holding on for that Hizaki Grace Project album…
Me: ugh cheki is the ugliest way to earn money
Also me: spent the last money on cheki yesterday
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Mmmmmm, i took the time to listen to Koichis anthem track and hoo boy, i should’ve just stuck to reading the lyrics.
I picked up a guitar building course at a local adult education center and it’s about halfway through. Originally I wanted to make a classical guitar because I figured it’d be easy enough to learn (I can’t actually play lmao and I don’t have an amp or anything, I just wanted to try building a guitar) but the teacher/instructor said that an electric guitar is easier to make and that he recommends that as a first build. Sure, I’m fine with that, but ever since I realized I could basically use spray and acrylic paints to paint it however I wanted I’ve become somewhat overwhelmed and now I have no idea what I want to do with it. Paintjob, pegs, pickups, everything that somehow effects the overall look of the final guitar. I got nothing. I don’t really want to do a regular sunburst or stain and would love to paint something on it but I’m feeling uninspired.
The funny thing is that I have barely started and these things are in no way relevant to the current state of the build. I’m not even going to finish the guitar during this course (there’s probably going to be another one held in spring so I’ll aim for that one instead) but I’m gonna have to start buying parts sooner or later and I’m afraid I’m going to still be feeling really indecisive when that time comes…
Apparently DÄLLE isn’t dead and Daichi (ex.NOCTURNAL BLOODLUST) is their support guitarist and already put out a new single.
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I am wondering if I am the only one but for people who have gotten into Japanese music (JRock whether VK or not) do you find that International fans are not as supportive as Japanese fans? At times it becomes hard to be aware that one half of the fanbase isn’t more vocal or making much of a buzz to make your favorite Japanese music artist more well-known. And yeah, I think especially with Japanese music artists who go underneath the radar it is important we make a buzz about them. Word of mouth helps a lot.
Given this every day that passes I feel more and more like only interacting with Japanese fans of my favorite Japanese rockstar. Otherwise I feel like I am wasting my time.
If you have had this experience what do you do to cope with it or what can be done? I doubt people are going to change which means I am going to have to distance myself.
I’m getting a (pretty big) package delievered today and I’m supposed to clean my apartment at least a little bit to make room for it but instead I’m sitting in bed in my underwear doing anything but. Send help.
are we?
I think we have maybe more fans that dont concentrate on only one artist and have bigger and more mixed taste.
And sure there are fans whose taste changes. if you had meet me 5 years ago i was far more into Jpop than what i am now.
I don’t mean you guys here at the JRock forum, Rena. I am talking about outside of the forum.
Like even if people do not talk about TK that is fine (you’ll never make me stop loving him!) but if other people would talk about Japanese music acts that would be fine. I don’t exactly see them making a buzz about Japanese music.
Also, TK’s music is not Jpop it would actually be better to say it is genre transcending (genre-blended). The band is a separate thing, Japanese Progressive Rock.
It can’t be denied that a lot of Japanese music acts are basically snubbed. If they were Anglo they would get a lot more attention. I know this guy from Colorado a huge Rock fan whose son introduced him to JRock and we both agreed if there is a great Japanese Rock band that if they were Anglo they would have already gotten a lot more attention.
That is why it is up to International fans to talk them up and down. Even on social media so people can’t ignore them.
It can be any act People in the Box, Buck-Tick, or whoever. But it is up to us. Fans being quiet about Japanese music does a huge disservice to these music artists.
They don’t have to do that for showing love to the artist. Imo noisy gaijin fans are annoying.
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It would be great to see bands like Ling Tosite Sigure getting international attention on a major scale, as they’re one of my favorite bands. Unfortunately, as big as they’ve become in Japan and as influential as they’ve been in the J-rock world, you barely see people on this very forum (a community literally dedicated to Jrock) discussing the band.
I scarcely see much discourse about bands outside of VK these days, and I’m not sure why.
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My unprompted two cents is to learn to play the guitar first. What it looks like becomes irrelevant once you start playing, and your first guitar is always a starter guitar. The third guitar I bought I bought because of aesthetics, so worry about looks later.
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I have a lot to say on this as someone from the outside looking in, but I’m hoping that @CAT5 will correct any misunderstandings I have.
One of the biggest ironies I have as a visual kei fan is that I got into Japanese music because of anime openings and endings! Aikawa Nanase, The Pillows, BUZZLIP, even later on with Nightmare and Maximum the Hormone, these Japanese bands were my very first exposure to the scene. I only really got into Japanese music because someone else at my school was also listening to Miyavi and Dir en grey and showed me another path in, which eventually ended up with me landing here.
So the first problem I want to highlight is one that has nothing to do with fans: the major Japanese record companies make enough profit catering to the local market, and a lot have determined the juice is not worth the squeeze. It’s the second largest music market in the world, and it’s the way it’s structured that leads to this inertia. Over 90% of all live and recording revenues come from domestic acts, while publishing is considered the most foreigner-friendly part of the industry with 20-25% of revenues generated by international artists. Before COVID hit, live shows were increasing at a rapid pace, the majority of recording revenues in Japan are still generated by the physical format sales (with streaming accounting for less than 10% of the music sales; in comparison the global music market is ~50% digital), and with the publishing industry - historically the most stable - raking in revenue from broadcasting, karaoke performance rights and advertisement content synchronization. We just don’t fit into this equation.
At some point, one has to wonder why the rest of the world’s music industries have moved through a digital transformation while Japan seems to be stuck in a transitory phase. I cannot comprehend the lack of availability of music on Spotify in 2022 - drop the visual kei pretense for a second and check out the Billboard Japan Hot 100, and then see how many of those can be streamed region-free on Spotify - and this is coming from someone who doesn’t even like streaming services. This seems like a Catch 22 where record companies won’t put their catalog up because they can’t get anyone to use these services, but no one uses the services because there’s nothing to listen to! So if these are problems localized to Japan, how are foreigners like us supposed to break into the scene?
I feel like the phrase “International fans are not as supportive as Japanese fans” is secretly loaded. How are we supposed to support a scene that actively repulses newcomers and outsiders? Half the reason why I ended up in visual kei is because the online sphere is my only connection to this scene and to others who like Japanese music, and the indie scene was impenetrable. If you didn’t know someone or have something rare to penetrate into the deeper trading circles, there were artists that you were never going to hear about, much less get the chance to listen to. You can’t support artists that you don’t know exist!
And that transitions into my second point, which I will keep brief. Despite all the roadblocks to enjoying Japanese music, visual kei lingers in a place of indifference. While most bands don’t XodiacK their way into the international consciousness, most bands either don’t care or seem pleasantly surprised that people outside of Japan know they exist. That’s different from the conscious decisions made by some artists and some companies to keep their music purposefully obscure for the purposes of stoking the fires of mysticism. The fans did the rest, and created a space online for all people to gather.
I…can’t really say that about the indie scene. Like I said, it’s impenetrable. This should be flipped, no? Visual kei should be the obscure shock rock no one knows about. There should have been a direct pipeline from anime openings to TK, LiSA, Ayu, Tokyo Jihen and LOSTAGE. One does not exist because - and this may be me getting a little extreme here - the fans that comprised the international online scene in the 00’s took exclusivity to a new level. The availability of the music was just not there. The news was not there. The community was not there. People were too worried about what they could get for what they have instead of communing over the music they all enjoy. As a result, they did not groom the next generation of fans to pick up the torch. They aged out.
So take it back to 2003. I hit up Limewire and Kazaa for BUZZLIP and I got nothing. I search for Nanase and I get three tracks. Ayu gets me four. I search Dir en grey and I get 20 hits in return. Which way do you think I’m gonna go?
So @TheHugeAnimeFan, I really feel for you. You’re raging against almost a decade of inertia. There’s no possible way you can win, because your enemy is in the past. @CAT5 and I tried to raise awareness of other spheres of J-Music years ago with “The Non-VK Recommendation Thread” and I pumped out over 100 reviews later on. The best you can do is participate in Trade-Offs and slide in the music you love in unexpected places. Seeds take time to grow and right now non-visual fans have to nurture their garden.
And I say this as someone who bought “blue voice” by tsubaki-VOICE last week because finding that album is otherwise impossible and it’s the continuation of one of my favorite bands of all time (IYKYK) and literally one person on soulseek listens to him other than me. I’m still digging into a scene that actively refuses to let me engage thirteen years later. Just keep trying and don’t give up.
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actually now that i think about it, Western buzz might be the only thing that’ll make Yoshiki drop the X album
y’all know what to do
I wonder what happened to Roku (vocalist for Gravity) jaw. He has a slanted jaw or a deformed jaw and his nose looks kinda broken at the tip which might just be the way it is. I just wonder about it when I see him.
NHK put out this article about the measures live houses are doing to protect people from covid at 100% capacity, and some are ridiculous.
- The audience can only speak at conversational levels.
- You can only sing along for 25% of a song.
- No getting the crowd to shout.
- No loud BGM which will make the crowd speak louder.
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You wrote a whole fucking essay Zeus
And a good one at that.
@TheHugeAnimeFan I dont know what your scale is for “making a buzz”
When i look at spotify TK has 1.695.836 montly listeners. Meanwhile Ling toiste sigure has 178.009 montly listeners. (That huge difference i guess is accounted as the curse of anime openings.)
Making a “real buzz” for a bands or artists on that scale is gonna be difficult.
Zeus said writing reviews and participating in trade offs is a good choice and i do agree but one thing i also noticed is, Kids these days read less and less, they prefer easy entertainment aka youtube or tiktok.
Sure you can try and get some famous youtuber react to your bands, some youtuber react to stuff sended by everyone and here goes usually the part of first come, first serve. Others reduce it to patreon members, so you have to pay.
Other option is, make your own youtube channel, maybe you can get that buzz and the fans you want to meet.
And that is how you give up and wont get more people into the band you love.
Look at me, the japanese metalcore scene is too small to have an actual fandom. So what do i do? Well i cruise around the VK scene and international metalcore scene and blurt the bands out i like. Some like it, some not. 
But i promise you, almost no one on JRO would know who Sailing Before the Wind and some other core bands were, if it wouldnt have been for me not shutting my mouth.
Its embarrassing on times, and i am sure some people must have rolled their eyes at me and have been annoyed, but hey i am sure there are worse fans.
Me, with the japanese Metalcore scene
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@Rena Well actually I have seen TK’s numbers on Spotify it is what I suspected as all these years. I am not going to bother with TK’s band.
His solo has more potential to reach more people because as it is a genre-crossover type of music it is more accessible. I had expected as much years ago. People talk about TK but don’t really mention his band.
I am of the mind in fact anime helps these music artists but they still need more.
And yes, I am aware the kids these days do not like to read much. So I was thinking of paying smaller to mid-size Youtubers who take requests to cover TK’s solo music by reacting to it.
So thanks for confirming that idea for me. I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea. I just hope if I do that these Youtubers accept my request to take a look at TK’s work. I have never done this before so I don’t know how it works.
And yes, like @zeus said I won’t give up that is a given. I can’t that would mean I give up on Toru-san and I refuse to do that to him. I respect him and his art too much.
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some of these bands that get hyped by snobs sound normal AF
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