meat

Well, it is what the title says. コロナウイルス is forcing people to stay home in Japan and the japs have a nice philosophy of spreading hope in times of despair, so they went there and performed anyway and are being nice and posting the gigs that got cancelled online for all to see, including us, poor gaijin. No live audience, no staff, etc.
 
These are the ones I've seen so far:
 
 
 
 
Let's make this collaborative so do share other links here if you know of any. I'll keep updating this list.
 
Previously unreleased lives uploaded for viewing due to the Corona situation are also to be freely shared in this thread - MH Staff
 
And bear in mind most of these gigs will be available for a limited time only, so hurry up and watch or download the ones you're interested in watching ASAP.

I love it. It almost makes me feel like I'm listening to real adult music that i'm not ashamed to tell people i like™ 
 
Infinitum grew on me as well. I think my first reaction was totally enamored, first of all because it's vk in the 2010's that actually shows some ambition to be more than just japanese nu metal or indie too rigid to actually be indie, but then I started thinking that well it isn't exactly ADORATIO; now almost an year later I'm able to accept it for what it is. ADORATIO is an impossible act to follow and that's just how it is. These are the most talented players in this particular game and with their music they almost manage to compensate for an entire genre that resists experimentation or unconformity literally until it has to be dragged kicking and screaming into the new decades. 

I don't blame Ken for being wore out from band life, it's been almost 20 years now that he's been a part of Merry. I know I wasn't around during their heyday, but all my years I've stanned this band, I've noticed how quiet Kenichi is, especially now that the members all have social media (even Gara!) and Tetsu sometimes posts on the band account about deadman stuff, and Ken is just...there. I hate to see him go, but he deserves to live his best life, whether moving onto something different, or taking a break from music altogether.

Soooo MERRY just announced that Kenichi (guitars) will be leaving the band in May 2020.   A final tour is in the works as five-piece. Afterwards, MERRY will continue with four members (no word yet on whether they will recruit a support or fulltime 2nd guitarist).
 
Announcement on YT:
 
Message from the band:
 
Jesus, this sucks... they've been practically together without any member changes for almost 20 years... Hoping for the best!

That was quite the pit. Everybody were grinning and still managed to sing along. Thank you for making this oldie feel like she's still got it lol

If anyone needed the info, London had Kodou in the encore. The crowd went nuts for both this and Merciless Cult. Although the tracks from TIW were definitely more preferable live than on the album, the WTD tracks had so much more punch in comparison. The World of Mercy was incredible live. 
 
The band played incredible well with only a few screw ups during solos etc. Kyo was a beast; he seemed to replace a lot of the higher screams with the kind of whistley scream he used at the end of Reiketsu Nariseba which was super cool. As was his repetition of 'London' before the last song which drove everyone wild XD 
 
Best of all was the complete absence of some lame opening act 👍 Also, big thanks to the couple who barged in front of me mid-set and didn't even bop to the music. You suck. 
 
I can't wait to see the band again though! I last saw them when they spent two days in London for the Arche tour so they were definitely worth the wait. I had a great time with the wonderful @TheZigzagoon so we'll have to meet up for the next one! 😊

When my phone lit up this morning with the message that “Merry has an important announcement”, I thought oh finally that European tour! What bum news 😢  Kenichi adds so much to Merry’s sound over the years and his guitar skills is amazing. It’ll be extraordinarily hard to find someone else that talented to join. 
 
The fact that the band is not providing the reason he’s leaving for now makes me think it’s not due to a happy occasion, like “graduating” to get married, etc. After 19 years making great music with one of my favourite band, I just hope he’s found something else wonderful to focus his time and energy on 😔

This is unexpected and surprising news that will be strange to see become a four band with a session guitarist or quintet again with a new member, I  hope it will have a last release with Kenichi on guitar.
All songs composed by Kenichi per albums (except Beautiful Freaks which was composed at 100% by Yuu) :
- Gendai Stoic : Bruisy Night, Yellow Girl, Dramatic Children
- Modern Gate : Haraiso, Seishun Neurose, T.O.P
- Nu Chemical Rhetoric : Kubitsuri Rondo, Dekiai no Suisou,Bara to Katasumi no Blues, Shambara, Karappo na Uta
- Peep Show : Kyousou Carnival, Sentimental New Pop, Kimatteru Taiyou,Mado Kara Nigeta Love Song
- M.E.R.R.Y : Blind Romance, LULULU LALALA, Shaite no Parade, Hirahira Tonderu, Komorebi Ga Boku Wo Sagashiteru, Utagoe Kiss Modern
- Underworld : Piranha, under-world
- Non Sense Market : Kurayami ni Pink
- M-Ology : Happy Life

I just want to go home and listen to all Kenichi's songs on repeat... Jigsaw's onto something with his sparse credits on recent albums, but still I was not ready for this. I can't even imagine Merry without Kenichi. I hope he finds happiness and the band continue being strong - they've been through so much!

Maybe he wasn't feeling them either... I don't know about the last mini album and the full-length, but before those the number of Kenichi's songwriting credits were on a steady decline from album to album as far as I could see.

My two cent is that angura-kei is a music/ visual/ theatrical exploration of the post war Japanese identity. I think a lot of artists in the Heisei period (post-Bubble and pre-millennium, so basically the 90s), the so-called "lost generation", questioned their place in a post-modern Japan that went through a century of extremes of war and peace. Some found inspiration and identified with the existential anxieties expressed by the counter-cultural movements in the 1970s, led by figureheads like Terayama Shuuji and Shibusawa. And the raccoon people have carried that subversive and transgressive context on to the present time by toying with time: some like the Inugami, Guru guru eigakan, etc. deliberately dress in pre-1945 ways with ghost/ butoh white face paint and sing about folktales and myths, as if to remind their modern audience of an innate Japaneses-ness by digging into the past; whilst the bleep bloop raccoon people, such as Metronome, Shinjuku Gewalt, etc. are trying to reconcile the technologically fast advancing future Japan with the lost identity in the present.
 
Of course, a lot of raccoon people feel the need to dress like characters from Terayama's films and make nagomu music is probably because many were born around the 1970s and be deeply influenced by all the social upheavels then. But I think it is because of their play on time, by the subversive questioning of the past and future in a transgressive fashion, that I think set angura kei bands apart from other bands that dress in kimono or sing kayoukyoku.

I would ban the trope of completely toning down your sound and visuals once you go major. Like... you actually got money now, why not go all out with the visuals and the music? Why the hell do you just start wearing less makeup and host-boy hair and playing generic pop rock the second you make more than 10 dollars?
So many great bands have been lost to this trope

Oh they're including Core live footage now :0
 

My two cent is that angura-kei is a music/ visual/ theatrical exploration of the post war Japanese identity. I think a lot of artists in the Heisei period (post-Bubble and pre-millennium, so basically the 90s), the so-called "lost generation", questioned their place in a post-modern Japan that went through a century of extremes of war and peace. Some found inspiration and identified with the existential anxieties expressed by the counter-cultural movements in the 1970s, led by figureheads like Terayama Shuuji and Shibusawa. And the raccoon people have carried that subversive and transgressive context on to the present time by toying with time: some like the Inugami, Guru guru eigakan, etc. deliberately dress in pre-1945 ways with ghost/ butoh white face paint and sing about folktales and myths, as if to remind their modern audience of an innate Japaneses-ness by digging into the past; whilst the bleep bloop raccoon people, such as Metronome, Shinjuku Gewalt, etc. are trying to reconcile the technologically fast advancing future Japan with the lost identity in the present.
 
Of course, a lot of raccoon people feel the need to dress like characters from Terayama's films and make nagomu music is probably because many were born around the 1970s and be deeply influenced by all the social upheavels then. But I think it is because of their play on time, by the subversive questioning of the past and future in a transgressive fashion, that I think set angura kei bands apart from other bands that dress in kimono or sing kayoukyoku.

couldn't be any less excited about this. please do something different this time? just rework donna donna into new songs and call it a day AT LEAST

My two cent is that angura-kei is a music/ visual/ theatrical exploration of the post war Japanese identity. I think a lot of artists in the Heisei period (post-Bubble and pre-millennium, so basically the 90s), the so-called "lost generation", questioned their place in a post-modern Japan that went through a century of extremes of war and peace. Some found inspiration and identified with the existential anxieties expressed by the counter-cultural movements in the 1970s, led by figureheads like Terayama Shuuji and Shibusawa. And the raccoon people have carried that subversive and transgressive context on to the present time by toying with time: some like the Inugami, Guru guru eigakan, etc. deliberately dress in pre-1945 ways with ghost/ butoh white face paint and sing about folktales and myths, as if to remind their modern audience of an innate Japaneses-ness by digging into the past; whilst the bleep bloop raccoon people, such as Metronome, Shinjuku Gewalt, etc. are trying to reconcile the technologically fast advancing future Japan with the lost identity in the present.
 
Of course, a lot of raccoon people feel the need to dress like characters from Terayama's films and make nagomu music is probably because many were born around the 1970s and be deeply influenced by all the social upheavels then. But I think it is because of their play on time, by the subversive questioning of the past and future in a transgressive fashion, that I think set angura kei bands apart from other bands that dress in kimono or sing kayoukyoku.

https://consequenceofsound.net/2020/01/heavy-culture-dir-en-grey-kyo/?fbclid=IwAR2P7l5zDPuaFQQabOWvaO6VN-lap1oBjLsePkbvwYWQ1ToviZrK-Jwm5A4
 
On newer Japanese bands such as BABYMETAL
 
"In regards to BABYMETAL, you just can’t say anything bad about them, can you? The band’s very talented musicians and the girls are powerful performers. The singers are very young hard working ladies who could be your own daughters, how could you not think they are doing a great job? That’s almost like a trick question, I feel."
 
a surprisingly wholesome answer from kyo

like this:
 

if your band meets at least two of the below criteria:
 
- have your cover artwork be drawn by Suehiro Maruo
- perform short skits during gigs
- use melodies reminiscent of kayoukyoku in your songs
- design your outfits based on school uniforms
- have at least one song about (pre-/post-/mid-)WWII and/or nationalism
 
That's it, I cracked the Angura Code™, thank you for coming to my TEDTalk.

As a Brit, what the actual fuck...? This is just plain weird. What next? Kyo meeting Trump? (Please let this happen) 

semi-popular opinion at this point:
nu-metal was never really that bad other than the literal middle school-tier lyrics

I'm just gonna spam here...
 

 


 
 

 

 

 

No "hats in VK" thread is complete without the KING OF HATS, Full (GUNIW TOOLS, NOOKICKY, SHILFEE AND TULIPCOROBOCKLES, etc).
 

 

 

 

 

 

Rare promo version