Karma’s Hat

@Bear That's about it. In retrospect it's almost funny go through old message boards and youtube comments where the DSBM internet circle was considered almost an existential threat, only for the sound to eventually fizzle out and largely pass away unnoticed. It's a good time now to do a proper survey and see which ones are worth keeping, and then try to form a general picture of the sound and remember the good times we've had because in theory I think the sound is great. 

I'm definitely a kid of the era because I know all those bands with the exception of one, but I specifically asked for it because I couldn't fucking remember them; and speaking of being a kid of the era I recall the really bad ones far better than the good ones. 

It's a fine line between sounding raw, or a middle school band's first practice. 

On 10/07/2017 at 11:43 PM, The Reverend said:

I like Playboi Carti even though I don't think there's a single instance of him really 'rapping'. I could listen to his ad-libs of "what?" "huh" and "*laser sounds*" for hours though. The flute in "Magnolia" is summer-time sounding as hell too, perfect for July. No one will remember this shit a decade from now but it's fun.

 

 

 

(Is it just me or does the dancing with the black umbrella bit look like it could be for a VK photoshoot?)

Love the song. Haven't listened to the album yet but I like some of the cuts that I've already heard like the tracks featuring lil uzi

Saw suicideboys in Tallinn past Tuesday and had a terrific time. I think I'll catch them again with Migos at a festival in August. I'm still torn whether I'll go see Young Thug/Aphex Twin or Suicideboys/Migos. I can make the company only pay for one festival :V

In process of transferring all my affairs into my laptop, so I'm starting fresh with the music collection as well and I've had the urge for the past two or three months to revisit the DSBM boom that came and went. Post faves 

Had entirely forgotten about this album. I think we should occasionally pay dividends to the fact that we had an album called Gangsta by the longest running, consistently unimpressive and mediocre bands in the game. That song above is just exactly the way you'd imagine an album like this from a band like this would sound in 2014. Amazing

2 hours ago, Jiyo said:

They also have a free distributed song "おやすみ" (oyasumi) at the live on 2017.10.08

or was that the BMTH song? either way shit was fucking terrible and this band is giving me all sorts of bad vibes right now with the look and the one or two new songs of late. 

Dir en grey's first two-three years must've been quite a ride, but obviously slowed down, eventually stalled and even dropped since then. They didn't exactly come from nothing though. 

4 minutes ago, Tokage said:

didn't they already have a track called Hello or am I mixing them up w/ sb else?

oh no that bmth ripoff was titled ohayo with the vk brackets too so... hopefully it's not that jus' titled a bit different? 

Been a fucking minute. I was already lowkey expecting them to disband

Unable to get excited over European tour news now. I'll go if they come for sure tho

CINDY HANSON it's always those dumb americans too who are resposible for 80% of the dumb shit in the english language

29 minutes ago, sads123 said:

Not gonna lie; I attended this and almost walked out. Gara got a monk to read scriptures for his 'death' and Gara himself thanked EACH AND EVERYONE OF THE ATTENDEES for attending his funeral and this went on for 60mins and then they showed videos of fake boowy, SMAP & kim jong un, etc congratulating him on his 'death' AND THEN they played the acoustic set. You see 6 songs above but the event ran for 2hours+ zzzzzzzzz

 

LEGEND

Is Pierrot like, back to business or are they just existing in a limbo where they can keep the dumb fanclub for that extra income that Angelo hasn't brought? 

Fucking deluxe box sets just set me off too. They always remind me of this 

The bio most likely has a larger emphasis on everything that I thought was interesting in this movie. Need to check if it's in english

Since it was brought up, what I want from vk is one of those gangland type documentaries with that deep voiced narrator

Directed by Stephen Kijak

Starring 

X Japan

June 30th came and went, and while we may have not gotten the album, we might have gotten something arguably more interesting. To the misfortune of the initiated non-Japanese speaking fan of visual kei, there is an inarguable drought of first hand accounts outside of the handful vague magazine articles that are passable at best; and it is to this need that a film about X Japan would seem like an heaven-sent. I still think that the most interesting aspect of the whole story of visual kei is how it exactly got started, and what the people involved were feeling at the time of its inception. "We are X" would seemingly be able to fit the bill, seemingly. I was able to see that it definitely wasn't going to live up to expectations based on its short runtime alone, but I'd be lying if I said that I didn't enjoy a good A&E music documentary so either, and the X story is definitely very interesting. So how does it fare? 

We Are X” is a moderately entertaining and a rather brief 90 minute promotional package for Yoshiki’s upcoming world conquest ( it’s still coming you guys. ) that is simply not what it could be. The basic gist of the film is Yoshiki reminiscing about everything that happened in his life leading up to their long awaited [citation needed] debut at the Madison Square Garden, encompassing his thoughts on life, death and all things Yoshiki with bits of historical retrospective sequenced in between. You know what you’re in for right from the start, when the film opens with such grand spectacle that’s only befitting of a man of Yoshiki’s stature ( if you ask him, that is ); dramatic piano music wailing under a Yoshiki monologue lead up to the graphic designer and pyrotechnics ejaculating all over video deck all at once, and after the initial shock of the grand spectacle of it all, it becomes apparent that the film starts to work in two different ways; the slick albeit dripping with cheese rockumentary with interesting historical footage on the one end, and the absolutely stunning character worship of Yoshiki on the other. Although there’s something to be said about the devil reading the bible, I think a cynical reading of this glossy piece of PR is if not perfectly warranted, then at least an amusing exercise for the viewer.

The way the story is told is through Yoshiki’s own biography and musings and, the film’s story arch spans X’s career from the beginning to the show at the MSG largely from his perspective, and from here we are beset with the greatest structural problems of the film that completely slaughters it from being of great interest. X and the other band members are established only as they come into his story and information about them is related only in a manner as it specifically relates to him. A central feature of X’s story, which is the Toshi’s cult debacle, gets so much time only because it plays a role in the breakup and reformation, and the way hide is presented is that his greatest asset along with strange magnetism and philanthropy was being Yoshiki’s “producer,” as it was told. Heath and Pata each hardly get word in; is it because they didn’t want to, or that their input is inconsequential to the narrative? Who’s narrative by the way, X’s or Yoshiki’s? Or is Yoshiki X? These characters are attached to the spine of Yoshiki’s project through which they are even allowed exist in this film. You can probably already see what’s going on here.

The lost opportunity of having comprehensive member bios becomes perfectly evident when Yoshiki’s own childhood and early bijuaru years are reflected on, and what little was shown of it was easily the highlight of the film. Their lives at this point were danger, death, excessive drinking and the most thrashing cockrock around, so what caused it? What were the motivations, influences and the rest of it? Yoshiki’s dad dying and him getting a drum set. After this he conjured willing and able session members from the nether realm - & Saver Tiger - and he invented X in the vacuum of his own persona! Poor fucking Pata gets literally nothing, probably ending up sharing the same total screen time with Yoshikitty or the hide doll. A proper biography of hide is unjustly totally omitted, and while the whole Toshi cult debacle does occupy a central position the last third of the film, it is terribly vague the way it goes about; he married an unspecified woman and joined an unspecified cult that brainwashed him in a rather unspecific manner for unspecific ends. The film also goes over no songs or albums in any detail, and I mean there is hardly word said about any single note of music they’ve done in specific, nor about their influences and creative process for that matter. For a music documentary it’s exceptionally light on anything musical, except when it’s something that particularly relates to the story of the visual kei grand wizard Yoshiki.

Another aspect of the story that is completely absent is a proper survey of visual kei. The culture is hardly explored in any way, nor does X get drawn into the larger context of things and is merely portrayed as a hugely popular rock band that was quite influential in the domestic market. I have a theory on why this is so: the film is aimed at an all-American market as a promotional piece: the 90-minute mark cannot be exceeded under any circumstance, and visual kei may only be brought up as an object to prop up the band. One segment of the film has a few lines by members of bands such as Dir en grey, Luna Sea, Mucc etc. and the total of what they were allowed to say was: “ekkusu kakkoi sugoi desu ne.” One might have been able to set this aside if it weren’t for the fact that a couple of minutes later Yoshiki’s American entourage gets MINUTES of screen time, including Gene Simmons who even gets to have a personal anecdote on how X would be huge in the west if it weren’t for the Anglo-centrism of the American audiences. 

With these direction choices in mind, I feel that X was portrayed more in the way that the American public would like to digest the band: a big insular arena rock sensation that’d be the biggest band in the world if it weren’t for unfortunate circumstance. This doesn't kill the film exactly, but it makes it of lesser importance and interest. 

Now why the film is like this is because all this is after all, it is a promotional package for X’s long delayed triumphant conquest of the western music market. Its structure is built around the MSG show, with the original attempt at the west sequined in the latter middle part of the run time so it could be later brought up as a setup for their return. After going through the disbandment and the tragic deaths set to an image of Yoshiki being outrageously portrayed with wings behind him, it’s right at the end of the film where he is still standing defiant and fully convinced that he still has to do it, he has to besiege the billboard and he must do it for hide and Taiji; and then cue to an awesome cringe inducing montage of weeaboos wearing bootleg shirts and an assorted collection of Yoshiki’s cool celebrity “friends,” as they were called. It depends on your point of view whether this is amusing or just simply enraging. At this point, I admit to subscribing to the former school of thought. 

So, for people who are interested in visual kei and X, it falls short of expectation. What does it have for the outsider? Well, it’s a mixed bag. First of all, it is a cheesy TV documentary level production made by a guy who’s previous documentary was about the hardcore musical renegades The Backstreet Boys, so the emphasis is on the word production; and still despite all this it occasionally appears to assume general knowledge from the viewer while totally catering to people who’d be exposed to X for the first time. The music isn’t spoken of and only clips of it are played, so you either must know it beforehand or take the word of everyone in the film that X is this great band from Japan you haven’t heard of. Obviously, my memory isn’t 100% but I’m fairly confident that the only song mentioned by name in the film was Art of Life.

I’ll have to say that it’s not boring though, because the bare bones of the saga are interesting and all the early X stuff is awesome. So considering that anyone with the misfortune of having read this is most likely quite well versed in the bijuarus, I can say there's worse ways of spending your time. I'd watch a Japanese record store employee telling about the best selling vk records for two hours ( probably rather than this, actually ) so I'm definitely biased towards everything even remotely related to visual kei. You’re should be good as well if you go into it with the same mindset you would have watching some Vice documentary on a Sunday morning while eating breakfast.

2 hours ago, Tokage said:

Those cover art collages made me realize once again how shit their art direction is for the most part lmao

In addition to which, I've always thought they've looked awful, having this strange interpretation of old school vk looked through a mallgoth lense of overblown gaudy leather and far too many trinkets. The backgrounds are always so tacky, and even that one time when they had the good sense of using the VHS aesthetic they fucked it up by interjecting it with glossy new pv visuals.

The best look they had was around the AINS VA when the vocalist was larping Hisui. 

Some of the songs on this are RIDICULOUS and giving me serious tinnitus. More from this band nao pls

New Sukekiyo.

Fuck

Veering off the Dogma stuff in the visuals a little bit maybe? Good riddance, on to the next. 

From DADAISM 1 this band was always more multi-faceted than some treated them as. I remember being disappointed even back then that this band wasn't just going to do 6 minute metalcore epics, but instead we got some goofy shit like MONEY and SEX. That was a seminal release for them however, and it's evident that most of the things they've done stylistically already had their precursors in their very first release. Stuff like Saishuu Densha, Risley Circus and etc. I think is all within reason for this band. 

What I do take objection to however, is the toning down of the metalcore in favour of some middle of the road Lynch rock dog shit that finally seemed to have gotten the upper hand for the first time on DADAISM 3. I used to think that they're going to do things in cycles and go through their respective stylistic gamut in the span of 4 to 5 releases, but it's kind of warranted to be lead to believe now that a recognisable shift has started to take place on the very molecular level of their musical palette. Rushing to conclusions based on two releases? Possibly, but the fact of the matter is that we've seen this transition happen so many times already, and if it quacks like a duck in a pond with twenty of them it's not hard to become worried.

Btw you're already starting to see the same key phrases with this band that you saw with Girugamesh back in the day like "progression" and "if they rewrote X people still wouldn't be satisfied," going even as far as to "you just don't understand what they're about." 

Seen this visual kei career trajectory so many times in my life that I don't even recognise the feeling of disappointment anymore. 

The A-side is cute I like it, and I wish the section at the end had been in a song that banged a bit more in general.

DISPOSABLE 2017 MASTERPOST 

work in progress

Herein is listed what made my year.

Migos - CULTURE

Soundtrack of the first half of 2017. Infectious is the word I'd use to describe most trap and this is definitely it; songs that lurks into your subconscious gradually, and eventually you'll succumb and accept your fate. When it first came out I only cared for the hits, but now Slippery, Get Right Witcha, Deadz, What The Price are all bangers distinctly unique from each other, yet very similar in form and language like oldie time campfire songs. For people complaining about "mainstream rap" subject matter I'd ask you what else to write about? All that metaphysical 70's prog shit is worth fuck all once you're dead. What we have here is very visceral, immediate, masculine and straight to the point. I can imagine those things scaring away people who like their music fit for fundraisers and family gatherings. 

Mike Will Made It - Ransom 2 

More 2017. The sound every street, every party and the sound of every conscious household. About as subtle as a punch in the face, and the older I get the more appreciate things like that. Mike Will productions are also the only context in which I can stand Big Sean so that has to count for something also.

Rae Sremmurd - SremmLife 2

More bangers. Swae Lee has gotten better and better and at this point he is like a wolverine tearing a carcass sherds. His verses on Set The Roof just rip things apart. Awesome.

Whether this is as good as SremmLife I don't really know yet. Some songs aren't as good as the others, but the others rank high with a suaveness not really found anywhere else. Case and point see By Chance.

Young Thug - EBBTG

Young Thug is incredible for multiple reasons. First is how he consistently disregards popular opinion has managed to stay uncompromisingly left field and making hits almost by accident; and the second people got used to the sound he changes it up again! In EBBTG he develops the sound of JEFFERY further and at this point it's a flubber-esque abomination of Young Thug doing RnB. Both the beats and Thugger's flow are like molten lava of trap channeled through his queer alien personality that encompass all the fears of the boring complacent rockist bore and the dullard who hopped aboard with Stoner.; unabashed and unapologetic. 

Arca - Arca

I fuck with gay Björk. Whenever I've seen criticism towards it kind of manages to reinforce my fondness of the it; musically as much as it's formless it's also pure spirit. Very masculine, very abrasive. The sheer theatricality of it reminds me of visual kei almost. Good stuff.

XXXTENTACION - Everything

Bandwagoning really hard here. I like darker, pessimistic and hateful direction where pop culture is going in 2017. Sometimes I feel it's just me, but I can't stand those good-natured "we're gon' get togetherr" rappers like chance and rest of them; I don't like them as characters and their music bores. These soundcloud rappers tho, it's as if they were made with my temperate in mind specifically. He is the hardest going, and music that sounds this spiteful is what I live for.

$UICIDEBOY$ - Kill Yourself, Pt. XI - XV

Continued from the previous entry. They have incredible chemistry that goes down really, really hard. Biased towards the lyrical subject matter as well. 

6 hours ago, Seimeisen said:

Also, just wanna say, I'm sorta disappointed that they didn't make a proper 3rd album. Instead, they just released 500 singles.

Same. I'll maintain that 420 was their peak and I think it's a very aesthetically consistent record that stands out from the rest of their discography. I was always hoping they'd have another go at a full length that isn't just a stack of singles.

Now I'm heavily leaning on going to Japan for most of the tour. Got my hitchhiking guides read and my 10 euro a night lodgings bookmarked. 

1 hour ago, appl- said:

 

i'm sitting in the corner and trying to understand what i'm doing.

i'm going  there tho. but i want to start with tour first dates but i want to go to Tour Final too. But i don't know how to surviver there for such a long time. kill me.

That is not a bad idea actually. If I went I would kind of want to stick around for the New Year's events tho and October 30th to January is a bit too long. I suppose I'll end up deciding once other bands start announcing dates for the end of year as well

SO HOW ABOUT IT MEJIBOIS tour finale on the 16th of december and that's presumably the last live too. Now I'd be a piece of shit if I didn't go, because even if they return an year later it's nonetheless an end of an era when the GOAT is herded into the stable for slumber.

if there's any time for me to go to Japan for the first time this is it. Anyone else?