WhirlingBlack

It's in the "atmospheric intro" I was talking about, should've specified the piano. Also, I just realized but the fast riffing parts could be compared a bit to the tremolo sections of the kiri to mayu remake, perhaps.

The concert heavily features videos from their Gauze era, including clips from the PVs of the songs they're playing. Always careful to avoid shots of the bandmembers, though. The only time they actually showed old band footage (during MASK) the bandmembers faces were all censored out. As intro they are using the Gauze -mode of adam- music and the video for it. It showed that its been a while since they performed many of these songs, now that I re-evaluate a bit, I'm not sure if the band actually felt "bored" about any of the tracks, but rather weren't used to it, because the delivery on the new song was also a little bit stiff. I'll report again a bit later in the tour to see if this has passed by then. Kyo were struggling with some microphone issues early in the concert but it was resolved during raison detre. Info on the new track: New song starts off with a atmospheric short intro with acoustic guitar, then goes into a complex and pretty rapid exchange between heavy tremolo picking reminiscient of black metal mixed with some punk-esque stuff and some short phases of more DSS sounds and also sections that sounds quite Gauze-y with clean guitars. Has a decently short guitar solo. There's no harsh vocals at all in the song. It's roughly three minutes long. First impression is that they tried to squeeze a little too much stuff into a too short timeframe, but I'm sure it'll grow on me during the tour, the guitarwork is some of the best they've done so far, I like how its more riffing (BM style) than chugging.

There were none, the void was filled with sounds reminiscient of the Gauze intro/outro instead. Also, LOTUS was done in the symphonic version, if that's important for the setlist.

Actually, tonight I thought Kyo seemed fairly happy with doing Yokan and getting quite into it, I guess some enthusiasm was lacking from Yurameki though. By far the best of the Gauze tracks were Tsumi to Batsu, though, audience really went crazy on that one compared to the other ones. Hopefully the very strong reaction means they'll consider playing it again once this tour is over. Some detailed impressions on the concert as well as the new song coming up once I get my thoughts together, stay tuned.

Tickets were pretty much impossible to get. I joined the fanclub and participated in both pre-order rounds (which are essentially lotteries) and I only managed to get 5 out of 10 shows. Tickets sell on auction for 15.000+ now. People are pretty crazy about this tour.

I'll try to give some kind of report of the show they're playing tomorrow after I get back.

It was a short set but Hizumi sounded pretty well, probably better than he did last time I saw them in 2009. I think the short setlist was just trying to play it safe for the moment being, but as far as I understand it they're not ruling out further performances completely. Hizumi also participated in the encore of Angelo singing one of their songs together with Hazuki from lynch. and the vocalist of RIZE.

I don't come to this forum much anymore, but I figured I'd have to weigh in and say that in the long run common interests are the most important, even if its not the easiest path in the current situation. The way I figure it is that you owe nr.1 a chance to meet up and see where that goes, and once you've met up you will have a better understanding on where to go from there.

Repurposing the forum wasn't really the point of this though, I think most of us applicants generally agree on that the nature and general direction of MH as a Japanese Rock Forum is a good and solid one. What needs to be done is trimming, fixing and perfecting the forum for that purpose, which large parts of the current administration have not attempted to do. EDITED: fixed parts that might've seemed a bit generalizing.

That's what we're doing - presenting suggestions for change. A part of that change is a restructuring of management.

In my opinion its a mix of the three, since its kind of related, the staff who has the least online hours are also the ones who (in the public eye) has contributed the least to the forum, of course, even if one of them had had 100+ days of online time it still wouldn't count for anything if they weren't actually doing something.

I agree with Dispos previous post, the staff is only as good as its weakest link - As long as there's some who do nothing or next to nothing it will reflect poorly upon the whole institution, and the hard working ones might grow discontent if they keep trying and their opinions either get shot down because its "too much work", or simply are never even considered because people aren't around, not to mention feeling like the entire workload is unjustly put onto them. I know that both previous and current staff members have expressed this frustration to me, and it shows that it really is a serious issue to address.

You switched from orthodynamics to dynamics, Zess? How come? Comfort? I mean, I only use my dynamics when I'm watching series and playing games for comfort in terms of weight, but the sound quality can to my ears not really match my LCD-2s. Still struggling to save up for the burson amp, not getting any closer due to travelling expenses lately, but I hope to get there at some point and when I do I'll certainly post pictures too.

Sai and champ brings up legitimate things, It's really important that one understands that being a moderator isn't just some kind of "status boost" and more of a job that needs doing. People need to be able to not consider personal relationships with the people involved, be able to put down lots of their time into the site and try their best to keep it vital, healthy, and constantly improving. With that said, I'd like to announce my candidacy for the team, as I feel like I can do all of these things and have a lot to bring to the management of this site. If anyone on the admin or moderating team would like to discuss the application with me, feel free to PM.

I agree with this topic, I've at lengths discussed the problems I've seen and experienced as a user of this site with several other regulars. From the POV of a user, it seems that a few members of the staff, namely Zess, CAT and sai, seems to carry up the large majority of the duties associated with being a moderator/admin, while the contributions of the rest can be seen as sporadic at best. It seems like some members of the staff stay purely on past merits, good graces, nepotism, etc. and I think this is an issue that must be taken into consideration; If you don't have the proper time to invest in working on the site, should you really hold a position of power? If someone is consistantly so busy with real life that they can't put down a couple of hours a week at least (in my opinion a couple of hours per day would be preferable), they should be asking themselves what they really bring to the site. The administration should make a regular review of the moderators performance and if they don't make the cut, they should be relieved of duty immidately. Inefficient members of the administration should also consider giving up their positions to people more suitable for the task. This place needs a shake up, and I'm not convinced that the current staff line up is up to the task. If the whole team showed the same dedication that the previously mentioned people do most of the time, then this place would most likely be heading towards major improvement, not just in activity and administration, but also in terms of order. Finally, perhaps a bit controversial as its just a theory, but, I've heard several good suggestions come from certain mods and admins I've talked to, but fact seems that the majority is too busy clinging to status quo out of sheer laziness that none or very few have been implemented successfully.

I'll just mention two for now. D'espairsRay - 青 (Ao) Their first demo released in 1999 in 20 copies, excessively rare. ムック - NO!? First demo released in 1997 in 10 copies, even more excessively rare.

I think in terms of Kuroyume it really depends on if you're looking on fanbase or influence on other musicians - most of the prominent vk musicians of the late 90s were heavily inspired by EARLY Kuroyume, not the later stuff, And when you see visual kei musicians covering Kuroyume even to this day its generally these early songs they perform, so in terms of influence on the scene it's pretty safe to say the early stuff is where its at, but I guess in general popularity with the vast majority of people the later more radio friendly stuff is for obvious reasons more popular.

Is there a way to lower the donation limit? I think a lot more people would be willing to contribute if the minimum donation weren't 10 dollars.

Hello, I'd like to have: Dir en grey Tour 00 >>01 Macabre VHS $3 Kimon VHS $3 1999 Osaka-jo Hall live VHS $3 Gauze 62045 VHS $3 Mucc Ryuusei $3 Ageha (w/ DVD) $3.5 Fuzz (w/ DVD) $3.5 with shipping to Stockholm, Sweden, send me a PM for quota? Would love to see what else you got as well.

Strongly agree with this post, there's a reason the earliest releases for some bands tend to be the best, or at least, the most interesting. Besides the obvious - having all the time in the world to write the music and refine it as opposed to having the pressure on to produce something worthwhile in a set amount of months - there's also the aspect of what appeals to the general public, and pressure to conform to it. With the first releases, bands are often going into the creative process without anything to relate to, and thus can create music solely for their own ideals sake, rather than feeling the pressure of a large/growing fanbase to make something that will appeal to the core fans, and still dillute the message enough to draw in more people. As stated, MUCC is a perfect example of this saddening phenomena, on the other hand, there's bands like Dir en grey who just keep getting more interesting and more experimental, so its certainly not a rule but rather a pattern that is noticeable in a lot of bands.

"There is objectively bad music (in a sense)" - I believe this to be a fairly controversial point to make, but only because people tend to miss the point I'm making, that there are factors that could label music as objectively bad from a composition point of view - it might be that they only rehash a certain chord progression to death, that they copy other bands in a manner that's so blatant and obvious that it makes it impossible to enjoy the music, simply put, the music they make doesn't bring anything even remotely fresh or innovative to the table. I believe that several of bands I consider to be good has some or several of these qualities though, so it doesn't neccessarily make them a bad band in someones opinion, just like I know of several bands with highly innovative and interesting styles that I personally find uninteresting because the music doesn't grab me, there's factors like personal preference in vocals etc. that can't be taken into account since there's no accurate way of measuring such things. Feel free to disagree with me if you want.

It was exactly 10 years ago Zomboid was performed last time on the 4th of May 2003, which I believe make it the longest time in between performances in the bands history, if you exclude remakes.

The "new" version is very close to the MISSA version, it's the same song and same lyrics, just played in a new tuning.

They've performed live only remakes (only counting songs that significantly deviate from the original musically) of Cage, audrey and 業 from what I remember right now, there might be more and in that case I'll add that.