carddass

Nice summary. I didn't think of Fashion Song being Oshare in disguise. I always thought NIOI PUNPUN might be nioi but who knows. After The Shadow 2 turned out to be its own song, it wouldn't surprise me if these two songs were new. Btw, is anyone here interested in the DVD "Я#4 "Aのススメ" or "The Doguu album"? I have both of them brand new / unopened that I'm looking to sell - preferably both at the same time.

I asked myself the same thing after I listened to it for the first time. Sugizo did a Q&A on twitter and a few fans asked that very question. I can't seem to find all of the posts but here's a few things he mentioned about Steve's contributions. -Suggested the album track order. -anagram's arrangement had the most influence by Steve -Seijaku's narration -Helped cut the composition for Philia (?) not to sure how this one translates. Does it imply Philia was another 8-9-10 minute song a la Genesis of Mind/Forever and Ever/Virgin Mary? It's a bit of a mess to go through but if you scan his teets from Dec 18th, you'll read alot of behind the scenes aspects of the songs via his answers. Sugizo also was asked how Lillywhite understood the message of the songs and SGZ mentioned that he explained / translated them. I guess it would make sense that he would know the most English since his daughter lived in California up until a few years ago.

This album might be a grower for me too. While listening to it for the first time I completely forgot that Steve Lillywhite produced this. anagram is good but then in Sugizo's Q&A on twitter, a fan pointed out the similarity to their b-side Ray and then I listened to that again and realized how great that track and their other early B-Sides are.

heh, nothing like Kiyoharu and his go-to photographer/ music video director Toshihiko Imai to use their work as a way to include their vacations as a business expense And wasn't 忘却の空 only included on the DVD of Covers?

It probably deserves it's own topic one day but looking at bassist Tomo's twitter page, he has a photo posted of a munimuni flyer mentioning a 'bi neo Full album" next year. As expected, there's nothing on the official website but based on setlists they've had 10-15 new songs kicking around since 2017 or so. There were a bunch of titles starting with 200** that might have been temp titles: 20018 20019 20020 20021 20022 (last played in May 2019) 20023 (first played in May 2019) 20024 20025 20018 to 20022 haven't appeared in recent setlists so they might have officially been named as one of these: 幻のキノコ GHOST OF ROMANCE FUTURE　PERFECT MAGICAL MOONIES,YEAH!!! FASHION SONG Hayabiki THE ANIME SONG https://twitter.com/manicure_ojisan/status/1201518485085405185/photo/1

Damn, this is a Yoshiki-level announcement. And really, just 3 videos? It's as if someone in Sony / Danger Crue / band's management think that uploading all of the videos are going to cannibalize the PV DVDs or something.

If they were going to kaisan it would've probably happened a while back. At this point doing their annual or bi-annual shows is like a big fat ATM machine. They just have to show up and walk away with enough money to do whatever else they do. Sure there's a few rehearsals beforehand but as professionals who've done these songs a million times over, I doubt it takes them much effort anymore. Or maybe they're announcing Sakura is back after having performed with Tetsu for the first time in 22 years. Also the setlist was pretty awesome for this session: 黒夢「Beams」 L'arc 「Dune」 TETSU69「蜃気楼」 黒夢「十字架との戯れ」 https://www.barks.jp/news/?id=1000175072

COCK ROACH started doing online sales of their new album Mother. For now, this is the only way to obtain the album. I've attempted to order directly with them but they told me they are still figuring out overseas and would get back to me. They opened their official youtube page and started posting older videos and this past week uploaded a short music video from their new album for the track 新進化論エレクトロニカルパレーダー: And they posted a music video for 'koushi no uta' from their 2001 debut album which was never released on VHS or DVD before:

Isn't Boris more popular than X Japan in the west? I mean, they've had many records be released by western labels. I'm about to see them in Germany soon. They're not playing the biggest place but they're definitely playing more shows in different cities than X ever did on any one of their tours. I love X Japan but that doesn't mean I have to buy into that Instagram reality he portrays to the new generation of fans. And the simple answer as to why he gets all these deals has nothing to do with his perceived popular - it's all about networking. I keep flogging this link like a dead horse but these search results show him doing the Hollywood party thing more than actually performing in concerts. https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/yoshiki?groupbyevent=true&family=editorial&phrase=yoshiki&sort=best#license Much like in all aspects of life, if you can convince (sell) the right people, you can get results quicker than just doing hard work. Hence we have a Youtube documentary for a guy who has barely released any new music in the last 20 years.

This was the setlist from the show on his birthday the other day: 2019.10.30 清春『THE BIRTHDAY』マイナビBLITZ赤坂 SE.receive a revelation 01.海岸線 02.confusion 03.星座の夜 04.last song 05.悲歌 06.TWILIGHT 07.瑠璃色 08.YOU 09.ベロニカ 10.wednesday 11.妖艶 12.LAW'S EN1 13.EMILY 14.Masquerade 15.VOICE with SUGIZO 16.20th Century Boy with SUGIZO EN2 17.マークはバタフライ 18.SANDY 19.HAPPY

I think his voice works best when he's not trying to be a caricature of his former rock self which he plays up at these gigs. His livestream of this song 'Time Machine' @4:00 is definitely better sounding than when he tries to name check his backing band before every solo:

After clicking on that teaser video, my youtube recommendations led me to this person who posted recordings from a livestream from one of Toshi's shows earlier this year:

I totally skipped the Evangelion craze when it first came out and only know this song from the overabundant usage in AMVs but I somehow don't mind Toshi's version. I only wish he would cover more proper rock songs that influenced him in his formative years. Bohemian Rhapsody is a start but where are songs from Iron Maiden, Loudness, Kiss and the likes!? And considering Yo$hiki squandered the good-will, momentum and whatever respect the brand name 'X-Japan' had after coming back triumphantly, I think Toshi deserves to cash-in on his fanbase considering he was relatively broke after his time with Masaya and who knows how much of a cut he gets from X Japan tours.

The kuroyume and Sads credit cards got maxed out and subsequently ran past their limits. Maybe with this cash grab he can afford his main songwriters Miyoken and Yoshitsugu back on the solo payroll

I only superficially understand the whole apology thing in Japan. Couldn't the artist, band, or label simply refuse to apologize or simply not acknowledge it anymore? Would that even be possible or is that commercial suicide from all parties by refusing to grovel to the public's expectations?

ZZZoo just released their 3rd album 'Monster ZZZoo' featuring brand new songs recorded in studio. https://thezzzoo.bandcamp.com/ ZZZooOO3 credits released June 29, 2019 ZZZoo "Monster ZZZoo" 1. SYLVIE 　music : Yamaji, Kazi&Den 2. SUSAN 　lyrics : Yamaji 　music : Tabata, Morikawa 3. JACQUELINE 　 music : John Stafford Smith 　 collage&edit : Yamaji, Morikawa, Tabata 4. KATE-MING 　 music&lyrics : Tabata All Arranged by ZZZoo Kazuhide Yamaji : Gtr Seiichirou Morikawa : Ba&Vo Mitsuru Tabata : Gtr&Vo Kazuya Wakabayashi : Sax&Cho DEN : Per KAZI : Dr Recorded by ZZZoo. at Noah, Takadanobaba, Tokyo, 4th February&12th June 2019 Mixed by Kiyohiro "Doronco" Takada, Mitsuru Tabata at Mr.T-ST, Kodaira, Tokyo, 17th-22th June 2019 Mastered by Kiyohiro "Doronco" Takada at Mr.D-ST, Kodaira, Tokyo, 24th June 2019

He's gotta make up for all the sales and advances he would have gotten from Sads and kuroyume had he not buried those bands~ They were good cash cows while they lasted!

Yeah, it really makes you feel for guys like Pata and Heath who literally make nothing off X, since they don't have songwriting credits, and only ever earn a few bucks when they perform live which is seldom these days. Poor guys are slumming it while Yo$hiki is doing what he does best.

In translations of Tetsu's biography he speaks in detail about how during the whole Sakura incident, he pushed the band forward and some other band members didn't agree with his decisions (pushing forward, pushing out Sakura etc). Being that there was only two other members he was referring to, it seems Hyde and/or Ken didn't like the way Tetsu handled the whole thing. As much as I like those early albums, I think most fans would agree that Tetsu's decisions leading to that grueling recording / touring period between 1997 and 2000 yielded some of the band's best work so he made the right moves in hindsight. Ken also started a band with Sakura, so you know their still on good terms. And Hyde's has had Sakura or Ken at his events. So the only person really not partaking in the other's activities is Tetsu. Also, in that same biography, Tetsu explained how Hyde wanted to quit the band during that post-Real hiatus. So yeah, they're just in it for the money via the one or two Tokyo Dome shows they do every year or two.

Did anyone get any of the vinyl versions yet? If so, are they newly remastered or remixed? Do they sound better or worse than the original CDs?

I'll just leave these here:

ZZZoo's second release 'Human Lives!' was just posted on bandcamp: https://thezzzoo.bandcamp.com/album/human-lives Live Recorded by Toshiaki Sudo at ShowBoat, Koenji, Tokyo 29th January 2019

I'm pretty sure Kiyoharu traveled to the US (west coast / California) for a few video shoots. The last one I remember was Nazari which has clearly google-able locations. Besides that some of those Mellow era PVs were shot in southeast Asia with just him and his go-to PV director / photographer Toshihiko Imai. Being that most of those videos (much like Nazari) are essentially just him without any band doing random stuff, it's safe to say he probably shot those videos with Imai as a excuse to do a tax write-off on his traveling. That said, Imai's has an amazing eye and he makes even walking around with Kiyoharu look great on camera: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYItE-ciRAQ

An outside producer eh? And a big name producer too? I haven't really listened to Lillywhite's work outside of an occasional U2 song in passing but isn't he one of those producer's whose touch is virtually invisible? Someone who helps the band get the best version of themselves out there like Rick Rubin? If so, will he really be able to add much to LS during the band's album making process? Does the band even have a process anymore or has it just members sending each other demos back and forth? Would Lillywhite even be sitting in during sessions or just giving pointers remotely? No matter the results, I guess you could at least say Luna Sea is trying to spice up the marriage. It's more than could be said about other bands of their vintage.

They definitely do. At all of their recent lives, Tetsu announces to the audience that there's one song in which they can record and youtube gets flooded a little bit with all of the different angles. That said...the voting on those top 12 tracks all received about 15,000 - 17,000 votes and then the numbers drop drastically for song 13,14,15. Unless all of the fans are in alignment, it seems a little bot-ish but who knows. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=zigzo&sp=CAI%3D They just let fans record their performance of 'my problems at the most recent gig. It features Tooru Yoshida, their quasi 5th member, who did all of their organ / keyboard work on the first album, and occasionally appears at lives now.