The Reverend

VK newbies モンダイジ!! (Mondaiji!!) released a PV for their new song "ラヴベリ-Love very-" and because they decided to disable comments on the video, I had to take my comments here! 'Hey guys! We're Mondaiji!!' I don't like that this caution tape is arranged in such a way that it isn't even pretending to keep anyone out of anything. It looks way more like they were learning about Maypole dances in class that day and had no streamers to make one. Oh no we're only 10 seconds into this video and they've already started adding unnecessary post-effects in editing. They did not have a lot of confidence in this video holding up on its own. See what a I mean? Though this was probably necessary considering the terrible lighting of this PV. 'We don't have a drummer yet.' Did no one think that exposed fluorescent lights maybe wasn't the best they could do for lighting a music video featuring three men in tons of makeup? The lighting just screams 'this is a cheap PV we made on an iPhone!' and is the second worst thing about this video. The worst thing is how unwilling the whole band is to just 'go for it'. I remember Jimi from Chemical Pictures blogging once about how to look cool in a PV you have to be willing to look ridiculous in person because normal movements won't translate with any energy on film. The dancing and jumping and instrument-ing in this video are so half-assed it's like the band are embarrassed. This is also my biggest complaint with their sound so far. I actually kind of like the summer-time fun vibes in the verses of this track, but no one in the band sounds like they really *mean it*. I have no idea what this song is about, so I'm not sure if the classroom relates. But now the vocalist is singing into a chalkboard eraser cause why not. (Though I do appreciate that they gave him a microphone in this PV, nothing makes singers look more awkward than when they have nothing to hold and don't know what to do with their hands.) I feel ya bro. 'Quidditch after class??' I actually think dude on the right's vibrator-on-my-hip blowin-some-bubbles aesthetic is pretty on point. Again, dudes look like they got bored in the middle of shooting their own music video. There's rapping in this song. When will VK vocalists learn that really all you have to do to not sound like my mom or the Beastie Boys trying to rap is rhyme more than one syllable? Also there's no way that little cone would amplify someone's voice whatsoever. 'Oh shit I forgot to hold either my mic or cone or eraser. I'll just mime it for this shot.' What's with the curtains in this classroom? I like to think they shot this video while school was in session somewhere and the school's principal needed all the middle school children to not see the VK horrors lurking in that classroom. (Hopefully it's something innocent like nap-time darkness. Going to school in America, we had drills where we had to hang things to black out the windows so hypothetical school shooters wouldn't be able to see into the classrooms 😢) Who ya got as the GOAT, MJ or LeBron? 'What are you doing to the clock??' 'Hehe, time to go! Saika you're such a trickster!' These guys have a one-man show coming up at Takadanobaba AREA this fall, whoa!

*Quick public service announcement* Are you that dude in the mosh pit flailing your arms everywhere and punching and kicking all around?? Nobody likes you and your whole shit is definitely an act.

Ok, so final verdict from you guys: as someone who likes Lynch. but doesn't love them (I've been happy so far just keeping The Avoided Sun and The Buried around whenever I hear a new album and think 'I'll just listen to the similar stuff I already know I like...') is there any reason to check this out??

#sponcon

I'd go out to this if he were playing with a band. By himself doing karaoke? No thanks.

Guys, turn your read receipts off.

Both kind of VK-adjacent but noticed these two today: Blam Honey (Just Providence of Decadence) Speecies

Nice! The Velvet do the kind of low-budget kei I'll always give a chance, looking forward to it. If you were actually curious: melancholy is a noun, melancholic is the adjective form.

Yes it is as absurd as you're picturing. Though full disclosure... I don't really ever participate in the intricate furi. I'll do the clapping and maybe some jumping. (and the annoying bands that make you kneel, ugh.) Yeah, I definitely still feel out of place at VK shows, but everyone I've ever interacted with (usually in very tiny ways) has been very nice. And yes, all the live reports I've ever written here I went to the shows by myself. I went to a Gallo/Mamireta/Archemi/etc. show that I brought two friends I was travelling with to.... it was a lot of fun, I felt like a VK safari guide explaining everything haha.

Black suits are a pro ‘my band is breaking up’ move because you can go to job interviews during the day without having to bring a change of clothes for your show at night.

Dilemma: Going to be in Boston for work at the end of the month. (Holla at me Bostonians!(?))... These two shows are happening the same night: Glassjaw & Quicksand in a club Smashing Pumpkins in an arena (playing the old (read: good) shit) Which should I go to???

I'll allow this might have been true... but man the look he gave me was so "are you sure bro??" hahaha. I didn't mention it, but I also really enjoy that at every Gallo show I've been to (3 now!) everyone stacks their paper plates on the merch table at the end of their set to be reused. I felt bad because I had folded a *paper* plate and stuck it in my pocket until the end of the show!

Haha, pretty much this.

Lack-co are in the middle of hosting a series of Monday two-man shows called "ステゴロ" (what does Stegoro mean??) and having never seen Tenten in any of his bands and The Gallo being one of my favorite active VK bands I had to go to this one while I was visiting Tokyo. 東高円寺二万電圧 (Higashi Koenji ni man Den-atsu) is just outside the central Tokyo region defined by the Yamanote Line, but it was a quick trip on a couple trains and Den-atsu is very close to the station when you arrive. To access the venue you first have to descend an outdoor, concrete staircase toward an outdoor landing. The descent actually made me a bit nervous as there was no railing on one side and it was raining at the time. This was a very non-descript entrance from the roadway. After walking down the stairs and making a turn I was looking at a way too-cool-for-school 30-something dude manning the ticket table. Acknowledging that I don't look much like the typical VK fan in Japan, when I asked for one ticket this guy with shaggy hair at the table actually asked me "You know who's playing tonight?" He didn't sound mean about it, I think he genuinely wanted to save me from seeing this show normally reserved for younger women assuming I had just stumbled to the club looking for any live music I could find. I assured him I was there to see The Gallo and he handed me my paper ticket that doubled as a drink ticket. I liked the set up in side Den-atsu as the bar and merch tables were outside the stage area, which meant I could stand pretty much anywhere inside and not be in the way of people trying to sell things. I found a spot in the rear of the club in front of a tiny alcove that was littered with bags belonging to the VK girls in attendance. This was a fairly small club with low ceilings; their website says the capacity is 130 and I'd say this show had about 80-90 people in attendance. The head count reminded me just how niche a scene VK is. I'd consider The Gallo and Lack-co two of the more well-known indies bands, so it was a bit jarring to see the small venue they were playing at even in a giant city. I'm obviously too deep into VK to remember that almost no one cares about this stuff. Obviously The Gallo were going to be playing first... both because Lack-co were hosting the event and because I saw a lot of the girls standing near the stage holding their signature bowl and spoon. One girl near me had a plain bowl with no logo on it that I could see, did I miss something or did this girl just bring her own bowl from her kitchen to clap along with? I think the latter scenario is pretty funny/ingenious actually. I mentioned in a live report from a couple years ago that The Gallo fans kept doing furi during the band's music playing between sets over the club's PA, and during this show the fans clapped along to the bass drum sound check. Gallo fans seem like a fun bunch in general. The curtain was drawn to reveal the band in their latest Gallo-Vuitton all over print leisure suits. Jojo had his hair cascading through the top of a hat with the top cut off and some Day of the Dead skull inspired makeup for a very Tim Burton-y look overall. Andy had his palm against the ceiling atop the stage, and I don't think he was raising his hand to get the crowd hyped but rather to test whether or not he could pump his fist upward during the show (he couldn't without hitting his hand... a lot of the band members had to deal with this and would only throw up their hands while bending backward to afford themselves a little more space.) Some of the audience were even checking to see if they could touch the ceiling. The stage right guitarist (they have names for these positions in VK but I don't remember them) had one of those guitars with no headstock, and it looked from across the room like the end of the neck had dripping red wax poured on it a la a Maker's Mark bottle. The newer guitarist, Nov, passed out paper plates to the audience so that people who didn't bring their own (like me, no I didn't pack my Gallo plate in my luggage) could clap along and the set began with "Belphegor". "Belphegor" has some pretty obvious clapping along portions, so even a noob like me could get the hang of the plate banging fairly quickly. The highlights of the set for me were the fact that they played "Kuroi Ondori" (ok they played the remade version from Nero, but still) which is a favorite of mine, and also the 'circle pit' that Jojo started with himself dancing in the center of the maelstrom playing with a megaphone set to siren mode. The lowlights, if you can call them that, were that two different songs had the audience doing the wave (do we need that two separate times?) and that the MC music was "Tokyo Cinderella" but they didn't actually play "Tokyo Cinderella". Some of the non-bowl-based audience participation that was fun was the crowd stomping on the floor in time the beat and the crowd holding hands and swaying back and forth. Of course a couple songs had the requisite gyaku-daibu portions, and I'm certainly not jumping into the backs of some tiny Japanese girls, but they were fun to watch. Nov was kneeling on the backs of a couple girls during one diving song and slipped off them and stumbled backwards onto the stage. Wajou occasionally tried to demand the crowd participate in the diving like the other members were, but he is way too smiley and couldn't really pull it off. He just couldn't help being happy even trying to look mean. The Gallo ended their set with a really high energy rendition of "Incubus" (which I'm still disappointed has no theremin in the live version) during which Jojo was leaning over the crowd singing and got some feedback when he put his mic in front of the amp and proceeded to give it a disappointed look and bop the amp on its 'head' like it was a recalcitrant child. With The Gallo finished with their set thus began the churning of the crowd as Lack-co fans moved into the frontmost positions and many girls invaded my small space in the back looking to find their bags and check their phones and makeup. It kind of sucks for people in the back, as the polite spot changing for peoples' favorite bands leads to a weird concert-going scenario where the back of a venue is often more crowded than the front, but it is kind of cool that the scene (or just Japanese live music fans?) doesn't require people who want to be up front for the band playing last to endure being crushed through all the other shows as concerts in the west would. Interesting note about Den-atsu: in tearing down the stage between sets (which isn't quite the production at these Japanese clubs where you basically just have to bring your instrument and plug in) the bands/roadies had to move equipment down from the stage into the audience area and out through a side door that wasn't connected to the stage. So after the curtain was closed on The Gallo, a couple minutes later we saw band members bringing things down from the stage to this side door. (from Lack-co Twitter) While The Gallo fans can be identified by their white bowls and spoons, Lack-co fans had all produced blue and red clamshell castanets to clap along with. I have to say these did dramatically change the sound of the crowd applause in a way that might get old, but was kind of refreshing for the first time. Lack-co's intro SE was a piano rendition of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" that gradually morphed into the requisite fist-pounding, techno track. The first member to take the stage was drummer Higiri, and wow I thought I hated his black face, but this blue Alfalfa x Cindy Lou Who hairstyle he was rocking for the show might actually bother me even more (not bother in the same way obviously, but it was not pleasant to look at.) I resolved to avoid watching him as much as possible. The band, except for Tenten who had a Lack-co band tee over a white shirt, were all wearing the red suits with writing strewn all over them from their most recent look. I recognized some of the words scrawled on their suits like 'shine' and 'kimoi' as 'mean things to say to someone'. Very edgy boys. Between not loving their output so far, and the majority of their tracks having titles in Japanese, I didn't recognize much of Lack-co's set list other than a riff here or there. The show did remind me of why I keep giving Tenten's bands chances and will continue to; he is one hell of a charismatic frontman. His sly smiles and confident stage mannerisms had the audience eating out of the palm of his hand and made it so it was hard to pay attention to any of the other members of the band. His best move was when he parted the Red Sea of fans to do a bit of 'everyone run into each other from opposite sides of the venue' but just as the opening in the center stabilized, he jumped down and ran to the cameraman at the back of the venue, struck a pose for a moment, then dove back onto the stage just as the cue for the crowd to go wild hit. Lack-co's set actually resembled a straight up rock show the most of any VK bands I've seen I think. There was very little *furi*, most of the synchronized moves were headbanging, clapping, fist-pumping type stuff that required no direction from Tenten or the band. Tenten even commanded an almost bona fide circle pit during which one girl lost her sweater and it ended up absolutely trampled. In fact, I was a little surprised by how much the show, for lack of a better word, rocked. Lack-co has always seemed like an assemblage of too cute ideas in search of a central theme or melody to hold on to on wax, but live their songs resonated nicely even with perhaps a 'jazz' breakdown a little too often. Milk threw a carton of milk into the crowd as the band were leaving the stage... ride that USP hard buddy. Ivy was fun strutting around the stage and headbanging as usual. I say as usual because I'm pretty sure I saw him at three different shows the week I was in Tokyo, at Lack-co and as a session bassist the other two. When the set ended the girls chanted and clapped in unison for an encore. (Though they appear to be saying "an-ko-re" instead of "an-ko-ru"? I guess the first group that did it had only seen the word encore and not heard it spoken??) They even started up a chant for a second encore that was cut off by the house lights and a voice over the PA system telling them, I'm guessing here, that the show was actually over and it was time to go home. This was a fun pairing for a two-man show as both bands and their groups of fans have pretension-free fun jumping around to some quality tunes. I'll be sure to check out Tenten's next band if I visit Japan again 😉.

They were fun live! They sold these light up clear plastic butcher knives that were incorporated into the furi and looked fun. (Y'know, and the nostalgia of seeing half of Doremidan of course)

Cool! for some more member VK background info: Maya was also in Doremidan and Escalera and I’m pretty sure Ryuto was in Benizemi.

Empty seat next to me on my flight back from Tokyo.... this might be the best part of the trip.

Just spent an embarrassing amount of money on these 3 singles at Puresound...

Haha, 'good lid, it's all heavy'. I like my Grieva full course single edition that included chop sticks, a 'menu', and napkins (I also actually liked the DVD that came with it). And of course for special packaging nothing touches the Aliene clock!

池袋スタンダード @ Ikebukuro Edge 2018.6.16 Well, it's that time again. In Japan and catching some VK shows... so I'll be sharing my experiences/using the forums as a place to jot down details I'd almost certainly forget after a week of concerts. So for the first show while I'm in town I decided to hit up Ikebukuro EDGE to see Soan Project, The Micro Head 4N's, and Develop One's Faculties. I decided on this show because it started relatively late for VK shows (18:30) and my flight didn't land until after 15:00. I also hit this one up because Dezert & Lynch in Shibuya was sold out 😢 and this seemed like an ok consolation prize. I arrived about 3 minutes after the show was scheduled to start, which in Japan meant I arrived about 3 minutes after the show started, and the first band was already performing onstage by the time I got through the doors. First up was Soan Project with 芥 from Chanty. But I didn't recognize them at first because I thought the only thing I knew about what this band looked like was that Akuta had a bright white wig. (From Soan's twitter) Edge was a little more full than I've seen it before (two other shows in past years). But I suppose it wasn't sold out, because I got in. The band's costumes (pictured above) were looking a little cheap? Mostly just some mesh black stuff and a boa made of feathers or flowers for each member. I guess this is a side project for most of them, so no use spending big books on your part-time look. I've never listened to this half of Soan Project... I wished I could've seen my boy Temari, but I also recognize this set of songs was probably more fun for the crowd in a live setting. Nothing groundbreaking for sure, but the tunes had most of the crowd bopping around, jumping up and down, and participating in the furi. The bassist (is this Ivy from Lack-co etc?) was having the most fun on stage of the group. He eschewed the idea that he needed to stand in his 'spot' on stage and spent the whole show lurking behind the guitarists and singer, moving back and forth to interact with the crowd and other members from different spots. The funniest moment of their set was him attempting some 'fan service' while he was holding a pick in his mouth, looking over at one of the guitarists and leaning in like they should play a game of suck and blow with it, and when the guitarist recoiled he spit the pick and hit him in the face. During Soan Project's set I was stuck in a crowded spot directly near the entrance door (the perils of coming in late), but after the first set I found a good spot near the back that wouldn't get in anyone's way but had a little more room to breath. As usual at VK shows, I was much taller than all of the crowd so I'd feel bad standing in front of someone who wanted to watch. I should've been able to guess that the Micro Had 4N's (still a terrrrible name) were next as I noticed there were multiple people in the audience even older than I am all of a sudden. So I gave up on this band very early because I just couldn't with Ricky's vocals (sorry @Biopanda haha). I hadn't checked anything of theirs out since replacing Ricky with the dude from A(CE). What do I think about them now? Solid but unspectacular. Nimo was capable at singing and stirring up the crowd, and the band sounded good but uninspiring. The shorter-haired guitarist had some nice harmonics thrown in during a heavy section of one song, and he brought a little metal to the proceedings in general. The band were wearing very VK-lite streetwear type shit. At least Zero had on all black and a giant cross necklace... he has always been pretty goth-y hasn't he? Micro Head's set had the unintended consequence of making me feel old. Looking up at half of a band (D'espairs Ray obviously) that I fell in love with when I was first getting into VK, and that I saw on one of their US tours in freaking 2005 sort of threw into stark relief just how much older I was than the typical VK fan. Then I also felt a little bad for the band cause.... they're even older than I am and after having (relatively) successful careers now they're playing at Edge and only the third most popular of three bands for the night? I hope this is just a weekend thing for them at this point haha. They played a song from their new single (I think, pretty sure Nimo said something about 'single' before they started the song) and it was a sporadically noisy ballad with good emoting that I thought worked well live. It could be really boring on the CD, so don't get mad if you check it out based on this recommendation haha. During one song the guitarists all definitely mis-timed a synchronized spin. Tsukasa was really almost invisible during their set. I guess he's never really been very flamboyant or theatrical behind his kit, but I forgot he was there entirely until the second to last song featured some double-bass drum fills. He even left the stage quietly without waving while another member was up front bowing and throwing out picks. After some shuffling of the girls in the crowd and a short soundcheck, the highlight of the night Develop One's Faculties were on stage. (From DoF twitter.) Johannes walked out on stage in his traditional robotic way and I thought to myself "I can see half of this dude's ass and yet I think he's wearing *more* clothes than when I saw them two years ago" haha. I wonder if he acted like a disaffected android once when the band was starting out and got a good reaction and now he's stuck with this act forever. In any case, his statue of liberty x Predator headpiece with LEDs thing is awesome. Those lights really popped whenever the stage lights were dim or off. I like DoF live for the same reasons I do on CD. Some interesting song structures and tight songwriting. Lots of energy and a sound that's not typical of VK. Smart musicianship and a distinct lack of bullshit (from this foreigner's perspective). A few of their songs had incredibly timed full stops that demonstrated a tightness in the band that was impressive. Having a frontman that plays guitar is rare enough in VK, but their overall sound is a bit different too. During one song I noticed that if I closed my eyes I could convince myself I was listening to some 90s slightly math-y emo band. The crowd was definitely enjoying DoF. Perhaps because Yuuya doesn't have his hands free there wasn't a ton of furi to go along with the songs, but there was plenty of rhythms to jump or headbang to. When the house lights came on after the show I dipped out despite a half-hearted 'encore' chant. (Do those happen after the house lights are on here in Japan??) A solid start to a week of VK shows for sure.

Pretty excited about this lineup. Bonus: I'm dragging two of my friends who don't care about VK!

Hi! Welcome! (Do people live at/near Stonehenge?? Is that a place that someone is 'from'??? I think this bolsters your goth credentials significantly)