. have announced they're going to do another livestream on April 4th, this time completely audience-free. More info like the time etc. will be out at a later date. (Edited the post because I had posted their previous live before realizing that someone else had already lol)

Hi! I've know about this forum for a while, but never been active so I thought I'd make a post ^^ I've been into VK since around 2008, but none of my friends from that time are into VK anymore and my autistic ass finds it really hard to talk to new people so yeah.. My favorite bands are LM.C and PIERROT, and I'm obsessed with shitty kote kei 😬

thanks for the interview! though i do get a feeling that only MISAKI is seriously engaged into this band but for other members it is just a playground to get some new skills : /

their digital single "021story" has been released

Apparently the charity projects will continue. Kudos to Asagi.

Those albums were topped ages ago. You guys need to quit living in the past.

That album, zekuu and kuchiki no tou will never be topped... those are holy trio

DOBE's livestream just started (the band hasn't hit the stage yet and there's no audio as of yet) edit: oh ok, the gig only starts at 18:30 Japan time (in 20 mins). This was pretty fun, despite the expected ass sound quality/mixing. Sadly the video froze towards the end, so the last 2 encore songs were audio-only, but it was still okay (the sound might've even become slightly better for the encore portion). Pretty long gig too, they prolly played almost all their recorded output, lol.

I was kinda looking forward to this album, but seeing how I'm struggling with just the previews (I turned it off halfway in due to boredom/cringe) this one's prolly not for me...

Videos have been added 🤫

I guess I should do an intro huh lol I'm Reida and I've been a fan of VK for awhile now. My #1 favorite band is the GazettE but I also follow RANDS and another band. I got into VK thanks to MUCC and D'espairsRay and have been going downhill ever since. I go to lives whenever possible and I make GazettE furi videos lmao I don't follow much new VK anymore. I just stick to 2-3 bands since a lot of newer bands (besides RANDS) don't really catch my interest anymore, plus, money. Idk what else to say. I've known about this place for a long time, but never joined until now so that I could offer a shopping service for overseas 蘭図 (RANDS) fans. I'm really only active on Twitter and Instagram now a days.... and not using my typical username lol

Well, it is what the title says. コロナウイルス is forcing people to stay home in Japan and the japs have a nice philosophy of spreading hope in times of despair, so they went there and performed anyway and are being nice and posting the gigs that got cancelled online for all to see, including us, poor gaijin. No live audience, no staff, etc. These are the ones I've seen so far: Let's make this collaborative so do share other links here if you know of any. I'll keep updating this list. Previously unreleased lives uploaded for viewing due to the Corona situation are also to be freely shared in this thread - MH Staff And bear in mind most of these gigs will be available for a limited time only, so hurry up and watch or download the ones you're interested in watching ASAP.

the forum is living off of its premium member section bro. otherwise it could've been dead already. I understand where you are coming from because your frame of reference is inherently mainstream pop and rock oriented. There is more music than we could even listen to in our lifetimes that is made non-profit, strictly for the communities they're coming from. There are bands that are even legendary only touring occasionally even if they're not political. I'm opposed to capitalism, I'm opposed to sales. This is just my opinion, but I don't support the economical model of visual kei even though I love its music and history, so I also don't care if it dies out because its economical model was made redundant by the 21st century. If it can adapt to the streaming model then god bless.

Well I understand that people might not browse this forum religiously like I do ( lol ) and the search engine does suck so you might never now if a topic has been gone through many times or not. This topic however has been discussed many times and the forum policy is that it'll stay as it is, because there's just no ethically consistent way to deal with MH PREMIUM MEMBER section other than either to kill it entirely and or keep at is it, as the latter is, in my opinion, the obvious answer here. Not mention about the labour this will bring on the mods when they'd have to go around culling shit that's available on multiple different platforms from purchase to streaming on spotify. And to Delkmiroph, I don't care about any rockstar tryhard's band career. There are tons of musicians on this earth making music non profit and with very sparse touring and releasing schedules. It is only vk that is so obsessed with this collector and band white knighting attitude.

btw i sure as hell hope that everyone preaching the gospel of ''dude you gotta support my anime boys!'' has never ever bought any second-hand cds or downloaded any releases themselves because that would be extremely hypocritical and embarrassing for everyone👀

I agree with this. I also think if we want to gain more trust and respect from visual kei bands but also from their fans is to not act as a "shit" "I dont' care" gaijin. Digital music isn't that expensive to buy via various platforms. We can listen to it freely via spotify (in most cases) And some of us even have a subscription to google music, apple music or spotify premium. But I only agree for the uploads which are also on spotify. Releases which aren't on spotify are to me still "difficult to get". because you don't have the legal opportunity to check it out freely for free first.

will be streamed on youtube.

Ooooof yeah thats dangerous. Most people dont know much about it so it just goes downhill into that debt

I do fall into the range of Americans who have more than 1 credit card, but I don't have THAT many. I have a pretty good limit on both but I do NOT overspend and max out cards. I first got one when I started working as a teenager because I wanted to start building good credit since that's pretty important in America. Spend only what you can afford to pay back etc etcccc. It's useful for emergencies. please don't max out credit cards for bands yo lmao

They have a new single coming on July 16th called "Neo-Tokyo" (ネオトウキョウ) and a free one-man on September 30th at Shinjuku BLAZE.

I love the previews myself, I think it sounds like a fantastic album.

Anzi is going to do one in 5 mins

2nd Single「Knife...」2020.03.31 1.Knife...(ナイフ) feat. Riyu リユ／zetu絕 Digital iTunes, Spotify, LINE Preview Female Voc Riyu リユ Band アヴシンシア ABCynthia https://twitter.com/ABCynthia_info Zetu 絕 I think it's him https://twitter.com/zzzhg_vo

you just want to compare very sensitive financial information with others in a forum about Japanese music, in a very unstable situation worldwide no less suuure. from discussing politics with very questionable views months ago to then vanishing from the forums after new rules were set and then returning all of sudden creating a discusstion about credit scores? there's nothing shady about you at all!

hopefully overtime nicolas can begin selling CDs at more shops (right now it's only available at village vanguard in person) but im guessing it's hard for them right now since they're independent. when they were still under an actual label as gossip it was a lot easier to distribute their music 😧 if anyone can get their hands on it tho, their new album UMBRA is fucking amazing

I recorded it, it's currently rendering from Sony vegas. I had to resync some parts that were buffering and added romaji song titles. I'll link it here after I uploaded it to Youtube 👍

1st single 『言霊信仰/save me take a loop』

no switch, but life, uh, finds a way... It's running at about 10~15 fps w/ graphical glitches atm (ryujinx), but I expect it to be playable within a month-or-so. - Recently bought a GTX 1080 for my eGPU enclosure. Finally justifies playing FFXV Windows Edition, but I feel like I'm re-learning the game again b/c I beat it (w/ some additional sidequests) 2~ish weeks after launch and haven't touched the game since.

Yeah, this is the one famous pic. Although it's taken inside a store kyo still looks very surprised. The bangyas at tanuki mainly hated on his girl for being a kuso gaijin uwu

I've had time to digest the album and I echo the sentiments of others in this thread. Okay, kinda forgettable, definitely not what I thought their second album was going to be. In many ways it is underwhelming and the lack of bass does a lot to make the songs feel lifeless. Bass is what makes music feel alive! I'll keep trying to like this album but it's probably not going to happen. A lot of my discontent comes from the fact that we had to lose the best deathcore band in the scene to get this, so even if it was good that truth still stings a bit. Hearing Sho approaching what sounds like a scream or a yell and then backing off is such a ball buster And the worst part is that I know Retsu is a competent composer, so I don't know what happened.

Here u go