Into the haystack

Japanese rock music is a massive genre. The best way to describe how giant it is would be with scientific classification, I'll actually try to do that..

Kingdom:	Audio
Phylum:	Music
Class:	Japanese
Order:	Rock
Family:	Visual Kei
Genus:	Nagoya Kei
Species:	Lynch.

That's about how complex it is, there are so many subtypes of Japanese music (music in general even) that it could easily make one's head explode. Now I don't presume to know all of them or all of the bands, and this is really my point.

I basically cut ties with music from all other countries, save for very select bands/songs, because it was just way too much to keep track of. I hope at some point to be one of the most knowledgeable people when it comes to Japanese rock, but there are so many bands that intersect with the Rock (order) lol.

Now I started out listening to bands from Visual Kei; Glay, L'arc~en~Ciel, X-Japan, Malice Mizer.. even in that small selection there is a huge amount of explanation required to understand the structure of visual kei. For example all 4 bands started out as visual kei, however X-Japan is also a heavy metal band and Malice Mizer is kind of gothic.. Both Glay and L'arc~en~Ciel have become pop/rock and have lost the Visual kei aspect to their music, but L'arc~en~Ciel when they were a relatively new band started a trend of dressing in white and coining the term "shiro-kei" which bands still use today. On a completely different note, there are many bands that can just be considered Japanese rock without being Visual Kei or being associated with it, Mr. Children and B'z are two that come to mind immediately. Although I'm not sure when they became active.

Honestly I can't listen to every new band that comes out, I just don't care enough and most of it is pretty terrible. But I do follow the trends and pay attention to bands that become major in the rock scene. For the most part I follow specific bands, bands that those bands play with and bands made of former members from bands I enjoyed, that has been the best way for me to find more music that I enjoy.

Anyway, I'd really like to discuss more of this and upload some new music for you guys at a later time. Again, I'll apologize for not updating regularly, I just haven't cared much about the stuff that's been released recently ;p

Talk to you soon internets, keep reading.

Moonies and the moon.

Why hello there my internet neighbors, it's been a while. A few things have happened since the last time I posted here and I will get to all of them in good time. First order of business.. After great deliberation and concentration, I have decided that my favorite band is now Coaltar of the Deepers. MUCC was #1 for as long as I can remember, but they have been putting out music that doesn't mesh well with my tastes (for the past 5 years or so) and have lost the top spot.

So far 2010 has had many Japanese releases.. few of which I feel have been notable. As of right now 9Goats Black Out are on indefinite hiatus, somehow Cali=Gari who revived for (a supposedly short time) is still together and we don't really know what's happening there. Cali=Gari released "≠" which is actually the symbol in their name but rotated 90 degrees. *I'm just too lazy to find that symbol each time I write their name. 9Goats Black Out released their actual first full length album, which I don't like very much.. UnsraW released a mini album called "GUILTY" which is actually really good. There was some other release that underwhelmed me so much that I can't even think of it now.. But the true heroes of 2010 so far have been Munimuni, with their first full album release Magical Moonies.

Completely out of left field Magical Moonies delighted the shit out of me, it's 11 songs, maybe about half of them are re-recordings of their older songs and there might be 1 or 2 songs on the album that are difficult for me to listen to, but overall it's a SUPER solid album that I wasn't expecting to make such an impression on me.

Munimuni is an Angura-kei band, self described as "Sadistical Punk" and I saw someone recently refer to them as "a dirty mix between Lunasea and the Cure" which I think is a fair way to put it. It makes me think of a band full of bat-shit insane people who are extremely musically talented. In fact, it's quite difficult for me to describe their music in any kind of coherent way.. I think you just need to listen to it.

I apologize for not posting much recently, but soon I will get back into the swing of things, and with a new trip to the land of the rising sun on the horizon, I will have some great stories for you, but until then I will continue being extremely lazy.

No song of the day today, I guess you could call Munimuni the band of the day.. but I will have more to say next time we speak, adieu intarwebs~