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flikflak

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Posts posted by flikflak

  1. Posted

    Actually, they haven't gone on hiatus since they reformed. It's just that they always say they'll be on hiatus once again after the next live, and at the last minute they say "well, actually ... [we'll release a single/album/mini/best of /we'll do a live/a tour]".

    They're definitely just trolling with everybody here (and also, they are one of the very few bands that sell more since they went back together than before they went on hiatus in 2003).

  2. Posted

    Well I was bored today and in need of a little pain.

    And this is what came of it.

    tumblr_lncrs52A8V1qitubzo1_500.jpg

    I like it, and I think it came out well for being the second time I've used color.

    I like the "descendant" part a lot, it looks really nice !

    The rose is nice too but it will need some more ink to be finished, isn't it ?

  4. Posted

    I've grown up in a mostly male environnement and know all the complaints about bitches messaging 3 times per hour and not even allowing a day with friends or whatever, so I grew up to be quite allowing and don't message about every small thing happening.

    2/3 years ago I got a boyfriend I was really in love with and left him a lot of space, also that if he wanted to break up I would agree right away (I mean, if someone want to break up it means that person doesn't love you anymore, so there's no point in trying to keep him/her isn't it ?) and it would be a clean break up, not the bitchy kind of break up. In fact, seems like it came across as a lack of interest whatsoever and the break up was not clean on his part at all, he was pretty angry and said a lot of things that made no sense for me, and it dragged for a pretty long time.

    Maybe he wanted a lot from me, but I know I messed up almost everything in this relationship looking back on it. It was a pretty big mistake.

  7. Posted

    Well from my own experiences with japanese people and japanese and overseas vk fans, there are several things :

    - A vast majority of Japanese people don't know shit about vk (I'd say, let's see, 90% of the population) and don't care. They might know about Luna Sea/Penicillin/Janne da Arc/L'arc/Kuroyume/CASCADE but they don't actually know that they've been vk bands for a time. And it's also the nostalgic kind of bands. They've listened to the bands 10 or 15 years earlier because they did one or more songs that were featured in dramas, movies or animes at that time. The domestic market is pretty small, expecially for rock bands, and if you want to buy an album at tower records or any cd shop in japan, don't look for vk bands or japanese rock bands in the "rock" section of the shop, it'll be in j-pop/domestics. What the majority of japanese people listen to is 1. overseas well-known pop/hip hop/electro artists 2. overseas rock artists (old or recent bands, and loads of bands that are absolutely not known in the US or in Europe can have a pretty big fanbase in Japan, same as vk here), domestic well-known rock or pop-rock bands 3. Classical music 4. Domestic pop artists 5. Nothing (actually, there is a LOT of people in Japan who don't listen to anything in particular, it really surprised me, like they might listen some songs when turning on the radio or whatever, but have no interest in listening to music at all).

    Then there is the NEET and otaku centered but growing vocaloid business (vocaloid songs and covers by niconico singers), the domestic rock scene, the domestic electro scene, and at the bottom vk, domestic hardcore/metal scenes. Considering the population it will still be a lot of people, but it really is a small number in fact. Most of the bands in the oricon charts are there because they made a single for an anime a lot of people liked, or because they're not really vk (eg Sid, Alice nine).

    - There are some older fans in Japan (in their 30s or 40s), but the fanbase is mainly teenager oriented, and they usually stop having any interest whatsoever in vk when they turn 20/get out of college. There are some nice people in the older fans, but they are usually hardcore fangirls and can be quite scary. Also, Except for a few bands ("Well known bands" like X, alternative bands like cali gari, jinkaku radio, ...) the fandom is 98% girls. No wonder about why it turned to a rock boysband kind of scene. Most of them are just here to look at good looking guys and don't care about the music, pretty much like the overseas fans who go to a vk live only "because it's japanese" and to be part of the vk scene in their country. It's not really obvious when you look at well-established bands, but it is REALLY obvious in small indies events. And they can be really scary too.

    - Comparatively speaking, small unknown indie bands (shitty most of the time, I have to say) are often overrated overseas and can acceed to a relatively big fandom outside of Japan, mainly because they are willing to come and don't ask for lots of money for it. Because they come and there is this "a vk band is coming so I'll go and see it because IT IS VK OMGROFLSOCOOL" mindset, they'll be sure to have people being "fans". On the other hand, because of that, some really indie and not known at all bands, even for japanese vk fans, are kind of well-known outside of Japan, whereas some bands that are pretty well-known in Japan have very little fans overseas (often bands that have been around for quite a long time, like Guru guru eigakan, Cascade, cali gari, ...).

    So to answer asaginokoenigin, I don't think vk is marginally more well-known outside of Japan. It's only that the bands that are well-known in Japan and outside of Japan are not the same, with a lot of indies bands known outside of Japan. It's just not the same. The vk fandom is also pretty small overseas, as compared to the population of each country, and they usually lose interest in vk after their teenage years, just like the japanese fans.

  8. Posted

    classical music : Been in it for as long as I remember

    Black Sabbath, Jimi Hendrix, Deep Purple, the Beatles, Cat Stevens, Jazz : My dad's musical taste was really broad and we used to listen to his record collection at home or cds in the car.

    The Smashing Pumpkins : The first "new" band I listened to apart from top50 kind of music or pop-ish bands like The Corrs.

    Metallica/RATM/Korn/Slipknot/Within Temptation/Type O Negative : In my early teens I listened to quite a lot of heavy stuff, these are the bands I used to listen to that got me into their different genres.

    SPITZ/The Pillows : Got me into regular J-rock

    Kagerou and Kagrra, : I got into vk by buying albums by these two bands because I liked the cover art. Kagrra, also got me in Enka and traditionnal japanese music. Because I had listened to pretty heavy stuff in the last few years I just didn't enjoy it anymore and never got into the heavy vk bands.

    Depeche Mode/new wave/post-punk : got into those a little bit a few years ago, then kind of forgot about it or a least didn't enjoy it as much as I do now.

    Metronome : it flared up my interest in 8bit and electronic music. I then got into trip hop/dubstep with artists like DJ Krush or DJ Shadow, in shibuya-kei electro with Fantastic Plastic Machine, mod revival with GOATBED.

    MUCC/cali gari/Jinkaku RADIO : These 3 bands got me in Eroguro/VK-but-not-regular-VK kind of music, and I don't actually listen to a lot of regular vk bands anymore. I was obsessed with MUCC's music for a year or so a few years back, but it stopped suddenly after Gokusai got out. I do enjoy their music still but I don't listen to them as much anymore and don't follow their releases as much.

    Kami Fuusen : This unknown japanese band from the 70s got me into folk.

    Nicolas Teo : He got me into C-pop.

    Sigur Ros : They got me in post-rock/ambient kind of music.

    GOATBED : When I rediscovered a lot of my music two or so years ago, I listened to some stuff I had not listened in 4 or 5 years. I became quite interested in the covers Shuuji did in GOATBED, and ended up enjoying 80s music once again, and I also discovered the unknown world of 60s/70s/80s japanese idols pop, especially Hayami Yuu.

  10. Posted

    Althought I don't have any informations about those guys and they only released one ep, here's a pretty good band from the early 2000s : Tabu

    UMRKgWYUp4s

    .

    The guy has a channel full of alt rock/folk indie artists from Korea, I'm sure you'll find what you want and more on there :)

  11. Posted

    At least from what Sadie says in his blog entry it's nothing like a disbanding. He's saying thank you to those who went to the Shinjuku Loft live, and then carries on by saying that XA-VAT's lives are not yet perfect cause he (they ?) are not quite used to it but they'll grow better and better.

    I don't know about anything Shuuji said bcause his only blog-ish thingy is on a cellphone only website where you have to pay a fee to have access (if he didn't change it), but it doesn't seem likely he'll just stop like that. Goatbed's sales were ridiculous too but he somehow managed to do it for 6 years.

    It is to be expected they're not 100% into XA-VAT, most of them have other projects (I interviewed Kozi not a month ago and he said he would be releasing soon a new solo album, at least he's working on it), but I think it's only a rumour/bad joke from Shuuji.

  13. Posted

    I really like EZ Hyoung, she has a very nice voice.

    And althought I find Standing Egg's song really unoriginal, I like the use of stop-motion and the colours in the PV.

    If you still need some Huckleberry Finn, I can upload 4 albums and a single. ;)

    I lost most of my k-music in the Great Change of OS, so that would me most appreciated :mrgreen:

  15. Posted

    Bulldog Mansion, a pop-rock band. Their music was used in the "There she is !" flash animation for those who are old enough to remember it (sweet internet youth :D)

    MGC0iPQ3PHU

    Edit : Found a mirror of "There she is !" (ep 2) on YT, it's the same song as ^ this one

    rcT7eijRbaI

  16. Posted

    Versailles was horrible.

    And not because of the band, they were pretty good.

    But omg, those typical German fangirls and fanboys. Before I went to Versailles I also survived An Cafe and LM.C both twice there, so I knew what to expect. But I never thought there would be idiots who would seriously strangle people just to get a little bit closer to the stage!

    I've been to some gigs in Germany, I think the German audience is pretty cool compared to the Swiss and/or French fans.

    I never had any really bad experiences, but it might be because I'm pretty small and most of the time people tend to protect me from mosh pits/other dangerous things that might happen.

    I've been to some bad lives : a lot of indies bands in Tokyo, Girugamesh (that was probably the worst live I've ever been too, and that's probably what the guests thought too), one of Kozi's live (not because of him but because of the shitty acoustics).

    But something that I have a hard time dealing with is the way Japanese audience deals with other fans in small venues, especially not well-known bands. I've almost never seen anyone that mean. And bullshitting about having assigned first rank "seats" to each other on a random website that no one knows when there are not even numbers on the tickets.

  17. Posted

    As Chianti said, it depends on where you plan to go.

    Some of my (japanese) friends in Tokyo got a hold of the level of radiations there last month, it was lower than the normal level of radiations in New York or London.

    I'll myself go there to see my friends in August and September and never once wondered if I should go or not. Japan has always been a country prone to earthquakes and/or tsunamis, it's just that most of the people forget about it.

  18. Posted

    I used to have that haircut a few years ago :

    704602695_small.jpg

    I've never been really influenced by any jrocker for my look, except for the past couple of years where I've been more and more influenced by SADIE PINK GALAXY's and Ishii Shuuji's clothing styles. I'd probably kill for some of their clothes.

    XAVAT%252B20100521_940978.jpg

    Jackeeeeeeet :DUUR:

    m_200912051452494b19f53187ac3.jpeg

    sunao fujimiya reacted to this

  20. Posted

    I actually didn't review it.

    At first I was a bit "... meh" not because it's bad or anything (except the opening track, it got me cringe), but because it's the usual very good level I'm used to with Shuuji and Sadie. Like nothing quite special. I really liked some of the songs at first (Mr Vital especially) but it was not the album-of-the-year kind of thing as far as the 1st one or two listenings.

    Then I watched the live dvd, and as expected it's a 100% live band. It actually made me like some of the songs I didn't quite like (VAT-DANCE and a few others), and now I just love this album. Can't wait to listen to the stuff they'll release this year. And can't wait to see them live when I'll go to Japan.

  21. Posted

    Well XA-VAT is essentially the same as goatbed music-wise except that Shuuji is not alone, so he just won't do the two at the same time (he explained that in an itw). As for cali gari, well, no one knows what will become of it as they don't stop doing more "last lives" and releasing stuff ^^"

  25. Posted

    Either CDJapan because I already have 50 or 60 albums in my Saved Items, that would be a very quick way of cramming a lot of those I want in an order :D (btw trying to do a fake order to check, I learned that you can't order more than 30 items at a time). The order would probably look like that :

    *Jyuu - cali gari

    * memento mori - BUCK-TICK

    * Machiawase best album - Tama

    * Seishunka nenkan 1987 BEST 30 - V.A.

    * Exit - Shugo Tokumaru

    * jupiter jupiter - avengers in sci-fi

    * Science Rock - avengers in sci-fi

    * And I Love You - Yu Hayami

    * Spactracks - theCYCLE

    * echo - Hibiko

    * Kame Talk Kaizoku Ban I [2 DVD] - V.A.

    * Aru Aho no Hansho Kohen - Guruguru Eigakan

    * Nanimono Demo Nai Moto to Iu Na no Mono - Guruguru Eigakan

    * Boku niwa tarinai iro ga aru - Guruguru Eigakan

    * Kiwamonotachi no Kairaku - V.A.

    * COLLA DISC PRESENTS LOST TREASURES 2000-2009 - V.A.

    * Lesson 2 - sads

    * Babylon - sads

    * The Rose God Gave Me - sads

    * The Works + The Unreleased & Unexpected - Ken Ishii

    * Toki no Souretsu - V.A.

    * The 7 Deadly Sins - sads

    * 13 - sads

    * BLUE FANTASY -DJ KRUSH REMIX - Tetsuya Komuro remixed by DJ KRUSH

    * Shinsou - "THE MESSAGE AT THE DEPTH" - DJ KRUSH

    * ZEN - DJ KRUSH

    * Kakusei - DJ KRUSH

    * To The Loveless - Boom Boom Satellites

    * Pandemic Of Beast - Mamono

    * Sankai Isshin - Mamono

    Subtotal: 79835 yens

    But more than that I would totally shop on the Teknopolice website (http://www.teknopolice.com), XA-VAT SADIE PINK GALAXY's shop (well, the online one), and then it would be like that :

    ??LIBERUM ARBITRIUM】 LADIES SHINY LEATHER COAT

    ??PHILIP TREACY】 ROSE CAPELINE HAT

    ??DORA MOJZES】 ARMOR PANTS

    ??Maria Francesca Pepe】 CROSS BRACELET

    ??Belle Sauvage】VAMPIRE KNIT

    ??FANNY AND JESSY】 "LINDA" EYELET LEGGINGS

    ??GERLAN JEANS】 LATAVIA DENIM SKIRT / ARROW STRIPE

    Subtotal : 395,760 yens

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