How to make Visual Kei popular again?

[Komorebi 2193]

2 hours ago, Cereal Killer 13 said:

The lack of translations is insane.  I can read/understand Japanese but even I sometimes just don't feel like dealing with having to look up a word(s) I might not know.  In the past translations for stuff was easier found but now, either you better know enough Japanese yourself or know someone who can translate for you even if it's a rough translation. Heaven help you if you are fan of bands that don't have a fandom with some translators. 

I translate for my fandom and no one reads nor cares and tbh it's too much time and effort I've invested over three years with 0 results for the band.

 

VK culture seems to be a huge turnoff for metal fans. I tried to lure a girl who kinda knew about MM and gazette bus is focused in western metal into modern VK and she got hooked on Dadaroma, Diaura and JLK. Lasted a few months and last night threw a tantrum after watching a few lives and claimed she was quitting altogether and when I tried to reason with her her reasons were "yelling encore is so tacky and I just can't with it" and "fandoms expect me to comment nice things on the members accounts and participate in fanprojects". Upon further reasoning as to why join street teams  if she didn't want to engage in fan activities the response was "I wanted drinking buddies". Every other male into metal I've tried to get into VK backs away as soon as they see the aesthetic, right after drawing every comparison possible with any Western act. There's just too much stigma currently around Japan's pop culture for normies to want to step in and a good portion of metalheads are apparently just too closed minded and stay within their own sub-sub-sub genre of metal (I've gotten complaints about bands blending genres and not sticking to one variant of metal) to want to give VK a chance.

[GreatNorthernVK 183]

The reason why VK hype died out is because it was entirely fan driven, and the bands and management themselves didn’t know what they were getting into. They assumed that they could come over here and do everything like they did in Japan, and people would just accept it, because they received x amount of fans without even trying.

 

What they needed was *connections* to keep the western market engaged and active. They failed, because management of the bands assumed that they were too good for trying things a different way and integrating into Western markets. The connections they did make ended up being alienated. Both industry and fans. That’s why only die hard fans are left, perhaps with the exception of Dir en Grey or Miyavi crowds.

[Cereal Killer 13 25]

1 hour ago, Komorebi said:

I translate for my fandom and no one reads nor cares and tbh it's too much time and effort I've invested over three years with 0 results for the band.

 

That sucks as translating stuff can be time consuming depending on what it is. I wonder why fans for some bands wouldn't care?

 

As for getting non vkei metal fans into the bands I see where you are coming from.  I was a "normal" metal fan stumbled onto some vkei acts by coincidence (read an article on Miyavi in a graffiti magazine I used to read). It wasn't introduced to me by another fan or a weird Japan sort of way. I'm pretty open minded though. I will say that now I listen to way more non vkei Japanese bands. If you think vkei fandoms are quiet, move on to Jrock outside of vkei....cue crickets 😣 

Edited January 8, 2020 by Cereal Killer 13

[inartistic 1151]

Hot take:

 

The initial seed for a lot of people is seeing cute boys in crazy makeup. We need to start spamming Twitter threads with slow motion gifs of [insert guitarist here] sticking his tongue out while looking to the side.

[colorful人生 2777]

20 minutes ago, inartistic said:

Hot take:

 

The initial seed for a lot of people is seeing cute boys in crazy makeup. We need to start spamming Twitter threads with slow motion gifs of [insert guitarist here] sticking his tongue out while looking to the side.

 

so like how k-netizens spam kpop fancams in irrelevant threads, we just spam embedded vk tiktoks (which is basically just that)...

 

 

Edited January 9, 2020 by colorful人生

[Arkady 396]

Send Ru Paul Drag Race back in time, when rock music and Japan were the cool kids, and make Kaya win it. Profit. 😎

Edited January 9, 2020 by Arkady

[Saga 116]

I just wanna to rant about bands using platforms like youtube/spotify/twitter (thank god, fuck ameblo) but don't even trying to communicate without using moonrunes.

[Karma’s Hat 3107]

Before people mentioned it here I had totally forgotten that not even that long ago they were using pretty much none of the social media platforms used in other countries. 

 

The Japanese are just not interested in investing time in figuring out how the market here works and then investing money in those foreign markets if it doesn’t work out practically by itself like when manga and anime did the heavy lifting for them, and that’s it. I doubt most of these labels have any business savvy other than the yakuza school of street entrepeneurship that was beaten into them. They’re about as clueless as to how things work here as most of us are about how it works there. You can’t really blame them for that when things are lucrative enough domestically, and everything else is a great unknown with big risk and mediocre reward at best.

 

[reminiscing2004 617]

Thinking back on all the instances where I mentioned Visual Kei to non-VK fans (usually people who listen to a wide variety of genres, or even to people who love certain subcultures of other J-music), I've had this cumulative sense that the biggest barrier to entry for people is the VOCALS.

 

I think it's easy to think the least accessible part of VK is the visuals, but that seems more like a positive draw nowadays, considering how increasingly trendy anime and Japanese cute aesthetic shit is in mainstream youth culture. I believe there is something about the general style of how VK singers sing that is kind of uncomfortable and dramatic for western rock or metal fans, who otherwise like the instrumentals.

 

Of course, there's a gradient of how guilty vocalists are of this, and I think the more normal (to western ears) vocalists tend to be the bands that do better with general music, but not vk, fans. 

 

To help think about how to better communicate this, I clicked shuffle play based on the tag 'visual kei' in my library. Sure enough, a Due le Quartz song comes up, and it has

1) seductive sounding vocal fry spoken word throughout

2) sudden ultra deep voice ad libs coming from far left and right

3) falsetto ghostly vocals

4) whispers

5) gasps

6) whistles

7) occasional gag screams

 

...on top of the normal sung vocals, which have a typical vk vibrato fetish.

 

Also, I would say bad engrish vocals sound weirder than japanese lyrics to foreigners.

[nekkichi 6043]

21 minutes ago, reminiscing2004 said:

To help think about how to better communicate this, I clicked shuffle play based on the tag 'visual kei' in my library. Sure enough, a Due le Quartz song comes up

22 minutes ago, reminiscing2004 said:

and it has

1) seductive sounding vocal fry spoken word throughout

2) sudden ultra deep voice ad libs coming from far left and right

3) falsetto ghostly vocals

4) whispers

5) gasps

6) whistles

7) occasional gag screams

 

...on top of the normal sung vocals, which have a typical vk vibrato fetish.

the tea is vk gradually lost most of those over past ten years and it didn't benefit genres popularity neither domestically nor abroad, which is still a v. good point, an average vk chanteuse is really hard to ingest for someone not mentally invested in like theater or something

 

(which average metalheads probably wouldn't really obsess over?.. idk I have a very low opinion of westen rock/metal stans which keeps continuously degrading due to this boards infestations with murican dirubros.)

[nomemorial 341]

I know it's been brought up a lot already, but I think social media is probably going to be what sets the heavy-hitters apart from other bands in the scene from now on. I think it's part of the reason why gulu gulu has picked up so much steam so quickly (outside of just being really good) - they're VERY active on social media and also seem very interactive with fans. I've noticed a trend toward more activity (especially on Twitter/Insta) from a lot of smaller artists/bands, too, but it seems a bit further removed from their actual "craft" so to speak. I think there may be a bit more "hype" generated for these artists if they just get better at the social media part of the modern music "game."

[Komorebi 2193]

2 hours ago, nomemorial said:

I know it's been brought up a lot already, but I think social media is probably going to be what sets the heavy-hitters apart from other bands in the scene from now on. I think it's part of the reason why gulu gulu has picked up so much steam so quickly (outside of just being really good) - they're VERY active on social media and also seem very interactive with fans. I've noticed a trend toward more activity (especially on Twitter/Insta) from a lot of smaller artists/bands, too, but it seems a bit further removed from their actual "craft" so to speak. I think there may be a bit more "hype" generated for these artists if they just get better at the social media part of the modern music "game."

In my experience interacting with VK fans outside this forum this isn't really getting them much sales, just horny teens collecting photos who can't discuss the band's releases when you ask them to. That works well for the bands in Japan because those horny teens go to lives and spend a shit-ton on merch. Try offering merch to 'Murican teenage fans and see how many actually want/can buy.

[nomemorial 341]

58 minutes ago, Komorebi said:

In my experience interacting with VK fans outside this forum this isn't really getting them much sales, just horny teens collecting photos who can't discuss the band's releases when you ask them to. That works well for the bands in Japan because those horny teens go to lives and spend a shit-ton on merch. Try offering merch to 'Murican teenage fans and see how many actually want/can buy.

That's the thing, though - I think that a lot of visual kei fandom is rooted in buying merch/etc. when that's just not how most music fans operate these days. The problem with visual kei's accessibility doesn't begin and end with their merch-selling capabilities - it starts with getting people on board in the first place and keeping them engaged. I think a lot of that is rooted in a strong internet presence.

 

As unfortunate as it is, we're not living in the era of CD sales and purchased merchandise any more - at least outside of live shows (and even then, arguable) - and while I understand the importance of those things (trust me, I spent 10 years of my life on the road as a down-on-my-luck-broke-as-a-joke DIY musician), I think we're expecting far too much of the average consumer to conflate fandom with opening one's wallet. (again, not arguing for rightness, just reality)

 

Past that, I still find that a lot of the lack of international interest in VK is that it is classically very difficult to enter and navigate as a fandom. Not only are fans classically elitist (visual kei is one of the only fandoms I've encountered where people have actively hoarded content from their faves with the explicit purpose of keeping it from others), the artists do not follow the same sort of cues that most other bands do and they don't engage their fans in the same way, either.

 

I mean really, this conversation can extend into the realm of photo-free gigs and cheki sales - things that I absolutely understand, but are likely doing more harm than good in the long-term nowadays (an easy buck to make from the aforementioned horny fan, but something that simultaneously makes these artists feel very distant and "unattainable," which just isn't sustainable in a world where the concept of the "rockstar" has basically been deconstructed entirely.) Add that to too-expensive albums and merchandise and no matter how interested one is, it requires a lot more cash and die-hard effort to support someone you enjoy. 

 

Again, most of this is being analyzed from a strictly Western point of view, but really just trying to answer the opening question. Japan clearly functions very differently from the rest of the world when it comes to music, but VK still feels even further removed. I highly doubt we'd ever see some major international renaissance focused on kote kei groups or something - stuff like that is and always will be incredibly niche - but there are a lot of bands in the game right now that have HUGE crossover potential and if paired up with the right artists would skyrocket in popularity on an international scale.

Edited January 9, 2020 by nomemorial

[Komorebi 2193]

47 minutes ago, nomemorial said:

That's the thing, though - I think that a lot of visual kei fandom is rooted in buying merch/etc. when that's just not how most music fans operate these days. The problem with visual kei's accessibility doesn't begin and end with their merch-selling capabilities - it starts with getting people on board in the first place and keeping them engaged. I think a lot of that is rooted in a strong internet presence.

 

As unfortunate as it is, we're not living in the era of CD sales and purchased merchandise any more - at least outside of live shows (and even then, arguable) - and while I understand the importance of those things (trust me, I spent 10 years of my life on the road as a down-on-my-luck-broke-as-a-joke DIY musician), I think we're expecting far too much of the average consumer to conflate fandom with opening one's wallet. (again, not arguing for rightness, just reality)

 

Past that, I still find that a lot of the lack of international interest in VK is that it is classically very difficult to enter and navigate as a fandom. Not only are fans classically elitist (visual kei is one of the only fandoms I've encountered where people have actively hoarded content from their faves with the explicit purpose of keeping it from others), the artists do not follow the same sort of cues that most other bands do and they don't engage their fans in the same way, either.

 

I mean really, this conversation can extend into the realm of photo-free gigs and cheki sales - things that I absolutely understand, but are likely doing more harm than good in the long-term nowadays (an easy buck to make from the aforementioned horny fan, but something that simultaneously makes these artists feel very distant and "unattainable," which just isn't sustainable in a world where the concept of the "rockstar" has basically been deconstructed entirely.) Add that to too-expensive albums and merchandise and no matter how interested one is, it requires a lot more cash and die-hard effort to support someone you enjoy. 

 

Again, most of this is being analyzed from a strictly Western point of view, but really just trying to answer the opening question. Japan clearly functions very differently from the rest of the world when it comes to music, but VK still feels even further removed. I highly doubt we'd ever see some major international renaissance focused on kote kei groups or something - stuff like that is and always will be incredibly niche - but there are a lot of bands in the game right now that have HUGE crossover potential and if paired up with the right artists would skyrocket in popularity on an international scale.

As much as we would like that VK worked like western pop in terms of marketing it's never gonna work and it's pretty futile to argue over a what if. That is the reality of Japan's culture and we've seen how reluctant they are to mingle with the west, much less adopt their customs.
As an example, Dobe did it right when engaging with the fans and easily supplying their music to the international fandom and for a while everyone was super vocal about them. Then the second Suica was fired no one was hyping them anymore. Merch or no merch involved,  teens just don't get invested beyond a cute member and/or lyrics that speak about their struggles (hence why they get popular easily among menhera chicks in Japan).

As someone who has co-organized tons of fan projects that require little to no monetary effort, what I've experienced is all those social media fans who talk non-stop about X or Y bandman disappear once you ask them if they want to take 10 minutes to write a message for a fanbook they won't even have to pay for. They generally don't care for any fandom activity beyond hyping looks and that drives away newcomers interested in music.
 

Is there any way for bands to market themselves (while remaining VK) to make people interested enough? I doubt it. Even for popular artists the fans who are a little bit more invested are a lot fewer than the ones who just comment on who was on Taylor's latest videos and leave it at that. Kpop artists do thrive on sales and western ones I'm willing to bet they live off advertisement rather than their music since everyone streams it to the point where music is their platform to jump to some unrelated brand to sponsor them and actually give them cash.
 

I see your points, however I disagree with artist seeming more unattainable. They are FAR more attainable and approachable than any mainstream artist. 
 

I'll agree with you on the elitism part, but not quite regarding sharing rare material.
 

Edit: something else came to mind. Most of the world is pretty casual about listening to music and won't go out of their way to even go to a gig. What makes people care on a deeper level about it? Habit. An early exposure and thus attachment to artists. Some sort of connection and/or the music somehow filling some void (hence why people tend to get harder into bands during their 10's and 20's). I think we can all assume that the more attached we are to an artist (whatever the genre, think about beliebers and directioners) the more fucked up we are somehow. It's been widely debated in other threads the common 'fucked-up-ness' most vk listeners had when encountering it and getting themselves attached to what we all agree is mostly crap we hate to love. That might just be another barrier. The rest of the world just doesn't have that hole in their hearts (mental health) that fits VK perfectly.

Edited January 9, 2020 by Komorebi

[GreatNorthernVK 183]

1 hour ago, nomemorial said:

That's the thing, though - I think that a lot of visual kei fandom is rooted in buying merch/etc. when that's just not how most music fans operate these days. The problem with visual kei's accessibility doesn't begin and end with their merch-selling capabilities - it starts with getting people on board in the first place and keeping them engaged. I think a lot of that is rooted in a strong internet presence.

 

As unfortunate as it is, we're not living in the era of CD sales and purchased merchandise any more - at least outside of live shows (and even then, arguable) - and while I understand the importance of those things (trust me, I spent 10 years of my life on the road as a down-on-my-luck-broke-as-a-joke DIY musician), I think we're expecting far too much of the average consumer to conflate fandom with opening one's wallet. (again, not arguing for rightness, just reality)

 

Past that, I still find that a lot of the lack of international interest in VK is that it is classically very difficult to enter and navigate as a fandom. Not only are fans classically elitist (visual kei is one of the only fandoms I've encountered where people have actively hoarded content from their faves with the explicit purpose of keeping it from others), the artists do not follow the same sort of cues that most other bands do and they don't engage their fans in the same way, either.

 

I mean really, this conversation can extend into the realm of photo-free gigs and cheki sales - things that I absolutely understand, but are likely doing more harm than good in the long-term nowadays (an easy buck to make from the aforementioned horny fan, but something that simultaneously makes these artists feel very distant and "unattainable," which just isn't sustainable in a world where the concept of the "rockstar" has basically been deconstructed entirely.) Add that to too-expensive albums and merchandise and no matter how interested one is, it requires a lot more cash and die-hard effort to support someone you enjoy. 

 

Again, most of this is being analyzed from a strictly Western point of view, but really just trying to answer the opening question. Japan clearly functions very differently from the rest of the world when it comes to music, but VK still feels even further removed. I highly doubt we'd ever see some major international renaissance focused on kote kei groups or something - stuff like that is and always will be incredibly niche - but there are a lot of bands in the game right now that have HUGE crossover potential and if paired up with the right artists would skyrocket in popularity on an international scale.

This goes back to the Japanese style of fandom vs Western style of fandom. Which was one of the major barriers when bands started coming over here.

 

I read an interview at the end of 2007 with Warped/Taste of Chaos organizer Kevin Lyman, where he was explaining why he went with the Visual Kei bands for Taste of Chaos 2008. He explained that MUCC/D’espairsRay/The Underneath weren’t even his first choices, initially. He approached several other bands, and said that their management just didn’t understand why they would benefit from being invited on a 50 some stop North America tour with seven other bands.

 

To them, their fans are their fans. Not some other band’s fans. So they didn’t understand why people who wanted to see Avenged Sevenfold would ever consider listening to their band’s music, let alone paying for it. To them, playing a gig with seven other bands is what you do when no one on the bill can fill the venue by themselves.

 

So by brushing off the demographic of “people who could be interested in our music, but they aren’t devoted to us exclusively, so fuck them”, they didn’t exactly win any friends. Instead, they just made things harder for themselves by not connecting with either Western bands or even other Japanese bands. Dir en Grey seems to have been the exception, but even they’ve stopped touring with other bands for these last couple of tours.

[nomemorial 341]

1 hour ago, Komorebi said:

As much as we would like that VK worked like western pop in terms of marketing it's never gonna work and it's pretty futile to argue over a what if. That is the reality of Japan's culture and we've seen how reluctant they are to mingle with the west, much less adopt their customs.
As an example, Dobe did it right when engaging with the fans and easily supplying their music to the international fandom and for a while everyone was super vocal about them. Then the second Suica was fired no one was hyping them anymore. Merch or no merch involved,  teens just don't get invested beyond a cute member and/or lyrics that speak about their struggles (hence why they get popular easily among menhera chicks in Japan).

As someone who has co-organized tons of fan projects that require little to no monetary effort, what I've experienced is all those social media fans who talk non-stop about X or Y bandman disappear once you ask them if they want to take 10 minutes to write a message for a fanbook they won't even have to pay for. They generally don't care for any fandom activity beyond hyping looks and that drives away newcomers interested in music.
 

Is there any way for bands to market themselves (while remaining VK) to make people interested enough? I doubt it. Even for popular artists the fans who are a little bit more invested are a lot fewer than the ones who just comment on who was on Taylor's latest videos and leave it at that. Kpop artists do thrive on sales and western ones I'm willing to bet they live off advertisement rather than their music since everyone streams it to the point where music is their platform to jump to some unrelated brand to sponsor them and actually give them cash.
 

I see your points, however I disagree with artist seeming more unattainable. They are FAR more attainable and approachable than any mainstream artist. 
 

I'll agree with you on the elitism part, but not quite regarding sharing rare material.
 

Edit: something else came to mind. Most of the world is pretty casual about listening to music and won't go out of their way to even go to a gig. What makes people care on a deeper level about it? Habit. An early exposure and thus attachment to artists. Some sort of connection and/or the music somehow filling some void (hence why people tend to get harder into bands during their 10's and 20's). I think we can all assume that the more attached we are to an artist (whatever the genre, think about beliebers and directioners) the more fucked up we are somehow. It's been widely debated in other threads the common 'fucked-up-ness' most vk listeners had when encountering it and getting themselves attached to what we all agree is mostly crap we hate to love. That might just be another barrier. The rest of the world just doesn't have that hole in their hearts (mental health) that fits VK perfectly.

 

I absolutely appreciate what you're saying here, I think it just further sums up how distant VK is as a culture from most other forms of music.

 

1. Most music fans I know aren't teens (I mean, I'd hope not, I'm in my 30s...), but are people who would probably like a lot of the output of modern VK and don't give it a shot because of how daunting it is. It feels incredibly "other," even bands that fall very closely in line musically with non-VK acts (Western or otherwise - I know dozens of people into Japanese music who still won't touch VK). I've introduced tons of people to bands I think they'd objectively like from a musical standpoint but the second they look into it, they just kinda lose interest based on the density of everything.

 

2. I think the concept of fan projects, fan-books, so on and so forth are incredibly foreign ideas to most people interested in music, casual or otherwise. I respect the efforts being put into those things and very much understand their place in the world of VK, but I don't blame the casual fan for not participating - it's again just very different.

 

3. I think the biggest disconnect for me is marking K-Pop or so-called "mainstream" artists as the parallels for VK. I think most VK artists should be thought of as exactly what they are - indie rock bands. Most of them are small-time, most of them are independent or signed to niche labels, and most of them operate on a tight knit fanbase. The biggest difference from most indie VK bands and most Western indie bands is the theatrical element of it all, but even still that's kinda viewpoint dependent. Most modern emo/screamo/etc. (and even a lot of metal) is theatric in its own right, maybe just sans full costumes and production. I think if a lot of VK artists were placed in parallel with those kinds of scenes, they'd find a lot more international success, which is why we saw some more of that happening during the "scene boom" of the mid-2000s. 

 

I think when I think "unattainable" I mean that in reference to my third point - I think they seem unattainable when placed against other bands in an independent rock sense. And I mean like...really independent - not like major label artists that still get tagged "indie." I agree that they would be far more attainable than just about anyone in the mainstream.

 

I agree with most of your final point, too. The world is incredibly casual with its music habits now and every time I watch one of those silly "kids/teens react" videos online I'm reminded of the lack of enthusiasm most people have. I don't fault people for being cavalier or just listening to what is easy - that's how most of the world goes about their business and that's fine, but I do see less excitement over "rock" music (I use this term lightly) from younger crowds and it honestly feels like a lot of people consider it to be a relic of another age (which is something I'm still coming to terms with). To the opposite end, VK really connected with me as a kid because I wasn't really that into music otherwise and this was so significantly different from what I knew, so I wasn't someone who was into music and found VK - I got into VK and then found more music, so I feel like that may color my viewpoint on things a bit. 

 

All-in-all, I think a lot of my "drive" in talking about this comes from the fact that I think the musical climate on an independent scale is actually quite ripe for VK and there could be a lot of international success for these bands if they detached a bit from the classic trappings of the genre (in a marketing sense, at least). With that being said, I don't really foresee that happening so it's all really neither here nor there, I'd just love to see a few more bands break out and really "take the plunge."

[nomemorial 341]

16 minutes ago, GreatNorthernVK said:

This goes back to the Japanese style of fandom vs Western style of fandom. Which was one of the major barriers when bands started coming over here.

 

I read an interview at the end of 2007 with Warped/Taste of Chaos organizer Kevin Lyman, where he was explaining why he went with the Visual Kei bands for Taste of Chaos 2008. He explained that MUCC/D’espairsRay/The Underneath weren’t even his first choices, initially. He approached several other bands, and said that their management just didn’t understand why they would benefit from being invited on a 50 some stop North America tour with seven other bands.

 

To them, their fans are their fans. Not some other band’s fans. So they didn’t understand why people who wanted to see Avenged Sevenfold would ever consider listening to their band’s music, let alone paying for it. To them, playing a gig with seven other bands is what you do when no one on the bill can fill the venue by themselves.

 

So by brushing off the demographic of “people who could be interested in our music, but they aren’t devoted to us exclusively, so fuck them”, they didn’t exactly win any friends. Instead, they just made things harder for themselves by not connecting with either Western bands or even other Japanese bands. Dir en Grey seems to have been the exception, but even they’ve stopped touring with other bands for these last couple of tours.

 

That really speaks volumes on the whole deal. I'm very used to the concept of bands partnering with other bands (or, in some cases, just riding their coattails) to gain a following in the States, so to see just how dramatic the difference in thought is kind of amuses me - especially in a genre that, we can all probably agree, produces a lot of cookie-cutter artists at a rapid fire pace. 

[GreatNorthernVK 183]

14 minutes ago, nomemorial said:

 

That really speaks volumes on the whole deal. I'm very used to the concept of bands partnering with other bands (or, in some cases, just riding their coattails) to gain a following in the States, so to see just how dramatic the difference in thought is kind of amuses me - especially in a genre that, we can all probably agree, produces a lot of cookie-cutter artists at a rapid fire pace. 

Agreed. They could have had an important ally in someone like Kevin, but even MUCC, D’espairsRay and The Underneath’s management teams messed that up by screwing him over while he was planning the Canadian leg of that tour.

Somewhere along the line, they told him that they weren’t doing the Canadian dates, which caused him to try and scramble to salvage something to no avail. The attendance at his Canadian shows never recovered, and Taste of Chaos only lasted one more year, with record low attendance.

 

He’s invited other Japanese bands onto Warped Tour after that, but *never* another VK band.

Edited January 9, 2020 by GreatNorthernVK
Onto

[nomemorial 341]

19 minutes ago, GreatNorthernVK said:

Agreed. They could have had an important ally in someone like Kevin, but even MUCC, D’espairsRay and The Underneath’s management teams messed that up by screwing him over while he was planning the Canadian leg of that tour.

Somewhere along the line, they told him that they weren’t doing the Canadian dates, which caused him to try and scramble to salvage something to no avail. The attendance at his Canadian shows never recovered, and Taste of Chaos only lasted one more year, with record low attendance.

 

He’s invited other Japanese bands onto Warped Tour after that, but *never* another VK band.

I guess in the end Kevin Lyman kinda sucks overall, but I'll hand it to him for making a big-time push to get some VK artists over here back then. I never got to attend any of the Taste of Chaos dates, but it was cool to see those names on the roster. 

 

On an opposite note, I've never been a huge fan of ACME's music, but it's cool to see them doing a proper tour with other cool bands. They definitely seem to "get it" to some degree. Sucks what happened to their van, but I swear that seems to hit every other small touring band these days.

[Cereal Killer 13 25]

27 minutes ago, GreatNorthernVK said:

 

He’s invited other Japanese bands onto Warped Tour after that, but *never* another VK band.

Yo thanks. I had no idea about this. A lot of non vkei Japanese bands I listen to have done Warped, some more than once. They most certainly have a better approach to touring overseas. A lot of my favorites have pretty much made Europe their second home. 

[Saga 116]

2 hours ago, Komorebi said:

I'll agree with you on the elitism part, but not quite regarding sharing rare material.

 

 

We always had the jornals scanning stuff and the blogs with daily updates, but at some point there was a "trading rare lives in p2p" thing going on that sucked. Btw, glad I did not sucked any cock for these hot Matina stuff, because a lot of them are on youtube right now.

[Komorebi 2193]

2 hours ago, Saga said:

 

We always had the jornals scanning stuff and the blogs with daily updates, but at some point there was a "trading rare lives in p2p" thing going on that sucked. Btw, glad I did not sucked any cock for these hot Matina stuff, because a lot of them are on youtube right now.

I’ve seen elitism regarding clothing style and shit like that, which is far more stupid. 

[avaritonista 116]

On 1/7/2020 at 12:26 PM, MAGORiA said:

I have been thinking a lot about why the Visual Kei "trend" outside of Japan faded, just like the emo/scene kid trend did.

I was following them only because I thought they were the emo/scene kid trend. Now this. Well.

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15 hours ago, nekkichi said:

To help think about how to better communicate this, I clicked shuffle play based on the tag 'visual kei' in my library. Sure enough, a Due le Quartz song comes up

🤣😭  That sounded like the most dramatic scene of some tragic story

-

Not that visual kei isn't popular... visual-keing for making a living and just for fun isn't quite a lasting, down-to-earth thing, you know.

 

Edited January 10, 2020 by avaritonista

[nekkichi 6043]

5 hours ago, GreatNorthernVK said:

So by brushing off the demographic of “people who could be interested in our music, but they aren’t devoted to us exclusively, so fuck them”, they didn’t exactly win any friends

they didn't lose any either & wouldn't gain any new fans out of the disgusting homophobic cloaca that is american metalhead fandom;

 

like literally the point I lost interest in the western white pig music scene was when a (married het) frontman from d*goba posted a halloween pic with guyliner on his bands IG and the moment aint shit comments from north america started flowing in he deleted the picture without telling the idiots to piss off.

I don't think lycaon or whoever was relevant in 2008 VK would have gotten much paying following out of the same breed of stans - they won't even know how to crowdfund their tour van if it got broken into in tenessee.

5 hours ago, GreatNorthernVK said:

He’s invited other Japanese bands onto Warped Tour after that, but *never* another VK band.

boo hoo bruised ego twat

[GreatNorthernVK 183]

30 minutes ago, nekkichi said:

they didn't lose any either & wouldn't gain any new fans out of the disgusting homophobic cloaca that is american metalhead fandom;

 

like literally the point I lost interest in the western white pig music scene was when a (married het) frontman from d*goba posted a halloween pic with guyliner on his bands IG and the moment aint shit comments from north america started flowing in he deleted the picture without telling the idiots to piss off.

I don't think lycaon or whoever was relevant in 2008 VK would have gotten much paying following out of the same breed of stans - they won't even know how to crowdfund their tour van if it got broken into in tenessee.

 

That might apply if they were trying for the bro-metal scene.

 

Post-hardcore/metal-core was a different beast entirely.