Champ213

I openly admit that I have a bias for vocalists. A boring vocalist is more likely to ruin things for me than boring instrumentals. On the other hand an amazing vocalist may just be able to a save a song for me.
 
I do appreciate good instruments too though, and for truly great songs, both things have to fit. I just tend to notice the vocals more, but maybe that's just me.

This is weird. I was under the impression that pretty much every new band popping up in recent months is of the lighter, colorful style and makes happy, strongly dance-oriented music with lots and loops and samples and autotune. Stuff like DEVI+TEC. Avidit, カメレオ or LUCHe.
Sure, it's not classic oshare but to me it's just seems like the next step of it.

Well, for what it's worth: the person that gave me the rip of 瑠璃の雫 also gave me 2 other demo tapes allegedly by SHEY=DE: 奴隷華 and Dark Side. Again, just rips, not physical tapes, so not really hard evidence. But the fake 瑠璃の雫 rip led me straight to the very real INSANITY tape which then showed some eerie parallels to the information on Kisaki's site. Maybe we can find something for the other ones as well.
 
 
The "Dark Side" tape has already been partially identified. Gaz pointed me towards a band called 業, and upon searching a bit I actually found 2 YT vids by that band
and . Those are the first 2 tracks on the tape. (Interestingly enough, the YT description says that 業 was the first band of ピエトロ and リエット, presumably the vocalist and guitarist of Da'vidノ使徒:aL - the band 業 is indeed mentioned as a previous band of リエット here. ) The alleged tape also has a 3rd track called 苦悩二果テニ which I'm unable to identify or match to any other band. 
However, this one doesn't really proof anything so far, since there doesn't seem to be any "official" tracklist for this particular Kisaki tape. In this case anyone could have made up a tracklist and mislabeled the files. Which would have been my normal guess, but in the light of all these discoveres.... who knows?
 
Here are all 3 tracks from the the fake "Dark Side": https://www.mediafire.com/?0sjs1oq4w4vlwq4
Maybe someone recognizes the still unidentified 3rd track?
 
 
Now, the other tape, 奴隷華. The tracklist I got matches the one from the scan above. Neither I or my contact recognized the songs from any other band. In theory, this rip could still be legit, but I'm not holding my breath. Again, I'm posting it here, maybe someone else can identify it: https://www.mediafire.com/?qg69423c4i5g72k
 
 
So yeah, that's all I can offer for now. Good hunting.

I'm not even sure if it's about money.... yeah, you can sell the tapes at a decent price, but not really THAT much that it would warrant the effort and risks involved, since you can only sell a very small amount of them without it getting too suspiscious. So... I dunno...
 
Anyway, in the interest of the "investigation", here's the files of the INSANITY demo tape:
 
https://www.mediafire.com/?j318rj3m133l0t0
 
I talked to my japanese contact who identified it for me again, and he confirmed the information I found on the auction site. He also told me that the tape is called "瑠璃の雫", just like the alleged SHEY=DE tape. He owns a physical copy of the INSANITY tape, so there's really no doubt about it, the INSANITY tape exists, the cover art and tracklist are legit, although the cover art and parts of the names miraculously also turn up on Kisaki's site as a SHEY=DE release. There's also no doubt that the files linked above are from said INSANITY tape, although - again miraculously - they were circulated as that SHEY=DE release - what a coincidence! (Btw, I changed the tags to the proper ones, since I don't want to further spread mistagged files.)
 
 
Now, for the rare chance that anyone ever got their hands on a physical release of the SHEY=DE tape, please compare them with the files I linked, so we can have full clarity. XD But I have a vague idea about the result already....

You know, usually when people sell their music to other people, they sell them rights to the music, ie. the composition/lyrics so that other people can record/perform them - I never heard of people selling actual fully recorded songs that they already released themselves to other people so that they can claim them as their own work without even re-recording them themselves. At least in case of Levia this seems to be the case, and there's some indication it's also the case for Shey=de.
 
What are the chances that three different bands (VICE RISK, Nude of J, INSANITY) sold their already released demos to three consecutive bands of Kisaki, so that he could claim them as releases of his bands? And would it make it really any better if he did indeed pay money to use those recordings? It would still leave the fact that 3 of his 4 earliest works showcased on his own site don't actually seem to have been written, performed and recorded by any band that he was ever part of. At this point I wouldn't bet any money on the remaining vintage release - Levia's 滅序章 - being from one of KIsaki's bands either.
 
If it was just one dubious release I would say, okay, coincidence, misunderstanding, mistake, whatever. But three releases? That can't be a coincidence.
 
 
Why would he do that? I dunno. But we are talking about the person that took a photo of paper cranes from Google and claimed it was cranes sent to him by fans while he was in hospital.
 
To be clear, I'm not a Kisaki-hater. I like many of his bands and his labels' bands. But I'm calling bullshit on this one.

But he was already pretty clear about it. It's not a cover, it's the same recordings he said.
 
 
Normally I would suspect that some random seller on Yahoo wanted to make some money and just faked the tape. But Kisaki's official site confirms the cover and tracklist and it's pretty weird in itself that the tracklist is 2/3 of the Nude-of-J tape. Which is another thing, the Nude-of-J tape has 3 tracks, so it's not just that the tape somehow ended up in the wrong case, someone must have gone through the trouble to copy over those 2 songs specifically.
 
 
Aaaaand there's more. I recently got the mp3s for another purported early Kisaki band, SHEY≠DE, via trade. It was later brought to my attention that they were probably fake. Fake files can happen in trades, although my source was usually a very realible one. One of the tapes I got is also on Kisaki's homepage, this one:
 
http://kisaki-official.syncl.jp/?p=shop&id=530032&af=
 
So, I showed my files to another japanese guy I know who's very knowledgable about old vk stuff, he said the tape I got was actually by a band called INSANITY.
 
And here's where it gets interesting.
 
Upon googling a bit I found this old auction where somebody was selling that old INSANITY tape: http://aucview.aucfan.com/yahoo/w80588066/
 
The tracklist is slightly different, but look at the cover! It's the same as on Kisakis page, except that one is red!
 
 
For comparison:
 

瑠璃の雫 by SHEY≠DE
 
1. insanity
2. XXXXX
3. 夢遊病者
 
 

Unnamed tape by INSANITY
 
1. 恋模様
2. Desert Labyrinth
3. 瑠璃の雫
 
The first song on the SHEY≠DE tape has been altered with the name of the actual band (!), and the second one has been replaced with xxxxx (!!). The third song of the INSANITY tape was used as title for the SHEY≠DE tape (!!!). Now that's creative! But hey, at least he came up with a COMPLETLY NEW fake name for the 3rd song this time. And he re-colored the cover in Photoshop. That's gotta be worth something, right?
 
The INSANITY tape was sold for 1000 Yen btw. The seller could have asked for a lot more for a SHEY≠DE tape, so there's no reason whatsoever for him to fake a SHEY≠DE tape into an INSANITY tape.
 
 
At first I thought I was spoofed by a tricky trader. But there seems to be more to it. So after the dubious LAYBIAL and Levia tapes.... make it three.

But he was already pretty clear about it. It's not a cover, it's the same recordings he said.
 
 
Normally I would suspect that some random seller on Yahoo wanted to make some money and just faked the tape. But Kisaki's official site confirms the cover and tracklist and it's pretty weird in itself that the tracklist is 2/3 of the Nude-of-J tape. Which is another thing, the Nude-of-J tape has 3 tracks, so it's not just that the tape somehow ended up in the wrong case, someone must have gone through the trouble to copy over those 2 songs specifically.
 
 
Aaaaand there's more. I recently got the mp3s for another purported early Kisaki band, SHEY≠DE, via trade. It was later brought to my attention that they were probably fake. Fake files can happen in trades, although my source was usually a very realible one. One of the tapes I got is also on Kisaki's homepage, this one:
 
http://kisaki-official.syncl.jp/?p=shop&id=530032&af=
 
So, I showed my files to another japanese guy I know who's very knowledgable about old vk stuff, he said the tape I got was actually by a band called INSANITY.
 
And here's where it gets interesting.
 
Upon googling a bit I found this old auction where somebody was selling that old INSANITY tape: http://aucview.aucfan.com/yahoo/w80588066/
 
The tracklist is slightly different, but look at the cover! It's the same as on Kisakis page, except that one is red!
 
 
For comparison:
 

瑠璃の雫 by SHEY≠DE
 
1. insanity
2. XXXXX
3. 夢遊病者
 
 

Unnamed tape by INSANITY
 
1. 恋模様
2. Desert Labyrinth
3. 瑠璃の雫
 
The first song on the SHEY≠DE tape has been altered with the name of the actual band (!), and the second one has been replaced with xxxxx (!!). The third song of the INSANITY tape was used as title for the SHEY≠DE tape (!!!). Now that's creative! But hey, at least he came up with a COMPLETLY NEW fake name for the 3rd song this time. And he re-colored the cover in Photoshop. That's gotta be worth something, right?
 
The INSANITY tape was sold for 1000 Yen btw. The seller could have asked for a lot more for a SHEY≠DE tape, so there's no reason whatsoever for him to fake a SHEY≠DE tape into an INSANITY tape.
 
 
At first I thought I was spoofed by a tricky trader. But there seems to be more to it. So after the dubious LAYBIAL and Levia tapes.... make it three.

But he was already pretty clear about it. It's not a cover, it's the same recordings he said.
 
 
Normally I would suspect that some random seller on Yahoo wanted to make some money and just faked the tape. But Kisaki's official site confirms the cover and tracklist and it's pretty weird in itself that the tracklist is 2/3 of the Nude-of-J tape. Which is another thing, the Nude-of-J tape has 3 tracks, so it's not just that the tape somehow ended up in the wrong case, someone must have gone through the trouble to copy over those 2 songs specifically.
 
 
Aaaaand there's more. I recently got the mp3s for another purported early Kisaki band, SHEY≠DE, via trade. It was later brought to my attention that they were probably fake. Fake files can happen in trades, although my source was usually a very realible one. One of the tapes I got is also on Kisaki's homepage, this one:
 
http://kisaki-official.syncl.jp/?p=shop&id=530032&af=
 
So, I showed my files to another japanese guy I know who's very knowledgable about old vk stuff, he said the tape I got was actually by a band called INSANITY.
 
And here's where it gets interesting.
 
Upon googling a bit I found this old auction where somebody was selling that old INSANITY tape: http://aucview.aucfan.com/yahoo/w80588066/
 
The tracklist is slightly different, but look at the cover! It's the same as on Kisakis page, except that one is red!
 
 
For comparison:
 

瑠璃の雫 by SHEY≠DE
 
1. insanity
2. XXXXX
3. 夢遊病者
 
 

Unnamed tape by INSANITY
 
1. 恋模様
2. Desert Labyrinth
3. 瑠璃の雫
 
The first song on the SHEY≠DE tape has been altered with the name of the actual band (!), and the second one has been replaced with xxxxx (!!). The third song of the INSANITY tape was used as title for the SHEY≠DE tape (!!!). Now that's creative! But hey, at least he came up with a COMPLETLY NEW fake name for the 3rd song this time. And he re-colored the cover in Photoshop. That's gotta be worth something, right?
 
The INSANITY tape was sold for 1000 Yen btw. The seller could have asked for a lot more for a SHEY≠DE tape, so there's no reason whatsoever for him to fake a SHEY≠DE tape into an INSANITY tape.
 
 
At first I thought I was spoofed by a tricky trader. But there seems to be more to it. So after the dubious LAYBIAL and Levia tapes.... make it three.

Grabbed one of the copies that pop up on Yahoo Auctions from time to time. Always irks me to pay for something that's actually free, but alas, such is the fate of the collecter that wants some crap from japan that no one else cares about.

As has been pointed out, if you want to trade for rarez, you need rarez.
 
Also, if you want to trade with japanese traders, you better have a grasp of basic japanese, or at least the most common phrases used for trading, so you can pass off as japanese.
(I know that japanese traders have a terrible reputation, but if you get to know them they are actually pretty nice. I manged to befriend a few during my p2p days, and then they would give me all their rarez for free, even though I could rarely return the favor, and even though they sooner or later realized I wasn't actually Japanese. They are harsh against outsiders, but very generous to their friends.)
 
I stopped trading years ago, because it was more hassle than worth the effort, but I had two primary ways of trading: p2p in specialized rooms like on Utatane, and trade lists. I'm guessing that p2p vk-trading is pretty much dead, and I'm actually not sure if list trading is still a thing. Most of my contacts seem to have stopped with it anyway. Basically, you will sometimes encounter trade lists on the internet that will usually look like this. It lists the stuff they have, the stuff they want, their eMail and other requirements. You can contact them with a list of your own stuff, and if you are lucky they will reply. I have never once gotten a "rude" reply, the worst (and not uncommon thing) to happen is no reply at all.
 
But again, you should have some knowledge of japanese so you can read their rules and communicate with them. And, to get really rare stuff, you better have some damn rare stuff yourself. Most list traders have a hierachy of "rareness", usually indicated by stars or similar. They will not trade some COCKROACH release for just any random Alice Nine release, obviously.
 
If you don't want to bother with that, trying to find stuff on auctions is probably the easier, albeit more expensive way.

I don't think japanese bands are overthinking the matter nearly as much as you do.
 
 
Pretty much all tapes we are talking about here are from 90s bands. These bands didn't release tapes because CDs didn't exist (they did since the 80s), but because back then it was just cheaper and easier for a band to record a tape. So in the beginning of their career vk bands would often start with a few tapes as demonstration, and when they met with some success, they would venture into making CDs. As such, pretty much every tape could be considered a "demo". At least I have never seen a band say "Okay, we released a few demo tapes, and now we are going to release our first "real" tape!"
 
After some discussion among staff we thus decided that if we are going to have a new "tape" tag, EVERYTHING originally released on tape should be tagged as such. Trying to make a distinction between a "tape" and a "demo tape" just seems like splitting hairs, especially if bands use the terms interchangeably anyway.
 
As for the old "demo" tag... we will probably rename it to "Demo CD" to avoid confusion. But it's a really vague tag. There aren't really any inherent criteria that signify that a CD is a "Demo CD" other than the band calling it such. And apparently you can call pretty much everything a "demo CD", whether it's some unlabeled CD-R given away at lives or pretty much a standard single sold at shops. As such I consider that tag to be rather useless and I myself would prefer it if people used single/live dist/whatever else applies instead.

You are right, I just listened to the samples from the new mini-album for the first time:
 

 
They are actually a lot more Luna-Sea-ish than the previous mini-album (I posted this here a while ago.)
 
Naoto's voice is a bit deeper, but when he hits the high notes he totally sounds like Ryuichi too! In the video at 1:12 min, when he sings "zutto" - that's an A++ Ryuichi! XD

Well. They love to go for some "shock value", so quite a few of their songs are about stuff like sexual perversions and obsessions, incest, cannibalism, etc. Not saying that their songs are never meaningful, but I think sometimes they are just trying too hard to be controversial. Actually I would say that a lot of their songs are meaningful, but sometimes they have a very silly way to go about it, it's hard to explain. XD
Like, sometimes they have these weird lyrical constructions that apparently are only there to make it rhyme. The most famous example, which was a source of some sort of private meme between me and a friend of mine, is the song "Mutter" which has the lines: "In ihren Lungen wohnt ein Aal, auf meiner Stirn ein Muttermal" which literally translates to "In her lungs lives an eel, on my forehead there [is] a birth mark" - which doesn't make any sense at all, except that they apparently needed some word that rhymed with "Muttermal", and that worded ended up being "Aal" - eel.

Well. They love to go for some "shock value", so quite a few of their songs are about stuff like sexual perversions and obsessions, incest, cannibalism, etc. Not saying that their songs are never meaningful, but I think sometimes they are just trying too hard to be controversial. Actually I would say that a lot of their songs are meaningful, but sometimes they have a very silly way to go about it, it's hard to explain. XD
Like, sometimes they have these weird lyrical constructions that apparently are only there to make it rhyme. The most famous example, which was a source of some sort of private meme between me and a friend of mine, is the song "Mutter" which has the lines: "In ihren Lungen wohnt ein Aal, auf meiner Stirn ein Muttermal" which literally translates to "In her lungs lives an eel, on my forehead there [is] a birth mark" - which doesn't make any sense at all, except that they apparently needed some word that rhymed with "Muttermal", and that worded ended up being "Aal" - eel.

Atsushi Sakurai owns my soul.
 

Well, for what it's worth: the person that gave me the rip of 瑠璃の雫 also gave me 2 other demo tapes allegedly by SHEY=DE: 奴隷華 and Dark Side. Again, just rips, not physical tapes, so not really hard evidence. But the fake 瑠璃の雫 rip led me straight to the very real INSANITY tape which then showed some eerie parallels to the information on Kisaki's site. Maybe we can find something for the other ones as well.
 
 
The "Dark Side" tape has already been partially identified. Gaz pointed me towards a band called 業, and upon searching a bit I actually found 2 YT vids by that band
and . Those are the first 2 tracks on the tape. (Interestingly enough, the YT description says that 業 was the first band of ピエトロ and リエット, presumably the vocalist and guitarist of Da'vidノ使徒:aL - the band 業 is indeed mentioned as a previous band of リエット here. ) The alleged tape also has a 3rd track called 苦悩二果テニ which I'm unable to identify or match to any other band. 
However, this one doesn't really proof anything so far, since there doesn't seem to be any "official" tracklist for this particular Kisaki tape. In this case anyone could have made up a tracklist and mislabeled the files. Which would have been my normal guess, but in the light of all these discoveres.... who knows?
 
Here are all 3 tracks from the the fake "Dark Side": https://www.mediafire.com/?0sjs1oq4w4vlwq4
Maybe someone recognizes the still unidentified 3rd track?
 
 
Now, the other tape, 奴隷華. The tracklist I got matches the one from the scan above. Neither I or my contact recognized the songs from any other band. In theory, this rip could still be legit, but I'm not holding my breath. Again, I'm posting it here, maybe someone else can identify it: https://www.mediafire.com/?qg69423c4i5g72k
 
 
So yeah, that's all I can offer for now. Good hunting.

But he was already pretty clear about it. It's not a cover, it's the same recordings he said.
 
 
Normally I would suspect that some random seller on Yahoo wanted to make some money and just faked the tape. But Kisaki's official site confirms the cover and tracklist and it's pretty weird in itself that the tracklist is 2/3 of the Nude-of-J tape. Which is another thing, the Nude-of-J tape has 3 tracks, so it's not just that the tape somehow ended up in the wrong case, someone must have gone through the trouble to copy over those 2 songs specifically.
 
 
Aaaaand there's more. I recently got the mp3s for another purported early Kisaki band, SHEY≠DE, via trade. It was later brought to my attention that they were probably fake. Fake files can happen in trades, although my source was usually a very realible one. One of the tapes I got is also on Kisaki's homepage, this one:
 
http://kisaki-official.syncl.jp/?p=shop&id=530032&af=
 
So, I showed my files to another japanese guy I know who's very knowledgable about old vk stuff, he said the tape I got was actually by a band called INSANITY.
 
And here's where it gets interesting.
 
Upon googling a bit I found this old auction where somebody was selling that old INSANITY tape: http://aucview.aucfan.com/yahoo/w80588066/
 
The tracklist is slightly different, but look at the cover! It's the same as on Kisakis page, except that one is red!
 
 
For comparison:
 

瑠璃の雫 by SHEY≠DE
 
1. insanity
2. XXXXX
3. 夢遊病者
 
 

Unnamed tape by INSANITY
 
1. 恋模様
2. Desert Labyrinth
3. 瑠璃の雫
 
The first song on the SHEY≠DE tape has been altered with the name of the actual band (!), and the second one has been replaced with xxxxx (!!). The third song of the INSANITY tape was used as title for the SHEY≠DE tape (!!!). Now that's creative! But hey, at least he came up with a COMPLETLY NEW fake name for the 3rd song this time. And he re-colored the cover in Photoshop. That's gotta be worth something, right?
 
The INSANITY tape was sold for 1000 Yen btw. The seller could have asked for a lot more for a SHEY≠DE tape, so there's no reason whatsoever for him to fake a SHEY≠DE tape into an INSANITY tape.
 
 
At first I thought I was spoofed by a tricky trader. But there seems to be more to it. So after the dubious LAYBIAL and Levia tapes.... make it three.

wow
such oldschool
much nostalgia
very kote
 
 
Seriously though, their album better be available in some online shop, because I need this in my life.

I have 27 songs, all by different jrock bands, that are called Maria or マリア. I think that might be the record in my music library....

I'm not sure if VII-Sense are important enough to be ripped off....

Except Kamijo. By now I am convinced that he will take that gothic-aristocrat-thing to his grave. XDD
 
 
In all fairness though, most vk bands drop the vk image long before just getting too old. Actually most vk bands disband before they get to the point of dropping vk imagery, lol. I can fully understand though that after a few years of needing more time to prepare your makeup for a concert than actually spending time on stage, you want to tone down your visuals. And, since being in a vk band typically doesn't pay your bills, some people may just drop the pink hair in favor of getting a decent job. XD

That's the case with almost all genres, I would say. For every good band in each given genre, there are 10 mediocre bands that only have 2 or 3 good songs, and 20 more bands that are just plain bad.
 
 
Also, and this may be a bit of an unpopular opinion, I think that originality is overrated. There isn't really that much in music that hasn't been done before. You can mix things up, change a bit here and there, but in essence there is very little stuff that is truly original (and much of that is just plain weird in their attempts to create something new).
 
But I don't think music always has to be original. There is a good amount of bands I enjoy that are completely unoriginal - but they just do it damn well. And sometimes that's just enough.

Well, I looked through my HD, and lo and behold, I found more:

紅蝉 (Benizemi)
犬 (Inu)

Then again, some angura fanboys might enjoy this mess the band thinks is music.
---

学園ロザリオclass†ZER0 (Gakuen rosario class ZER0)
咲ラ裂ク夜 (Sakura saku yoru)
Not sure if I (or somebody else) posted this on the previous thread.... either way, it's pretty hilarious. Especially the random "growls".
----

撃唯 (Utsu-yui)
Black Rose
Vocalist is female. And very, very painful to listen to.

This is still going on?
 
 
For what it's worth, these are the rank titles we have so far and the posts you need to get them:
 
n00blet 0
Kiwamu's Bitch 5
Kisaki's Errand Boy 100
Wataru's Punching Bag 300
Gackt's Hair Stylist 500
Hyde's Pimp 700
Kyo's Mattress 1000
Except maybe for the "Bitch" part (which is actually the first special rank we had and the only one I didn't add myself), I don't see how something like "Gackt's Hairstylist" could be considered offensive. The "pimp" maybe, but then again, you can change your title with 400 posts, so you never have to wear that particular title.
The ranks are supposed to be get "better" with more posts to encourage active partcipation. That's just natural and something that many online forums do. So obviously the lower ranks are slightly more "degrading", but as I said: they are meant as a joke and not aimed at offending anyone. I never thought they would be an issue - and so far they never have been in all the years we had them. I actually once thought about changing them, but just because I felt they were getting too old - do newer jrock fans actually still get the "Wataru's Punching Bag" reference? But I decided to stick with the current titles, because - as has been pointed out - they are kind of a tradition now. And even if we made new titles, with more updated jrock references, they would most likely be in the same tongue-in-cheek vain that may or may not offend sporadic people.
I'm going to close this topic now because I don't think it will lead anywhere. However, if someone is so offended by these titles that their personal happiness is affected by it, drop me a message. I will change it to *Censored* and you will wear that title until you have the 400 posts needed to set your own custom title.

"Reincarnated Really Hot People" is a rank that gets automatically applied once a user has reached 400 posts. It's nothing really special, but you get that fancy gold name and a fancy title. It's just a small sign of appreciation for regular participation on this forum.
 
 
 
If anyone wonders about the name of the rank. It was created years ago as "Really hot people that make you want to sex things" when the forum was still called Tainted World. We lost almost the entire database when our then-admin went AWOL and stopped paying hosting bills, so we had to rebuilt the group which was thus called "Reincarnated Really Hot People". In the past we used to add people manually, but now it's automatically added once 400 posts are reached.