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!

Disturbing Trends

You always know that when a band member gets cornrows, things are going to go downhill fast, if they haven't begun to already. Lunasea is a great example, Sugizo gets cornrows, Shinya gets fat, and J starts thinking he's some kind of American rock star. Apparently Inoran and Ryuichi just went crazy.. in fact I think that Sugizo's cornrows may be responsible for all of them going insane.

Other bands have met the same fate, Dir en grey got lame after one of the guitarrists (I dont remember which at the moment) grew cornrows. Hyde from L'arc~en~ciel had them too and look at his solo work (ick D:). Zero from D'espairsRay had cornrows too but D'espairsRay actually got better.. Well there's not any kind of law here or anything, more like a barely noticable trend, but I really don't like cornrows. ESPECIALLY on Japanese people.

So I really dont like Dir en grey's new music or their new image, as Jrock/Visual Kei is a very broad "uber-genre" which doesnt have a specific sound, why would you drop your visual act? It is one of the main reasons people enjoy these bands so much. If you dont have good music at least look cool, but dropping the visual act AND becomming lame just sucks.

Into the dark.

Today I was thinking about the future of Japanese Rock and the bands that currently exist, are forming and whats happening there.. I suppose this fits into the category of predictions and magical monkfish insight.

We all know that the average life span of a Japanese Rock band is like 3 years.. Which is probably 1-2 albums and a few singles. I would assume that the reason for such an ephemeral existence is pride. Japanese people have lots of pride and definitely will never intentionally lose face.. so the result is that when an arguement happens internally in a band, rather than come to a conclusion and work together, people will leave and as my friend pointed out, musicians in the Japanese rock world don't really like talking about past projects. So we never really find out why these things happen.

Anyway here's my insight for the day:

MUCC is going to keep expanding and putting out whatever they feel like, until someone decides to grow cornrows, and MUCC disbands.

Gilgamesh is going to get a bit more popular, but never become HUGE.

D'espairsRay is going to start playing many shows overseas, get steadily more popular, but never break out of the indie scene. I also see the future music being excellent :D

Sadie is going to get a lot more popular, but put out not as good music, and lose steam. (they are putting out a new mini album in July too)

Dio is pretty interesting, I can't really tell whats going to happen there.. but I don't see them sticking around for too long.

The Studs are going to be a huge hit, even though their music isn't going to be amazing (Sorry Daisuke D:)

D (I have to say I've been really enjoying D recently) I don't see them as horribly ambitious but I think they will continue putting out amazing music and making me happy :D

UnsraW can go in one of two directions, either going back to their earlier musical style and kicking ass, possibly becomming hueg in the indie scene, or they will continue with the style of their last album and fall on their faces.

And last but not least I don't see much of a future for Dir en grey. Mostly because after Withering to Death, which I liked mostly because I was in Japan and seeing their live when it came out, they are trying to become an American sounding band. Unless they can put out original delicious stuff with the creativity of their old music, its over. (they will struggle, still being successful but musically laem, until the band members realize whats happening and leave.)

I see a rising star, for definitely Syu of Aushvitz, Galneryus and Animetal is going to join or start some kind of super band and become legendary. At least if he leaves the indie world he will.. and I'm all for it, I want to see this guy succeed.