GreatNorthernVK

I’m on the fence on this one. Denver is the only date that makes sense for me, but it’s so damn expensive. I’m going to wait it out a couple weeks to see if they announce any last minute Canada date.

True, it’s important to consider that a handful of these guys may have come from money in the first place, and that’s what bankrolled their bands. Their parents want them to have fun while they’re young, then retire and start working their “real job”.

“Guitarist Lin joins Nocturnal Bloodlust - and has been arrested”

I was following that too. Sorry you and your ex got harassed by that asshat. Honestly, they made a huge deal out of nothing. Claiming that Reita’s feelings would be sooo hurt by “Lesbians for Reita”. You want to know how most straight guys would react to news that lesbians are stanning him? “...Cool!” I highly doubt that Reita loses sleep at night because “Oh no! Not lesbians!”

Mm, “common”, not really. Does it still happen from time to time? Sure. Generally speaking, if a teen girl is talking about “raping” a man 10+ years older than her, most people will just roll their eyes and move on. It’s become more common for people to interject and tell them to knock it off, as awareness has increased.

I wonder if she was the same girl who sent Mamo the “period diary”.

I think part of the issue here is that they are pricing for the Japanese market. Namely, for the fans that are nostalgic and will drop that kind of money on MM merch, because they don’t really follow any bands besides M10M, or maybe one or two of Kozi’s projects. They aren’t really pricing it for our market, which are the people that might be nostalgic, but if they’re still paying attention to VK at all, then they’ve moved on to other bands (usually multiple ones). Most of us simply don’t have the dedication to pine over a band that disbanded almost 20 years ago, and be willing to shell out $150 US+ Shipping for a blu-ray. It’s a complicated situation, because this entire international fandom exists because of piracy, rather than in spite of it. Sure, we could choose to be uptight about copyright infringement, but we wouldn’t be here without it in the first place.

Not much to add, but average age of fan could have something to do with it. When I see pictures of crowds at X-Japan or Luna Sea shows (post 2000), it’s pretty mixed. Possibly, the younger the average age of fans, the more likely that it will be gender segregated. This applies to multiple genres, not just VK.

Part of the explanation could be that when VK was being heavily promoted, plenty of talentless fuckboys thought that it was the easy way to fame, so they aimed for that. Even when VK started falling out of favour, those guys were probably too invested to leave. Now that it’s been a full generation since the initial popularity, less of these guys are hanging around the scene.

Streaming has its uses, but also plenty of limitations. Nothing more irritating than your internet buffering during a song, or your significant other hijacking Spotify to troll you with Backstreet Boys and Chumbawumba (true story). I’ve decided to listen to most of my western music via Spotify, while keeping my storage for VK and other stuff that can’t be found on Spotify. I have some CDs for collection purposes, but the only physical music I sit down and listen to is in LP format.

For Japanese artists, it’s difficult to determine what the “right” answer is. For one, many of us don’t read Japanese. Relying on translations for gossip boards can’t always guarantee reliability of either the translation, nor the validity of the rumour itself. Things of this nature are also kept more “hush hush” in Japan, especially if the artist in question is popular and well liked. Things are slowly changing, as they are over here. As for separating the art from the artist, sometimes that is possible, other times it bleeds through. Some are what I like to call “hiding in plain sight”, and see no problem with making their intentions known in their art. Mamo from R-shitei with his edgy lyrics, and talking about his attraction to teen girls. For an American example, Dahvie Vanity advertising what he likes to do to teen girls/young women in Blood on the Dance Floor’s lyrics. Oh sure, we all thought they were joking at one point. Until we realized, no, they really are serious. As for whether or not to continue financial support...honestly, there are several free ways to enjoy art nowadays. If someone doesn’t feel right supporting an artist for personal reasons, it’s probably for the best. Especially if you look at how they are using that money.

Or with a mitsu...

Step 24: Show up *everywhere*, and create photo ops for the camera. Preferably when there’s royalty nearby.

Eehh, kind of? I mean, for *me*, the whole purpose of the downloading boom and the increasing diversity of music taste that it resulted in was to “get away” from the boybands, girl groups, and kitschy Euro-pop that dominated the charts in the mid to late 90s. So I personally can’t understand why a person would un-ironically listen to the Korean version of that, when that’s what they were trying to get away from in the first place. Then again, the friends of mine that did switch over never explicitly hated *pop* music, they just didn’t care for most of the stuff in the 90s.

My friend circle was brought together by VK, but since then, most of them only incidentally listen to some VK. Half of them have switched over to Kpop.

I’ve been to only two J-rock shows, Miyavi and The Gazette, so my experience with cringy fans is limited. If anything, I may have been the slightly cringy one at Gazette, as I was drunk for that one. VIPs aren’t something that most of the bands *want* to do, it’s something they *have* to do, to make international tours viable. As for whether or not they *should* put more effort in, that’s up to them. Don’t expect it to be without consequence if word gets around that you’re a dick. It may result in fewer people opting for VIP, therefore making future international tours infeasible.

There is a definite distinction between *CD* shops, and *record* shops. CD shops are tanking in the West. Record shops still do pretty decently. I’ve been joking for a while now that if VK bands want gaijin to buy their music, just release something on LP. But if too many bands do this, we’ll just run into the same problem. Market gets saturated, and there’s only so much money to go around.

Eventually, they’ll have to adapt. CD stores are going out of business, even though they held on decently compared to the West. The bands will always have their core gya that throw money at them. Physical releases are only one of the ways that they do this. With the CD format becoming less popular, i wouldn’t be surprised if many of these lay untouched, as collectibles more than anything. I can’t predict the popularity of vinyl in Japan. Luna Sea’s LP re-releases all come with English translation booklets, so i’m pretty sure they knew their audience here.

Many of these bandomen, unless they’re quite well established, or have enough mitsu patronage...can’t get by on music alone. Most of them have day jobs that they need to keep affording outfits and recording sessions. This will effect their availability to write new music, record and tour.

Setlist in Toronto was great, but i’d say raw playing time was ~70 min, with 10 minutes of yelling for “encor-eh”. Good experience, but wouldn’t travel twice.

I remember someone asking for links to files back on inertia’s board, what must have been 14-15 years ago. Someone honestly responded; ”Why don’t you just buy the CDs, instead of being a leech?” Yes, because someone back in 2004 can just walk to the store and buy whatever VK CD they want, or just go on to Western iTunes, and have the whole world at their fingertips. Or, they could blindly buy a $40 CD. Amazin’!

The answers that I’ve heard from my friends is basically “it was more accessible, and they actually *want* our business”. The fact that K-pop groups also know the “right” thing to say regarding social topics among western millennials, instead of being edgelords also helps.

I like Seo Taiji, and Big Bang/BTS have a couple of listenable songs, but i’ve never really seen the appeal of most K-pop. Especially for people who never really liked American or Japanese pop, but still listen to mainly K-pop nowadays.

*Shrug*, a shitty tereko on YouTube resulted in them earning an extra shirt sale via my husband, who was impressed with Ruki’s Vocals. It was too late to fly him out to Toronto specifically, but had the concert been a few hours drive away, he certainly would have bought a ticket based on the footage. This is the reason why I don’t think VK will ever regain the momentum that it had 10-12 years back. The fan base spreads according to Western methods of promotion, like file sharing, magazine scans, concert photos/videos, and sharing PVs on YouTube. Then once the bands actually get here, they ignore all of those methods that created buzz for them in the first place and pretend that it just happened overnight by magic. And from there, it just fizzles.

Japanese fans don’t care, because they see their favourite band so often that they wouldn’t even remember which concert each individual photo would be from. If a particular concert is a “one and done” for any given foreign fan, you’ll have to forgive them for wanting a full concert experience according to the concert norms of where they are.