TadakatsuH0nda

Here's a band that I think are super cool, Girl Tique. Not only were they among the very first visual kei bands in general, forming in 1985, but they had to be one of, if not the first female fronted visual kei band, something that's unfortunately pretty uncommon even today. They played a cool and kinda dark and eerie heavy metal. Girl Tique released an album, an EP, a demo, and a single over a relatively short 6 year run before breaking up and disappearing into obscurity. It's a shame because they were way ahead of their time. Some songs by them: ( So-U-U-Tsu) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n85vcSg9XGE (Onna/女) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MruZOMm3h0c (午前3時12分 Love Forever) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Pqqwk6StXE

I know a bit about some other pre-visual kei movement bands too if the members of this group are interested. I think it's just all really neat to learn about, and have researched for a long time about the various bands who helped to shape what eventually became the movement. Oh yeah, here's a couple photos of Mephistopheles in the early to mid 80s, not sure how colorful they were, but probably something close to the image below this one: And one of vocalist Rob in color: Rather early X Japan looking, huh?

They actually were never very famous despite at times prominent members, but Japanese metal fans have known the name for years and years because they've performed live with pretty much every Japanese speed and thrash metal band of the 80s, right through to present day. They were even featured on a split album with X Japan once when they were both newcomers.

I've known of these guys for quite a while, just an early and interesting contributor to Japanese metal. Their closely related band Eraserhead was actually a supergroup featuring not only Rob from Mephistopheles, but Katsuji and Toshi from thrash legends Gargoyle, along with Akio Shimizu from the legendary Japanese metal act Anthem. They only made demos as that band, which were eventually remastered and reissued in a split with Mephistopheles in 2001. I also think it's really strange that it took Mephistopheles 33 years to release their debut album, despite being reasonably known for a large portion of that, at least on the touring circuit. Also included in Mephistopheles' former members is drummer Junichi Sato, who eventually found fame in a bunch of bands like Galneryus, he's probably one of roughly the 10 most prominent drummers in Japanese metal. Dude's pretty much legendary within the Japanese metal scene.

Jesus. The other bands on that bill too, Billy and the Sluts and Rosenfeld? Holy crap. Impressive.

Joe was in a criminally underrated early visual kei band called Cry Max too, this is a great reunion to see, as is Z-Sect. Didn't expect either at all, to be honest.

Really talented drummer, hopefully he recruited members who can keep up.

Hey! You'll give them ideas...

Nice buy. Sigh makes really nice vinyl releases, their special editions are some of my favorites in terms of looks.

Did anyone actually see who else Toshi's got in his band right now? Pretty great group of musicians he's using, MiA from Mejibray and Hiroto from Alice Nine/A9 on guitar, Shohei from Arlequin on bass, Sora from Dezert on drums and Cutt on backing vocals/acoustic guitar. I hope Toshi keeps doing this, it's incredibly cool.

Really looking forward to this, they've got a heap of potential and they've mostly put it together to this point, just a few things to tweak that they've hopefully done for this new album.

Oh no. This could be glorious.

Oh it's certainly very possible he doesn't even have that stuff anymore, I just wouldn't expect someone to just toss out master tapes that he and the other members worked so hard to make in the first place. I'm just kinda saying at this point he seems to put his own ventures (Yoshiki classical, the perfume line, the fashion line) and musical style as a solo artist waaay before X Japan, so it's just as easy he could be turning a blind eye to anything that might still be laying there unreleased, as he likely doesn't view their old more extreme style (besides the gigantic hits) as marketable compared to what he currently does.

One thing with Yoshiki, he may often be pompous and self absorbed, but I don't think he's an idiot by any means, and it would take a complete idiot to actually throw out/dispose of/lose such priceless master tapes as any of the X tapes are at this point, whether he likes the music still or not, so I've still got hope he's got those old X masters at least tucked away somewhere safe and is just simply ignoring them, which I'd be cool with. I just don't think he'd be dumb enough to throw that kind of history out, some of it's not famous, sure, but it's irreplaceable at the same time.

Ah, too bad it's a live version... They had some pretty awesome tracks that they never officially released, and the few they did never were reissued at any point, Break the Darkness (they had two versions back in the day, both pretty good), Only Way, Tuneup Baby, Right Now, Stop Bloody Rain, Feel Me Tonight, Steal Your Heart, Lady in Tears, Install and even more than that. It's not likely to happen, just saying it would be incredibly cool if he even considered any of the above, since he's got so many old X songs laying around.