I've had several people mention that they don't really know where to start when getting into Japanese music. I can definitely see how, when faced with hundreds of awesome bands that are equally obscure, it can be a daunting task to get your feet wet. Hopefully I can help out with that, and I'm going to try to do a series of posts that basically aim to gracefully get you, the reader, into some of the best music you'll ever here. The first subject will be my favorite, Japanese Screamo.
Please leave feedback on what you want to see with these. I'm sort of shooting in the dark as to what is the best way to help newcomers dive in.
Intro:
Screamo (or Emotional Hardcore) came to Japan in the early 90's. There are early traces of Japanese people contributing and sending in stuff to Heart Attack magazine, and appearances by Sawpit on the label, Ebullition, and Bonescratch doing splits with foreign bands. The late 90's saw the Tokyo and Sapporo scenes both getting pretty busy. Tokyo had bands like Swipe, Envy, and Kulara; Sapporo had bands like Next Style, The Carnival of Dark-Split, and Black Film Dance. From there, screamo blossomed, spawning small scenes in nearly every large city in Japan. There have been countless bands over the past 20 or so years to play this awesome style, so let's dig in! These four groups represent the four pillars of Japanese screamo to me. Yes there are more! And I'm already sorry that I may or may not have included your favorite band. This is all just my opinion.
Envy is basically the glass through which the rest of the Japanese screamo scene should be view through. They began in 1992 and have had the same members for nearly their entire existence. Their style has been copied and modified countless times and nearly every Japanese screamo band has traces of envy in their sound.
What to listen to:
Envy dropped their first proper album, From Here to Eternity, in 1998, and the Japanese scene has still not recovered. In my travels, it has consistently been the favorite envy album for most of the Japanese musicians I talk to. It's a very raw album, with gorgeous melodies and tons of passion.
My favorite album and envy's masterpiece is All The Footprints... released in 2001. This was 11 of the most daring tracks to have ever played. Marvelous compositions, soaring melodies, crushing heaviness. It was everything envy hinted at, fully realized. THIS is what the scene really took from and built on. To me, this is the epitome of Japanese screamo.
Where to get it:
Envy's catalogue is fairly easy to get. Temporary Residence Limited is there US label, and has re-released most of their back catalogue. MP3 versions are available through Spotify, Amazon, ITunes, and more. TRL just released a jaw-droppingly amazing boxed set of envy's entire recorded output, 14-LP's. It's a bit of an investment, but it will give you everything you need to understand and appreciate this important band.
Gauge Means Nothing started playing in the late 90's. Their first EP came out in 2003, from their label and mine. They are the band that got me into releasing things and energized me to preach the Japanese music gospel. They broke up in 2005, and left behind an EP, split with My Precious, and a last song. They aren't for everyone, and you'll probably either love them or hate them. They take the Japanese screamo sound of envy, and add emo, metal, hardcore, and J-Pop. Their music is always emotional and passionate, and you can tell they are having a blast playing it.
What to listen to:
Their first EP, The Absent Trail of an Echo..., (which this blog is named after), is the best place to start. There's five songs on there, totaling around 30 minutes of music. Their later stuff gets even more interesting, but there were some changes in songwriters and the personality is different. Check out this EP first.
Killie started playing in the mid-2000's. They pretty much formed as a super group with members from 3cmtour, Cleaner, Anthropic Disease, Sora, and The Black Line Fever. Their image and brutal sound has made them gain popularity fairly quickly. They've released several splits, singles, and EPs to this point, and are working on their first album now. Their sound is based on envy's sound, but add lots of time changes, depressing melodies, and intensity ala Louise Cyphre or Orchid.
What to listen to:
Killie's first EP, Want to Escape From the Underground..., is my favorite. It mixes their raw intensity with some amazing melodies. They've moved on to a more broad sound since then, but the brilliance of that EP overshadows their other stuff, for me. The next step is to check out their EP, After all, the opinion.... Two long songs on one side of an LP.
Where to get it:
Unfortunately, nearly everything Killie has ever released is sold out. You can keep an eye on their Discogs page to see when people sell things second hand. Their 2xCD split with Off Minor is usually the first thing to show up. Otherwise, you can download almost their entire discography from this post here. Hopefully their upcoming album will have more copies produced and be distributed out a bit better.
Dip Leg started playing in the early 2000's in Okayama, which is kind of in the middle of nowhere. They developed their own offshoot of screamo which built from envy's sound, and added angular guitars and deep, soulful grooves. Their album was the second thing I released, and they released another EP before splitting up. Their sound is very approachable, with warm melodies and perfect instrumentation. Their vocals are high-pitched and may take some getting used to, but meld well with the rest of the music.
What to listen to:
Their debut album is classic Dip Leg, The Sympathy Without Love. It has 8 songs, and every one is a winner. The album is pretty much another Japanese screamo masterpiece, perfectly conceived and executed.
Debase and Degrade were a short-lived band from Tokyo, most notably known for Hirotatsu (from 3cmtour, Killie) playing drums. Besides their band connections, Debase and Degrade play emotional hardcore with some subtle hints of those Japanese screamo melodies. 5 songs here, and they're all pretty good. And... that's about it. Enjoy!
Finishing off the week with one of the few Killie releases that was actually "mass produced." There were 2000 of these made, not 100 like the cloth packaged CD I posted on Monday, so it actually got around. You can find this for somewhere around 10 bucks on discogs.com, to name one place.
What's sad, is that with such great packaging, you get so little music. Seriously, only two Killie songs? And they needed their own CD? How about this, Killie. Give me something with, let's say, 10 songs. Anything. A collection of everything, an LP, a 5xCD. I don't care, I just want a bunch of your songs together on something that isn't a personal mix CD. It's like you're passing drugs out in a slow drip, and it's driving people like me into a frenzy. We want more!!!!
Ah, now that I've got that out of my system, these Killie songs are badass. I enjoy Off Minor, but only listened to their CD once. Killie's whats important here, and they certainly deliver (quality, not quantity). Umm.... I tried to get good scans of this, but it was super hard. There is printing on the inside of the cardboard as well, which is cool looking. How about, just go get this release yourself, since it's not being sold for an exorbitant price (yet).
It's always fun to find new things when scanning these releases in. This DVD is a perfect example. Yoshi sent a handful of these DVD's with a trade we did, and I always that it was just a plain, black sleeve. But once I scanned it in and started finagling with the contrast, I found a secret. There's a little hammer on the sleeve! You can kind of see it on the picture above. I was always confused that a band like Killie, who always puts so much into their packaging, would have just a plain black sleeve for anything. So, this little hammer was a pleasant surprise.
We have a DVD here with a single song (called Resurrection in English, but the Japanese title is more aptly translated as"Christ is resurrected"). The production quality is really amazing and the sound quality of them playing live is good enough to listen to. The song is good, their performance is awesome. All around it's a win-win. The question is, why didn't you buy one of these when I was selling them for one-frickin'-dollar in my distro? It seriously took a few months to get rid of these, even though I was practically giving them away.
5 years ago, the zine Give Me Back was just starting up, and Killie was preparing to release their After All... LP on the world. I conducted an interview to submit to the zine with Yoshi, who translated for the other guys in the band. What followed can be generally labeled as a clusterfuck. I rushed the interview to make the deadline for the zine, they decided not to publish it, I got really pissed. Yoshi and the other members were upset, but seemed to take it in stride. I, however, was caught in the middle, feeling like it was my fault and trying to deal with both sides. It really sucked. Killie's response to the debacle can be read here: http://killie.jp/archives/interview_july_2007.html. I thought it might be fitting to just publish the email exchange, though. It was a pretty rough time for me, as I'd just come back from touring Europe with Cease Upon the Capitol, and was trying to figure out what to do with my life. Looking back, I wonder if I could've handled it differently, asked different questions, pushed a bit harder. Either way, it's in the past now, and all I have are these memories. I'm throwing in a jump break, cause this thing is really long. Enjoy!
First, I have to apologize. This release was really hard to get a good picture of. A combination of my scanner destroying colors and the three-dimensional nature of the release itself. But, I tried.
This is a CD single thingie that Killie released in 2007. They made 100. Yoshi was nice enough to stuff one in a package when we did a trade. There's only one song on it, but some noise fills up the rest of the CD. The actual CD itself was also made available without the nice fabric packaging. I have one of those, but I'm not quite sure how they gave that out to people. Then there's the insert, which is a form of some sort. I didn't bother to translate it to figure out what it is, so I'll let somebody else do that. Or you could just use your imagination. I think it's a form to get a license to sell ice cream.
Anyways, I'll be posting Killie stuff all this week, except for Thursday, which will be something special. Enjoy!
Here's one of the first videos I saw of Killie. That's Yuichi from Gauge Means Nothing in the corner:
If you're unfamiliar with The Black Line Fever, check out my other posts (demo & self-titled) where I've talked extensively about how amazing this band was. I caught up with Jordan and we did a quite long chat interview, talking about the band and other things. It was super fun to do this, and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did!
Ryan: Go ahead and give me a history of the band, as detailed as you like.
Jordan: OK well soon after moving to Tokyo in around 2002 I think I bought a guitar with the plan of starting a band, wrote a bunch of songs in a week.
Met up with Paul Ford the bass player through an ad in a foreign magazine in Japan. Advertisement quoted bands like Uranus and One-Eyed God Prophecy, so my eyes lit up...
So from there we met up, got on like a house on fire, started hitting studios writing and structuring songs etc, and started looking for drummers...
I kid you not, we tried out about 8 guys, foreign and Japanese, met some pretty funny characters along the way. But when we met Tim we knew straight away he was the dude. He was kind of cocky, he said something along the lines of being able to blow all the guys out of the water...And he did, first practice he nailed everything 20x times better and harder than we had ever imagined.
OK so at that point we had a band, but no vocalist. So we started looking around, and we tried a bunch of dudes. But we met this crazy kid Yasu (RIP) at a Converge concert. He was running around acting all crazy and genuinely had an amazing spark about him. So we got him in, and he started, first jam he was soooo loud his screams were amazing. We all knew we had found the guy.
At around that point the songs were taking form and we were getting ready to play live I guess. Along the way a guy called Ben from Australia who I met at a show joined as the second guitarist to carry the riffs through. As well as that he was also doing vox as a shouty singy type thing which balanced out the crazy screams from Yasu.
So we were ready to play, but had no idea on how to get a show. At one practice in meguro mod studio where we used to jam, by pure chance in the studio next to us was a bunch of bands playing a small shows, Yuichi's band gauge means nothing, and a band called Nervous Light of Sunday. They heard what we were doing from outside the room , and stepped in for a listen. We hit it off then and started talking about live shows. Paul managed to drum up our first show on a very random show in Roppongi, with a bunch of J-pop bands, which was really weird. We got Nervous Light of Sunday to join the bill and we played. Most of the audience was our friends and stuff. It was a great show.
From that show we started playing more with the Japanese hardcore scene. We recorded the first demo. Things were going swell. Then Ben had to leave the band as he was heading back to Australia. Around the same time we played a show with a metal band called cohol, who blew us away. We spoke with Itaru the guitarist after the show and he quickly joined the band. And that lifted the sound immensely.
Things were rolling along pretty swell, but we were having some difficulties with Yasu the vocalist at the time. He was skipping jams, taking heaps of drugs and partying a lot. Which of course I didn't really care about but we found his form slipping a lot.
Paul and I were getting a bit frustrated. We spoke with him a few times about it but nothing really changed, so we started talking to other guys. Around that time we played a show with a band called cleaner, and that was the first time I met Yoshi (killie) who was singing in cleaner at the time. He put on this amazing performance, very emotive, quite powerful and driven. And we hit it off straight away. And he became the vocalist of choice, so that's what happened.
As soon as Yoshi joined the band, he started taking control of booking the shows, networking with other bands etc. He brought a lot to the band, besides the vocals but the networks and connections helped us play bigger shows and get a stronger following.
Soon it was time record again, and we did a tour with cohol to Kansai, which to this day was the funniest trip I have ever been on with a bunch of guys, drunken haze of hardcore of metal. Hilarious the whole time
After the tour we played out in Tokyo, then I moved to Shanghai for a year or so, the band split. I returned then we played a few shows but it was never the same...Yoshi went on to Killie, Itaru was following through with cohol. the band was done.. end hahaha...
Ryan: There's a video on YouTube, not sure the year, that says it was your last show. Was that before or after your trip to Shanghai?
Jordan: Yeah, we split when I went to Shanghai, but we only played two shows when I returned. I think video wasn't the last show. There is some footage I have been meaning to upload.
Ryan: Whoa, I would really love to see that!
Jordan: Yeah I will get on it.
Ryan: It's kind of funny, because the vid on YouTube is completely absent of you. I think you were in the right corner, and the dude never pans over.
Jordan: Yeah, I am like a shadow, haha. That was filmed by the dude from raein, I think...when we toured with them in Tokyo.
Ryan: What happened to Yasu?
Jordan: Yasu passed away in a brutal accident in his house in Ibaraki.
We stayed friends after he wasn't in the band. He was a wild guy, he was kind of dark and played with drugs a fair bit. When I got to Tokyo after Shanghai, and BLF was dead, Paul, Tim, Yasu and I started playing together again. But he was always late and stuff, and it wasn't really working. He got caught by the cops for possession of something and was put in jail for about 3-4 months.
When he got out, he was messing around in Ibaraki one night, found some huge PA speaker on the street, took it back to his parents house. Started playing all this keyboard stuff through them, fell asleep with them still connected to the power. Something short circuited and a fire started, and his room on the second floor caught a light and he was burned to death...
I remember the day it happened. My girlfriend at the time called me at work and told me what she had seen on the news...
Ryan: Man, that's really sad. I'm sorry to hear that.
Jordan: Yeah it was really sad stuff. We were all shook up for a long time. I really loved that guy, he was I guess the first Japanese guy I became friends with. He was a wild guy, and if you talk to anyone about him they will say the same thing. It was like he didn't belong in the skin he held. He was a bit like an alien on earth. I don't mean that in a weird away, he was wired in a different way, though.
We all went to the funeral, and met his family and were shown where he died.
My girlfriend at the time was a little bit superstitious, I guess, kind of like a gift she had. Not sure if I believe in that kind of stuff. but I remember when we left the house after seeing where he passed away. She said something to me, like he didn't die but the house took him??? Kind of weird, right? But then about a year ago, his father passed away in the house as well. I don't know if that means anything, just strange if you think deep into those type of things.
So the band had some scars and still does.
Ryan: Were you playing in any bands in Australia before you came over to Japan?
Jordan: Yeah, I had been playing in bands really hard out for about 3 years before I moved to Japan. 1984, Homini Rei, St. Albans Kids, and very short member of Love Like... Electrocution before moving to Japan.
Ryan: Whoa, didn't know you were in St. Albans Kids, too!
Jordan: Yeah, I was the drummer. Pretty shit at it though, haha. Eventually they got a decent guy.
Ryan: Hahaha... You're a jack of all trades, I guess.
Jordan: I dabble, haha.
Ryan: How did you guys decide on the band name?
Jordan: Paul and I were drunk, listening to Motorhead. Know that song "White Line Fever"? Yeah, we were "Black Line Fever." Something like that.
Ryan: Haha... That's it?
Jordan: Yeah, haha.
Ryan: Nice.
Ryan: When you started the band, was there sort of a culture shock since you were used to doing bands in Australia?
Jordan: Yeah for sure. The way shows were put on, the way the crowd reacted to the bands. Even rehearsing, it was all different. Having to book a studio and not rehearse in the garage like back home.
I think the crowd reaction to bands was kind of the biggest culture shock. In Australia, like the States as well, there is a lot of heckling, crowd involvement, that kind of thing. But in Japan the crowd is a lot less loose and more reserved. I guess when we started we thought nobody liked us, because everyone just stood there chin stroking.
Ryan: Were there ever any problems with the language barrier in the band or during shows?
Jordan: Not really, Paul always spoke Japanese. I didn't speak much when I started, so Paul carried the torch there.
Ryan: What kind of a reception did you get with the band? Do people ever mention it to you these days?
Jordan: At the time I think, people were into. It never really showed that much at the shows initially. As we got momentum, dudes were singing along and stuff. And last shows were amazing. Even now, people still refer to me as Jordan (ex black line fever) which is a bit random. But I have heard from Yoshi and Itaru, that people are kind of more into us now than when we were playing??
There is talk about a reunion show maybe later this year.
Ryan: Whoa, that sounds pretty awesome. I guess you guys were just ahead of your time.
Jordan: Maybe. I never really thought about what we were doing as like that, but I think a lot Japanese kids had never really seen any band like us before.
Ryan: I would say that there weren't any other bands like you guys. Your sound was pretty unique. Not Japanese, but not Australian or American either.
Jordan: Yeah I guess. At the time I was pretty inspired by a lot of bands like JR Ewing etc. Paul and Itaru were the metal dudes and they were pushing that kind of sound. So it kind of all meshed together.
Ryan: Do you remember how many copies of the demo and album you made?
Jordan: The 1st as in the one on your blog. Maybe about 50 copies. I screen printed all of those puppies. Took me for-fucking-ever, stunk out my apartment with paint fumes and glue Pretty pissed off housemates, haha.
The 2nd one. A few hundred, I forget. Yoshi was taking care of that one.
Ryan: Did you do the art for the second one too?
Jordan: Yeah, I put all that stuff together.
Ryan: Cool. For the second release, did you guys want to do a CD-R as opposed to another format like a pressed CD? Or was it just because it was cheaper/easier?
Jordan: Fully cheaper and easier. In retrospect we should have got real CD's, but in the end that record was a bit of a shambles. We spent a fair bit on the recording in studio with this guy, who kind of fucked it up. We got everything down, but ran out of time for mixing. So we took the data and got a friend to mix it. Not too happy with how it turned out, the first album was way better. We had complete control over the mixing.
Ryan: What was the purpose or message of the band?
Jordan: Sheesh... Not sure really. I guess for me it was kind of an experiment. I wanted to play and write music in another country. I think for other people, perhaps the singers, it was about more individual stuff. The feeling we had as a group tho was always kind of like a team of friends, us vs the world, that kind of thing.
Ryan: Where is everybody now? I would assume still in Japan because of the reunion, but what are they doing?
Jordan: Paul recently moved back to Japan, and we have started playing together with the original drummer of cohol in a band called funeral sutra..Tim the drummer moved back to Canada a few years ago, he is working as a video sound guy. Yoshi and Itaru are both in Tokyo, see them every few weeks, have a laugh and a beer, that kind of thing.
Ryan: So, was Tim going to come back for the reunion? Or would you use a different drummer?
Jordan: Probably a different guy.
Ryan: Ah, that's too bad. His drumming was so great.
Jordan: The best guy I have ever played with. So dynamic..
Ryan: So, that's all the questions I had. Do you want to talk a bit about Redskins or Funeral Sutra?
Jordan: Yeah I can give you a brief run down.
Redskins as I mentioned before has a singer now, we are putting together new material for shows and recording. Pretty special band for me; friends who formed the band after the earthquake, I guess, as we were all scared all the music began. Funeral Sutra is a way more black metal thing. I love it, writing a lot of music like that at the moment. Really clicks, we write so fast as we all have pretty heavy schedules. But I am loving both bands. I am playing another band as well, on drums, a band called Glue Bag, which is kind of sludgy angry Australian-style rock stuff..
Ryan: Any last words for all those black line fever fans?!
Jordan: Thanks for enjoying the music I guess. We will keep you all posted if we reunite for shows later in the year. Thanks Ryan
The closest thing that these guys did to a full-length. What else can I say about The Black Line Fever? They were a once in a lifetime band that played with such honesty and fury. One of my favorites that ended too soon.
