[WeAre]Off! was an Osaka based zine active in the early 2000's. I only have one issue, but this one is jam packed with some of my favorite bands. Local Kansai acts like I Eat Me, S41, and R3-N7 join Tokyo acts Gauge Means Nothing, After Forever and Neoteny. Pretty great. I'm not able to translate anything into English, but this is still a pretty cool snapshot of the Japanese underground scene circa 2002. Enjoy!
Wow. Lop Abuse On Somebody are from Osaka and play really aggressive instrumental rock. I hesitate to say post-rock, because that implies lots of delay and slow build ups (to me anyways). These guys don't waste time on their songs, getting to the good parts immediately and then pushing them all the way into explosive crescendos at just the right moments. God, just listening to the first minute of Toy is just so satisfying. Ah... okay. I'll stop now. Sanctify is more laid back and pretty Toe-ish, but so, so good. These guys just really know how to craft some great songs.
These are their first two singles and they're free to download, so go ahead and grab them! Here's a trailer for both:
I picked this CD up at a used media store in Nashville called The Great Escape. They carry comics, music, movies, toys, cards, games, whatever, and get their product from local people selling stuff to them. Framtid seems an awfully obscure thing to sell to a place like that, for sure. But, there's an older scene of "crusties" in Nashville that were grouped around early Nashville crust bands like From Ashes Rise and Asschapel. His Hero is Gone being two hours away in Memphis didn't hurt. A lot of these guys got into Japanese punk and crust through 625, Prank, and MCR, so there's occasionally remnants of that stuff floating around Nashville places. I bought my first envy CD's at a local record store, 12th Ave. Records, which has since gone under. That place always had good stuff and stocked a lot of Japanese stuff like Forward, Exclaim, and some HG.Fact stuff. So, yeah, that line of people is probably where this CD came from. Ironically, I never associated too much with those guys, probably because I don't dress punk enough or something.
My other personal touchpoint with Framtid was in the Netherlands in 2007. Cease Upon The Capitol was playing Trashfest, which is a pretty old and well-respected music festival. We played earlier in the day, but I noticed that Framtid was one of the headliners. We had to leave soon after we played, but I saw them in the parking lot, hair spiked a foot high of their heads. A part of me wanted to go talk to them, but I'm super shy about speaking in Japanese, so instead I hopped in the van and we took off.
This CD collects an LP and EP they did around 2002. The music is pretty fast crust punk that is by the numbers. There isn't much of this stuff in Japan (can probably count the crust bands on my digits), but Framtid is pretty solid regardless of their origin. The sound is firmly Swedish, following after early Wolfpack or Skitsystem stuff. It's good, though, but doesn't have the melodies I would hope to see from a Japanese band. It's funny how Ekkaia, a Spanish band, integrates the Japanese style of melodies into crust, but a Japanese crust band tries to stay away from those melodies. I guess that's just how the world works, or something.
This was a totally luck grab. I think I got it at Allman in 2003. Lostage plays some totally smooth emo rock that makes me feel the same way No Knife makes me feel. Angular and melodic. I thought this was an EP, but Lostage's site says it was their demo. Well. It's a fucking amazing demo here, that doesn't sound like a demo.
Anyways, Lostage is doing very well these days, headlining big gigs and doing it large like only a medium-sized Indie band in Japan can.
Here's a video from their Toy's Factory debut (I didn't even know they released something on Toy's Factory until now) in 2009. Now that I'm listening to this, I'm thinking they sound more like Bush than No Knife. In a really good way.
I take such pride in Dig a Hole sometimes. Going to school in the Kansai area, it's sort of like my home away from home. I sympathize with the underdog feel of the area, always in competition with Tokyo. I've also been to most of the neighborhoods and livehouses in the area, so I feel some communion with the bands operating in the area.
With the Unfold split, I was introduced to three bands that came from my old stomping grounds, and I exhaustively searched out information about them while I was there. This was one of my scores, an EP from Dig A Hole. These are some of their best songs, aside from the Unfold split offerings, and see them playing some great post hardcore. I regret I never got to see them live, but having most of their releases makes up for it a bit. I also have some flyers I'll post soon (at least I think I do).
When I was in Japan, I bought every demo I ever saw. The record shops would usually have them sitting around somewhere at only 100 or 200 yen a pop. Perfect price! I usually just bought whatever they had because at that price, I was able to make mistakes. Occasionally, I would find some gems.
Roseanna's demo (now R3-N7) was not one of those gems. Don't get me wrong, this is not horrible by any means, it just doesn't seem to be up to the caliber of Japanese demos. By any other standard, this would be a good demo. The problem is, Japanese band's demos tend to be positively amazing. High recording quality, long masterpiece-like songs. Roseanna feels much less organized and more like a normal demo.
But, that didn't stop them. They evolved into R3-N7, took on a more new-wavey sound, then reverted to a Japanese crusty sound, and actually turned out pretty good. Looks like a new ep came out recently. Check their site link below.
I have some videos of a show they played in Osaka, which I'm hoping to post soon. I found this on Youtube, which might be one of the worst videos ever. I'll let you decide:
I'd seen some stuff online about this compilation, the first from Shining April Records, and had to try it out. The price was also right (1000 yen, which is much better than a 3000 yen CD). And holy shit, this split rips! Three indie bands from the Kansai region (that's Kyoto, Osaka, and Kobe), with slightly different styles. Creep plays a rough, Swing Kids-y style of hardcore. They are my pick on the release. Karma Stench plays angular, indie rock but heavy. Dig a Hole plays more old school post-hardcore. All in all, an awesome showing from an under-represented region.
I couldn't find any videos at all online from any of these bands. There definitely needs to be more attention on these guys. I'm pretty sure they are all broken up (creep definitely is), which sucks. Members of creep went on to form Flash Light Experience, who are damn amazing, but it looks like they are done too. Anyways, enjoy this shit!
