Kagerou

LOL, gotta love that picture.. XD. The word Kagerou, which means 'Mayfly' or what I assume literally translates to something like 'shadow fly' is severely overused in Japanese music. This article is mainly concerning the visual band actually called Kagerou, but when I type the word Kagerou into my iTunes search, a vast ocean of different songs/bands comes up including, but not limited to: Kiyoharu (of Sads and Kuroyume), Laputa, Buck-Tick and T.M. Revolution.. I suppose the ephemeral notion of a mayfly is a very Jrock thing.

Kagerou the band, is a strange topic for me, mainly because I have mixed feelings about them.. Kagerou formed in 1999 by the vocalist Daisuki and the bassist MASAYA, shortly thereafter they would be joined by guitarist Yuana. At the beginning their music was a slightly dirtier sounding version of the popular (dir en grey-ish) visual kei sound at the time, and progressed into something that was fairly unique, heavy and a little jazzy. During their lifespan Kagerou put out a total of 4 studio albums and one best of album and a bunch of singles and maxi singles.. Kagerou ended up disbanding in 2006. [as an aside, I would like to mention that when I met MUCC's vocalist at the Ebisu Liquidroom in 2005, he was with Daisuki]

Now this is where I become conflicted. I can't honestly say that I can sit down and listen to an entire Kagerou album (with perhaps the exception of Gore Shock). However! There are a number of Kagerou songs which I like the hell out of. Something from a single here and an album there, this small pocket of songs, I absolutely adore, like holy crap. I don't know what it is, but a few other bands have a similar trend.. which is, most of the songs are passable, but the songs I like, I REALLY like.

The aftermath of Kagerou is interesting to me, because it meshes with some of my favorite Japanese musicians. After they disbanded, Yuana was part of the formation of boogieman and Daisuki formed a band with some Nagoya band musicians called The Studs. Now there's something to talk about! Musicians from some of my favorite bands, Deadman, Gullet,Blast, and Lynch. The composer of the Studs is Yukino, who is one of my favorite bassists and a fantastic composer, he's worked with Lynch, Deadman, Gullet and (oldschool kein). The drummer from Blast, who I think actually left the band recently, the guitarist from Deadman, and of course the vocalist of Kagerou make up the Studs. (I will do a seperate entry on Nagoya bands in the near future!)

Todays BAND OF THE DAY! is Kagerou, with their song Shibire Gokoro from the 2004 album Rakushu. Here's to a really cracked out, unique and pretty brutal Japanese metal band. Definitely some of the strangest characters I've seen in Jrawk. Hope you all enjoy~

Oldskool

So, tonight I wanted to talk a little bit about Lunasea. Most likely if you are familiar with Japanese music, you are also familiar with Lunasea, they formed in 1989 and kept the same members the entire life of the band, up til they disbanded in 2000. Thats a pretty good run for a Japanese band. Their name is a take off of the word Lunacy, which was what the band was originally called.

In the beginning... Lunasea was scouted by "hide" Hideto Matsumoto of X-JAPAN and signed to their Extasy records. Pretty much everything that LunaSea put out, is important in the history of Japanese rock. I'm pretty sure that Lunasea is one of the most influential Japanese bands ever, next to X-Japan and Dead End.

LunaSea was one of my first Japanese bands actually, I really liked Rosier, Gravity and 1999.. I think those were my first songs. This was also at a time where it was difficult to find full albums as we were using Napster or WinMX so I managed to scrounge up songs here and there. In any case, I really enjoyed their music when I was younger.. now when I listen to it, there is a strange phenomena that occurs: I notice that other bands since have copied sounds from many LunaSea songs! I'm sure it's more of a tribute thing than a failing at being original, but I found it really interesting that I notice it now. I guess my point is that LunaSea was/is HUGELY influential in Visual Kei. ;D

Anyhow, LunaSea was active for a pretty long time, put out seven albums and a bunch of singles, pretty much all of it being good in my oppinion. These days the members of LunaSea are, for the most part still very active. J, the Bassist has his own solo career, just as "J" and has put out a bunch of music. Ryuichi the vocalist has since been in a band called Tourbillon, and puts out solo music. Lead guitarrist Sugizo, who is probably the most active, playing now with Sugizo and the Spank Your Juice (lol), A member in super group S.K.I.N. with Yoshiki, Gackt, Miyavi and Ju-Ken(support), and I believe was recently made an official member of X-JAPAN replacing the deceased hide. Inoran, the rythm guitarrist was also in Tourbillon and a member of Fake? for a while, but also has a solo career (I actually like his solo work). Finally, the Drummer of LunaSea Shinya, was also in a band called Potbelly, which I don't know very well, but I believe Shinya also played support drums for a number of high profile bands, (possibly including Creature Creature?). A note about Shinya is that, the drummer of Dir en Grey, also called Shinya, took his name and his drum style directly from LunaSea's Shinya. This may be of interest as Dir en Grey is hugely popular now.

LunaSea has recently played a few revival shows and at the hide memorial summit, this activity may lead to the band actually reforming! I don't know, but there are a lot of bands doing this recently. Honestly I hope they do, it would be cool to see something new from LunaSea.

Today's BAND OF THE DAY! is... well, Lunasea.. With their song Symptom from 1992 album 'Image', this song is one of the main reasons I think Lunasea is so influential. You can really hear all kinds of visual kei that sounds very similar to this song.

Hope you all enjoy~ TTYLD00D!