Whoo yeah! Post number one hundred! I'm pretty excited, guys, cause I've never done 100 of anything (especially not push-ups), so this is something special. Just want to say thanks to everybody checking out the blog, retweeting my stuff on Twitter, and writing about the blog. It all means so much to me. I'll try to keep this going as long as I can (as you can see above, I'm old as fuck and will probably keel over any second now).
So what is this? It's a podcast. Not too long, just 6 songs and some rambling by me. Hopefully you'll find some new bands on here that you'll go search out and buy their stuff, cause these bands are more current than the usual old fogey stuff I post. This one is mostly screamo stuff, so if you follow this blog you will probably like at least ONE thing on here, if not everything.
Anyways, here's the tracklist. Enjoy the podcast. Please leave feedback!!
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:
And so the week ends with Volume 3. This actually isn't the last of the compilation series, but I don't have Vol. 4, so that'll be it for this anyways. I really hope Aki continues with this series, as there isn't really any other compilations in Japan collecting this stuff.
As with the others, this one has a different style than the one's before. This one is mainly emo and screamo bands. Some of the stand outs are Bed, What Ever Film, and The Sunset Boulevard, although almost every track is really good.
I still have a copy of this in my distro, so pick it up if you like the tracks: Buy it Here!
So, there's this band called KiLLi. Yes, the name is only one letter away from another band you may know, Killie, but they're not related. This band was from Yokohama, and sadly they've only left remnants of themselves strewn across the internet. They've peaked my interest enough, with their classic Japanese screamo sound, that I think they warrant a post on here.
All the time,nobody understanding.
Thanks to everyone who support our movement.
This message, posted on their website as they announced their break up, is some sort of sad goodbye. 'No one gets us, so we're giving up' it says in so many words. That seems to be the fate of so many bands playing music true to their heart, doing something that might not fit the current trend in music culture.
But who was KiLLi? Here's what I know (just the facts, ma'am). They broke up in 2006. They released a CD with 4 songs called A GIFT FROM INSOMNIAC which is sold out, a tape with 2 songs, and a split CD with Wet the Bed, with the two songs embedded below. The members from the band went on to play in ANTI-WRECKERS, Reach Up To The Universe, Sequence Pulse, 氷水. They were active in Yokohama. They split up because their Bassist was going to stop playing music.
Let's be honest. Leaving two songs on a purevolume is a harsh tease. Listening to them, the sound is a melding of 2000-era Japanese screamo and forward-thinking rock. If this band had more exposure, they could easily be really successful. Instead, they disappeared into obscurity. I tweeted awhile back, asking if anybody had any information, but never got any leads. So, I'm writing this. Maybe someone will respond, or maybe this will end up being the band's late obituary. Either way, you owe it to yourself to check these guys out.
IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION ABOUT THIS BAND, PLEASE COMMENT BELOW!
Ah, number two. This was some time after the first (around two years) and had a different focus than the previous one. Although the theme of Impulse Records' Here Comes the Bottom Line... seems to really just be about getting great Japanese bands together, each one seems to have a stylistic focus too. The first was a sort of melodic hardcore/screamo/emo mash-up. This one is more about noisy bands and emo bands. You've got the expansive and sneaky Bright and Dark Side next to the wild and chaotic Fountain of Rich Aroma. There's even a solid noise track with 斜陽 (sorry, won't bother translating it). The tying thread, like the first, is that this is the Japanese underground. Aki doesn't collect every band in this series. He would be almost to the hundreds by now. What he does try to capture is the spirit, the ethics of what makes the underground unique. Sometimes its just personal. Most, if not all of these bands have played shows with all the others. They probably know most of the members by name. Styles aside, this is a cohesive scene. And maybe that's the theme of each, he looks at one scene. I'm not sure if many of these bands have played shows with Mule or Minoritybluesband, from the first compilation, so maybe that's it.
I can see this as also a sort of level setting, to define what makes these bands different. As an outsider to Japan, I don't normally play the scene card. I tend to evaluate bands based purely on their sound, not caring who they play with or what label they're on. And not that those things matter, necessarily, but I think they're indicative of the character and ethics of said band. There's a specific scenario that outlines this point perfectly. Zankyo Records is a slightly prolific label in Japan that releases music in the emo, and sometimes screamo, genres. If you listened to folio and, say, 3nd or The Cabs, you can see a lot of similarities. But, those bands would rarely, if ever, play together in Japan. The reason being, I can only ascertain from what I can see, is that folio is an indie or DIY band, and The Cabs are hoping to "make it big." After the success of 9mm Parabellum Bullet, who were on Zankyo before signing to Sony, it seems that becoming popular while playing indie music with screaming is a real possibility. This is really about the sound of music separated from the reasons that sound was developed. In some ways, that is also the problem with the internet spreading DIY music. Most of the time only the music is communicated, separated from the context that music was created in.
So, these compilations, while not explicitly communicating a message in their packaging, are about the DIY culture and what it means. If so, then it's really some sort of allegorical biography of Aki himself, because the dude embodies what is great about this culture. Playing in about 10 bands, being a focal point and supporter of the DIY scene. His most recent Impulse Fest is a perfect example of his commitment to the scene outside of a specific genre. Do yourself a favor and get into Impulse Records.
