Tetora

Okay just watched it a few more times.
Loving it first off.
The song is like a fusion of their first album sound, and Teddyloid-esque style.
Lyrics I really like, interesting way of putting things, and a cool summer feel.
As Takeru stated before I feel as if he is again trying to fuse American and Japanese style to create something interesting.
He uses many elements and creates a cool aesthetic, while I am unsure of the booty shots etc, it seems to come off more as a playful parody of some things. I think overall it is really cool, and nice to open up the range of VK and Japanese products beyond the current standard of what we see.
They kept the song simple, it is not as sonic or tonically deep as their recent stuff, but SuG has always been about doing different things, and I cant really see how people could think they have changed too much when comparing this to something like 小悪魔 Sparkling, which had many similar elements.
And in any case I always enjoy seeing some actual relations from boys and girls in a video as opposed to too much crying about love lost.
But most important.... It is so sick that they have BMX in the video! I love that, but that is a personal thing, ehehehe.

Going to give my two cents in numerical fashion, hopefully it doesn`t come off as too `as a matter of fact...`.

1: PV, even if not used on Youtube in their full length are still used in a very promotional way. Television, live-streams, Nico, at live events, or to sell cd`s.

2: They are different way artists and labels run things. Personally I prefer the way some labels such as Danger Crue, and Bandsaid do it ( my favorites promotional-wise) where they put tons of artists comments, goofy videos to build connection with the band, the short PV only until they give you the full PV which they almost always do unless a promotional company asks to pay for the rights to use on their channel, or the artists want it on their channel, and so on. DC and Bandsaid make the sure you know all of the labels bands, and see all you can. Then there is PSC, which you may know I dislike management wise. They restrict access to almost all interesting content and the labels they work with make many copyright claims for any other content ( I have a position in favor of labels putting up content, as for others putting up copyrighted content, no comment).
For PSC, take Kra for example... pretty much no way to know what is going on with them besides fan content and news updates, even though they are a major band and one of the most technically talented bands period. You have to follow Kra Chile, a fan channel or other channels to even know what they look like.
Then there is Resistar, another of my favorite labels, and they put up videos of tons of goofy stuff, and previews, they build good awareness but do not post PV`s in full length 99% of the time.

3: So, then we have buying LE cd`s for the PV, and making of. I see many people who do not buy the LE with the PV if it is posted by the label on Youtube, or even regret buying it. Mostly a foreign thing from my experience, as digital is more acceptable outside of Japan as opposed to physical items in culture. I will admit, I never buy LE`s unless I really want to collect. For example, I only have DIV`s new single preordered for the regular edition, because I know DC will have the PV in high quality. Even if there is an issue, like when JUSTICE was put up with bad audio sync, DC listened to fan comments and fixed it... BUT, I buy all DOG in the PWO cd`s because I know Resistar will only post a PV if the stars align, and even fans will only upload it three lunar cycles later, probably in 90p resolution.

4: Yes I agree with VK interest being in trends. IMO it ebbs and flows, so it will keep coming back, same as things change culturally. For example, we went through the Hair Metal movement, then Grunge, then 90`s Alt Rock, then Pop-Punk, then Emo / Screamo etc to name a few, and now we live in an age where the popular styles are either Hipster, EDM brah`s, or the prevalent rap scene, everything else is a niche which is almost always frowned upon. Look at what is popular and viral now in the US, due to a post 9/11 culture. Not the right time for VK, but you will see KPOP and stuff like Gangnam style going viral. Feel-Good stuff is more in, watch some commercials on tv, and hear the cheerful poppy music, etc... The bands that have the biggest chance now are in the Oshare range, but that is too far out there, and people will eventually shift from current trends, and old stuff will be back along with some new.
As for a comment I saw on South America etc... I think it is different, they always had a very strong fanbase for many kinds of rock, and some ties to Japan as well. Some bands will always be popular there, esp. Hyde, and that will spur more interest in all Japanese rock. Random example of Rock`s history there, but a huge cultural phenomenon there decades ago was the song Hotel California, and so many bands would learn it, even if they didnt understand the words, so in a place like Peru, you would hear it everywhere you went. Even today, many fans I see on Youtube of lots of Rock, even VK, are from South America.

5: Cd Sales in Japan again, this kinda relates to the issue, and I see it mentioned above. So far Japan still has the strongest physical music industry in the world. 2012 was very strong due to many major releases and interest. 2013 was estimated to be the year Japan became no.1 worldwide, but there was a dip in major cd releases, and dip in interest in digital side-markets like ring-tones etc... We shall see how 2014 goes. IMO it is better as a physical market, and I think it will suffer from moving to digital, as the culture has not went there, and other markets have not successfully made that shift. If 2014 is good, Japan will def. become no.1 in the world.

6: Toxic fanbases. IMO the negativity has grown largely from just a first impression kind of view of any forum or comment line. I usually dont even read comments on Youtube, as there is always negativity, and always a comment that says `they used to be better, what is this?`. As for forums, they are also very negative. Things were much more positive from what I saw years ago, when talking about anime, manga, etc... was full of wildly enthusiastic kids and older people who felt free to post about their love in many ways. What I saw was a gradual and natural reaction to this, where people didn`t want to be like that, and wanted to distance themselves from those fanbases and `fan-boys` or `fan-girls` and be cooler, edgier people who began even saying negative things just for the sake of being negative and not looking like those `other` fans. Now on many places it is popular to say negative things, put down bands, act like VK sucks, like they are second-rate, etc... And it is not fun to participate in, and not fun to read a thread or comment section for a video you just watched and loved, while people just pop-in to say `this sucks`, or `this is a rip-off of something else`. So I would rather just buy my cds, and either not read comments, or just ignore them and say positive things, but being positive makes you a `fan-boy` and your opinion isn`t relevant now because you are supposedly one...


7: A million-plus views with minimal ad clicks would be about $500 dollars, so, not that much, but profit margin on an LE is usually $5 or less, so about 100 sales they would have to lose, and it is a strong possibility. Abingdon Boys Howling reached 10mill plus before being taken down, so $5000-$10,000 estimated based off revenues I have seen (but they didn`t even post that video, and their Youtube channels are pretty much never used) So if they posted that vid, and had a cd LE with PV, there is hypothetically a count of 1000 cd sales they would have to lose. So we can either take that into account for popular videos, or estimate revenues based off less popular PV`s plus other vids posted like comments or goofy nonsense. But then you have to take into acccount sales of a PV colection DVD, etc... How much would these sales suffer? Very `if and maybe` reasoning here that is not scientific, but it puts some-what of a perspective on things.

8: And lastly, just to throw this in, Youtube is not used as much by Japanese as foreigners, and foreigners have never shown concrete measure of large sales or impact for most bands, so why should labels care? (Just a question, not necessarily my views, I always want VK to grow, etc..)


And I bolded that part in `6` as I know this post is a lot to read, so many will skim, and that is one more partisan feeling of mine that I wanted to express.
Thanks for reading.

Replying to Tetora, excellent post!  You elaborated on some things I didn't.
 
I think it really comes down to bands and artists must find their way.  My personal opinion, I think bands should do everything.  Put videos on youtube, do limited edition CD+DVD packages (if they have the money), etc.  But if something is wasting their money, like if they print 500 CD packages and only sell 50...maybe that money is best spent elsewhere.  Measure your market.  And just because one thing works in Japan (CDs, for example), it won't necessarily work elsewhere.
 
Also, bands can't expect to be "enigmatic" anymore like they used to be able to be.  Well, I suppose they can, but success based on that is probably quite slim.

fixed my bangs yesterday~ to look more kawaii :'D
 

Here's me doing nothing.

 
 

Going to give my two cents in numerical fashion, hopefully it doesn`t come off as too `as a matter of fact...`.

1: PV, even if not used on Youtube in their full length are still used in a very promotional way. Television, live-streams, Nico, at live events, or to sell cd`s.

2: They are different way artists and labels run things. Personally I prefer the way some labels such as Danger Crue, and Bandsaid do it ( my favorites promotional-wise) where they put tons of artists comments, goofy videos to build connection with the band, the short PV only until they give you the full PV which they almost always do unless a promotional company asks to pay for the rights to use on their channel, or the artists want it on their channel, and so on. DC and Bandsaid make the sure you know all of the labels bands, and see all you can. Then there is PSC, which you may know I dislike management wise. They restrict access to almost all interesting content and the labels they work with make many copyright claims for any other content ( I have a position in favor of labels putting up content, as for others putting up copyrighted content, no comment).
For PSC, take Kra for example... pretty much no way to know what is going on with them besides fan content and news updates, even though they are a major band and one of the most technically talented bands period. You have to follow Kra Chile, a fan channel or other channels to even know what they look like.
Then there is Resistar, another of my favorite labels, and they put up videos of tons of goofy stuff, and previews, they build good awareness but do not post PV`s in full length 99% of the time.

3: So, then we have buying LE cd`s for the PV, and making of. I see many people who do not buy the LE with the PV if it is posted by the label on Youtube, or even regret buying it. Mostly a foreign thing from my experience, as digital is more acceptable outside of Japan as opposed to physical items in culture. I will admit, I never buy LE`s unless I really want to collect. For example, I only have DIV`s new single preordered for the regular edition, because I know DC will have the PV in high quality. Even if there is an issue, like when JUSTICE was put up with bad audio sync, DC listened to fan comments and fixed it... BUT, I buy all DOG in the PWO cd`s because I know Resistar will only post a PV if the stars align, and even fans will only upload it three lunar cycles later, probably in 90p resolution.

4: Yes I agree with VK interest being in trends. IMO it ebbs and flows, so it will keep coming back, same as things change culturally. For example, we went through the Hair Metal movement, then Grunge, then 90`s Alt Rock, then Pop-Punk, then Emo / Screamo etc to name a few, and now we live in an age where the popular styles are either Hipster, EDM brah`s, or the prevalent rap scene, everything else is a niche which is almost always frowned upon. Look at what is popular and viral now in the US, due to a post 9/11 culture. Not the right time for VK, but you will see KPOP and stuff like Gangnam style going viral. Feel-Good stuff is more in, watch some commercials on tv, and hear the cheerful poppy music, etc... The bands that have the biggest chance now are in the Oshare range, but that is too far out there, and people will eventually shift from current trends, and old stuff will be back along with some new.
As for a comment I saw on South America etc... I think it is different, they always had a very strong fanbase for many kinds of rock, and some ties to Japan as well. Some bands will always be popular there, esp. Hyde, and that will spur more interest in all Japanese rock. Random example of Rock`s history there, but a huge cultural phenomenon there decades ago was the song Hotel California, and so many bands would learn it, even if they didnt understand the words, so in a place like Peru, you would hear it everywhere you went. Even today, many fans I see on Youtube of lots of Rock, even VK, are from South America.

5: Cd Sales in Japan again, this kinda relates to the issue, and I see it mentioned above. So far Japan still has the strongest physical music industry in the world. 2012 was very strong due to many major releases and interest. 2013 was estimated to be the year Japan became no.1 worldwide, but there was a dip in major cd releases, and dip in interest in digital side-markets like ring-tones etc... We shall see how 2014 goes. IMO it is better as a physical market, and I think it will suffer from moving to digital, as the culture has not went there, and other markets have not successfully made that shift. If 2014 is good, Japan will def. become no.1 in the world.

6: Toxic fanbases. IMO the negativity has grown largely from just a first impression kind of view of any forum or comment line. I usually dont even read comments on Youtube, as there is always negativity, and always a comment that says `they used to be better, what is this?`. As for forums, they are also very negative. Things were much more positive from what I saw years ago, when talking about anime, manga, etc... was full of wildly enthusiastic kids and older people who felt free to post about their love in many ways. What I saw was a gradual and natural reaction to this, where people didn`t want to be like that, and wanted to distance themselves from those fanbases and `fan-boys` or `fan-girls` and be cooler, edgier people who began even saying negative things just for the sake of being negative and not looking like those `other` fans. Now on many places it is popular to say negative things, put down bands, act like VK sucks, like they are second-rate, etc... And it is not fun to participate in, and not fun to read a thread or comment section for a video you just watched and loved, while people just pop-in to say `this sucks`, or `this is a rip-off of something else`. So I would rather just buy my cds, and either not read comments, or just ignore them and say positive things, but being positive makes you a `fan-boy` and your opinion isn`t relevant now because you are supposedly one...


7: A million-plus views with minimal ad clicks would be about $500 dollars, so, not that much, but profit margin on an LE is usually $5 or less, so about 100 sales they would have to lose, and it is a strong possibility. Abingdon Boys Howling reached 10mill plus before being taken down, so $5000-$10,000 estimated based off revenues I have seen (but they didn`t even post that video, and their Youtube channels are pretty much never used) So if they posted that vid, and had a cd LE with PV, there is hypothetically a count of 1000 cd sales they would have to lose. So we can either take that into account for popular videos, or estimate revenues based off less popular PV`s plus other vids posted like comments or goofy nonsense. But then you have to take into acccount sales of a PV colection DVD, etc... How much would these sales suffer? Very `if and maybe` reasoning here that is not scientific, but it puts some-what of a perspective on things.

8: And lastly, just to throw this in, Youtube is not used as much by Japanese as foreigners, and foreigners have never shown concrete measure of large sales or impact for most bands, so why should labels care? (Just a question, not necessarily my views, I always want VK to grow, etc..)


And I bolded that part in `6` as I know this post is a lot to read, so many will skim, and that is one more partisan feeling of mine that I wanted to express.
Thanks for reading.

their fan-club 1st anniversary book will be provided for all fan-club members joining fan-club "39GalaxxxyZ" at or before 2014/08/31

I doubt many people who've been interested in vk for >10 years will even google stuff like "jrock" and "visual kei". At least not very regularly at all. We already know what bands we like (and which we don't care much for), and we have our dedicated sources for feeds/updates - be it Twitter, MH, OHPs, blogs, youtube channels, etc. What your stats show is only that today we have fewer curious onlookers, and vk is getting less "outside" attention from these people who don't exactly know what vk is all about and are interested to find out. That doesn't necessarily have any connection with the already established fanbase of vk (what Ikna has called people who are into "normalized" vk). It's true that having less "new vk fans" coming into the scene may be a sign of decline, but demographically speaking these are two separate and distinct groups of people. The reason I don't think vk is "dying" is because the spike vk experienced previously wasn't actually true "growth" in the first place; it was merely the 2-second attention of a bunch of people who would quickly pass from one hit to another.
 
Finally: it's entirely possible that overall vk interest has shrunk (though I'm still doubtful), but this just raises the question of which criterion are we using to appraise interest. Total CD Sales? Live ticket sales? A lot of these indices don't work very well for foreign fans for obvious reasons. Online presence is also something that's difficult to monitor. Or do we rely on something that sounds nice but totally un-helpful like the number of vk fans? Then we'll get into the territory of what constitutes a "fan", which from past experience isn't exactly a territory where I'll want to tread..

Also another thread where we can discuss this whole "old VK is better/worse" thing (Gaz posted a link to another thread)
 
The title of this thread is definitely misleading a bit. Also everyone else has said, what's to say and mentioned the shift in interests, copyright and so on. I want to add a bit of my perspective, mainly from my subjective experience with the Austrian and German fanbase, which is mostly based on real life experiences (with my rather tiny and small local VK fanbase) and what i have witnessed on several national and German Forums, Boards and Websites.
 
I came in contact with VK in 2003 and 2004. I have heard of it even earlier in Anime Magazines, but didn't pay any attention to it. Back at this time it was difficult to get information on VK bands. Only if you have been to Japan yourself you would have come into contact with more obscure indies bands. The groups that were known over here were all the big groups, the ones signed to major labels or which were pretty popular and well established: Dir en grey, Malice Mizer, Buck-Tick, Luna Sea, Pierrot, L'arc~en~Ciel, Moi dix Mois and Gackt (technically not VK, but he was in Malice and so appealed to the european fans). My first real experience with VK was, when the distributor Gan-Shin was founded and started to release some VK CDs here. Mind you, they were still hard to get, at least in Austria. Only one store carried Dir en grey and Moi dix Mois' albums and so I bought them. The only reason why I knew about these bands was because of Manga magazines.
 
I am sure there were several people in the early 00s who came to VK not through the Anime "Scene" but I'll say for the majority of the fanbase at this time this was the entrance. Let's say 90% of the German fanbase at least was compromised of Manga reading Weaboos, who threw around japanese words in their German sentences, because it was so cool and so on. VK appealed to them, because they already lived in a fantasy world and bubble, where everything is "kawaii" and where Japan was the garden Eden of the Earth, filled with hot crossdressing men. The Anime fandom was very big at the time, as we were still in the midst of the Anime and Manga boom, which started somewhere in the mid to late 90s. Everything japanese was considered "fresh", "new" and "exotic".
 
Now more then 10 years have passed and surely the world isn't the same. Nowadays everything is much more accessible. You don't need to spend shitton of money and habe patience to be able to get your hands on a new CD of your favourite VK band. You can buy their CD now easily in Online Stores or just download them. The Anime and Manga boom is over too. Being a Weaboo was always frowned upon, but today it seems to have become an even heavier stigma. In the 00s young teens still could go away trying to appear unique and cool by dressing up as self proclaimed "Visus" (yeah, they really saw Visual kei as some kind of subculture…) and shout "people who criticize me just don't understand it!". But if you do this today, then you are considered highly immature, dumb and annoying.
 
Of course most of those "Visus" grew out of it (and very fast). Almost no one of these people I knew (and have even seen in real life) sticked to it. Most of them moved on and became "normal". Others entered other subcultures in the course of the 00s (such as Scene and recently Hipster). A big majority of them don't even want to remember their old self, when they cosplayed as Kyo or Ruki daily (even to school) and probaböy washed their hair only once every 8 days (I am not joking. Many Visus' outfits and body hygiene were bad). I have to say that the current and modern fanbase isn't nearly as crazy as the old one. The cosplays and outfits have gotten better and I feel the amount of delusional fans has started to decrease.
 
So simply put: because it was new and because the Anime/Manga community offered a quick and well guided portal to it, VK was very popular here between 2004 and 2008. It was still fresh and the many japanese oriented fansites and boards were often the only information sources – hence there was also a bit more of a sense of community. Many places were similiar in activity and interest as MH is now. People regulary chatted about what band X is doing, even if the topics were often arbitrary. When I look into the same forums today, there is almost no activity left. That surely gives you the impression as if the VK fan scene would be dead. But MH actually disproves it. I'd say that since VK has become "normalized" and doesn't seem so new and exotic anymore (and since many people have stopped paying attention to it), the scene has become a lot smaller.
 
It's true however (but that's more for the new vs old VK thread) that many people left the scene, because the music has changed and they don't pay any attention to newer releases. I am sure some of them still enjoy the old music they have come to like, but they don't care about any new releases or bands. I myself had stopped listening to VK between 2006 and 2007 (which was a rather short pause anyway). VK lost some fans, as it started to become different, but as you can see it also gained new ones. I guess we could discuss this as some kind of generational conflict (as many of the new fans are in the age we old ones were when we first discovered VK, but yet grew up with other music and have different tastes) in the other thread.
 
Also finally: are music videos really that important anymore? I have the feeling that it's not only limited to VK, but the overall music scene. Music videos don't seem to have the same value as they did maybe 10 or 20 years ago, when MVs were broadcasted on MTV (when it was still mainly a music TV channel) and MVs were often produced with high budget. My mom used to own Michael Jackson's Thriller music video on VHS and it was the extended long edition with Making of. The VHS was probably around 2 or 3 hours. It was expensive, but she loved it and watched it many times. How often do we modern consumers watch a MV? Would we buy a MV with making of for 20-30€? I don't think so. Many people have stated they watch PVs and MVs one time on youtube and never again. We live in a world, where everything has started to become fast lived and is consumed like Junk Food. This is logical, because the WWW offers so much and in masses at a few clicks. Our consuming behaviour isn't the same, so I guess the aproach to MVs and PVs has changed drastically. I know a band which personally would like to make MVs for their music, but they don't do it, because they know people would watch them one time and it would be more expensive and profitable. And before they are forced to do a 0815 cheap low budget one they rather produce none.

Somehow I'm skeptical that foreigners' interest in vk is declining. Of course this isn't something quantifiable, but taking a cursory look at Twitter will suggest that even the indies vk bands show some awareness of their foreign fanbase (whether and to what extent they cater to this fanbase is a separate question). Also, the sheer number of VK bands having overseas tours these days indicates that there's still a healthy demand for vk bands outside of Japan - in addition to those who have toured Europe in the past couple of years, bands like DIV, Plastic Tree, Royz also regularly perform in Asia.
 
The youtube question is tricky, and like what Zess has said I suspect it's more of a consequence of copyright enforcement than a reliable index of foreign popularity. Just look at how many PV or full songs of obscure indies as well as disbanded bands do exist on youtube because there's a lot less surveillance in that case and these videos get taken down a lot less than e.g. Nightmare or ViViD PVs. Which is kinda ironic because obviously the disbanded bands won't be there to benefit from the publicization of their music lol.
 
Also, it'll be great if ppl can stop using "vk is dying!" as a sneaky shorthand for "the kind of vk I like is dying!".....

This sounds totally incredible, but Satoshi... Damn. He looks amazing in this video.

Song is great, definitely looking forward to this mini.

Tetora walked back into his home and exclaimed: `Tadaima!`
There was no response... Tetora went into the kitchen to put his groceries down when he heard strange sounds coming from the bedroom. He walked over to the bedroom and pushed open the door inquisitively and his heart stopped. Hizakami and Hizaki both looked up at him from under the covers, shocked. Hizakami tried to explain as Tetora ran out of the house sobbing. He jumped onto his rocket-powered motorcycle and rode off into space, heartbroken...
 
Tetora eventually found himself on Planet InuPara, where he was greeted by a strange sight... It was a female-version of Haru from Dog in the PWO... Tetora was speechless as he stared through tears at the sight before him... Female-Haru ran up to Tetora and asked him what was wrong... Tetora explained, fighting back tears. Female-Haru heard out his story, and then told Tetora that she had just the thing to fix him... Tetora tried to ask what before he stopped speechless, as Female-Haru began taking off her Yukata in front of him and-

From time to time I do draw, too.
I mostly use regular pencils but whenever I just doodle I might use ballpoints or wax crayons.
 
Pencil

 
Wax crayon

 
Biro - the most recent drawing

 
My favourite artist is Ben Templesmith, but I can't say that I'm overly inspired by him. :]
 
 

Full music video was released on a channel that usually only does the underground/indie scene. Seems like they've finally fully shifted their attention there.
 

This is going to be the come from behind album of the year you watch

my name’s Lyn and I currently live in England. I’ve listened to J-Rock ever since I was 12 years old and, yes, I was an embarrassing teen who tried way too hard, BUT we had an amazing time back then - 10/10, would recommend.
At the moment I’m working on my BAs in English linguistics and philosophy to train for my amazing future as coffee shop barista (“Do you want fries with that?” Oh wait...).
 
My overall favourite J-Rock bands are X-Japan, Hide and D’espairs Ray... Maximum the Hormone is pretty rad, too... Dir en Grey, of course, Kagerou, fucking loved Kagerou... and Balzac... Mucc, Girugamesh.
 
For god knows what reason (it’s not like my RL is exciting or anything), I kind of stopped keeping up with a lot of bands I had enjoyed during my teenage years (for example Suicide Ali, -Oz-, vistlip, Baal...) but I still do enjoy them very much, so I’ve signed up here to keep up with all those different bands a little bit better.
 
I also like Horrorpunk, Progressive Rock/Metal, Classic Rock, and lot of other stuff that I don't know how to categorise.
I love books, video games, running, cars and going to rock/ metal concerts no matter if I know the band that’s playing or not.
 
 
P.S. I feel like I’ve been here before, but I couldn’t find any traces of past-me... so I figured it’s safe to grace you with present-me.

I hope they can come back soon. Their music has just been getting so good lately.

well i can't remember if i introduced myself...or not x.x so im going too..
 
 i LOVE jrock so much to where im addicted too it..(don't judge me) my favorite artistes are...well so far is 
 
my favorite jrock bands: Mejibray,Lycaon,Dir en grey,The Gazette,Diaura,Nega,D.I.D,Para:noir,Royz,Deathgaze,Born,
sadie,Screw and etc.
 
my favorite kpop groups: 2NE1,Girls Generation,Miss A,T-ara,Kara.4 Minute,F(x),Dal Shabet,  After School,Nine Muses(is that right? o.o), Orange Caramel, Crayon Pop, Girls Day,Big Bang, and etc
 
or..you can look at my lame last fm... . www.last.fm/user/BloodyChick2010
 
yeah...that's it i know it was lame <__< but whatever lolol.
 

Although we have kind of covered some 0f these topics, they seem to persist, and I will post my feelings towards Kurenai`s statements.
 
 
How will them having a second job enable them to be supported by a record label, move units, warrant a budget provided by the label, production costs, equipment costs, etc?
 
And do you want them to continously pay from their own alternate revenue, to pay for equipment, production, distribution, etc... To provide a product that will either be bootlegged by fans who wanta free product on someone else`s dime, or distributed to fans who supposedly deserve it for free?
 
 
And those people have a limited range of customers, limited production capabilities, presentation capabilites, limited effect on the music business, etc...
 
And how does charging for a product make you a prostitute? First of all, prostitutes have a valued commodity that they assign a monetary value and charge for use... That is business.
 
Second of all, music is a form of entertainment, and it is always a product. There is no reason to expect it to be free.
 
Yes, it is a beautiful thing that many people assign a great value to... So if people work their @sses off to provide an experience that can move you, and even change your life, that provides you with hours and hours of entertainment and pleasure... You think you deserve it for free? There`s no value to it besides you getting the product with no work on your part?
 
And yeah, I see people talking trash about Nocturnal Bloodlust in particular, as a member`s statement started this thread. I am not the hugest fan, but obviously the band is talented, and they put out a product people see value in. If anyone wants to provide a recording of their own vocals or guitar playing etc... That can be a suitable substitute for that presented in Nocturnal Bloodlust`s recordings, I would love to hear it.
 
And yes, a lot of people do it for fun, and they don`t have the reach or impact of those in the studio system that everyone seems to despise. Money is just a side-effect mostly for people that don`t want to grow something.
 
I would like to see VK and music I think has value in general grow. And that doesn`t happen without some monetary input.
 
 
 
Take a look at the booklet for any average VK band and look at all the staff involved in a release, then factor in the band, then think of the profit they need to move forward and invest in new releases and ventures...
 
This isn`t sustainable by one dollar donations. If bands can sustain a career with a decent profile through means like these, then we can talk about this, but as of now, the studio system still reigns because it is the best system that peopel have found to work with.
 
And again... People say that only a small percentage of money goes to the band when you buy a cd... As I stated, what about all the people involved in the release besides the band?They don`t deserve money either but everyone deserves a free entertainment product? What about cost of printing CD`s, distribution, etc? And if you say, oh, go digital... The country these bands are from don`t really want digital products, so let`s not suggest changing their very healthy music market so we can maybe buy another album if we feel like in degraded quality over the web.
 
 
 
To be honest, I am just expressing my views here, and I realize they are just my own views... Other people have their own, and while I believe in mine, I can accept others have views, and they are not neccessarily `wrong`. Hopefully we can discuss this amicably, and not fight each other.

Tetora walked back into his home and exclaimed: `Tadaima!`
There was no response... Tetora went into the kitchen to put his groceries down when he heard strange sounds coming from the bedroom. He walked over to the bedroom and pushed open the door inquisitively and his heart stopped. Hizakami and Hizaki both looked up at him from under the covers, shocked. Hizakami tried to explain as Tetora ran out of the house sobbing. He jumped onto his rocket-powered motorcycle and rode off into space, heartbroken...
 
Tetora eventually found himself on Planet InuPara, where he was greeted by a strange sight... It was a female-version of Haru from Dog in the PWO... Tetora was speechless as he stared through tears at the sight before him... Female-Haru ran up to Tetora and asked him what was wrong... Tetora explained, fighting back tears. Female-Haru heard out his story, and then told Tetora that she had just the thing to fix him... Tetora tried to ask what before he stopped speechless, as Female-Haru began taking off her Yukata in front of him and-

Although we have kind of covered some 0f these topics, they seem to persist, and I will post my feelings towards Kurenai`s statements.
 
 
How will them having a second job enable them to be supported by a record label, move units, warrant a budget provided by the label, production costs, equipment costs, etc?
 
And do you want them to continously pay from their own alternate revenue, to pay for equipment, production, distribution, etc... To provide a product that will either be bootlegged by fans who wanta free product on someone else`s dime, or distributed to fans who supposedly deserve it for free?
 
 
And those people have a limited range of customers, limited production capabilities, presentation capabilites, limited effect on the music business, etc...
 
And how does charging for a product make you a prostitute? First of all, prostitutes have a valued commodity that they assign a monetary value and charge for use... That is business.
 
Second of all, music is a form of entertainment, and it is always a product. There is no reason to expect it to be free.
 
Yes, it is a beautiful thing that many people assign a great value to... So if people work their @sses off to provide an experience that can move you, and even change your life, that provides you with hours and hours of entertainment and pleasure... You think you deserve it for free? There`s no value to it besides you getting the product with no work on your part?
 
And yeah, I see people talking trash about Nocturnal Bloodlust in particular, as a member`s statement started this thread. I am not the hugest fan, but obviously the band is talented, and they put out a product people see value in. If anyone wants to provide a recording of their own vocals or guitar playing etc... That can be a suitable substitute for that presented in Nocturnal Bloodlust`s recordings, I would love to hear it.
 
And yes, a lot of people do it for fun, and they don`t have the reach or impact of those in the studio system that everyone seems to despise. Money is just a side-effect mostly for people that don`t want to grow something.
 
I would like to see VK and music I think has value in general grow. And that doesn`t happen without some monetary input.
 
 
 
Take a look at the booklet for any average VK band and look at all the staff involved in a release, then factor in the band, then think of the profit they need to move forward and invest in new releases and ventures...
 
This isn`t sustainable by one dollar donations. If bands can sustain a career with a decent profile through means like these, then we can talk about this, but as of now, the studio system still reigns because it is the best system that peopel have found to work with.
 
And again... People say that only a small percentage of money goes to the band when you buy a cd... As I stated, what about all the people involved in the release besides the band?They don`t deserve money either but everyone deserves a free entertainment product? What about cost of printing CD`s, distribution, etc? And if you say, oh, go digital... The country these bands are from don`t really want digital products, so let`s not suggest changing their very healthy music market so we can maybe buy another album if we feel like in degraded quality over the web.
 
 
 
To be honest, I am just expressing my views here, and I realize they are just my own views... Other people have their own, and while I believe in mine, I can accept others have views, and they are not neccessarily `wrong`. Hopefully we can discuss this amicably, and not fight each other.

Randomly found this on my computer while I was looking through a folder of icons.
 

 
I miss watching Jun Kasai's matches. He always looks like he's having so much fun.

Surprisingly good.