platy

I wouldn't say it's mean, but just a fact. I've seen people say that they don't like japanese vk gigs because people act like it's a cult meeting , but I'd much rather that than having hundreds of cameras blocking my view and 7ft tall people jumping on my head and breaking the rules 'coz "they paid for it". 
 
Either way I hope GazettE will tour around more of Europe (not just France). Last time they came over was 2007 and I need to see them before they disband. 

Hi everyone
 
I've been listening to JRock for 11 years and was also quite active in another forum in my teenage years. Now, feeling like a JRock grandma already, I've decided to start my comeback. I've never really stopped listening to JRock, but as you get older you grow out of that phase of huge obsession over VK to then....obsess  over other, more adult things Recently I've been getting into Dir en Grey and other bands again, mainly because I spent two weeks in Tokyo last year and went to VK shops in Shinjuku. It was a great experience and awakened a long buried passion! I think it's really sad that all of the "youngsters" are just all about KPop nowadays. Not that KPop is bad or anything, but I've just always been more into Metal and Rock in general, so I just don't get all too excited over it. The VK scene has diminished over the years and is now, sadly, barely existent. I want to change that and keep the spirit alive by talking with you lot about JRock and everything related (or unrelated.)
 
Cannot wait to hear from you guys! See you around!

Now that Mix will be gone soon, I guess I better give PLC a try! 
Their lives sound like a lot of fun too. I'll take the recommendations you already mentioned in the thread ~

PAGODEIRA QUEM CURTE

For anyone new to PLC or the PLC fandom/PLC lives in Japan, here's some general info about the band which you may find helpful.
 
PLC/Psycho le Cemu (Pronounced "Saiko-ru-Sheimu", and shortened to Saiko by fans/gya) is a five-member band from Himeji, Hyogo Prefecture. They formed in 1999 and it wasn't long before they gained popularity in the post-90s VK scene, landing them a major label contract and debut in 2003. Then, in 2005, Daishi was arrested and charged for using meth, and then the band soon went on hiatus. Unfortunately Daishi's arrest burned the band's dreams of playing Budokan, but unable to let this dream go, the members decided to reunite following their 15th anniversary in the hopes of still playing there some day.
 
Each member has a color and distinct character, and both are represented through costume and story concepts for each release.
 
Daishi (Blue) - The hero
AYA (Pink) - The girl
seek (Green) - The monster
YURA-sama (Yellow) - Warrior or mystic (Often depicted as being rich, noble, or egotistical)
Lida (Orange) - Sidekick or whatever is left over
 
You can find a general catalogue of their story and character concepts for each release here, almost up until their hiatus in 2005. (in Japanese) They reformed briefly in 2006 to perform a tour for the release of their Epilogue album, and then continued their hiatus status until 2009 when they toured to celebrate their 10th anniversary. Following another hiatus after that, they got back together for a 15th anniversary performance in 2015, before officially resuming activities that following September.
 
For the most part, their lives consist of playing their music before, between, and after skits or plays of each their story concepts. They also MC and tell jokes, often pointing fun at Lida, Yura-sama's big nose, or their (female) fans. Fans wear glow bracelets in their favorite member color(s). In the past, fans would also carry glow sticks in these same colors, but recently less fans are carrying them or have replaced them with light-up rings. Most of their songs have corresponding furitsuke, and new fans might find much of this furi difficult/overwhelming at first.
 
As far as stage positioning goes, despite being the leader and lead guitar, Lida takes the shimote position (audience left) while second guitar AYA takes the kamite position (audience right)
 
If you follow the fandom online, you'll notice that many fans and gya refer to other fans (and occasionally the members themselves) as Saiko Yarou (サイコ野郎) and the band as (最古). The former means something like "psycho punks" and the latter is a pun meaning "super old", seeing as both Lida and Daishi are already over 40. Each member also has their own nickname(s) online.
 
Daishi - D
Lida - リダ or リーダー (Leader)
AYA - アヤ or 彩 (AYA used to write his name with this character during their early career)
seek -シーク or  飼育 (a phonetic reading of "shiiku", literally meaning "breeding")
YURA-sama - 鼻様 (Hana-sama, or Nose-sama, because of his larger nose)

In addition to which, I've always thought they've looked awful, having this strange interpretation of old school vk looked through a mallgoth lense of overblown gaudy leather and far too many trinkets. The backgrounds are always so tacky, and even that one time when they had the good sense of using the VHS aesthetic they fucked it up by interjecting it with glossy new pv visuals.
 
The best look they had was around the AINS VA when the vocalist was larping Hisui. 
 
 

Klubb Lunacy is one of Europe's oldest Visual Kei nightclubs, which originally ran between 2004 and 2010. After a 7 years long hiatus, I'm happy to announce that I'm the one who is carrying on the torch and together with the old owner I'm reforming it and intend to make it stronger than ever. The first date is set for 1 of September in Stockholm, Sweden. Six hours of old and new Visual Kei music, a Visual Kei outfit competition with an amazing prize sponsored by RarezHut, and the chance to hang out with over one hundred other fans of this increasingly rare style of music.
 
And while we hope that some of you might be able to attend this grand revival, we don't intend to limit our activities to Sweden, and would be glad to bring it wherever enough people who are interested might be located, mainly in Europe. So if you have any connections or ideas please feel free to message me and we'll see what can be done!
 
The clubs Facebook is located here:
https://www.facebook.com/KlubbLunacy/
 
And the event itself is located here:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1435508826514161/
 
Most posts have an English version after the Swedish text, so please scroll down if you want more info!
 
We're glad for any and all support we can get from you guys as we try to bring back some community and party to the fandom! 
 
Also a special thanks to @orange~ who designed our logo!

thats interesting...
i was also there at their zepp tokyo live on june 2nd and i thought *aside from no MC's* that they did a pretty good show!
and lets be honest the only guy which really performs on stage is tsuzuku anyway since mia just stands there all the time and is boring af and the only move koichi does is that lame "hipswing-dance movement"....
although seeing 'em live i was VERY positive surprised how much "vocal-work" koichi did on that live! from their live DVD's it always looks like he just "plays" like saying something into the microphone.

Well, keiji alluded to there being other reasons, but the biggest one in his eyes was the rift occurring because AYA and seek wanted to do both bands and other members didn't see eye to eye on this. I imagine that this was just the icing on some kind of shit cake already going down in MSI lol.
 
Of course, you can imagine that Tanuki and Twitter is a shit storm of blaming AYA and seek, blaming the other members of MSI, blaming PLC... Hell I even saw a post blaming Daishi for all of this lol.

Some real gems that made me laugh tho:
 
- "Why the f would NIKA choose to make a comical band like MSI his last?"
- "It's totally because AYA is gong bald." "Dude just how bald is he now? lol"
- "Wtf is up with PLC anyways? What exactly are they trying to achieve just randomly doing stuff here and there?"
- "Sorry MSI fans, there's just more coin to be had in PLC."
- "They're practically the same band, tho. I guess there can only be one elaborate costume band."
- "Damn, AYA and seek's messages come off looking really mature compared to the rest of MSI's members."
- "GD couldn't MSI have just disbanded without the other members starting all this drama?"
- "It can't be helped. AYA and seek really carried the band." "But like wtf is in it for AYA? He's like the least popular member tho?" "Oops, my bad, second to least popular."
 
Anyways, I'll try to find out if there's any other gossip about other reasons this weekend at PLC's live. I was hoping that there'd be at least a few MSI fans that would decide not to go and I could maybe get a better ticket number, but alas that doesn't seem to be the case so far. It would be hilarious if PLC's live sold out just to spite the MSI member backlash and their fans, tho.
 
I'm personally with the girl who said this on Twitter:
 
"I'm a PLC fan to the marrow of my bones. I'll keep supporting both members with everything I have."

I love having internet friends but I dread the inevitable day when they pass. I dread the other inevitable day when I find out. There are a lot of people who I have only met through the Internet that have shaped my life and they could pass on and I may never know. I just might see their tag and an indication that they haven't logged on in a long time...

It definitely feels selfish. I thought it'd be easy for all of them, as musicians, to understand that some people just need more than one way to use their creative energy. Also seek and Aya have always had ties to PLC, way before MSI, so to ask them to give that up and become devoted to one band? 
 
 There must be more to it that, of course, they won't reveal to the public. Maybe they were already feeling the pressure from something else, like Nika mentioning a retirement from music, which added up to the growing stress on the members. If both vocalists then start talking about leaving music, it's kind of impossible for MSI to carry on since that's their thing. 
 
If you find any more information (or rumours/gossip) I'd really appreciate if you could share since I don't know of anyone else within that fan circle.

So reading though all of it, it seems that although AYA and seek had no intentions of leaving MSI to continue with PLC, some or all of the other members had their reservations about them continuing with two bands at the same time, and finally in light of this, NIKA and Miki felt they could no longer continue to be a part of MSI. It doesn't seem like AYA and seek were slacking off any in MSI, just that some or all of the members felt everyone's hearts should be in the same place with just their one band.
 
If re-posting this/these translation(s) elsewhere, please link back here/credit me, yeah?

 
[2017/08/23]
Imporant Announcement from Mix Speakers,Inc.
 
Imporant Announcement from Mix Speakers,Inc.
 
We’d like to express our sincerest gratitude for your continued support of Mix Speakers,Inc.
Following the EX THEATER ROPPONGI performance on February 25, 2018, Mix Speakers,Inc. will disband.
We deeply apologize from the bottom of our hearts for this sudden announcement.
We are sincerely grateful to all of our fans, staff, and everyone who has supported us during these many, 11 years.
 
Mix Speakers,Inc.
 
[NIKA]
 
 [MIKI]
 
[AYA]
 
[keiji]
 
[seek]
 
[ S. ]
 
AYA posted some follow-up tweets in light of the disbandment announcement, and I felt like this one was particularly relevant:
 
 
"What’s next
After MSI’s disbandment was decided, I did a lot of thinking. I thought about retiring, and I also thought about devoting myself entirely to Psycho le Cemu, but I can’t help but still want to keep making my own music.
Nothing has changed about wanting to express myself and I still have much to give.
I’m not sure what form of activity this will take, but I want to create a new place to express myself."
 
So it seems like regardless of PLC getting back together, AYA didn't want to contain himself to just one outlet of expression. Perhaps seek feels the same way, although he hasn't posted or expressed any thoughts since tweeting about MSI's disbandment announcement.
 
 

They posted the news today on their official site:
 
http://www.mixspeakersnet.com/sp/news/report.html?id=767
 
I'll translate the member messages later tonight if anyone is interested. (Since every member wrote something it's kind of long and I don't have enough time before my lunch break ends...)

Really wished NIKA would continue his musical career

Actually I'll just go ahead and post a translation of the general announcement and NIKA's message first, because I think it offers the most insight into what is going on. I'll update with the others later.
 
[2017/08/23]
Imporant Announcement from Mix Speakers,Inc.
 
Imporant Announcement from Mix Speakers,Inc.
 
We’d like to express our sincerest gratitude for your continued support of Mix Speakers,Inc.
Following the EX THEATER ROPPONGI performance on February 25, 2018, Mix Speakers,Inc. will disband.
We deeply apologize from the bottom of our hearts for this sudden announcement.
We are sincerely grateful to all of our fans, staff, and everyone who has supported us during these many, 11 years.
 
Mix Speakers,Inc.
 
 
[NIKA]
Just as it says, we’ve decided to disband.
I’m sorry to surprise you all with such sudden news.
 
I know this must come as a betrayal to those of you who have supported us up until now, and were hopeful about or were anticipating more to come in the future, but as painful and regretful as it is, it can’t be helped.
 
We’ve been together for a long time.
We were able to forge many strong bonds during our activities, but we’ve also had a growing number of disagreements between us.
Although I’ve tried to bridge these disagreements once becoming aware of them, and it was my intention to put forth my best effort so we could continue together in the future, it was just too much for me.
For this I am truly sorry.
 
When we were together, stupid things would get blown up, but we’d stay positive through it all, and united on making our live shows and music the best we could.
 
It isn’t that there’s bad blood or anything like that between us.
This is the honest truth.
 
Even bearing the heaviness of these arguments on our shoulders, we pressed on with our band activities, because we love all of you bangya princesses and princes so much.
 
And because of that, I’d like to keep a bright, Mix Speakers,Inc.-like smile on my face until the very, very end.
 
I’ve decided that Mix Speakers will be my last band, so after our disbandment I have no plans to form another band or take the stage again.
So I sincerely ask that somehow, you come to say goodbye.
In order to make Mix Speakers, Inc. stand out, even if it's just a little bit more, all of us will be putting everything we have into our final tour.
 
Finally, to all of you who have supported us up until this point, you have my sincerest gratitude.
I hope you’ll continue to support us for just a little longer.

Lol, they went major 20 years ago; they recreated their first major debut performance from 20 years ago with the performance in June ^^; sorry if the wording was confusing

it's been a while, and unfortunately my external hd messed up and I lost ALL of my photography.... but it encouraged me to start over in a new angle.... so this was a recent impulsive shoot I did last night....
 

They don't convice so far, it's too chaotic. I mean too much different styles mixed together. I hope my mind will change (at least a bit) with the album because I like the musicians.

so embarassing

@chemicalpicturesI was the same way, so I attempted to give them another try and finally found a handful of songs I can get behind. Maybe you'll like the ones I liked. They were: 
DEVIL’S SANCTUARY
狐狗狸
手鞠唄
ID
PSYCHO -サイコ-
蟷螂
片想い
相合傘
月-MOON-

Fuck yeah. I also like how they're getting more 'visual' even though they've been around for a hundred years. Nun Uruha ? It's better than I could have imagined.  Will 2018 be the year of Visual nun Kei? 
Ruki's giving me vibes from the Cockroach period, except with triple the budget. 
 
I'm really hyped and hope it's even more solid than dogma.