shoot'n dance'n

Even though I got a bit sunburned, little girl on set found a four-leaf clover, and afterward I hula hooped with Ueno Juri for some reason. She's nice and lovely.

Studio at MIDNIIIIGHT

beardy

Also, you guys, my beard is MAGNIFICENT.

too early

Ugh, morning call at 6 for a small movie shoot, it is not that cool at all but hey a tiny bit of free money for just standing there. And then people can play where's waldo again!

big and gentle

Thanks to Silv for turning me on to Bigelf; I love their covers straight out of the serious '70s and the Pink Floyd-isms that don't put me to sleep... I love the snake oil salesman/traveling medicine magic show image they've got going too, almost Western.

Whee~

This is good

The Dear Hunter's album Act III: Life and Death is just utterly perfect. It's like if Muse and Elton John had a kid, and then Pink Floyd and Queen had a kid, and then those kids met up and got married and had a kid with that one really good My Chemical Romance album so the resulting kid could have American citizenship. This is the dumbest thing I have ever written.

But seriously. It's modern with deliberate twinges of vague European and gyspy sounds, but it is by no means irritating or annoying or sound 'indie', nor is it by any stretch minimalist, even at its most minimalist moments. It is very carefully layered and meticulously constructed with Beach Boys/Queen vocals with plenty of emotion. I have been looking for a modern band with good vocal work for ages.

It is undeniably prog, but it is not prog metal, and that's honestly very refreshing. I am quite metal-ed out to be quite truthful.

Now to track down the first two albums.

Oh yeah so quick announcements

-The following people are seriously flippin' aweome: Cryptomayhem, Mrs. Cryptomayhem, Silvanos, Nemo

-Yes, we are on Fuji Pro now, along with Dolly and Hi:BRiD and Smells which is basically Merry Go Round minus one. Other bands that used to be on this label are Gimmick, Ghost, Vogus Image, Henzel, and Clover.

-We have a maxi-single coming out on 9/23, Praparat. 2 songs + one DVD. :D

-The reason we were filming the live was because footage from it will be used as a short promotion commercial that will be shown on the video screen above the Donkihote in Shinjuku. :D

-Then a CPs shusai event for the CD release, another one-man on 3/14 at Mosaic, and lots of other junk!

-I can't get MY OWN BAND'S WEBSITE to show up properly on my computer!

Daaaaang

holy crap look at this

today is a birthday

Today is Tenten's birthday, yaaaaaaaay!

also we have a show

New Japanese Blog

So apparently we're celebrities* now, which necessitates us getting celebrity blogs, and I honestly have no idea what it means and why it meant that we had to make entirely NEW OFFICIAL blogs with the website and not just, like, keeping all the other entries and stuff or moving them or anything. So it doesn't make a lot of sense, I guess I just "leveled up" or something.

Anyway!

http://ameblo.jp/cps-jimi/


*this doesn't mean anything; pretty much any band on any tiny label or management will have this ranking, as will random people you saw on TV like, twice

Mirror, Mirror, on the wall...

Who is the most awesome American bassist in a Japanese Visual Kei band of them all?

(I have rigged this question as you can see)

Still Alive

Tee hee~




Whee~!

Today's stuff

Got my application form in for my share of the government refund check. Yes, even foreigners get a piece. A small piece, but a piece.

Met up with JJ for some stuff; that guy is so ridiculously uplifting in the face of a lot of the junk we have to go through and I'm very glad to have someone like him around.

Roppongi is yeeeaaaarrrrrgggghhh.

im not dead

Busy getting things ready for the one-man and beyond.

One thing I decided not to mention but now want to; when our van pulled into Astro Hall on Sunday, we were already in full makeup because of things we filmed/shot in the morning. A group of foreigners, all complete and utter Bros, saw us and started hooting and laughing and being like HAHA WE GOTTA GET PICS OF THIS BRO. I was embarrassed and annoyed and tried not to show myself and that was cowardly. Tenten took it in stride and posed with the guys, which in retrospect was the correct thing to do. We could see them hanging out outside the live house for several hours from the upstairs window trying to pick up on the multitude of girls waiting outside, but thankfully unsuccessfully. I think they were hoping to see more of that WILD AND CRAZY JAPAN that people seem to insist is all Japan consists of.

I handled it poorly; Tenten and the girls handled it well.

I feel rather productive today.

its over!

All done.

We're back in a groove, and our new song is a killer. And Inertia was there!, which honestly made up for the admittedly rough morning. :D

also dancho has a chemical pictures sticker on his nintendo ds, just thought you should know.

I took 250 polaroids today, that is dumb

Small size t-shirts SOLD OUT D:

gonna go crash, aaaauuuggghhh :D

what i can say

-Here are the t-shirts.

-The new song will be 500 yen.

-Various announcements will be cool. We had a meeting with XXXXX yesterday and I can't wait to tell details of that.

-Schwarz cut his hand on a string during rehearsal today and didn't notice ALL THE BLOOD until a few songs in. It was pretty rock n roll. (j/k it was kinda scary at first)

-Your emails really brighten my day, and I'm trying to find time to write yall back. Crypto for lotsa stuff, Mr.Volt for tons of stuff, etc. Couldn't have asked for nicer readers and friends.

-TOUR FINAL TMR

wear

Chemical T-shirts are IN, suckas!

Gah so much preparation to do.

Off to a sorta cool meeting today. You might find it mildly amusing when I can mention it.

Whee〜

2 down 1 to go

We went into the studio the night before to tighten up the set list and hopefully get the new song in working order to be performed live. There were reservations as to whether we should have done it at all, but in the meantime we left it in.

Went to Osaka.

I've been friends with Yanagi from Swallowtail since before either of us were in our current bands, so for us to have the opportunity to play together is a real treat. Joe is friends with NoGoD, and Tenten and Joe are both friends with Moran, so really it all felt like one chill group of friends puttin' on a show.

Made quick friends with NoGoD's bassist Karin, who may be the only Japanese person I've met who had even heard of groups like Incubus, 311, Infectious Grooves, or Primus, all of which happen to be guilty pleasures of us both. He helped me work through a lot of my sound concerns.
And Dancho is a deep, deep thinker who seriously has some amazing things to say. And you know what, after these two shows, I feel like if you're unable to appreciate NoGoD in any way, you are probably a huge dork.

At the time I felt like the Osaka show went well, but upon consideration it was obvious that our set construction was a huge mistake from the get-go. The first few songs were all our heavy numbers, but it just... didn't work. We're not that kind of band. Anyway, I initially felt good upon leaving the stage, but Tenten was super down about it, and I started doubting myself further, like I was the only one unable to read the mood. Still, it was clear the crowd was having a good time and I definitely spotted Kellie and Midori in the audience and glancing over at them certainly gave me the strength to keep goin' crazy! (The Muse stage is huge so maybe I moved too much. :-P) Afterward Midori gave me some seriously awesome baked goods that really hit the spot.

So we drove to Nagoya, checked into our hotel (I shared a room with Joe), and had a very serious band meeting which initially left me doubtful and confused. In the morning we headed to Nagoya. Now, I was further anxious because the people of Nagoya sort of have a reputation for being cold; and if they're not really into you or your set they will sit down. Heck, we didn't even include time in our set for an encore because we were that scared.

But Nagoya was INSANE; just absolutely bonkers and I can never help but wonder if no one's coming out of there critically injured or what. Totally great. And then we got the encore, which surprised us, so we went out and did two heavy songs. Right after the first one I thought, "wow, shoulda just done the one" because seriously my body is at its limit right now. I'm cannot fathom how, say, Kuroyume could physically handle 200+ shows a year in their heyday.

I got FIVE bottles of iced chai from a darling girl who worked up the bravery to approach me as I headed to my van; you rock, ice chai chick.

And Schwarz, who has nearly never spoken a word to anyone that hasn't involved music or guitars in some fashion, came up to me after he had taken some time to go buy some supplies, and could barely squeak out, "Nagoya... look around, amazing... the women... wow..." So you know the guy's serious!

Anyway. Lots of ups and downs this weekend. I thought we had a bead on what we are as a band, but we all frankly discussed the fact that maybe we don't quite have a concrete image formed and that's a bit scary, considering all that's coming up for us. Still, I'm very glad we got that out, because somehow even in that mood, it made Nagoya way way better.
We're still not completely sure of ourselves, but I think we're getting there finally. This week and next are the real tests.

Things'll work out somehow. In the meantime I'm seriously on my last legs here! >_<

Shota

Tada!

Drummer Shota.

And my current savior, iced chai.

hehe

whee

road

osaka done, now in nagoya. more when i get back to tokyo.

newness

So, one might notice we have a new homepage, http://cps-official-web.com . The old domain was way easier to remember, but various problems with stuff led to this. OH WELL, that's why God made bookmarks.(>_<)

At least new pics are up!

Things are movin'; just hoping the movements are justified. Hard to tell yet!

Live Report 6/30/09, Sendai Macana: Chemical Pictures, DaizyStripper, Skull, etc

So here's how Sendai worked:

-Wake up at 6, head out to Ikebukuro to meet the rest of the band and our staff. Ride horrible morning trains.

-Joe, who is supposed to bring the car, oversleeps and says he'll be there an hour or so later. Eat McDonald's breakfast.

-We get a really late start and head off. Tochigi and Fukushima prefectures feel like annoying underfoot cats, but otherwise the drive is fine.

-Get to Macana just in time for our rehearsal. I loved that bass head they had, and I still don't remember the maker. And even though I'd only seen a tiny bit of it, Sendai's pretty cool. DaizyStripper's bassist immediately chats me up and he's a great guy. It was neat realizing that everyone but the vocalist used to be Clavier.

-Shoot a video comment for Visunavi and start our show! Tenten's mother and sister (Eri Taira, a model who shows up a lot in girls' fashion magazines) are in the crowd; I talk to them later and they are lovely.

-Macana's stage is TINY; the wings are pretty wide but then you're hidden behind speakers. The crowd was a little less crazy than we woulda liked, but this is because DaizyStripper fans make up the vast majority of the evening's crowd. Now, this is not a bad thing, as it means we get exposure to more new people, and granted we're still "new".



-As we pack up stuff to load into the van, a girl works up the courage, runs up to me with a present and letter, squeaks out a few words, and runs off again. I don't know what it is, but to me that is the cutest, most adorable type of fan. There are also ones that walk right up and talk to you and say weird stuff, or maybe its not weird I'm just not used to it, and maybe I just haven't learned how to be smooth yet.

-As we start the drive back, we are super-tired. Joe needs to stay awake, so he puts a mix of early Luna Sea on his iPod and sets the volume down low enough not to be a bother. Our makeup girl speaks up. "Hey, uh, Joe..." I'm thinking she wants him to turn it down so she can sleep. "Can you, uh, turn it up?" It quickly turned into an old-skool Luna Sea sing-along with lots of great Ryuichi impersonations. I don't care who you are; Ryuichi impressions are hilarious.

-I end up actually sleeping a little bit in the car, a rare feat. We get back to Ikebukuro at 6am, I go to work at 8:30 after a brief stop at home, and boy was Wednesday difficult. I think my body actually treated today as the day after Tuesday and not yesterday, because I'm way more sore now.


Oh, and some news: Masami is no longer drumming with Chemical Pictures. I love the guy to death and wish he could have become a full-fledged member, but he has his plans and we have ours, so we're going to go with the new guy, Shota. He's young, loves metal, and I love his little touches that skyrocket the song's groove to a euphoric level, particularly on the final portion of "I wanna get away".
Anyway, next time I hang out with Masami, which will happen certainly since we have lots of Ace Attorney and Gyakuten Kenji talk to catch up on, I'll be sure to let y'all know. :)

Also had a nice long talk with Tommy today about a whole bunch of stuff. All youz guyses' awesomeness and the awesomeness of my family aside, she's the only person on this side of the ocean recently who has somehow magically said just the right things to keep me going.


NEXT:
OSAKA, NAGOYA, HARAJUKU, then ONE-MAN, at which we'll be selling a song called "In My Dream" (not a Luna Sea cover), and we have a big announcement! ... I don't know what it is, but Tenten keeps saying we do, so! (I mean, I have an idea of what it could be, but not sure which bit he means.)

Whee~