Himeaimichu

カラビンカ (kalavinka) new single, "残片 弍" (zanpen 2) (1000 yen) has been released on October 27 thru their live event and webshop, sold with its own download card.
 
[tracklist]
1.ナナシの唄 (nanashi no uta)
2.童貞ですこ (Dōtei de suko)
3.畜生の理 (Chikushō no ri)
4.思春期〜再構築〜 (Shishunki 〜 sai kōchiku 〜)
 

For the first time in my life, I feel really confident. Happy Halloween from your local Mei/Karuna clone
 

For the first time in my life, I feel really confident. Happy Halloween from your local Mei/Karuna clone
 

For the first time in my life, I feel really confident. Happy Halloween from your local Mei/Karuna clone
 

For the first time in my life, I feel really confident. Happy Halloween from your local Mei/Karuna clone
 

For the first time in my life, I feel really confident. Happy Halloween from your local Mei/Karuna clone
 

I know it's not a new song anymore, but I've never been able to find the written kanji or romaji lyrics to this song so I thought I'd try to transcribe them myself.  The kanji lyrics were taken from this website http://petitlyrics.com/lyrics/2669713  The romaji lyrics were done by me but I'm unsure about some of the spellings so feel free to make any corrections. 
 
Kanji: 
 
Romaji: 
 

The song in general sounds a lot like Chemical Drip Cherry Pie by DEZERT

My friend recently got to see this band at a concert. For those who don't know (Though it has been shared here once, but there are still those who may not), this is Drab Majesty. They're an amazing Dark Wave duo that definitely hits the 80's sound and aesthetic. The lead vocalist/guitarist, Deb DeMure, plays a "genderless cult leader alien" persona. A friend of mine got to met him at a concert and got a picture with him. She was going to ask if they were Vkei influenced, but she didn't have enough time. Though, I guess you could you look at his makeup in this video and say "Yeah, this guy probably listens to some 90's Vkei" xD
Don't let the Visual Aesthetic turn you off, for these guys are also amazingly creative. 

More than once I have read Japanese people on YT accusing La'mule of being a copy band.

Mei has a new instagram
https://www.instagram.com/karasunasun/
He posted it on his twitter

Mei has a new instagram
https://www.instagram.com/karasunasun/
He posted it on his twitter

Mei tweeted another update. 
"こいつ欲しいなーってメンバーを口説けて帰宅。にやり しばらくしたらここの鍵は更地に解放します。ファンメールはどうやら生きてる。かわらず返信しないけど読んでるご苦労さまさま"

I know Kyuho and he's a really nice guy. Even though Black Metal isn't really my thing, I like how Madmans Esprit does it. 

I'm a huge sucker for Traditional Japanese music, and the Inuyasha soundtrack really hits me. They made sure to represent the Sengoku era very well, with instruments like the Koto and Biwa used in Kikyo no Kokoro, or the Nohkan flute used in Sesshomaru's theme.  The overall orchestration really reminds me of film soundtracks from the late 70's and 80's.
 
 

My suggestions:
 

The visual-kei scene is full of its own quirks and oddities that make it stand out from any other subculture in the music world; these hallmarks also appear to resonate at a national level, in spite of the culture stemming from several metropolitan hubs, each with their own small variants. One of these traits, for better or for worse, is how willing the scene is to reference itself. Since 2013, “willing” has become the incorrect word. “Obsessed,” “addicted,” “driven,” “obligated”; these words seem to fit the bill closer. References to older material is not uncommon in any medium of art, but visual-kei takes it four steps further to emulation. Today is the day we talk about homage-系 (Kei), kids.

“Homage-kei” is a made up word. It isn’t a real category to anyone else other than people who use this board, to be honest, but it is an apt descriptor for this phenomenon. This is when a band reuses melodies, thematic, aesthetics, and even titles from an older, typically more successful, band or bands. However: their music also contains many original elements, which sets them apart from being a literal cover band. It also needs to be more than a single occurrence as well: Dir en grey “””borrowing””” the main riff of Luna Sea’s “G” is not enough, but borrowing the front-man of 黒夢 (Kuroyume)’s aesthetic for several music videos is.
 


There are several bands that would fall under this umbrella from the late 2000’s. Two I want to touch on are Ru:Natic and the infamous Vajra. The first was one of the earliest examples I can think of that tried to revive the aggressive and bloody punk-meets-goth-meets-pop style popularized in the mid-90’s. They wore black clothes, had neon hair, and sang about being a crazy person invited to dinner parties that they had no business attending. While they weren’t the only group doing this (re: Sadie’s Mary and Sadie’sla), they were the first to start reusing melodies from older bands, namely La:Sadie’s, Madeth Gray’ll, and Aliene Ma’riage. There was even a hard-to-come-by single that was a reinterpretation of Baiser’s “undersea” and they had a demo tape that contained covers from some of the bands previously mentioned. They even lost a bunch of members, changed record labels, and released a lot of rare material: all cornerstones of “what an old school band does.” In my memory of the scene, this was the first time we got a real taste of bands reinventing the 90s sound that many people liked, but had fallen out of favor.
 



Vajra was fun for the wrong reasons. Their costumes were kind of similar to UnsraW and thematically they were a bit too close to Dir en grey for the fan base at the time’s comfort. One of their singles was apparently a near 1:1 facsimile of another Dir en grey track and that caused a shitstorm on last.fm . For days people were arguing back and forth about whether it was a copy or not. Our own dear @Zeus requested someone overlay it with the original so we could see how similar it was. I personally did not have a horse in that race, but for hours or entertainment seeing the bickering between the hordes of people in outrage vs that one person who apparently went to their shows regularly and gave sympathetic updates about how this was affecting the band personally. Take his with a grain of salt, as it is only a Western interpretation of what happened and I cannot speak to how it was received by fans who could actually go see them in person. Regardless of where you stood in this fight, history’s take is that it did not end well for Vajra; they broke up shortly after only to be remembered as “that band that tried to be Diru.”
 
Both examples were, in retrospect, unsuccessful. Ru:Natic, in their heyday, missed the boat on people eating up old-school revival acts by about 3 years, then only played again in one-off events. Vajra, on the other hand, failed for a couple of reasons. The first is that the fan base wasn’t ready for their style of tribute-meets-original-works. Secondly, there wasn’t enough time passed between what they performed and when their source material was released. Based on later act’s success, time helps prevent “a homage” from being seen as “a rip-off.”
 


Earlier I had mentioned 2013 being the starting point for “homage-kei,” in a more official (but still unofficial) sense. That’s because グリヴァー (GRIEVA) happened and caused a shift in the scene. For those unfamiliar, Grieva’s whole schtick was that they dressed like a modern version of 1998 Dir en grey and made music that sounded like it could have came from from the same time frame. However, after people got a hold of their first album, it became alarming clear that it was one big tribute to “Gauze” (Dir en grey’s first album). A lot of songs “borrowed” the melodies of Gauze-era songs, their music videos were kind of like high school kids reenacting their idol’s work for a class project, and you were even able to draw parallels to the lyrical content. Grieva handled this clearly stating their theme is to bring back the feeling of the old days, and even fabricated a whole interview about how they went on a quest for band members that held the same ideals. Unlike Vajra, when people confronted them by saying “You’re just stealing,” them saying “Yeah, but that’s like the point???” it worked. Granted, there were plenty of people who weren’t buying this act and loathed the whole idea, but there was more than enough support for it to keep them at the forefront of the scene up until 2015. In fact, it worked so well that their label made it happen AGAIN, but this time with a band that pretended to be The GazettE and another that mixed all different concepts from the eroguro scene and western nü-metal together. This was the first time in visual-kei where blatantly copying on purpose wasn’t met with more backlash than praise.

Several other acts spawned at the same time, due to a strong desire for “bands that sound like old school groups.” This was in part due to Cell, an offshoot of La’Mule that made somewhat similar music, Lin, a Kisaki band that came after he swore he was retired, and a general sense of boredom from the run-of-the-mill bands that dressed like host boys. Other groups that come to mind include Gauzes (a La’Mule homage-kei group), DEZERT (their first singles were nü-metal interpretations of groups like D’espairsRay and Nega), and AvelCain (who took more influence from groups like Lamiel than their fan base wanted to admit). Suddenly, it was cool to be like someone else.
 



Eventually, the hype waned a bit. Grieva started writing their own music and then eventually split after being worked to death by their label. It was mostly the same case for AvelCain, Cell went on break because frontman Kon can’t keep focused on one thing, DEZERT found (and then killed) their own style, and most of the other old school sounding bands weren’t big enough to really make a lasting impact. This was the death of homage-kei.


Or was it???


Interestingly enough, in recent years, this scene metamorphosed along with the scene at large. We started seeing groups now begin to “take influence from” more recent acts (which I guess are still old if you’re younger than 20??). We had メディーナ (Mediena), who took a lot from Phantasmagoria, ガンミ (Ganmi), which sounded like an early 2000s band without a real influence to pin point, and Mamireta, who tried to restart the subculture in high gear with their refreshing takes on 蜉蝣 (Kagerou)’s music. There are even big acts forming side projects that “sound like a 90’s band!!”, like Diaura(who are not guilt-free themselves, when it comes to Pierrot worship) and ぞんび (Zonbi). Even Gossip-ゴシップ- went from copying The GazettE to emulating their label owner’s old band (albeit at gunpoint (allegedly!)). It is worth noting that another significant change: aside from a few examples, the current trend has become "I want to sound like ___," rather than "guess which ___ songs I combined!!!" Arguably, the style should have started with this mentality, but controversy creates buzz.
 


Unoriginality in the visual kei scene is nothing new. We even have an entire thread dedicated to specific instances where someone took a riff or theme and matches it to the exact source material it came from. But homage-kei really takes it to the next level. Bands want you to know who they’re sounding like. Could it be for nostalgia sales? Or because recreating a well liked motif makes it easier for someone to like a new creation (they’re already emotionally invested)? Or is it just a lazy cash grab, which requires 40% less effort to produce material? Maybe it is fulfilling a fantasy to reenact what you love about your idols? In spite of how much I adore everything mentioned throughout this article, I would be lying to you if I didn’t say that it is probably a mix of all four.

I'd personally like to see him do more traditional Japanese stuff like he did in Memento Mori. I feel he wanted to sort of do that in Kuroyuri (the lyrics of Tokage for example), but never was able to do much with it. I loved Child Mother though. That song had a lot of Ryukoka vibes. 
I have a feeling though anything new he makes will have more Dir en Grey vibes than they used to. Let's just hope that if he does anything with Tetsuco, that it isn't the scene-kid mess Peanuts for a Party Boy was. 

Apparently it's a Log song that they preformed a cover of with the band's former vocalist

This look gives ultimate La'Mule vibes. Also, Mitsuki is wearing his nose cover again lol. Haven't seen that since Shuka Ensen.

Setlist at 2018/09/07 at Shinkiba STUDIO COAST (probably of the next live DVD)
 
『累』(かさね)
『愛怨忌焔』(あいえんきえん)
『靂霹ノ天晴』(せいてんのへきれき)
『雨夜ニ笑ヱバ』(あまよにわらえば)
『朔宵』(さくよい)
『叢雲』(むらくも)
『自惚レテ愛玩』(うぬぼれてあいがん)
『鎮具破具』(ちぐはぐ)
『夜鷹』(よたか)
『煉獄』(れんごく)
『秋雨葬送』(あきさめそうそう)
『天照』(あまてらす)
『井底乃蛙』(せいていのあ)
『朧月夜』(おぼろづきよ)
『無垢』(むく)
『百鬼夜行』(ひゃっきやこう)
『誰彼刻』(たそがれどき)
『叫声』(きょうせい)
 
-ENCORE-
『Adore You～キミヲ想フ声～』(Guest Vo.YOUTUBER Vambi)
『オナジアナノムジナ』(おなじあなのむじな)
『鏖』(みなごろし)
『暁歌水月』(きょうかすいげつ)
 

 

 

asagi is a Furfag™ confirmed
 
 

This look gives ultimate La'Mule vibes. Also, Mitsuki is wearing his nose cover again lol. Haven't seen that since Shuka Ensen.

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