saiko

Sukekiyo is how Dir should have started sounding like since years ago...

Very promising clip, btw. They really need to recover from that garbage they called "Utafumi".

I wish somebody could rip and upload this album. Love aki and Laputa!

Do you any vk band that has for sure a ghost writer? I suppose that this information is mainly not shared to the public, so, in case you actually know, what are the things that make you suspect that while hearing a band's production?

14 hours ago, Seelentau said:

Yeah, I still don't quite understand how to get into that scene myself. Imagine you have a tereko that nobody else has.

You offer it to someone for trade, terekos are usually traded show for show. So you trade the tereko and receive a second one.

The other person now has your tereko, the one nobody else but you has.

He can trade it on for another tereko he's missing, but you can't trade your new tereko, since everybody else has it already.

So basically while you now have a tereko you didn't have before, its trading value is 0, whereas the value of the tereko you gave the other person is still high.

 

And thanks for the kind words, but those terekos were online long before I uploaded them. I just tried to correct the audio a little, no idea if it worked though.

I can't upload terekos that aren't leaked, simply because I'd lose my contacts that way. Has already happened once, I don't want it to happen again.

But other than mp3s, you can find all information on early Dir en grey on the wiki.

Not only it was difficult to find the vk scene back in the day, but nowadays keeping in touch with the artists you love is still difficult if it wasn't for the kind fans that rip and upload the stuff of the bands you like. Imagine for a second that people didn't existed...

1 hour ago, blacktooth said:

They’ve really gone downhill since they lost the Adidas sponsorship. Being able to spend their budget on all kinds of fun things like sitars and Tibetan bowls sure beats spending on the finest production techniques of the Loudness War. 

I don’t know what this band is doing, man. 

Never thought Adidas would sponsor the kind of artists of Dir. Is this true?

Hi there!

I wanted to create a thread to share our love for terekos. I've always felt they have some kind of magic that official recordings don't have, mostly if they are from a band's early gig. 

Dir en grey ones are my favorites. Although Kyo missing words or notes, or Kaoru missing the solo... that fastest-than-ever Sangeki no yoru totally kills it! The Gothic intro... the scream of the public... the loudness of guitars... Kyo's deep voice and desperate vibrato... 

AND what can we say about that early version of Zan? I really came to like it much rather than the album version... sounds so brutal... Toshiya and Shinya's speed-skills kill it, again!

I still hope someday we will have decent video footage from this era of Dir...💗

I really wish they play more stuff rather than No pain no gains or Beast of Blood. Kamijo may be there to sing Mana's songs like Bel Air and Au revoir, and Shuji for Illuminati and the Közi stuff. Don't know Hitomi, though.

Hey!

Can you explain a little more about it?

Recently, Sakura (L'arc~en~ciel's ex-drummer) has been uploading lots of pictures of Kami's (Malice Mizer's dead drummer) in his Facebook account. Today he uploaded more photos, this time of both Mana and Közi's well-known classic guitar models, both plugged to their equipment, in what seemed to be a rehearsal room.

Can we expect, finally, something like an actual comeback?

On 1/19/2018 at 12:18 AM, Zeus said:

"ain't afraid to die" would not have fit on MACABRE because it would be three minutes too long to press to CD. Should have taken Taiyou no Ao's place since it is a single and it would end the album on a more appropriate note, and 18 years later I still think the song is bunk. I can talk about all the insane decisions made for each post-GAUZE Dir en grey album and how five minutes of critical thinking would bump each of those albums up by two points, but this isn't the topic for it.

 

Please, do it!😍

2 hours ago, Saishu said:

For the last 7 to 8 years (probably starting with DSS) Shinya’s drums sound like they’re programmed. When you consider that it seems like he has a hard time playing the heavier and faster songs at lives, it’s likely that they use some studio magic when they’re recording. 

I've never believed he had a hard time playing anything. In fact, I've always loved him and believed he and Toshiya were the most skilled musicians in the band. And don't forget that he actually played faster than in studio during their classic 1999 Ousaka Jou live.  I'm interested in what you said, perhaps you could share somethin that gave you that point...

1 hour ago, Saishu said:

Probably has to do it to cover up Shinya’s inconsistent “metal” drumming. 

What do you mean?

14 hours ago, LIDL said:

Whoa~! Yokan 2.0 is happening?!! 👻

That is what I'Ve been craving for all this time...

Traditional vk Diru will be always best diru

1 hour ago, Saishu said:

I suspect Kyo has gone full Maynard James Keenan and loves his side project more than his main band. 

I was thinking the same since sukekiyo happened. It can be liked it or not, but it can't be denied that it is by far more sophisticated than Dir, in any way. I never thought Kyo could put out something like that, mostly because (since the very lack of information about these artists) I've always had this image of Kyo being more of a punk performer rather than a genuine "musician"... you know, someone more interested in doing borderline stuff in Adidas joggs and screaming till his throat goes shit rather than actually doing "music" (very hard to affirm strictly define what is music and what is not, but you get me). Then with sukekiyo he suddenly went with full the stage performance, quality clean singing and japanese melodies he claimed to deeply hate when he was interviewed back when they started going out of Japan... And, in the other hand, Dir started to make different moves that I find like... pointing out some loss of identity and lack direction? Arche was great, but Utafumi... my God, I still don't know what crossed their minds when they decided to record that! From serious experimental metal to dumb punk vibes? Wtf! Then the Mode of tours coming like one after another... Is it me or anyone else feels suspicious about the need of the band to do one revival after another? The outrageous visuals also came back, which I deeply praise because I will always love Dir for their visual kei roots, but something blocks me from taking them seriously since I can't feel them genuine... And Ningen wo kaburu sounds really uninspired, tbh.

Don't know how to feel about the new album and their new direction. Maybe all this saying comes from someone who has already actively formed an "identity" for "Dir en grey" in base of certain ideas... for me, Dir will always be from Gauze to Uroboros, wich was the discography available when I got to know them back in the trendy 2009... Still hope they are still around when I travel to Japan in the future...

On 2/28/2018 at 2:37 PM, Cyber Lip said:

Anyone know what ever happened to this blog? It belonged to a gay westerner living in Japan. I found the gay perspective on the VK scene interesting

I always read his entries, but I never read that he is gay or implying his views in homosexuality on vk. Could be interesting to read about it, though.

3 hours ago, colorfuljinsei said:

Wow, it's been a loooong since I listened to Piko. I used to be obsessed w/ him (and Valshe)

He used to be pretty popular, but now the utaite scene is so saturated to where his f/m vocal switching isn't standout anymore. I'm sure it's been difficult for him since samfree's passing, but he's fallen behind to the point where he'll never regain the popularity he once had. 

 

Wow, does it have to go THAT drastically? Wow, how ingrateful a career could become...😢

On 11/29/2017 at 3:28 PM, Vercingetorix said:

Kinda wish a few more VK dudes were out and about, if only to satisfy my irrational curiosity.
I have this vision of peak VK being like '80s UK synthpop, where like 90% of anyone good was gay/bi.

Wow, this kind of vk and American gay culture crossover thrills me a lot. 😍 Partly because VK was ALWAYS about gender-bending, heavy (homo)sexualized costumes and performances... but, paradoxically, all of that kept in something like superficial for the eyes of the fans, or at least not really pointed out or signified as something "gay" and valued for that.  I think that were Western fans that pointed it out the most, and in cases used vk as a platform to explore gender and sexuality and its possibilities, but I can't figure that as an option for Japanese fans...

But, for instances, many bandoman seemed always pretty non-straight for me, even when there was actually no words from them of anyone else about it, like Jasmine You for instance🤔

1 hour ago, saishuu said:

I'm absolutely certain YUKIYA leads a secret cult because there's no reason as to why JILS used to pack livehouses years ago and still go so under the radar all the time.

+1. Who the fuck is this guy? The only thing I know is that he produced Dir's "I'll" single back in the day. 

1 hour ago, Anne Claire said:

Sana. that is all.

Who is this guy?

31 minutes ago, suji said:

Nope, went back to indies and has been flopping ever since.

You mean he has actually lost popularity that greatly?

On 7/21/2018 at 12:07 PM, pandoraneko said:

After samfree passing away, piko would never be the same again. But im glad he's still doing what he loves, and i hope he gets the recognizion he once had. Excited for the new song

Who is samfree?

Btw, I really loved this guy because of Sakurane! And I eventually lost my track of him, too... I'mean curious about the fact that I wasn't the only one feeling that way! Any thoughts about why did that happen? I remember Piko doing an anison Europe tour also, with quality musicians like An Cafe's Takuya. I mean, he had some sort of explosive popularity back in the day...

7 hours ago, Disposable said:

The PV track is aight, but at this point it’s always the same blastin’ riff to the same chinese restaurant OST instrumentals, with vocal melodies about as varied as the tones of gray on concrete slabs. A band of impeccable musicians throughout, reduced to treading waters that’ve other times slightly risen, other times slightly receded. As as mentioned by someone else in this thread before: they used to have riffs that one could discern, changes of mood and colour. 

Same thinking here. My playlist of many bands reduces to their stand up titles... I say they "stand up" not only because they are great per se, but because the rest of their discography are just fillers, as somebody said above. Kiryu is one of those band. This is not to neglect on the fact that they have skilled musicians, great composers, cool concepts and pumping live performances... but also an entire discography of just the same 5-10 same  ideas combined differently. It happens the same to me with Nightmare: their "Historical Nightmare" best of is everything I need from them; there one or two tunes from the rest of their albums that are worthy, and then nothing else to care that much. Keep in mind that I continue to listen to these artists' whole discography as much as I can, trying to find in those so-called "fillers" something worthy and genuine about them... but nope. And time goes on, and ends up giving me the reason to my feelings (for example: bands like Naito getting disbanded, same with An Cafe; or bands like A9 facing difficulties with keeping their fanbase as it were when they sounded alright, and recurring to k-pop-like group-dancing performances trying to still appeal to them).
It's a very intriguing fact, if you ask me... why will they do that? Specially the bands with long discographies. Should we assume they do it just because they have runned out of ideas? 

3 hours ago, seikun said:

Nice they're trying with 90's VK sounds, but the tracks sound somehow weak. It's like most bands that bring back old school VK focus on pre-GAUZE era Dir en grey while there is a vast number of bands to take influence from that seem pretty much ignored/forgotten such as Aliene Ma'riage, Syndrome, Lar~Mia, AZALEA, etc.

I thought the same! It seems that for nowadays scene old-school=ZAN... If their plan is to just emulate, there are a ton of bands to get inspiration...

Wow, I'm really overwhelmed by the massive positive reactions. Yeah, sounds good and organic, but... am I the only one hearing the copy-and-pasted clichés? Anyway, good you find your cup of tea!

BTW, got interested in which guys is your criteria to judge good vk music (and bad, also)🤔

1 hour ago, The Piass said:

 

Well composed, well executed, well recorded... but man, so, so generic. Still very attached to the clichés of the 90s (in this case the ZAN one), like Grieva and the bands from the nostalgia kei  boom did for almost every song they put out... I wish this will help them to get a wider audience, at least.

Diaura is very special to me. They are one of the last bands that I followed with quite great passion, because of their skills at creating a sound that combined the best from the old-school reminiscence and modern influences, eveything done with their own mark (seriously, Diaura achieved one of those things many bands lack nowadays: a style that makes you recognize them from meters away). Their Focus and Triangle album are masterpieces, from the very beggining to the end. I guess they are having a hard time trying to overcome them...

2 minutes ago, Saishu said:

Yeah, bands do it all the time. Besides, isn’t Withering to Death their most popular/successful album in terms of Oricon charts and fan response?

I thought that was Kisou.

43 minutes ago, filth_y said:

Well, isnt that a general senpai/kohai problem? I've heard and seen myself several situations at nomikais where the senpai forces a kohai to do funny or strange stuff (forcing shots being the most harmelss).

 

Best explanation i've seen so far why more "modern" bands (well the quote is 10 years old already tho) are shitty 

So, you have to overcome abusing behaviour towards yourself to get to be considered a "good" artist and reach the audience?
Anyway, Screw was a really shitty band, with Byou being almost totally unable to sing since the start to the very end of the band. Kagerou and baroque weren't THAT great, aside for having made a well-known contribution to the scene's style...