qotka

On 2017/9/18 at 1:51 PM, Kaz0712 said:

Actually, regarding technique, Roji was probably one of the best drummers in the VK circuit. Live, An can't keep up with the original parts Roji use to play because they're so hard. An is not an awful drummer, there's just a pretty extreme gap between his level and Roji's. As a fan I'm kind of disappointed.

when did An start performing with them? was he the guy who played with them at the twoman with kizu?

5 minutes ago, WhirlingBlack said:

If that's good or not I suppose is in the eye of the beholder.

Agreed. My POV is that of a woman who's been to enough 'regular' concerts to appreciate the unique situation in vkei. 

 

What I'm saying is that if you take away this property of vkei, you leave a whole group of people with almost ZERO OPTIONS to enjoy live rock/metal music freely (something most men can do at most rock concerts in the world - including vkei concerts in Europe/America, when those happen) - the fact that they can do it surely can't be a bad thing?

 

Not saying there aren't problems in the scene, but this particular angle is very important in my opinion.

10 minutes ago, WhirlingBlack said:

I realize that the bangya culture is what keeps the bands afloat, but I think it's also this culture that sort of kills the fun for a lot of guys who enjoy the music and enjoy the scene aesthetically but isn't just invested in one band and wants to enjoy some host fantasy with them. And this is why guys have a larger part in the western fandom because ours really isn't connected much to the Japanese one beyond listening to the same bands.

Bangya culture is not just something that keeps vkei afloat. It's communities of (mostly) women who would never get to experience live music the way they do if they went to a 'regular' rock or metal concert. So while it kills the fun for some men who come to the show expecting one thing and getting something different, or prevents men from coming to lives, I think it's an essential part of what vkei is.

1 hour ago, Komorebi said:

 

LMAO for real? I've seen girls give some pretty interesting insights about the musical aspect and guys fanboying all over Mana's "perfection".

this. i've spoken to enough gya who would notice any minute change in a song arrangement and analyze lyrics/the meaning behind something artistic (or "artistic") a band has put out.

 

but sure, some of them are in it for the fantasy, and that's awesome too. don't see much of a difference between dudes who don't know a lot about music and flail over cool guitar solos/how badass this and that musician is and gya who react pretty much the same about pretty bandoman.

 

 

12 minutes ago, Takadanobabaalien said:

a friend of mine saw the band with wolf heads (man with a mission?) and according to him it was the same as seeing any other western band in the west. 

yeah, non-vkei bands feel pretty much like going to a 'regular' concert in the west.

i saw miyavi this year and he had the oral cigarettes opening for him, and there were more men than women there for them. it was brutal - vkei lives made me soft. i don't think i've ever been pushed like that at any other live in japan.

yassss i knew mucc would nail 3月5日

the rest doesn't sound too offensive either, waiting to hear the full versions.

ok no i just listened to the whole thing and LM.C are being very offensive there.

Great thread idea!

 

I haven't got much to add, maybe something that's not a hack but a general piece of taiband/festival etiquette - when you go to an event with more than one band, let fans of the other band(s) take the front rows when your band is done/until your band starts. Of course it's mostly relevant to events where the timetable is announced in advance.  Don't worry - other-band gya will usually respect this etiquette and switch places with you when their band's performance is over.

 

And watch out for shit crowd-surfers. I'm not sure how many bands this is relevant to (MUCC granny here), but while most of the girls know how to do it and are pretty light, some of them just sorta awkwardly spread their arms and legs in four different directions and might kick you in the face if you don't watch out (I'm talking from experience). If you feel something heavy on your head/shoulder, it's probably a gya - just help her keep rolling as best as you can and try not to drop her!

 

 

YASSSSS this is gonna be embarrassingly epic.

What is even going on there. So many questions. Dope song though.

6 hours ago, Takadanobabaalien said:

Most of their stuff is on Spotify as well

This is really valuable information (I've only ever used Spotify in Japan and sadly they're not there at all)! Thanks, it'll be a lot easier to force, er, recommend them that way.

6 hours ago, emmny said:

i will get into mucc one day...when my HD has storage....eventually

I know the situation. It took me about 8 years to actually get into them - I'm very slow with these things. :x 

 

4 hours ago, Kirito said:

And Tatsuro voice became more nasal, less emotional...

I think his voice has developed a lot in the past 20 years. In the past he relied a lot on emotion/acting (which he still does, theatricality has always been a huge part of his presentation), and what notes he couldn't reach he made up for by screaming/shrieking, which was rough and amazing. Now he sounds more professional and polished, sometimes sounding more like a jazz/pop vocalist than what he used to sound like. I find it very soothing but I can totally see how it's not everyone's cup of tea.

39 minutes ago, yakihiko said:

After adding the songs on my music player, I had a 6-7 hours in a row listening to 新葬ラ謳 and 葬ラ謳 remastered, I even skip my sleep just to check its beats more properly in the night silence.

This is so exciting to hear! I've had that experience when I first listened to Homura Uta - hours and hours of listening to every single track. It must be a lot nicer with the remastered version.

Confession: I bought the limited edition of MUCC's Shin Tsuuzetsu because I fell in love with the creepy cage doll design and it had a lenticular jacket. Can't stop looking at it.

 

 

For some reason it'll only show me my top 5. lol

I've been using the same account on and off since 2004 so it's weird AF

 

Thank you @plastic_rainbow! Now it went from being weird to positively humiliating. This is why I love last.fm!

 

 

 

Tracklist

 

Disc 1: Shin Homura Uta

 

1. ホムラウタ (Homura Uta)

2. 絶望 (Zetsubou)

3. 幸せの終着 (Shiawase no Shuuchaku)

4. 君に幸あれ (Kimi ni Sachiare)

5. 僕が本当の僕に耐えきれず造った本当の僕 (Boku ga Hontou no Boku ni Taekirezu Tsukutta Hontou no Boku)

6. ママ (Mama)

7. 暗闇に咲く花 (Kurayami ni Saku Hana)

8. 嘘で歪む心臓 (Uso de Yugamu Shinzou)

9. およげ!たいやきくん (Oyoge! Taiyaki-kun)

10. 前へ-In its true light- (Mae e -In its true light-)

11. 黒煙 (Kokuen)

12. スイミン (Suimin)

13. 帰らぬ人 (Kaeranu Hito)

14. ズタズタ (Zutazuta)

15. 水槽 (Suisou)

16. 大嫌い2006 (Daikirai 2006)

 

Disc 2: Homura Uta ~Remaster~

 

01. ホムラウタ (Homura Uta)

02. 絶望 (Zetsubou)

03. 幸せの終着 (Shiawase no Shuuchaku)

04. 君に幸あれ (Kimi ni Sachiare)

05. 僕が本当の僕に耐えきれず造った本当の僕 (Boku ga Hontou no Boku ni Taekirezu Tsukutta Hontou no Boku)

06. ママ (Mama)

07. 暗闇に咲く花 (Kurayami ni Saku Hana)

08. 嘘で歪む心臓 (Uso de Yugamu Shinzou)

09. およげ！たいやきくん (Oyoge! Taiyaki-kun)

10. 前へ (Mae e)

11. 黒煙 (Kokuen)

12. スイミン (Suimin)

13. 帰らぬ人 (Kaeranu Hito)

14. ズタズタ (Zutazuta)

15. 水槽 Sg ver (Suisou Sg ver)

 

| Classics are made to be tempered with

 

Here's one band that hasn't been getting a lot of rest in 2017. 新葬ラ謳 (Shin Homura Uta) includes two versions of MUCC's 葬ラ謳 (Homura Uta) - a remastered one and a shiny, new re-recorded one. It was released along with 新痛絶 (Shin Tsuuzetsu) as part of the band's 20 year anniversary extravaganza, its announcement coming in contiguity with their '哀愁とアンティークと痛みも葬る (Aishuu to Antique to Itami mo Homoru)' summer tour, in which they exclusively performed materials from their first two EPs and first two full length studio albums. There isn't much to say about the remastered version, so this review will focus on the new recording.

 

This release is not just about paying a nostalgic tribute to their past or reliving it. Revised 葬ラ謳 is as vibrant and relevant as the original was 15 years ago; not much has changed on the surface, yet everything sounds different. It's a great example for an album that has evolved in a similar way language does, with its tracks going through years of being performed live, re-recorded, and remixed; the result is something anyone who speaks visual-kei can understand, but with noticeable changes.

 

葬ラ謳 was a fairly commercially successful album. It was first released in September 2002 as a limited edition that sold out quickly; a regular edition came the next month, and a reissue of the limited edition came in 2004. This album had a story to tell - a story of distilled anguish, pain, sorrow, loss and all those other heart-wrenching emotions and experiences that have been driving people to create art throughout history. In that sense, they never offered anything revolutionary; they were just good storytellers who used heaps of murky sound and raw energy to create something people could relate to. It is also clear that grunge, alternative rock and even nu metal were among their many interests at that point, and they were learning them carefully and experimenting with them as best as they could.

 

In 2017, the same album tells a completely different story. The muddy sound is replaced with a polished presentation, which might strike some v-kei veterans as 'lacking depth' or even 'less than genuine'. It’s true that nothing can replace those pain-driven shrieks in the original “絶望 (Zetsubou)” or “ズタズタ (Zutazuta)” that sound like someone’s soul being run over by an 18-wheeler. But this is just where the potency of the new recording lies; it doesn’t try to recreate the original, it uses it as a foundation to create something new. It doesn’t only show the experience the band has gained in the past 15 years, developing both in terms of musical skills and delivery, which can clearly be heard in Tatsuro’s crisp vocals and Satochi’s precise drumming. 新葬ラ謳 is a story that couldn’t have been told the way it is without the band’s (sometimes questionable) musical endeavors over the years and could be seen as a journey journal of sorts - one that doesn't leave out even newfound quirks, like in “前へ (Mae e)", which now includes an auto-tuned reggae moment brought to you by music nerd Miya. “前へ” was re-recorded in 2014 for the “ENDER ENDER” single, and it shows that nothing is sacred in the name of nostalgia - everything can be torn, mixed, glued on, and tempered with for the sake of trying out new things. Many of the other changes are smaller and rather conservative, like a new verse in “帰らぬ人 (Kaeranu Hito)” and an altered enunciation of the lyrics on many of the tracks, but they're enough to turn 新葬ラ謳 into something worth listening to in an of itself, even for those familiar with the original release. People who have been listening to this album for years will have a lot of fun playing ‘spot the difference’ while listening to this.  

 

This solid and clean rendition of a classic wasn’t only a chance to play around the border of nostalgia, self-cover, and re-imagine, but also a great way to introduce old material to new fans. MUCC have always been open to adapt to trends, experiment, and evolve, which means they’ve gained new listeners with every release (and probably lost some along the way). A crowd that’s been around since カルマ (Karma), SHANGRI-LA, or THE END OF THE WORLD will not necessarily bother checking out their older releases unless they keep them alive and relevant, which is something they’ve succeeded in by re-recording both 痛絶 and 葬ラ謳 and taking them on tour. This 2-CD package will probably be the first thing I’ll recommend to anyone interested in listening to the band for the first time or exploring their older materials, as well as to more old-school listeners who have been out of the loop for the past couple of years and have been wondering what they’re up to nowadays.

 

 

Support your jrawk poets: the [limited] and [regular] editions are available to order!

I'm definitely glad both versions exist. The original has an irreplaceable raw quality that they probably wouldn't have been able to recreate today, and they don't need to. I see re-recordings like this as part of a long Japanese tradition of retelling the same story from several different angles, and the story MUCC tell in 2017 is infinitely different than what they could tell in 2001. I recommend to anyone who wants to listen to this (and Shin Homura Uta) to consider this lens instead of a more nostalgic one (that's what the remastered album is for!). 

This is a real bummer. One of the most impressive things about their sound is his drumming.

11 hours ago, emmny said:

thats actually wild, how'd they sound?!

Overall impression - they were a lot more impressive than I expected. Probably has to do with the extra self confidence/ego boost they got from touring in the past couple months. I think they're trying to go for that glam sound - if I had to guess what LiME's vocal inspiration was this time, I'd go for 80's metal? He doesn't sound 100% polished, but that's fine - I'm guessing he's trying to find a style that goes better with this band's image. So there was some screaming he did where it felt 'OK I totally see what you're trying to do here, I wanna hear it again in a year because it's gonna be fucking awesome!'

I wish I could remember more, but nothing really stood out to me other than the vocals. Maybe it would've been different if I could actually listen to any of their tracks other than Oshimai before seeing them live, but life's tough so I'll just keep keeping an eye on them.

 

On 2017/6/28 at 8:54 PM, emmny said:

Kizu

Holy hell, I just saw them live and the hype is nonsensically high. It was funny because they came on right after Xaa Xaa and the resemblance (in aesthetics mostly) was almost confusing. People went craycray for them, a large portion of the crowd even called it a night after their performance and didn't bother staying for the last band on the bill (I thought Razor would be a lot more popular than that, considering the lineup?).

On 2017/7/6 at 9:56 PM, Disposable said:

a big insular arena rock sensation that’d be the biggest band in the world if it weren’t for unfortunate circumstance. This doesn't kill the film exactly, but it makes it of lesser importance and interest. 

This is the main message of the film imo, to sell them as the biggest thing in Japanese rock heading towards world domination. I think that in this aspect, X are trying to have their cake and eat it. They invented visual-kei - that's all you need to know, the pioneered a movement of sorts that sounds cool and groundbreaking, which paints them as heroes. But giving more screen time to the scene would expose them for what they are - in the end, X Japan and visual kei will always be a niche. They can fill Tokyo Dome 10 times and appear on Kohaku on New Year's Eve, but they're by no means Japan's darlings/national treasure/symbol/whatever the hell it is Yoshiki wants to portray them as, and their music might be great but it's irrelevant to what happens in the charts these days, or even to what's happening in visual kei these days. They're legends to visual kei fans but telling America/the rest of the world how legendary they are/were out of this context is dishonest at best, and I think this is one of the things that bothered me the most about this film, even though I enjoyed most of it as a fan of the band.

I think it depends. Some people sing so loudly during concerts it actually ruins it for everyone around them. From what I understand, it's considered rude to sing during vkei concerts, unless the artists gives the crowd cue to sing. Not sure about other concerts though. I still sometimes catch myself lip-syncing for my life because in my country singing along at concerts is encouraged, so I have fun without getting nasty glares from people around me.

 

Golden Bomber's Dakishimete Schwarz. Slay that shit every single time.

2 minutes ago, plastic_rainbow said:

sometimes you need to put everything on shuffle and listen to a song out of its album context in order to appreciate its greatness, or even remember that it existed. especially for albums that didn't quit sink well with you or only gave a couple listens to.

I totally get this. Sometimes I notice a song for the first time that way - I may have heard it about a hundred times when listening to the album but disregarded it because of the songs it was surrounded with. If that makes sense. lol

Spoiler: Hiro from te' stole the show.

OK 0.1g no gosan definitely caught my attention. Bonus: their bangya look hardcore and I'm loving it. Will follow.