GreatNorthernVK

53 minutes ago, Disposable said:

we need a show at an undisclosed location in the woods 14 people maximum. to purchase tickets you'll have to know kyo's real name and have spent at least 200 euros on the shipping of their cds that you bought exclusively from japan discoveries. 

In order to finance it, they’ll charge $1200 for a M&G, where all of the guys wear sunglasses and stare at the floor, behind a barrier.

Hoodie is going for $50 USD

18 hours ago, Romlaw said:

This should become a famous pasta in the VK community, we just need variations of it and then we are set.

 

If Kyo tatooed this I would think its retarded but sukekyo is the most pretentious band VK has ever seem so it wouldn't be out of character but in this case it looks like the guy just had some mental breakdown about something and did the classic "I am le avant-agarde artist" to cope

I just noticed the “with love,” in the tramp stamp area.

I wonder if he tattooed his ass cheeks with his signature 

I bet “Richard” is Koichi’s sugar daddy

Hide deserved the real biopic. Get Miyavi to play him? C’mon, Miyavi. Get Angelina Jolie to help get this off the ground.

16 minutes ago, Disposable said:

 

 

*and just in case someone doesn't know, their movie was literally only 100% a prelude to this big american break happening — and so far that hasn't happened. 

I’m reminded of the recent South Park episode where the boys are trying to form a band, only to be approached by a manager telling them that they need an epic biopic first before they do anything else.

Part of it may be tied into private money, part of it might be pandering to the Japanese market.

Part of it might just be Yoyo’s relentless networking, and his ability to pull of the “tragic artist haunted by the ghosts of his past” narrative.

Edit: I agree that he’s waiting for more buzz to release the album, but the way he’s going about it is terrible.

Trying to compete in the mainstream space with the Coachella faux hipster crowd is a fool’s errand. He needs to actually go where the rock/metal fans are to gain any traction. Talk to Marilyn Manson about getting an in with the large festivals. Try and get on 70,000 tons of metal. Then he doesn’t look like such an opportunistic try-hard.

I mean, to me, back in the day, Angura was typically referring to non-traditional VK that was still a part of “the scene”, but made a point of distancing itself from some of the more superficial aspects.

Examples of what would have been called angura back in the mid 2000s would have been MUCC, Cali-gari, Merry, deadman, Nookicky, Metronome, etc

X Japan *were* a good band. The new album is probably my least anticipated album of all time, because I’m already feeling second-hand embarrassment for how YOSHIKI has hyped this up, only to find out that their latest songs have mostly been the pap that prevented Dahlia from being a perfect album. I don’t know how much cheese the world can handle.

It’s hard for me to really pick a favourite MM era. They recorded both some of their best *and* all of their worst songs with Gackt. I think most fans can at least agree on that.

6 types, and not even an LP? Weak

14 hours ago, deedlitmurata said:

Nice!  I hope they sell in any normal shop like amazon cd japan etc

Or at least on Finch Liqueur. Or better yet, on their BandCamp 

1 hour ago, AwesomeNyappy said:

I....didn't even know about that, wtf.

Yeah, I draw the line as nazi imagery. I don't know what is a bout vk bands and just using nazi symbols like they are some kind of joke. It's what I mean when I said they just want to provoke. They just seemed like boys who just used shokcing material for sake of being shocking, and that I just find meh.

Edgelord-kei

Code Vein features a few VAMPS songs, but I’m not sure whether that counts as Visual Kei.

14 minutes ago, Tokage said:

 

I wasn't just talking about the quality of the music itself, the (foreign) scene as a whole is absolutely in much more of an anaemic state than it used to be back between, say, 2005 - 2010 or so, and that sorta shit inevitably does affect the music as well what's w/ musicians trying to cling onto whichever formulas still do work to bring in that drug money/pussy/anime op contract even if it means you end up w/ a scene that's nowadays comprised of  like 25 ''mystery bands'' playing the same tired style of metalcore & disbanding after their second single.

 

That much I can agree with. The international fandom has never been deader.

Aside from MH, and some low quality conversation on Twitter and Facebook, there isn’t much online presence anymore. Websites dedicated to providing VK news go ages without updates. Traditional fan sites have been phased out. Podcasts and YouTube channels have dried up, if you’re looking for anything other than React videos. Even still, I’m still grateful for the react channels, because it might inject something back into the fandom.

The only regular streaming show about VK stopped abruptly eight months ago because of butt hurt fans on their discord that couldn’t handle some shitposting.

Part of this is a combination of nostalgia, selection bias, and increased access to the scene.

Sure, I’ve done it too when I’ve gone through discographies of the prominent 90s and 00s bands, and thought “Wow, I don’t think the scene will ever produce classics like this again”. But then I remember that there were probably tons of cookie cutter, derivative bands back in the day that didn’t even reach the West, because no one gave a shit enough to keep and upload their discographies.

Now that we have access to the entire scene by means of the internet, and social media in particular, we see all of the shit that the OG hipsters would have left behind 15+ years ago (except perhaps to mock it, see: Glam Japan). Because most of us don’t live in Japan, nor regularly attend Japanese lives, it can be hard to really gauge where these bands fit in the hierarchy of the Japanese fandom.

Having access to the entire fandom now also means that we have access to all of the cringe that the fandom has to offer. How much of the observed idolfication of the scene is “new”, and how much of it is just innovating the sentiment that was already there is difficult, because most of us have no real clue of how Japanese fans acted on a daily basis in the 1990s.

We can make observations on how the Western fandom has evolved, because most of us have over a decade of experience with that crowd. The only thing I’ve noticed over the years is the increasing openness to pop music, especially J-pop and K-pop. Also, a slight trend towards fixating on one band in the scene, or even one member (specifically, from the fans who also listen to K-pop).

Just as a side note, I love the fact that crossover bands like dimlim and deviloof can play metal shows and have videos taken of their performances, and no one gives a shit. 

Call it a “VK show” and replace most of the dudes with girls/women, and suddenly it’s “so disrespectful” to take photos/videos.

Dimlim has generated some buzz from a selection of western React Youtubers reviewing their singles. So it wouldn’t be unheard of to try and get a showcase or two either in Europe or the US. 

It would be great if Japanese bands actually did multi-band tours to sweeten the deal for casuals on the fence. This whole business of one-man tours with only a 70 minute set list is only for die-hards, and people who just happen to be in the same city with nothing better to do.

But realistically, most Asia-obsessed people have moved on to K-pop, and the marginal base of casuals who would attend a multi-band event (but not a one-man) is probably not enough to justify the travel costs of additional bands. It could have worked in 2007-2009, but the hype fizzled out when bands couldn’t tour as far and wide as the fanbase wanted.

1 hour ago, Kabukichoatmidnight said:

Haha this thread is gold. I'm with the guy/girl who said they're happy they stay away from the fandom and just happy enjoying the music and not getting involved in all the weird drama. Only thing I really would say is a lot of V Kei fans in general I've seen at live shows in Japan and overseas seem pretty weird and immature (everyone here seems pretty safe though, so not firing any shots at anyone) like they just turn 10/15 younger and start acting like over-excited hyper babies and it's really pathetic to see. Always nice to see people having a good time, but they're so OTT it's properly cringey. For example, at one Dir show I was standing behind a girl who appeared to be on her own, she was quite short and I'm quite tall so just happened to notice what she was writing on her phone as she was texting a friend. Conversation starts off fairly normal "just got to the gig, am at the front woop, woop" that kind of thing, "I bought a load of merch woop woop" also pretty normal, (here i'll add she's clearly not an experienced gig go-er as she brings her massive ass backpack and puts it on the floor in front of her at the front of a show.... (got to be kidding right? Nope, haha) and anyway, things start getting weird when I then notice a message as obviously I wasn't watching everything she was writing as got talking to some people around, "How do I confess my love to Kaoru from the second row of the audience?" and then kept bad mouthing his wife saying she's a "gremlin" and that Kaoru should be with her instead, keeping in mind she was also very young, no older than 18 I'm sure..... But even still, a lot of V Kei fans seem this obsessed and it's so cringe it almost hurts. haha. I've been involved in music for around 20 years and mixed with all kinds of audiences and played in loads of bands of varying styles etc and ONLY seen this ridiculous behaviour at V Kei shows. Obviously the odd weirdo will appear anywhere so not saying all other genres you don't get weirdos but yeah, V Kei has a pretty creepy fanbase. lol.

I think it’s the tendency of some VK fans (at least in the introductory stages of fandom), to shut themselves off from other genres/scenes. And because a lot of this might happen when they’re young, they might not have had any experience with other types of music fandoms.

They usually either grow out of it, and start listening to additional types of  music, or dump the scene in favour of K-pop, or whatever is trendy next.

35 minutes ago, saiko said:

It would be interesting if someone 'old enough' could share his /her opinions on VK spreading before the 2006-2008 boom in the West.

Well, I’ve been paying attention since early 2001. The online presence back then was higher than it is now. And access to physical media wasn’t anywhere near as good. Sites like Kazaa and Soulseek has tons of files from popular VK bands. Most bands didn’t even realize we existed, until fans started traveling/moving to Japan to make themselves known. It was a little after this time when indies bands that got picked up by these fans started coming to Anime conventions.

1 hour ago, Milayou said:

...isn't that literally how it happened though? At least in the very early days of the fandom.

While I’m sure that some expats/kids of expats were involved, the actual spread to the western side was heavily facilitated through file sharing. The “word of mouth” between friends outside of Japan occurred after file sharing had already made the music accessible to foreigners.

2 hours ago, Komorebi said:

This. Thank you. I was always under the impression that being a gay man means you like dick, not that you exclusively like the very masculine western representation of men lol

And for gay cis guys in relationships with trans guys, sometimes it’s not even the dick itself.

1 hour ago, ghost said:

What?? That's lame. They really couldn't be bothered to sign a few things and/or take photos? 

Yup. Handshake and a hand towel. The early entry wasn’t even that worth it, as the merch selection had already been picked almost clean by the US fans. About 75% of the people opted for VIP.

I’ve heard about the barricade before, from people who went to the last Toronto show. I get it, they want to protect themselves from the occasional nut. 

For me, it’s worth it if I at least get a picture, and early access. An autograph would be great. I brought Miyavi’s Firebird LP to get signed in Toronto last year, and it was announced the day of that only fan club members would get an autograph.

I would bring my Uroboros LP with a silver sharpie if I thought I had a decent chance of one.

Quick question: I’m seriously pondering a stop on the NA tour this time around. In the past couple meet and greets, were there any photos or autographs allowed? I sprung for the Gazette meet and greet and was disappointed that they allowed neither. Just wanting to know if it’s worth it, especially because I’ve heard that Kyo and  Shinya just go through the motions.