WhirlingBlack

Didn't quite expect this.

I'm going to do my best to try to attend their last live since I'll be in Tokyo at that time, give me a last shot to hopefully see some of those oldies I've always wanted to see.

I must admit I haven't really listened to this band for the last six years, but I am nevertheless a bit shocked. Just one of those bands you expected to always be around.

If you read again what I said, I didn't say anything about putting it up on Youtube. It could be distributed in a similar manner as Bandcamp or iTunes purchases. 

I know that right now physical formats are dominant in Japan, and for proper releases I see no issues with this at all, but you can't release a live DVD of every concert you play because packaging and production would make the prices skyrocket and the market is too small to make it viable.

I'm sure there would still be a market for properly mixed and mastered live DVDs and this would be more of a niche thing, but since there literally goes almost zero extra work into it, it's not a big deal and a nice way to earn a couple of extra ten-thousand yen bills per live.

More bands should consider releasing official recordings of all their shows, it's pretty minimal effort required if they don't have such high quality demands, and with digital distribution channels costs would not have to skyrocket either for fans. Charging ticket price or below for a venue shot video (Most venues film at least one angle, generally center and above the audience for the bands own archives) or even just a plain soundboard mix audio. Fans would have their memories, no one would have to block your precious views, everyone would be happy.

Back when things had to be distributed on discs, this wasn't feasible, but today it's really no problem putting out a hundred+ digital releases a year. Potential goldmine for the bands, if revenue is what they want, and just a general win-win situation for everyone.

I really hope for the sake of consistency that all of you who denounce people who film at concerts never watch audience-filmed stuff on Youtube, otherwise it's difficult to take your objections seriously.

Or perhaps it's alright if you aren't in the audience and personally "violated"?

Food for thought.

I agree in principle about the still photography because that really has no personal value for me, but since I enjoy watching audience-sourced live videos, I'd be hypocritical of me to attack the people who produce them for myself and others enjoyment. I respect all opinions but it's important to be intellectually honest then and not argue against it while enjoying the benefits of it at the same time.

I recorded video at a MUCC gig back in 2009, and I've watched it every year since at least once.

I think both sides here are just trying to enforce their view without taking the other side into regard "I can't understand why someone would want to do X" or "As a fan I'm entitled to Y", seems to some to be valid arguments for some?

Video recordings are a great memory of a show, not only for yourself but for future preservation and for everyone who unfortunately were unable to attend - you are basically doing a lot of people a service, and I think some (not all) who record and might sacrifice some of their own enjoyment see it this way.

I find a staggering hypocrisy in a lot of people in such as that they hate on people for recording, but then go on Youtube and view the videos themselves when given a chance.

A lot of my all time favorite live videos to watch would not exist if there weren't fans who had taken their time to make them.

Most of the annoyance seems to come from letting people just stand around anywhere with their phones etc. and I agree, there needs to be some kind of rules in regards to that, but rather than a total ban just do what a lot of video-friendly bands already do, have a designated area in the back (say, along the wall or the last fourth of the hall or so) where people are allowed to film. Bands are missing out on marketing and often high quality material that are essentially completely free of production costs and does not require any work on their part. Most fans would not use "There are live videos on Youtube" as an excuse of not attending a concert themselves, and it wouldn't compete with CD sales either (although they already form only a small part of an artists revenue).

It's a useless rule made for a different era and very difficult to enforce today - just like a lot of things from Japan.

The reason they don't want you taking pictures is because you might catch them from an unflattering angle, and god forbid they ever look anything less than 100% photoshopped.

Selling photosets could be another reason, but those pictures are generally professional studio shots and not live ones so one would think it's a completely different thing.

Either way, I never got the point of taking photos at lives, so that part has never really bothered me much, but banning video is a major annoyance. I know people filming can be a bother but it's easily solved by directing those people to the back or to a balcony if such exists... And nowadays even devices most people have access to like smartphones can record both listenable audio and decent video, so it's never been easier to get some interesting footage from shows.

I've attended a show with Eiji and I didn't get any supremacist vibes from him. So I'd like to call bullshit on that. Probably just some foreign fangirl who got rejected and then decided he was a racist.

The point is that if the remake sounds too far detached from the original it, at least to me, ends up just feeling like I've lost my chances of seeing the original tracks live as they've been replaced.

I generally make a case in point with Dir en grey, a band who have extensive experience with remakes.

When they remade their track zan, I was very much in favor of it. It was a fresh take on the track but it still resembled the original enough to be seen as the same track, in a touched up way. Then they remade tsumi to batsu which essentially was just a remake in name and a few lines of lyrics. I have only heard one of these tracks so far, and not even completely at that, but I get that kind of vibes from this so far.

And this is coming from a diehard aie fan so please don't dismiss this as hating or anything silly like that, it's alright to have legitimate concerns even with your favorite artists. (Also might be because I was hoping to catch some oldies live in the summer)

Not convinced. Remakes that do not sound like the original in any way just feels like an excuse to never having to play the original tracks again. 

13 minutes ago, Tokage said:

sukekiyo is music for russian oil barons and sheikhs

More like for their rich and bored daughters - you see quite a few Russian fangirls at shows these days in Japan.

Jag funderade på om man skulle försöka dra igång någon form av lätthanterad grupp för Svenska fans av J-rock/Visual Kei? Det känns som om det finns många fler än man tror men de verkar vara utspridda över en massa olika plattformar och ganska svåra att få tag på, i alla fall för traditionalister som inte använder instagram och tumblr och sånt...

Men om man försökte göra någon typ Skype chattgrupp eller på Facebook så kunde ju folk bjuda in varandra och så får man kanske någon form av överskådlighet? Förr fanns ju konserterna för att hålla ihop "scenen" någorlunda men idag finns det inte riktigt något sånt. Och det verkar som om folk drar sig för att gå med i forum nuförtiden av någon anledning, för mycket arbete kanske?

Hur som helst, vad tycker ni? Skulle vara kul att ha ett utrymme där alla kunde hänga och prata med varandra.

Tvärt om så är jag väldigt glad när det finns nya fans som är villiga och intresserade att lära sig, och jag har spenderat mycket av de fjorton år jag hållit på med vk med att visa nya fans band och försöka sprida kunskap, så jag sitter verkligen inte i något elfenbenstorn och tittar ned på andra. Det är nog mer det att jag drabbats av några motgångar på sistone och de jag försökt visa de äldre grejerna inte alls varit mottagliga, och det är egentligen inte sådär jättemärkligt eftersom musiken är väldigt olika. Hoppas vi förstår varandra nu, behöver inte missämja bland de sista fans som finns kvar, haha.

Sen angående det här stället, jag har varit här sedan början, då jag känner folket som driver stället, men har aldrig skrivit mycket, jag har dock faktiskt träffat på er alla på olika ställen tidigare, haha.

Ska svara mer utförligt sen men ville poängtera för att undvika missförstånd (som redan uppstått) att det var på en personlig nivå, alltså en sorg över att inte kunna relatera till människorna även om vi gillar samma genre i grunden. Såklart får de lyssna på vilka band de vill.

Även Finland börjar bli en mindre och mindre marknad nu, enligt mina kontakter där i alla fall så börjar även eftersläntrarna dö av nu. känns som om Tyskland och Frankrike är de enda säkra länderna nu, även om Östeuropa verkar ha gått fram starkt. Länder som Ryssland, Ukraina m.fl. känns som om de får konserter varje turné, ofta till och med två shower i Ryssland. Om någon sagt till mig för fem år sedan att Dir en grey skulle spela konsert i Vitryssland så skulle jag nog ifrågasatt deras verklighetsuppfattning.

Och jo, sista spiken i kistan, utöver att fansen flydde för att lyssna på k-pop, var ju när New Nippon gick i konkurs i och med att UnsraW bara sålde runt 70 (!) biljetter till sin konsert. Efter det hade vi ingen som bokade band hit förutom några ströspelningar på konvent. Utan band som kommer så var det väl lätt att fler tappade intresset.

Nästan ännu sorgligare på en personlig nivå är att även när jag träffar nya visual kei fans, det finns några stycken, så kan jag ändå inte relatera till dem för deras referenspunkter är helt annorlunda. Folk som har Grieva och/eller Mejibray som favoritband och på allvar aldrig hört talas om något äldre än slutet av 2000-talets grejer. Säkert någon av er som känner igen er i min situation, haha.

Du menar "var".

J-rock har varit totalt dött i Sverige senaste fyra åren eller så, i alla fall folk som faktiskt är fans av visual kei. Räknar inte Yohio och co. eller folk som bara håller på med stilen men inte är intresserade av musiken.

Därför så har vi tyvärr i princip inga svenska fans här, tråkigt men sant. Om ni lyckas gräva upp några fler eller råkar känna folk så bjud in dem hit.

Hi, what was your username on Batsu? Whenever people mention that place I have to check if I recognize them from back in the day.

So it's basically watching Satsuki do karaoke on a large stage?

Glad I'm not paying to see this...

MUCC has released 12 full-length albums, not "19-20".

And playing Ranchuu is about as interesting as watching paint dry, since it's in pretty much every single show they play. It's a good track but hardly enough variation when it comes to older material.

Still, they've done some shows lately with older material, they played a two-man live with caligari sometime last year where they almost exclusively performed material from the first few years.

http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/mucc/2015/route-fourteen-ichikawa-japan-7bf25e64.html

http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/mucc/2015/route-fourteen-ichikawa-japan-7bf25e40.html

The coupling tour with lynch. had a pretty balanced setlist as well at times,

http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/mucc/2015/diamond-hall-nagoya-japan-1bf509ac.html

Finally, earlier this current tour they've done a few interesting semi-old tracks like Waga, Arubeki Basho and others.

Compared to most other bands that have deteriorated on such a massive scale, MUCC seems to at least be aware that a sizeable portion of their audience are most interested in their older music, at least at times.

Missed opportunity to invite some Japanese band along. If they are trying to profile themselves towards fans of Japanese music it would've been a great chance to draw people with the jap band and hope that people would stick around to see theirs too. Now its just going to be another event for Yohios 12 year old fangirls (which I'm sure he doesn't mind)

It's not even related is the point I'm trying to make. Yasukuni is a shrine to honour the people who have died in various wars since the mid 19th century, not to glorify war crimes. It's like saying that the buddhists better remove the swastika everywhere because Hitler took the symbol and rebranded it for his purposes. It's full of ordinary people and there hasn't been any questionable "far-right" rallies any of the times I've visited the place.

I also agree that Japan has a lot to answer for when it comes to the War, but when people mix apples and oranges in a highly sensitive area like this, it's no surprise that Japan has been unable to offer up a fair apology, in my opinion. And in my opinion the relentlessness with which anti-japanese sentiments are still spread especially in China, I have seriously doubts whether they even want or would accept a proper apology in the first place, sadly.

Things aren't always as simple as one would like them to be.

I really wish people would stop taking Yasukuni visits as some form of condoning imperialism and/or especially war crimes, there's hundreds of thousands of people not guilty of committing war crimes that are interred and honoured there as well, including family members of a lot of people still alive today. 

But that's what happens when people take sensationalized Korean/Chinese newspaper articles combined with a complete lack of understanding of Japanese religious practices, where paying respect to the dead is an important factor, and uncritically accept their view ostensibly because they were oppressed during a period of this time. The fact that I've heard it being compared to German leaders saluting SS leaders at concentration camps just sort of shows how little people actually know about it.

Sounds more sad than anything else from the sound of it, and perhaps a bit whiny. "I'm not sure if the people who are uploading sees this but, please stop doing it..." 

I'm surprised why they would think no one would upload their songs and DVDs on youtube though, and why they seemingly haven't cared to notice or comment on it previously. 

But at least he's not lashing out and being angry at people left and right like some other VK people were doing a while back, so it's still alright, people aren't going to stop though so he should probably try to save his grief for something more worthwhile.

Went to the library today in hopes of borrowing the new book about Hitler, but they didn't have it, so I ended up taking Dante's Divine Comedy. Hopefully it'll entertain me longer than the last one did But I really want to read Er Ist Weider Da (He's Back).

Er Ist Weider Da is a really funny book, I enjoyed reading it a lot despite having to read a Swedish translation, the languages are close enough to carry over at least some of the unique phrasing that makes it so good, it literally does feel like reading a very absurd and humorous continuation of Mein Kampf, which I've also read extensively.

And to contribute to this post, I'm reading The Prince by Machiavelli currently, slowly, because I'm trying to ponder the application of 16th century political wisdom to 21st century conditions. It's only 80-90 or so pages but I've been at it for almost two weeks already. Really enjoying it and seeing a lot of relevance in some of the theories presented, even today.

Hi, nice to see another aie fan.

Write me if you want to discuss aie and/or his related concerts, I've been to quite a few and I always enjoy sharing stories and random trivia from them.

Single vs. Maxi-Single originally referred to different physical formats, a single was a 7 inch vinyl with one song on each side while a maxi single was either a 7 inch with more than one track on one side, or a 12 inch disc cut different from an LP so it didn't fit as many tracks, and a different physical format compared to an EP. It's complex and apparently it involved different definitions in different countries as well.

In Japan though, I generally get the feeling that VK bands arbitrarily tack "maxi" onto anything shorter than an EP in order to squeeze and extra 500yen out of their fans, despite that the content not always warrants it.