Hotei and the Wanderers Funky Punky Tour 2007-2008

The DVD is from the January 27, 2008 concert at Kawaguchi Lillia. I preordered this and watched it in early May and at least once since (was watching random songs, and eventually sat down and watched the whole thing). It’s been sitting as a draft since then because I wanted to do a full report with screencaps, but couldn’t get motivated for that; I may eventually do a longer review (track by track, with pictures), but this will just be an overall impression.

I liked this well enough, though I kind of regret paying full price for it; I don’t think it’s worth that much, and it’s already showing up for close to half price on ebay. I don’t like the front cover; he looks a bit smug; the back cover has individual member pictures along with the details. The DVD came with an eight-page booklet; the covers had a picture of the group on one side and the member names on the other, and there were two-page spreads of several pictures, a group shot and the track list, and an overhead shot and the credits. The extras included member interviews and a slideshow, which was all Hotei.

The performance itself sounded decent; I didn’t notice anything off musically (which means nothing, really, since I wouldn’t notice unless it was very bad); Hotei’s voice was a little off in a couple of places, but was fine otherwise, and there were a couple of instances of slightly off-key backing vocals. Any MCs were not included, though there was a long band introduction sequence. Many of the songs were rearranged to include solos from the various members. The energy level was decent (nobody looked bored, at least); the main part didn’t show much of the audience, but they were shown more in the encore and did seem to be enjoying themselves.

The stage was fairly small, with two levels: Ju-ken (bass) — Hotei (vocal/guitar) — Takuya (guitar) in the front and Steve Eto (percussion) — Tatsuya Nakamura (drums) — Ken Morioka (keyboards) on the higher level in the back. For the acoustic parts, most of the members came down to the front of the stage.

The band, normally

One variation of the stage during the acoustic songs

The camera annoyed me to no end; the main concert had too many artsy camera angles and effects (random body parts (not the parts playing instruments), focus on the person behind with a blurry part of a person in front, too much love for the overhead camera; I spent too much time trying to figure out what various pieces of equipment were and why Ju-ken seemed to have a black on white setlist while everyone else had green on black). The encore was more straightforward. I have a general issue with concert DVDs and solos; I would like to see the soloist, and they weren’t always shown.

This concert was billed as “Hotei and the Wanderers”; I (correctly) expected Hotei to get the majority of the screen time, but expected the others to be shown more-or-less equally. My biases may be influencing my perceptions of camera time per member, so this might not actually mean much; I am not anal-retentive enough to go back through and time the amount each member had on-camera. I was satisfied with the amount of Ju-ken (though more is always better) and Ken Morioka (though that may be because I don’t find keyboard players that interesting visually; a fan of his might have a different opinion), but was not satisfied with the rest. I was surprised that Takuya wasn’t on screen more. Steve Eto was not shown much, which was a severe disappointment; I wasn’t familiar with him, but I like watching percussionists in general and was looking forward to there being one.

Tatsuya Nakamura seemed to have his own camera, which was surprising; it seems that in general drummers are either ignored because they are just the drummer or have an abundance of camera time because they are stationary, but this also had two other members who were mostly stationary and on either side of him who didn’t have the time on camera he did. This was extremely obvious in the two songs that were performed with a three-piece band, and especially in the one where they were all in the front; the camera time was mostly split between Hotei and Nakamura. I didn’t mind watching him; he was enthusiastic and interesting to watch (and I have fallen in love with Losalios, and never would have heard them without this), but wish his time hadn’t been at the expense of others. One thing I did notice was that most of Nakamura’s screen time came from the camera on Morioka’s side; I don’t know if there was a technical reason for that, but it might also explain the lack of Steve Eto; it also seemed that the camera on Ju-ken was mostly from that side as well (when not from the front or overhead). It doesn’t explain why the camera seemed to be on Nakamura more than Morioka, though.

Members (profiles on Hotei’s site):

Tomoyasu Hotei (布袋寅泰) — vocal and guitar
Tatsuya Nakamura (中村達也) — drums
Ju-ken — bass (new site)
Ken Morioka (森岡 賢) — keyboards
Steve Eto — percussion
Takuya — guitar

Everyone except Tatsuya Nakamura provided backing vocals; Morioka had the falsetto-ish backing vocals; Eto had the bass-ish ones (surprisingly; his speaking voice wasn’t that low).

Ju-ken, fall and winter, 2008

I’ve been keeping up with the 2008 activities of the Japanese bassist Ju-ken (just finished touring with VAMPS and occasionally playing with Anna Tsuchiya, will be in Gackt’s upcoming tour, has toured with Tomoyasu Hotei for the last few years, and occasionally performs with a variety of other artists); that post is getting large, so I’m giving the upcoming information (mid-November onwards) its own post, but anything in here will also be there. There’s some information about the bands he’s actually a member of (Hellmetz, Quintillion Quiz) and some other general information in that post as well. There’s not a lot of upcoming events beyond Gackt’s tour.

Releases:

• as a member:
• Quintillion Quiz: their second single was sold at their August 12 show and is being sold via mail order; the disc itself has a picture from Ju-ken’s birthday, but no song titles have been mentioned.
• as support:
• probably on some part of Anna Tsuchiya’s album Nudy Show (CD and CD+DVD), released 2008.10.29; few songs had performance credits. The band composed and arranged and were credited with performing “Blood on Blood”, though. The DVD had PVs and some backstage clips; he was in some of those.
• in part of Gackt’s 「nine＊nine」 set (2008.10.29, live CDs from all concerts + an extra DVD + mini tour pamphlets)
• in the PV for Gackt’s “Jesus”, but didn’t record on the single (CD+DVD is Dears-only; regular version available 2008.12.03)
• in the VAMPS live DVD to be released in February

TV:

• Nov 1, CDTV with Masaharu Fukuyama
• Nov 14, Music Station with Anna Tsuchiya (also with Jun-ji on drums; Muta had a conflict)
• Nov 21, Music Station with Gackt
• Nov 29, Music Fair with Gackt
• Dec 4, Music Japan with Gackt
• Dec 19, Music Fighter with Gackt

Live:

• Gackt, December – April 2009, “Requiem et Reminiscence II ～再生と邂逅～” (dates and information)
• Anna Tsuchiya, Dec 31 at Shibuya DUO Music Exchange
• Several dates with Quintillion Quiz in January and February (details; generally they update the original post instead of making new ones): January 7 at Omotesando FAB: 【TRANSMISSION ‘09】 QUINTILLION QUIZ/Obiwans/JOVO; January 14 at Meguro Live Station with 遠藤一馬 (Kazuma Endo) and KING; Jan 20 at Takadanobaba Club Phase: マンスリー企画 BULL ZEICHEN 88 Presents [BULL ZEICHEN QQ] (sold out!) ; Jan 28 at Nagoya ell.SIZE: QUINTILLION QUIZ/INSIDE TOWN MONKEYS/The stAnd/他; Feb 8 in Osaka: 霊-kotodama- 4manLIVE!! w：LUTE・LOSTONE・nex-tage; Feb 11 in Tokyo (tba); and Feb 21 “主催イベント！Welcome to the FUCKIN’QUIZ　VOL.６!!!QQ１周年PARTY！!” (one-year anniversary party)

Other:

• new goods: a new T-shirt (commemorating Gackt’s tour) and a new set (“あなたの日常のお側セット” — hand towels, coaster, mousepad, pen, pencil) (the set is sold out); selling via mailorder and on Gackt’s tour; information and pictures are on the main page of his site
• jewelry with CRAFT: a ring (“friend of the eternity”), a pendant (“guardian of the eternity”), and a chain (“bond of the eternity”); the pendant and chain are both listed under necklaces (site is flash, so no direct links). These are the items he was referring to in an earlier blog entry
• was in the October 2008 issue of Bass Magazine (on sale Sept 19); the article is about the relationship between singers and their bassists, and includes five bassists, two with singers (including Ju-ken and Anna Tsuchiya). The cover itself is Robert Trujillo of Metallica, but there is a small picture on the cover for this article of Ju-ken x Anna.
• was interviewed in Monthly VAMPS #3; will probably be in any recording/live/backstage reports in future volumes (was definitely in #2, #3, #4, #5)

Tomoyasu Hotei – All Time Super Best Tour

The “All Time Super Best Tour” was a celebration of Hotei’s 25 years as a musician; the track list (at the end) has songs from BOØWY and COMPLEX as well as his solo career (including two previously-recorded covers). This is the tour final 2006.06.03 at Saitama Super Arena; the DVD was released 2006.06.28. It is a two-DVD set; the concert is on disc one and is two hours, the encore is disc two and is another hour. It came in a cardboard sleeve with a 24-page photobook (mostly Hotei, but a couple of pages of the band members) and an insert with credits and lyrics to the songs performed in the main concert (but not the encore) on one side and a picture on the other. It was directed by Hiroyuki Nakano (any number of music videos, including several of Hotei’s, and a few films, including Samurai Fiction, starring Hotei). I have to assume that what’s on the DVD is very close to what the audience saw; there were only three weeks between the concert and the DVD release.

I really enjoyed this; I love shows where everyone looks like they are exactly where they want to be. Hotei himself, the band, the crowd all looked thrilled to be there; there were several songs with crowd-provided backing vocals and occasionally main vocals. I like Hotei’s music well enough (though his voice is an acquired taste) and a lot of it is very upbeat (sounding, at least; I have no idea about the lyrics) which lends itself well to a very high-energy show. The lighting was good, and there were a minimum of random body part shots (the occasional dramatic hand did show up occasionally); one of the cameras was (deliberately) shaky, but other than that, I had no complaints. This was really just five guys on stage playing; the stage itself was fairly basic and there were no effects besides lights. I was pleasantly surprised by how much screen time the band got and was very surprised that the other guitarist had multiple solos; I’ve seen concerts of full bands with less even coverage of band members.

The first several songs were all upbeat (or at least fast-paced). The keyboard player had a moment in the spotlight at the beginning of “Devil’s Sugar”, and “Battle Without Honor or Humanity” was one long solo with both the bassist and other guitarist having brief solos. After that was an MC and then two acoustic songs (everyone seated). The next couple of songs after that were slow songs; on one of them, Hotei didn’t even have a guitar, and let the other guitarist have the spotlight for a full solo (he had a few short ones in other places, but this was the real thing). It was kind of disconcerting; Hotei had no guitar, it cut to a closeup of the other guitarist’s hands, and then when it cut back to Hotei, he had a guitar (though watching it more closely, it faded out on him walking back to get it), and Hotei had a solo at the end. For the acoustic and slow songs, the focus was on Hotei almost exclusively, with an occasional shot of other guitarist and a few of the drummer.

There was an intermission after the slow songs; there were varying degrees of costume changes: full outfit for Hotei and minor changes for the band. The songs after the intermission were the more upbeat sort; the crowd was on its feet and moving for this part, singing the first half of “Dreaming” and all of the choruses. There was a short drum solo during “Dancing with the Moonlight”, but the camera was mostly on Hotei for it (that’s one of my biggest general concert video peeves: if there are solos, focus should be on the soloist.) “Velvet Kiss” (the last song for this part) was a slower-tempo instrumental (one long solo, slower only in comparison to the previous songs).

In the encore, there was a short MC and band introduction at the beginning and a few backstage clips at the end; they leave the stage and return twice before the end. The band are all in tour shirts; Hotei starts off in a different shirt, but changes into a tour shirt eventually (he changes both times they leave the stage). These were all fast-tempo songs, with the crowd on its feet and singing along for a large part of it. There was a bass intro to “Poison” and the other guitarist had a short solo there; he called them both by name. By the end, everyone looks tired but still happy to be there, and the crowd is really into it as well. Hotei himself is practically glowing, and everyone is very emotional at the end.

I thoroughly enjoyed this, though I did have a few minor annoyances. Hotei’s dress sense is interesting (sparkly! purple boots! animal prints! need screencaps!) and his stage mannerisms occasionally bother me. A few of the songs dragged a little. I’m not sure how much guitar-playing Hotei was doing while singing; he had a guitar most of the time, sometimes was probably playing, sometimes was going through the motions, sometimes not even trying. The “going through the motions” is the sort of thing that’s more obvious on a DVD and I kind of wish I hadn’t noticed it here; I started paying too much attention to his hands trying to decide whether or not he was actually playing. I don’t really care whether he was playing or not; he was obviously playing the solos, and the other parts were being played by someone on the stage.

The musicians:

VOCAL&GUITAR : 布袋寅泰 — Tomoyasu Hotei
GUITAR : 大西克巳 — Katsumi Onishi (profile, can’t find a personal site)
BASS : Ju-ken (new site)
DRUMS : 酒井愁 — Shue Sakai
KEYBOARD : 岸利至 –　Toshiyuki Kishi (aka tko)

Backing vocals were provided by Toshiyuki Kishi (anything that needed harmony), Katsumi Onishi, Ju-ken, and the crowd.

Katsumi Onishi records and tours with various people, but also works for a part of Avex Trax as a composer and arranger (the source of the profile). Ju-ken and Shue have been in various bands but mostly support others (occasionally together). Toshiyuki Kishi is currently an official member of abingdon boys school (which may explain why he wasn’t on Hotei’s recent tour; he’d been touring with him since 2000, recorded through Ambivalent, and Hotei mentioned him recently) and has had a lengthy career as a keyboard player (recording and touring), composer, arranger, and remixer. tko and Shue have recently (late 2007) started a project together: Two Tribes.

ends – Live 2005 Total Tone

ends is the solo project of Ryoichi Endo of Soft Ballet, started in 1997, and continuing until the present; it sounds nothing like Soft Ballet, though. He has a magnificent voice, but is unfortunately extremely overlooked and underrated. Musically, it is some sort of rock: I’ve seen the music described as psychedelic and there are elements of that sort of sound; the keyboards have an obvious psychedelic influence, and his older music had a drummer and a percussionist (but no bassist), which adds to that impression. I am terrible at identifying any but the most basic genres, so there are a couple of samples below.

Disc 1 is a show with full band: guitar, bass, keyboards, drums, and disc 2 is an unplugged version, with another guitarist instead of a keyboard player. It also has a koto (琴) player on the first few and the last few tracks; she was traditionally dressed on the first few tracks and more casually on the last few. The bonus track is from an unplugged concert in 2004, with a percussionist instead of a drummer, and is at a smaller venue and more truly unplugged. Each show has a different lineup; the 2005 unplugged had no keyboard player, an additional guitarist and koto player, and a different bassist from the first show; the 2004 unplugged had the same bassist as the first show and the same koto player as the 2005 unplugged but different guitarists and percussionist. There were six songs that were performed in both the electric and unplugged shows, and the extra was one of the repeated songs. The unplugged arrangements were enough different from the electric so that wasn’t that big of a deal, but I don’t think “Superior” really needed to be on there three times.

The first disc was not the most exciting concert I’ve ever seen (just five guys on stage), but was enjoyable; he is a very intense singer. The camera angles were a little odd; there was the foot-of-the stage angle, and lots of views of instruments and random body parts. Since ends is a solo project, the focus was on Endo himself, with a microphone in his face most of the time. My first impression was that the bassist got more screen time than the guitarist in the first few songs, but on rewatch, it seems more even. The guitarist was more likely to have focus on his guitar, while the bassist was more likely to be shown completely, though. The drummer got a few closeups, but all I know about the keyboard player was that he had long hair. Some combination of bassist, guitarist, and keyboard player sang backup; a few songs had pre-recorded backing vocals (choruses only); I don’t think the drummer had a microphone for this show, but could be wrong.

The unplugged set was not as unplugged as it could have been; the guitarists had acoustic-electric guitars mostly, and the bassist had a standard electric bass. Everyone had sheet music, and Endo had a stool and was looking in the general direction of the music most of the time, though that could have been just the way he was sitting. A few places, he did seem to be reading. Some combination of one of the guitarists (Shigeo Naka, from the other show), the bassist, and the drummer provided backing vocals for this part; there weren’t many songs with backing vocals, though. I’m generally not a big fan of unplugged-type shows, but did like this; the koto adds a different touch to some of the songs, and there is some gorgeous acoustic guitar in various places. Some of the arrangements are very different from the originals; they are jazzy or loungey or bluesy, and one made me think of some slow southern rock song (the guitar made me think of something like the Allman Brothers or Lynyrd Skynyrd; it’s a specific song it reminds me of, but I can’t place it).

The bonus track from 2004 looks like it’s a much smaller venue with everyone sitting in a circle except the bassist (off to the side) and is a much more traditionally unplugged performance: acoustic guitars and percussion and I don’t know what sort of bass that was (from something else; he wasn’t really on screen here; am looking for a better picture). The koto was there, but not used in this song.

The bonus track is the only extra; there wasn’t really anything on here beyond the performances themselves. There were no backstage bits, no MCs, no real interaction with the audience; I have a vague impression that the lack of audience interaction is just the way he is, though. That sort of thing is nice, but not necessary, especially since I don’t actually speak the language. The front cover has a fairly abstract (probably not the right word) version of him; there are a few small pictures on the back. The case is clear; the reverse of the cover is the stage, more or less, and there is an insert with lyrics and credits on one side and more pictures and art on the back.

I wish I had listened to him sooner; there are short clips from this on his site, but I wasn’t really impressed by them, and I’d been actively avoiding Soft Ballet for some reason. I finally had a chance to hear full songs and fell in love with his voice; at that time I had an open order for yahoo.jp and there was a reasonably-priced copy of this DVD. His music (at least, this particular sample) is exactly the sort of thing that I like; I wish I could describe it in such a way that others might want to listen to it. It’s a very emotional reaction, and I can’t really say why I like it beyond “it’s the sort of thing that I like”, unfortunately, which is why there are samples (somewhat randomly chosen).

live sample ~saezuri~:

unplugged sample 遠い朝 (with the koto player):

Toshi – “Grace” Live

To be honest, I bought this because it was extremely cheap and because it had Chachamaru on guitar. I’m not particularly a fan of Toshi; his voice annoys me (never got into X Japan because of it, though I like some portion of the member’s solo works) and I don’t like his music enough to compensate for his voice. I put him in the category of “people who should not sing slow songs” (along with Chachamaru, among others), and there were a lot of slow songs on this. I don’t know why his voice annoys me and I don’t mind Chacha’s; they are very similar. Toshi’s voice is stronger, but there’s just something about it that grates on my nerves. I do like a few of his songs, though (and “Love Dynamics” sticks in my head). This was a VHS release from 1995, featuring shows at Nippon Budokan (3.16) and Urawashi Bunka Center (4.5).

I enjoyed this more than I expected to, though I would have liked it better with less slow songs. The early parts of this weren’t very exciting or energetic or intense. Toshi didn’t seem to really get into it until “Spacious Love” (there must have been an intermission; he had a new outfit), and his energy level remained high for for the rest of the show. The crowd seemed to enjoy it, even the early parts, so maybe it was just me. Toshi’s voice was a little rough in a couple of songs, but was for the most part decent. They left in the MCs, which I like, even though I can’t really understand them.

This is Toshi’s show (understandably) and the band is an afterthought, unfortunately (and I expected this). Even when I’m not watching for specific people, I still want to see the people who are actually playing the music, and even when I don’t care about specific members, I still think they should get equal time. The only members who got significant air time were the guitarist (thankfully) and the bassist; it was especially annoying because I couldn’t tell how many people were on stage. At about 45 minutes into it (out of 110), I fast forwarded to the end to check the credits to see if it was two different nights and if he had two keyboard players (yes to both). I was fairly sure of the two different nights (Chacha’s shirts were very different and at one point changed mid-song), but I wasn’t sure about the keyboard players. Shusei Tsukamoto was definitely behind Chacha at least part of the time and it was obvious there was one on the left at least part of the time, but the one on the left hadn’t been clearly shown, so I wasn’t sure if it was Tsukamoto in a different place on the other night or a different person on the left. There was one shot where there was someone with a ponytail on the left, but it could have been one of the backup singers. The few shots of the backup singers did show a keyboard player in the background, but the light was bad and I thought it was Tsukamoto. The other keyboard player was occasionally in the background of the singers, but only had a couple of close-ups of his own; the drummer was often shown from the back and only had a couple of shots from the front (though he too was occasionally in the background; he was center stage).

I’m not sure how much of this was taken from which show; a lot of the crowd shots were obviously Budokan. Either all of Toshi was taken from the same show, or he wore the exact same thing at both. He did go from wearing a blue suit with a solid yellow shirt to wearing a mostly yellow but patterned shirt with the blue pants, though. Chacha was mostly from the same show; his outfits were very different, but one was only obvious in a couple of songs. The bassist’s outfits were different, but not immediately obviously so; I think both were black and white, but different amounts of each, so it wasn’t easy to tell at a glance which he was wearing. The drummer had a black shirt and a red shirt; sometimes it switched in the same song (one of the cameras was behind him, so he was on screen a lot). The others weren’t really on screen enough for me to notice what they were wearing, really; I think the sax player had on the same or similar outfit whenever he was shown; Tsukamoto had a very loud shirt whenever he was shown, but it could have been two loud shirts. VHS means pausing and finding specific moments is a pain.

Musicians:

Guitar: Yukihiro “Cha Cha MARU” Fujimura (藤村幸宏／茶々丸）　(introduced as Chachamaru)
Bass: Hisafumi Maeda (前田久史) (goes by and was introduced as Jimmy)
Drums: Kozo Suganuma (菅沼孝三)
Piano & Keyboards: Shusei Tsukamoto (塚本周成)
Keyboards: Masahiko Terada (寺田正彦)
Sax: Takeshi Abe (阿部剛)
Chorus: Megumi Okino, Rieko Sakai, Yasumi Maeda

Names as credited (punctuation and capitalization as shown); kanji for some of these was not easily found.

Songs:

1. New Horizons — some pre-show behind-the-scenes
2. Asphalt Jungle — bassist in the spotlight briefly (thankfully; it’s a very bass-heavy song)
3. Love Dynamics — female backup singers who look like they belong in the 80s; ran up one side of the stage, patting Chacha on the head on the way, ran into the wall coming back
4. Dear My Friends — MC before; keyboard player (Tsukamoto?) was actually shown
5. Moon Stone — Tsukamoto’s hands (I assume)! bass solo and acoustic guitar solo! I didn’t realize the words “Moon Stone” were in this until I heard Toshi sing it (it’s lyrics Toshi/music Chachamaru; it’s also on Vienna’s Unknown and Chacha’s English pronunciation is not great). On the CDs, it’s called “Moonstone”.
6. Everlasting Love — acoustic, slow
7. YOKAN — another short MC before; still acoustic; prominent bass, and percussion (the first time he was shown from the front); Chacha had a line to sing (no backing vocals, just a random line, and there’s no rational reason why Toshi’s voice annoys me but his doesn’t bother me)
8. made in HEAVEN — back to electric, but still a slow song, and a named musician: Chachamaru
9. Spacious Love — probably an intermission before; there was a costume change for Toshi (from a blue suit and yellow shirt to a red suit, no shirt). He’s much more energetic and grinning; this is an extremely upbeat song, though; sax and drum solo; gospel-ish towards the end
10. PARADISE — large balls or balloons for the audience, and he’s running around kicking them back and molested the bassist and played with his hair
11. Somebody Loves You — someone threw flowers, and he caught them; bassist and guitarist switched sides; can almost see the other keyboardist behind the backup singers; lots of light (I think Budokan had the house lights on for this song). I’m not familiar with the song, but he sounds a little rough. This one’s not as cleanly edited as the others, partly because of the difference in light, and Toshi is often in a different part of the stage when the angle changes.. The mythical other keyboard player got a few shots; too bad his head was turned. Much interaction with the audience, Toshi had a camera, and introduced the band, and each member had a solo. The other keyboard player had a more exciting solo than Tsukamoto. Only two chorus members for the introductions (Megumi and Rie). Left afterwards
12. Beyond the time — encore? I didn’t know Toshi played piano. Yet another outfit (tour shirt, the design on the shirt matched his necklace). I fast forwarded through this; am generally not interested in any singer+slow song+piano
13. Carry On — another brief MC, Toshi with a 12-string acoustic; Chacha also has a tour shirt and is the only one who changed and was playing slide guitar!
14. Beautiful Harmony — another MC, another slow song; a bit more intense than the earlier ones
15. Grace — another slow song. fog and a backing track (more fast-forwarding; it looked like the singers were there, but no one else was); everyone came out for a bow (and the bassist had a tour shirt on)

random bits

This post of Ju-ken’s was interesting (history through picks!) and gave me more things to throw into google. I know everyone’s worked with everyone else at this point, but I never would have expected to find information about Ju-ken on a By-Sexual fansite (he was in nitro and food (same band, new name) with their drummer for a while). Also, I think the bassist that replaced him in food is the same as the bassist who replaced him in wipe (not technically a replacement since he was only support there); there’ s kanji on the By-Sexual site and romaji and katakana on the wipe site.

Looking at dates and other random information:

Nao and Ju-ken had toured with Kiyoshi in 1997, including the Kiyoshi/Hakuei show/tour (I’m not sure if it was one show or a tour; there’s a tour book for it, though.) Kiyoshi’s support was Punch (g), Juken (b), Cola (k), Nao (dr); Hakuei’s was Kiyoshi (g), Den (b), Cola (k), Nao (dr). Punch was nitro/food’s guitarist; Den was also in By-Sexual and later was in Zigzo and test-no. and is also currently supporting machine (Hakuei and Kiyoshi’s current band).

Nitro formed 1998, became food in 1999, and his last date with food was 2001.05.07; 渡部嘉之 became support bass 2001.05.17; they ended 2001.09. I’ve also seen Nitoro for the first name; the katakana would be ナイトロ for either one.

Ju-ken, Nao, and Punch (along with Hikaru Yoshida) toured as D.I.E.’s support in 1999; Ju-ken toured with him again in 2001.10 (and possibly other times; those are the ones I’ve seen proof of). I keep running across Steve Eto (percussion for Hotei’s recent tour) while looking for related information (did something with D.I.E. later and was in a band with Hikaru Yoshida at some point).

wipe formed 1999.02; Ju-ken was support starting 1999.04, was alternating with the other starting 2000.03, and ワタベヨシユキ/watabe yoshiyuki officially joined wipe for their tour 2000.08; they ended 2001.03 (nothing listed between those dates)

Oblivion Dust – joined as support January 2001, disbanded June 30, 2001

I found a random concert report for BUG’s 2001.12.30 show in 渋谷DeSeO that listed BUG’s members as KYO, FURUTON, 室姫深 with guest 獣犬; according to a fansite, BUG formed in 2001 and their current bassist joined in January 2002.

Other random finds: pages for support members of FAKE? and S.Q.F.

Also, it seems to be generally accepted on the English-language sites that the kanji he uses means “beast-dog”, but none ever have the kanji itself. That fansite had him as 獣犬, which can have that meaning; now that I look more closely, his entry has that as well. I obviously need to spend some quality time with that entry and a dictionary.

ha!

google.jp is my new best friend! It had crossed my mind to try the Japanese search engines at some point to look for Japanese information, but I hadn’t until now. Throwing 峰 正典 into google.com gave tons hits for Stephanie (he’s credited with arrangement for her Gundam theme) and not much else (lots of sites in Chinese, some other anime-related arrangement credits, a handful of Olive Sunday references, and a fansite that apparently I failed to set proper character encoding on before, but is working now); throwing 峰 正典 into google.co.jp gave a profile on the first page (from his guitar’s manufacturer and relatively recent; he’s wearing a Hellmetz T-shirt).

I was vaguely curious, because I couldn’t really find anything about him, but became very curious after he said he was 32 in a posting on the Quintillion Quiz blog; there is a Masanori Mine credited on Girl U Need’s 1996.02 album (the credit is Rhythm guitar on “Without You”: Masanori “Santa” Mine). Girl U Need = half of Earthshaker + Chachamaru, who all would have been in their mid-30s at the time; a very young guitarist seemed unlikely, so I started to wonder if there was more than one guitarist with that name. The profile confirmed him as being born in 1976 (and his birthday’s not until August, so he’s not 32 yet) and that Girl U Need was his first professional credit (won an audition). It looks like his career has been steady but low-profile and behind the scenes; he’s been in bands and supported people, but also produces and arranges and does commercial and TV music. He also teaches at the same school as Koichi Terasawa and Toshiyuki Sugino; I was very confused when I found a picture from an event involving all three.

sparkly!

So I’d always kind of wondered where these pictures of Ju-ken came from; I know they were on his blog and were from the Super Soul Sessions with Brian Setzer/Hotei/Char, but didn’t know what he was playing that needed that sort of bass with sparkles and flames:

Poking at Google wondering if Brian Setzer was involved with Hotei’s album Monster Drive (answer: no, possibly was supposed to be originally and Hotei did a rockabilly album anyway) led to youtube, which led to this from the Brian Setzer only part of the Super Soul Sessions (Rock this Town and Fishnet Stockings):

I’d assumed Setzer took his own band along for his parts (Back Streets of Tokyo on one of the music shows used his band, though they may have been touring in Japan at that time). I was wrong; he used Ju-ken and Shue (酒井愁), and there’s actually a short bass solo near the end. Despite being the first billed, he only had three songs on his own (and two Setzer vs Hotei and four Setzer vs Hotei vs Char, along with nine Hotei and seven Hotei vs Char; I’m not sure what the distribution of compositions for the vs parts are), so it makes some sense that he didn’t bring his whole band over and that they just used the same backup band for the whole thing (there was also a Japanese keyboard player in the other parts; I’m too lazy to go back and figure out who he was).

Ju-ken looks like he’s enjoying himself; on a long-gone blog entry (with a picture of an autographed T-shirt), he said something like that this was something he’d always remember and he was happy (or maybe honored or maybe both) to have the opportunity to play with these people. I wish I could remember what he said about that bass; I’m fairly sure he doesn’t own it (not in his gear, and probably too expensive to buy and not use regularly), but don’t know whether it was the company or a specific person who loaned it to him. On the King DoubleBass Japanese site, there are a couple of pictures of a similar bass; I don’t think it’s a standard finish (they do sparkles and flames and sparkly flames, but a yellow bass with sparkles and red flames doesn’t seem to be a standard option). He used to link to the site, and was actually mentioned on it, but they don’t seem to have anywhere for artists on the Japanese site any more (and it’s all flash, so archive.org is useless, and the base template for their site looks awfully familiar).

I think I’m going to have to get this DVD eventually. Random fangirl-ness on its own is not enough to justify the cost, but I like Hotei and have fond memories of the Stray Cats and like what I’ve heard of Char, but I’d been hesitant because the reviews on amazon.jp were generally negative (and my Japanese is not good enough to be sure why), but a few clips from the televised version finally made their way onto youtube and I want to see more.

Gackt – Training Days 2006 Drug Party

I pre-ordered this, but never watched it; I had a bad case of buyer’s remorse due to problems with amazon.jp and the reports of lip-syncing or wholesale re-recording that came out before i received my copy. Lip-syncing wouldn’t have bothered me as much as re-recording; I want my concert DVDs to be as close to the concert as possible. I don’t think any of the concert reports really mentioned lip-syncing (for Diabolos, every attendee thought a couple of songs were lip-synced; usually different songs, though). I watched just to watch it and didn’t pay enough attention to have an opinion about re-recording, though I did notice a few songs that sounded very different from the surrounding songs. I would not be surprised if he had re-recorded parts, though. Overall, I liked it, but kind of wish I’d saved my money or bought one of the other concerts instead.

I have to admit that Gackt is one of my guilty pleasures, especially the concerts; my usual preference is for lives where the music takes priority over the show, and Gackt does not fall into that category at all, though I think this is the closest he’s been to that (or at least the closest someone on the other side of the world could actually see). I don’t know why I feel the need to buy his DVDs, but I do (at least this and Diabolos; I plan to get the others eventually). I do love some of his music, but am not interested in him personally; I find his various band members more interesting, which makes lives occasionally frustrating.

There was a fan club version and a regular version; the regular version was sold through amazon.jp only. The DVDs were the same, but the fan club version had a slightly different cover (Gackt with wings + band members in the background vs. Gackt with wings only) and came with an extra booklet. The regular version has the front cover as an insert with credits, and a folded up page with lyrics. This (and the upcoming Platinum Box VIII) were released by Dears (fan club) instead of by his label; the back mentions Gordie Entertainment Co.Ltd. and Dears Co.Ltd. The credits do have a section for record label staff (and I’m entertained by the part of the credits which are obviously because of Ju-ken and Jun-ji; there’s a Harley Davidson logo in the list). Nippon Crown is mentioned on the DVDs themselves, after the other two; I can’t read the kanji to see what they are credited for.

The band for this concert consisted of:
You: guitar (no violin at all, unfortunately)
Chachamaru: guitar
Ju-ken: bass
Jun-ji: drums
Jun-ichi “Igao” Igarashi: keyboards — he’s usually offstage, but was actually visible a little; he was offstage to the rear on Chacha’s side

The Concert

This was in some ways a stripped-down version of his usual shows; the shows were at smaller venues than previous tours. The stage was less elaborate, and there were no costume changes, less choreography, and fewer dancers (only two dancers in two songs). It sounded fine, but it looked a bit dark in places due to the lighting (lots of red and blue spotlights). Everyone started out energetic but were dragging toward the end. I enjoyed watching it, but it’s not one of my favorites.

Random thoughts (notes taken while watching):
Jun-ji was enjoying himself during Redemption.
Speed Master sounded very, very different from previous performances; partly voice, partly something else I couldn’t place.
It was weird seeing Lu:na without dancers; there were two masked female dancers in Storm and Papa Lapped a Pap Lopped, and that was all.
Kalmia was a rest break: Chacha and You were sitting on the steps (on each other’s side), with Gackt at the top, and Ju-ken leaning on a speaker/monitor to the side; everyone was starting to look a little tired.
You actually had the solo in Fragrance; they never showed Chacha up close, oddly; also, Gackt had a close and personal relationship with his mikestand.
The encore Mirror starts off in the middle with the yelling at the audience; his voice sounds appallingly hoarse (though it’s ok singing); I think Drug Party version in the extras might have been the first part; at the end of the extra version, everyone’s changing instruments and going back to their own places..
There’s a drum solo after Mirror while everyone changes guitars
Everybody except Chacha looks tired during Another World
Whatever sort of introduce-the-band was done did not make it onto the dvd, sadly.

Shallowness: Everyone looked very good, though Chacha’s hair was inexplicable, and Ju-ken’s makeup (warpaint?) was interesting (it’s something he’s done before with others). There was only one minor instance of fanservice with bandmembers (with Ju-ken in Speed Master), though there was some with the female dancers and might have been something between members off-screen (Ju-ken and Chacha during Speed Master).

Annoyances: The video itself was kind of dark and murky due to the lighting at the show, and the various members were generally not in good light (red or blue lights, usually, and impossible to see them). There were far too many closeups of Gackt’s hands, and there were a few of instances of people doing interesting things off-screen. Also, no violin at all, though I think there was only one song other than Mirror that had a violin part (and I’ve given up on him ever playing violin during Mirror again).

Extra: Commercial Film Collection
The commercial film collections are ads for Gackt’s other recent releases (collection included on the Drug Party DVD, not collections of Drug Party ads); I was disconcerted, to say the least, that the Japanese section started out with a reference to 9/11 (ad for 12月のLove Song~Complete Box~, and included scenes from the video, but still…maybe they should have started with a different ad; that’s not what I was expecting). It also included ads for Crisis Core (PSP), 野に咲く花のように single, the Orico card/Upty ad, Platinum Box VII, and the opening movie of this concert (clips from all previous tours). The Korean and Mandarin versions have the voice-overs dubbed and the rest subtitled in the relevant language; the opening movie had effects with the Japanese concert titles; the other two had those parts redone in their languages.

Extra: Mirror – Drug Party Version
This features You on vocals, wearing what looks like the Afro wig Chacha had in the Diabolos movie and Uptys everywhere (carrying a large one, small ones in his shirt, in his pants, under his arms). Chacha is also on vocals and guitar, with Uptys on his guitar. Ju-ken has a guitar, with Uptys, Jun-ji has a bass and one of the dancer’s wigs, and Gackt is on drums. It was nice to see and hear Chacha singing; it would have been better if he and You had been somewhere in the same key, though. I’m not sure how many of the instruments are actually live; no one is playing the lead guitar part, but Ju-ken looked like he was concentrating on his playing (he may have just been tired, though; Chacha actually looked tired in part of this). The camera annoyed me a bit; it tended to show the bits I was least interested in. It was nice to see Gackt smiling and laughing, though.

Disc 1

1. Cube
2. Maria
3. uncontrol
4. 絵夢 -for my dear-
5. seven
6. REDEMPTION
7. Ash
8. NINE SPIRAL
9. Speed Master
10. Lu:na
11. Storm
12. Papa lapped a pap lopped
13. Kalmia
14. Fragrance
15. mind forest
16. Metamorphoze
17. Birdcage

Disc 2 (Encore + Extras)
18. Mirror
19. ANOTHER WORLD
20. 君が追いかけた夢

Extras
Gackt Commercial Film Collection on DRUG PARTY (Japanese, Korean, Mandarin)
Mirror (DRUG PARTY Ver.)

Ju-ken, 2008

Ju-ken is a Japanese bassist who plays as support for a variety of people (mostly live, occasionally recording); he just finished touring with VAMPS (Aug-Oct 2008), will be touring with Gackt (Dec 2008 – Apr 2009), has often toured with Tomoyasu Hotei and Anna Tsuchiya, and occasionally performs with other musicians. He is also a member of two bands: Hellmetz (with a singer + two of Anna Tsuchiya’s other band members) and Quintillion Quiz (with myco and Masanori Mine).

In 2009 he moved his website and blog to a new site: ju-ken.velvet.jp and blog.ju-ken.velvet.jp. As of August 2009, his old blog entries are still up at the old site.

I’m breaking this into parts because it’s continuously updated and is getting too long:

Part 1 (this part): general information, endorsements, interviews, goods, etc.
Part 2: band information (Hellmetz/Quintillion Quiz)
Part 3: support information (Hotei/Anna/Gackt/VAMPS/etc)
Part 4: schedule (performances, releases, other events, also livehouse links)

I also have information for 2007 in a previous post, and some other random information here.

Currently this is mostly taken directly from his site; hopefully, he won’t delete everything again. I’ve put the full schedule at the bottom; I didn’t do that last year due to working from memory and a lack of actual schedule on his previous blog. My Japanese is not the best, which is why I’m sticking to music-related info and not attempting to translate blog entries. I do (slowly) go through the notes of the day, and anything relevant does eventually end up here; a lot of the notes are just random thoughts or things like off to do this, back from there, etc; currently (early Dec) the ambition is the new goods and the attention is an offer for whoever hits 999999 and 1000000 on his site’s counter and the CRAFT jewelry. This entry might explain the lack of dates in March; in it, he talks about corrective eye surgery, and the subsequent notes of the day indicated he was recovering from it (hopefully, it was successful and he recovered quickly and had no complications; he hasn’t really mentioned it since); there’s now a post-surgery entry, and the note of the day mentions rehearsal. He also sounded like he spent a good portion of March and April recording with various people, some named, some not. The lack of dates in July were due to rehearsals for the VAMPS tour; the lack in November and early December are probably due to recovery from the VAMPS tour and preparation for Gackt’s tour.

The section (removed late November) 幸運の朝顔’０８ on his site is documenting an attempt to grow some variety of morning glory; he did that last year too, though the entries are gone. If I’m remembering correctly, last year the idea was definitely from Muta; I think the seeds were as well. (Muta’s results; there are also occasional progress reports before then). myco of Quintillion Quiz is doing the same and posting pictures of hers on their blog. He had some success (as did myco).

Endorsements, Interviews, etc:

• endorses Sugi basses
• is associated with 59’s Laboratory, Inc., which did the music for a number of Dragon Ball Z video games, among other things; the site says he worked on the theme for Dragon Ball Z: Sparking! Meteor (“Super Survivor”) for the PS2 and Wii (game released in Japan at least in October 2007; the theme will be released in a mini-album by Hironobu Kageyama July 23 and on the soundtrack Aug 27). Their site is fully bilingual; he is listed on the “Friends” page, but the arrangement is random.
• was in a sidebar to an article in the March 2008 Bass Magazine about Trace Elliot equipment (amps, etc.)
• was (June-July) featured on Fostex’s (equipment for recording, mostly) website, with a brief article (when first posted, it mentioned a summer tour; checked the link and it now says VAMPS); the front page has changed, but the article is still there
• was in the October 2008 issue of Bass Magazine; the article is about the relationship between singers and their bassists. He and Anna Tsuchiya were interviewed together; they also talked to another bassist x singer and three other bassists. The cover is of Robert Trujillo of Metallica, but there is an inset picture for this article with Ju-ken x Anna. (his blog entry about the interview)
• was at Zero Fighter Sept. 16, manager for the day? (１日店長体験, starting at 1pm); the details were in a note of the day; the event is also on his schedule
• was interviewed in Monthly VAMPS #3 (and is in some of the other volumes in the live reports and backstage pictures)

Goods (currently available):

• new T-shirt for Gackt’s tour (short sleeve, black with orange, blue, or pink camo designs); information and pictures are on the main page of his site (selling via email and on the tour; there is a space for member’s goods to be sold)
• jewelry with CRAFT: a ring (“friend of the eternity”), a pendant (“guardian of the eternity”), and a chain (“bond of the eternity”); the pendant and chain are both listed under necklaces (site is flash, so no direct links). These are the items he was referring to in an earlier blog entry.
• with DARTS, a bracelet and a strap (new in Feb.)

Goods (limited availability only and/or sold out)

• new set “あなたの日常のお側セット” (limited to 200 pieces, sold out (or at least all reserved): 2 hand　towels + one each of coaster, mousepad (suitable for optical mice only), pen, pencil)
• long-sleeved T-shirt, to be sold at the Zepp Tokyo VAMPS dates only (might be selling via mail order; they don’t have their own page, but the notes of the day have a section about them); black long-sleeve shirts with pink or yellow designs (they do look more or less like the pictures up); no longer available.
• Goods #4, a T-shirt (“Vamp up your new body”) and a summer set? (towel, fan, flip-flops, bag — these were the items he had on the front page for a while); I think these will be sold on the tour or via mail order. (all sold out)
• Goods #3, another set of picks (five: black with gold, silver, green metallic, pink metallic, blue metallic) (sold out)
• Goods #2, new T-Shirt “Fight for Your Peace” (sold out)
• Goods, two different sets of picks (two black with gold and silver; four white with gold, silver, red, black) and a T-shirt (all sold out)

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