saiko

1 hour ago, 薔薇の末裔 said:

2. Socially speaking the musicians are completely different people nowadays. Otaku-ish dudes who liked music and grew up listening to bands are more common in the scene now, while in the past it was really just a bunch of ex-chimpiras, yakuzas, bikers, hosts, etc. who did not fit into society and were in bands just because there was little else they could do to get chicks (of course there are exceptions). They had the ideas and the fierceness, but mostly no music knowledge whatsoever and especially no will to practice or overthink about their music. Now most guys went to school, have money to learn playing their instruments and afford decent equipment, and especially they all mostly compose on their laptops so there is again a bit gap in what their minds can compose and what their hands can play on an instrument. So the result is mostly polished and well performed songs but  kind of lacks the raw energy and "heart" older bands had instead. There is no right and wrong about it,  it really depends on what you are looking for in music.

This image of older bandoman being delinquent boys, and how that 'spirit' was somehow in the core of the music they created, is lately coming a lot to my mind. I've noticed it after reading some translated tanuki therads on the old Fuckyeahtanuki tumblr, where several self-proclaimed old bangya described the terrible behaviour of some famous musicians with kouhai or even their bangya (like that bizarre story of Dir's Kyo and Kagerou's Daisuke abusing bangya on parties and so on), and how it changed during mid 2000s with bands who took conscious over the subject and decided to put and end to it (I've read that Nightmare brought it up on and old interview). Other way, once popped up here on MH the idea of the severe -and actually harassing- nature of the relationship between producers, bands and members in the origins of the scene being something that, although cruel, created some kind of 'quality filter' that assured a decent output of production, thus explaining that more accesible music media and technology, plus a more 'healthy' lifestyle, didn't contribute to anything but the rising of bland 'idolized' and plagiarizig acts. 

I'll appreciate if someone who believes in this idea could elaborate more over it. While I actually mourn over recent VK being in most cases uninspired, unskilled, etc.,  and wish they could someday bring us a new Malice Mizer or The Gazette, I find kind of problematic to consider that toxic relationships, power abuse, risky life-styles, social marginalization, internalized hate, cruelty, etc. is actually the key to deliver great and memorable art...

Btw, nice thread! This is for the things I'm here in MH: interesting discussion about VK's scene development!

1 hour ago, Disposable said:

It’s not like half of the threads you post are in the genre of ”stupid libtards upset about X Y Z” 

 

”Desperate for wokeness points” who the fuck are you for real coming on this board about vk bringing your asenine american political shite in here. Nobody here takes this shit seriously enough at least in the context of this forum to give a shit enough to virtue signal for anything. Left right up and down or center these titles and threads are peak cringe and I’d rather see this forum dead with its dignity intact rather than have this shit continue

@secret_no_03 posts trying to bring "serious" politic discussion over plain stupid facts (OMG YOU WONT GUESS WHAT A FEMINIST SAID LOLOLOL XDDDD!!!11) is what made me reduce the times I lurk this forum.

2 hours ago, carddass said:

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.

Maybe they work as writers or players for other artists, or maybe they produce, who knows. But what's sure is that, when you come from such a huge name, you won't starve to death...

Wow, reading this thread is like realizing that almost every big band of the scene is filled with deep hate between their members lol

Now I want to hear about that fight between Toshiya and Shinya

"Feminists" say this, "feminists" do that... 

You won't believe what a feminist did, click here!!!1!1

Wow fellows, you surely are rude. I can't get why. Seems like you've never put an effort into an artistic project. 

Welcome! I'm glad there's still people intereste in vk! How did you find Kiryu?

1 hour ago, IGM_Oficial said:

Does anyone know what Mahiro is saying in today's video? Seems to be some serious shit.

 

 

Bump

7 hours ago, psychonnect_rozen said:

I remember watching a video on Shinya from Diru and apparently people think he’s gay. Apparently this stems from that video of him kissing Toshiya but most of that stuff is just fan service. There isn’t that much to say after that. 

 

I do remember a video of Shinya actually coming out as gay on either Instagram or YouTube but I can’t find it anywhere and it was probably just some weird fan made thing.

 

Any more?

 

 

I pray for someday heteronormativity just erases off from the vk scene. It's just so weird that every musician within it pretend to be full cis-straight in a scene where the basic dress-code is actually cross-dressing. I guess heteronormativity could never look so stupid itself.

This isn't for "shaming" on your doctor or on your own process coming through depression, but have you considered starting a psychological therapy instead of taking pills? Or at least while taking them?

5 hours ago, Zeus said:

I've been on antidepressants for 9 days and GHYLGADLGAJIODLKGL i just wanna quit. Happy pills sure make me feel like crap physically.

L'arc did the same filling Square Garden with Japanese people. They were pretty much more than half of the public in there; you could feel like attending a gig in Japan rather than in the US lol

Btw, I think it's pretty obvious that they won't fill a bit of that bar with only US fans. They are still Japanese musicians, and even not the most famous Japanese musicians (don't know, the Gazette or One Ok Rock for example), so how many fans could their reach in NY? 20 people like very much?

Very cool song. Seems well written and well executed. I most liked the singing and the countermelodic bass line at the chorus.

Btw, I'm surprised nobody actually mentioned the similarities with late R-shitei funky A-side's. 

31 minutes ago, matthazell said:

apparently kyo played bass at last night's live for the Infinitum tour

Would like to hear that!

Regarding Toshiya, I feel I have a lot of wonderful stuff to say. But, in the other hand, I haven't listened to Kisaki in a while, so in order to make an impartial comparison between them I'm gonna listen to Kisaki's bands right now. Read you later!

34 minutes ago, IGM_Oficial said:

FINALLY

+1

26 minutes ago, Disposable said:

This has definitely become less common in the past few years. I think it's both that the lines between the "styles" as the gaijins perceived it having become even blurrier than they were before, and people just getting older and more phlegmatic about everything. I'll never forget how much people really shat on oshare kei bac in the day, often without really knowing what it is or what it really entailed other than just colorful clothing. It was like the "i like everything/visual kei except rap/oshare" of visual kei in the west at one point. Still, I think pretty much everyone was listening to An Cafe in secret and people are much more open minded nowadays... but again it might just be because there's far less of us and the ones that stuck had a wider and more refined palate to begin with. 

Although I nowadays consider myself much inspired by 'serious' stuff like Luna or Dir, I've came into vk and into musicianship itself because of An Cafe coming to my country to play a gig. Their music changed my life somehow, and I'm gonna be always grateful to them for that. So I've always loved them and never ceased to be open about it.

17 minutes ago, chipathy said:

 

Wow, Chinese fans are lucky! Congratulations for Kizu!

8 hours ago, Kabukichoatmidnight said:

Haha yep, "flat" is an understatement. It just sounds crap, like it was a nice idea they tried but the fact is, 90% aren't listening to their music with the set up they were going for so everyone is just like "wow, well this really sounds shit" haha. I was damn surprised when I first put the disc on, I thought my speakers had screwed up for a minute or something. haha.

 

It's a shame about not putting out a full album, if Lime is the main song writer then I can kind of understand what he means, but the solution is just to take longer on your work and not just put out 3 tracks every few months. Obviously I know how the Japanese scene works and that they need to keep momentum going and whatever but it IS possible to write a quality full length over time. As the main song writer in my own band, our first release is a full length album (11 songs) which took about a year to compose and even though the label hasn't announced us and the album's not out yet we're working on an EP (5/6 tracks we're thinking) which I have been working on, on and off for another year or so.... The point I'm trying to get at here is that, I personally think if you spend longer to really refine your ideas and stuff, you flesh out the bad/boring/generic ideas and end up with one REALLY solid release where every single part is (hopefully) really cool. I do sometimes wonder how much better a lot of V kei bands would be if they took this approach, obviously I like a lot of V kei bands, so far from saying they're bad (though of course some are....haha) but just have to wonder if instead of pumping (maybe rushing??) out 3/4 songs every couple of months they spent longer to really work on a more lengthy release that was properly refined how it would sound. I mean with my bands stuff, we literally had completed songs that we made adjustments to the week before recording or even during the studio time. haha. Don't rush shit out, take your time and get it right as once that song is recorded there's no going back. Unless you want to keep re-recording it like some bands we know.... hah

What's your band name? Do you have something shared online?

3 hours ago, madygrain said:

Yomi is simply not able to use his singing voice as he used to and has to sing in his normal gremblin voice most of the time.

This is why I'm glad people like Kamijo decided to take singing lessons.

Btw, this is some seriously sexy K-pop tune. Definitely in the mood of a gay bar:

On 5/17/2019 at 1:17 PM, Komorebi said:

I see no much difference in the Kpop and VK scenes besides the musical genre.
They both have a similar marketing, cater to a similar demographic, both scenes have some sort of sexual exploitation behind a pretty facade, similar arguably repetitive sounds (even choreo) and both have performers posing as musicians playing/singing and dancing to songs they didn't write, although VK does have a lot more performers actually writing their music.

So true it hurts.

Regarding to Kamijo, I don't think it can be said that he simply changed his vocal range and that's it. Rather, I think Kamijo changed his range because he learned how to sing properly. That is to say, he realized that songs like Lareine's (tenor range) are not suitable at all for his own natural range (clearly baritone). This is easy to prove to anyone who listens just to a single Lareine song. And in fact I think it was clear to Kamijo himself ; in fact, several songs from Lareine's repertoire were tuned down for live performances. Check "Metamorphose" as an example:

Album version (on C minor key)

Live version (on B minor key, and also an epic performance)

However, Kamijo might be still heard not so comfortable. Add to this the feminine and in-pain characterization that Kamijo tried to build for his on-stage persona. What you get is a voice that sounds like choked, it is clear that he is making a huge effort to be able to reach every high note. Also, I think that Kamijo smoked at that time, right? Much worse.

Either way, Kamijo had a very good vocal performance in Lareine. Not only because he always kept himself into the key (which in visual kei is like asking a lot lol), but because, despite all this I said, he managed to keep a flow of voice that was voluminous, and all that while charaterizing it in a very convincing and beautiful way.
Either way, fortunately he has decided to adjust to his natural range since Versailles began. His voice now sounds much more natural and versatile; he even can reach the tenor notes, which as I said are not natural for him, through some falsetto, which is actually heard very nice and dramatic.

I think the same can be said regarding Gackt. Check the following "Mizerable"versions:

Album version (on key of D flat minor)

Live version (on key of C minor)

Now there are other vocalists, that actually improved over the time, but in the beggining didn't try to lie to themselves proving that their range was higher than what their throats could actually offer without killing themselves into the process lol

Ruki have always had a beautiful voice and a decent technic, but I feel that songs like "Wakaremichi" or "Miseinen" sounds legitly good nowadays. Ruki now can manage to run trough the different notes and volumes very smoothly, while managing to bring out a strong flow of voice, even while delivering this gothic-inspired deep voice that is one of the trademarks of the 'visual kei' sound, but that makes singers of the scene really -like, REALLY- bad 90% of the times.

Album version (2002):

Live version (2012, and also another epic performance)

Also, Miku from Antic Cafe and Asagi from D can other great examples of vocal improving.

2 hours ago, suji said:

YOHIO first live in Japan will be held on June 25 at Meguro Rockmaykan

 

[support members]

Gt: Takuya (LAY ABOUT WORLD)

Ba: 燿 (Yo) (摩天楼オペラ (Matenrou Opera))

Dr: KEN'ICHI (support for Marty Friedman, Acid Black Cherry, DIAWOLF, etc.)

 

What and honor to have Yo in your band.

By the way, he knows so well how to sell in Japan that he even uses the ridiculously cheesy English phrases. 

Wow, how did Kaya managed to have all those top musicians for her? Queen!

@Reikatsumi

Same guitar leak as in Royz's song intro at 2:27👇

Keep complaining ✌