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.

Yoshiki is actually insane. He's got a backlog of incredible and rare demo tracks, yet he keeps reissuing the same stuff on a yearly basis. Was saying on another site, the only appealing thing about this at all is the potential fresh remaster of Standing Sex, but even that might just be a live version, I can't even tell what is or isn't a live recording on this messy compilation.

RIP One OK Rock's Niche Syndrome era sound, we may never meet again. :c

There was some decent rock in Japan in the 60s, one of my favorites that comes to mind is Takeshi Terauchi, kinda Ventures style surf rock with an Asian flavor, he's still performing regularly in his late 70s. Happy End was really good too as Tokage said above. Japan's rock scene really took off in the 70s.

Bahahaha. After all that in the other thread about their threatening to break up crap, then they actually go and do it. What a trainwreck this past couple weeks has been for them. It's too bad, but they should have handled it all so much better. I was almost surprised that Starwave didn't chew them out for their little "come to our show or we'll disband!" nonsense. Then again, Starwave may have very well torn them apart for that stunt, just not publicly. It's pretty bad publicity for the label having a band do that to them after they go through the trouble of setting them up with shows and promoting them, so I wouldn't be surprised if Starwave just dumped them from the label, forcing a breakup.

I hope they do sell it. Any details on which members are taking part in this reunion?

When Misaruka were brand new I thought they were going to progress and grow and actually go somewhere, but naw, they just kinda stayed put and their style never progressed at all really. Anyone else think that's a problem that a whole bunch of Starwave/Darkest Labyrinth's artists are plagued with? I at least tend to notice it with their bands specifically, more than a lot of other J-rock labels, not sure what's up with that, if they just aren't great at finding true talents or if the label forces these bands in a certain musical direction or if it's the bands themselves incapable of taking it to the next level. (I'm not saying all their bands have this problem, but like a horribly vast majority.) Either way it's a lowbrow move basically threatening to call it quits if your show doesn't sell out. Exactly. You could also say a legitimately talented band wouldn't run into this issue in the first place because they'll offer a product that people are actually paying to come see more than once. They're shooting themselves in the foot big time, when they didn't have a ton going in the first place, sadly.

I heard he's supposed to sing on at least one song, that will be interesting to hear. Has he sung elsewhere before?

The thing with visual kei is that like many scenes it will inevitably fade in and out of popularity. Might it hit an alltime low? Sure it could, but chances are it would rebound in a few short years, just like how the musical styles they play fade in and out of popularity. I wouldn't be worried about it at all, heck, visual kei even met a similar decline in the early 2000s before exploding again.

Oh boy, where to start, just off the top of my head for VK stuff, D'espairsray, Deathgaze, Girugamesh, Deluhi, Anonymous Confederate Ensemble, -OZ-, Amphibian, Kuroageha, Awoi, Since1889 among many others. I wish certain visual kei bands didn't have such short runs, many of the ones above were fortunate in that they were around for over a decade.

Thanks guys, and yeah echo, Gyze are pretty decent, I think they have some nice potential.