goooo

ready for instore〜

1st present

Madness.

A koala eating money.

Madness!

From Joe♪

brief bday report

I couldn't have asked for a better, more unorthodox birthday.

Steve announced it was my birthday before the 1st encore, which was neat. At the uchiage afterward, they had a cake ready for me, and I was really moved. And there were two hardcore CP fans at the Steve show with presents for me! That really got me.

Joe and Tenten came to the show as well and really enjoyed themselves immensely; they and the Steve band got along great, and Steve was so kind to them.

And then, all the amazing messages from you and from Japanese fans... I really am stunned into silence even now. I have nothing to say but thank you, thank you, thank you.

Images, then Words

It's difficult to express just how amazing this whole tour experience was. I am completely exhausted right now, but at no point was it ever difficult. It was pure fun the whole time.

And a lot of that had to do with how well the management and tour staff worked with us, how easy it is to work with Steve, and how JJ brought the band together.

I'm sure there are dozens of other way more amazing bassists to be had, so I feel so blessed to have been given this opportunity.

oh

There's a gear feature interview with yours truly in the new issue of Askew Magazine, which can be downloaded for free, so go check that out!

i talk a lot

HB

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MEEEEEEEEEE

BIRTHDAAAAAAAY

uh-oh someone found out about an event we are supposedly going to be at before the time we said we'd come back as cp, oops （●ω●）

Picture Spam 2

Lots of travelling and lots of sammiches, none of which have been as good as the one I made in Osaka.

They say Nagoya girls aren't known for their beauty, but I still managed to fall in love every few minutes. And I am a needlessly and undeservedly picky boy.

Typhoon's comin' in.

Also coming in tomorrow is MY BIRTHDAY I will be 2X years old (・ω・)

picture spam 1

Shoulda brought my laptop along (does anyone even say laptop anymore?), since these days there's free Wi-Fi EVERYWHERE, even backstage at live houses!

really?

In Osaka... made a kickin' sammich. Quattro is cooool.

Haha look who came.

omotesandwich

Today was...wild. In an almost-flying-off-the-rails-but-still-good way.

I'll be home at midnight or so, then off to Osaka at 7 in the morning, so I'll write more on the Shinkansen. Otsukare!

Fabulous

Today is Omotesando FAB with Inugami Circus Dan and others and also comedians.

Shiun is playing with us, and it's Schwarz's final show.

Off to the office!

st

Studio w/Steve, JJ, Toma, and new drum. Ryo's currently on Miyavi's world tour so he can't be with us.

Setlist has changed 4 times in 24 hrs.

Whee〜

drummm

Our drummer for tomorrow will be Shiun, formerly of Scissor. Great guy. :)

CP on the iT

Praparat is on Japanese iTunes, whee~

look

at this cute thing

look at it

it is flippin' cute

this thing is

cute

(it is me)

Signed an extra 100 photos for the next batch of CDs the shops ordered BECAUSE THEY RAN OUT :D

I will have a little good news on the 1st.

Studio today. Wrote a few new songs in the process. I'll tell your our drummer for next show asap. ;)

Thanks

Sales

Wanna sell some stuffffffffffff

SCOREBOOKS

Dir en grey - Gauze
Dir en grey - Macabre
Dir en grey - Kisou
Dir en grey - Vulgar
L'arc en ciel - Singles Collection
all $30 + shipping

Dir en grey - Six Ugly
$25 + shipping


Also news on overseas sales of Praparat soon >_< We just came out of a string of national holidays so I'm sorry for all the delays!

Better news

So I mentioned that Praparat is selling well; that was kind of a cool thing to hear just before we went onstage.

Oh and before the curtains opened, they showed the Praparat video and the crowd seemed to like it, so that was neat. But the WAITING D:


Also... Japan tour with Steve Appleton!

October 5th, Osaka, Shinsaibashi Club Quattro
October 6th, Nagoya Club Quattro
October 8th, Tokyo, Ebisu Liquid Room

Way more important than any of that, though: the 8th is my birthday

my birthdaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay
my birthdayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
mmmmmmmmmmmy birthday

THE 8TH. OF OCTOBER.

It'd be nice if it were a CP show instead, but oh well! :-P

Shubarutsu

Last night the announcement went up on the CP website, along with official comments from FujiPro and the four of us.
It's difficult for me to express my emotions fluently in Japanese when I am hardly sure of what I feel in English, so my comment is short and vague.

Schwarz, I think, due to a few factors, has had (and for awhile, will have) a problem figuring out exactly how he wants to properly express himself with the talents he has. If we're going to mention music only, I feel like the CP-formula of heavy and blues played emotionally with nary a love song in sight suited his style just fine, but as a hunch I think he wants to walk a more traditional metal road.

And he has shown signs of restlessness for awhile now. At one meeting conversation quickly turned serious, and I remember thinking that I suddenly had no clue what anyone was talking about. This happened again a few months later, and, try as I might, I had no idea what was going on. Schwarz was pulling away, and I couldn't understand his reasons why. I thought the other two did, but in conversations with them later it turns out that they didn't quite understand.

Tenten and Schwarz discussed things like rambunctious brothers, sort of how I feel like with my own brother--to an outsider it might not look like we even like each other, but the affection for each other feels so obvious to ourselves. Joe tried very hard to get Schwarz to stay, and for a short while it seemed he was successful, but then he dropped the bomb, so to speak.

To tell the truth, I think we were very angry at first. Not only were our efforts to keep our buddy in the fold a failure, there was the timing question to look at. We had already filmed the Praparat video by this point, at the one-man. We hadn't gone into the studio to record it yet. There were all sorts of other things that made this decision a serious royal headache. But we worked out that he'd do the single with us and then that would be it.

Schwarz and Tenten have been working together since last year, before even Joe or I came into the fold. So it does feel a little strange in that sense. When Yue decided to leave Laverite, I have to be honest and say I felt a little relieved. I felt like I could only do so much there and I was looking for another shot. My initial feelings about Schwarz's departure aside, I also feel slightly relieved now, for some reason. Maybe because I just hope that he'll find enjoyment in whatever he does next, and also I have the feeling that we'll be all right.

CP will definitely be back. This is no BS activity pause. Unofficially the goal is to be back before the 3/14 one-man, and this is no vacation. We've been trying to get things in order ever since Schwarz first decided to part ways with us, so don't worry too much.

If you read Schwarz and Tenten's Japanese messages, they strike me as more honest than the typical "oh i am leaving over musical differences, it is so sad oh well" messages you see when someone leaves. Obviously we can't say everything; I don't like it when artists air their dirty laundry with each other, so I'm trying just to illustrate the humanness of these things. But I do want to stress: we still like him. He still likes us (I hope!). We're disappointed, but it's a rare, neat thing when you can get a bunch of dreamers to agree on a dream. And like I said in my Japanese message, it would be nice if both Chemical Pictures and Schwarz are able to keep traveling our respective journeys, keeping in mind the things we learned and the experiences we had together.


Be assured: we began planning out solutions to this the day after Schwarz first told us he'd be leaving, so we're doing our best to come back stronger than before.

I will be glad when we can put this behind us, though.

Oh hey, look forward to our support drummer for the 10/4 show. :)

9/23/09, Meguro Rokumeikan: Chemical Pictures, Hi:BRiD, Otogadead, Juliette

Up at 4, office at 6, Rokumeikan at 12, filmin' somethin' i dunno shut up, then just sitting around being nervous.

Those of you who have seen us live before, bless your hearts for thinking nothing but nice things, and I'm glad it doesn't look like we're struggling up there. Because ever since May I feel like we've been very hit-or-miss. Some shows were great, others not so great, and sometimes we all agreed whether it was a good or bad one and sometimes we didn't. That might be more frustrating than the quality of the show, actually; the inability to come to a consensus.

But last night was awesome!

Setlist:
-Welcome to our CHAOS-
1. Jibaku Souchi
2. Suffering
3. Yamu Sora
-Bluesmen-
4. Black Box
5. Reincarnation
6. Walking Ashland
7. Stand By Me
-fast riff from old website-
Encore -Praparat-

Jibaku Souchi, a very demanding song, executed pretty much flawlessly; Walking Ashland whipping everyone into a frenzy; Joe going absolutely bonkers, Tenten giving his all, Schwarz bein' cool as a cucumber... and I certainly felt collected and in control, and it feels good to hit that pocket.


In all honesty, I feel like some of it was the new costumes. So much easier to move around in than the other ones, bizarrely. Lighter, less restrictive. At first glance they don't look very CP-ish, but we had the opportunity to strike a great deal with BtSSB. Even though our glam aesthetic and their gothic aesthetic are worlds apart, they were very easy to work with, and it's the first time I've had a costume designed to the specifications I laid out in the first place, as opposed to sort of ignoring what I had in mind. Also, the new CP logo looks really neat; we had pins for sale and I stuck mine on my strap so I'll show those to you later.


The call for an encore came, and it was Shota's last show with us, and we knew we had to make an announcement...
Tenten started with, "We didn't really want to do an encore tonight."
The fans called out "Why?"
And then he just blurted it out. Pause. Schwarz is leaving. Shouts of shock, more than a few tears. I got emotional in a numb sense; I've already made my peace with his decision but watching the fans find out for the first time was not pleasant. And during Praparat, the words took on another more prescient meaning.
How are you supposed to smile? Ridiculous.

And as we went to the car, fans were respectful (we'd been told not to stay around and chat by management, and I think they could sort of see we weren't necessarily in the mood for a chat, given the news)... but I felt bad for them. I made sure to at least say thanks and smile, and thank those who just wanted to tell us they bought the CD.

By the 4th I hope it's sunk in, and the in-stores should go fine, I hope. More thoughts in my next post.


Finally though thanks to Nemo who came all the way from Nagano to come see us play! That was crazy nice of her.

oh wait

Sales of Praparat are exceeding expectations, so. There's that.

Lots to talk about. First sleep, work, tell you.

dumb news

Live report forthcoming--great show--but let's get the stupid news out of the way.

Tonight was Shota's last show with us. After our next show on the 4th, Schwarz is leaving the band. We will be doing the 2 in-stores as a 3-piece. And we have no lives planned between then and 3/14/10.

That said, we'll try our best to resume activities ahead of schedule.

Report, and my thoughts, later.

Flowers from Baby The Stars Shine Bright, to us. Why? you may ask. Well,

Today's Bandvan Music:

Korean drama soundtracks

still dark

Up at 4am for today, lots goin' on, single out today, hahahaha these new outfits hahaha

t-cakes

From Skagirlie.

I'm from California and I've never seen these before but they are GREAT.

ignore the 90 calories bit cuz you'll eat them all and not share

ah, the perks of loooonlineeeessss (・ω・)

More on 9/18

Ito asked if I had any other thoughts about the West show.

I do, actually. And I've been having these thoughts ever since our show at Cyber, and then Boxx.

For those two shows, we were playing with bands unlike us. It's the light, easy-to-understand and easy-to-get-into music for the modern Visual age. For West, it was all the drop-D heaviness bands, and they do what they do very, very well, and the audience goes absolutely bonkers.

I watched from the balcony after our set, with Karyu and James. It's inspiring, and I wonder if we ARE getting those reactions and I'm just too distracted to notice, or we're not quite solid yet, or what.

That said, though, people start moshing wall-to-wall across the entire front of the live house when we play our up-tempo 12-bar-blues pop song, so. So I guess even in a genre chock-full of unabashed musical cliches, there's still so much you can't predict about what people will enjoy across different bands, even if they're doing the same things.

And then I get really nice messages out of the blue, from all over the world, and it gives me a little hope.

hahahaha wait until you see these new costumes haaahahaha

9/18/09, Shibuya O-WEST: Chemical Pictures, Skull, born, OZ, Lulu, Nega

Post got eaten by Firefox, which has been crashing more than ever, by which I mean it has never crashed until the last couple of weeks.


Anyway.

I almost forgot we had a show! I should probably talk about that.


West is a huge stage, but by Japanese standards; I'm used to 200-cap live houses so I sort of had a hard time getting into the groove, but apparently it was okay. Fan reaction was good and I've received some sweet messages already. More foreigners than usual; keep comin'! :)


James came, which was neat. With foreigners I've met through work I tend to be hesitant to invite them to come see me play, but James works in music professionally (well, video, really) so I'm glad he can come see me in not-a-blonde-wig. And also, playing for real.

Karyu came as well, which was really nice of him and unexpected. I need to stress just how nice and grounded D'Ray are. They are good people.

Also got introduced to Michiru (Mask, Aioria, S to M), who is easy to pick out of a crowd but otherwise unassuming, pleasant and business-like, and I think he assumed I couldn't speak Japanese or something, but he was nice. My manager knows everyone apparently.


We are currently working on getting Praparat available for sale to you over-the-ocean peeps! I'm sorry it's taking this long. No one expected the interest this has generated so far and our management hasn't dealt with this sort of thing before so please be patient just a little while longer;;

Here's a picture of the CD and DVD:

Next is my first show at Rokumeikan. Hope I meet a ghost!

byelephant

So if I were willing to part with a slightly used Ganesa, would anyone be interested?

it's here

Single came this morning while in makeup!

Also, Kamiyu is helping out today and while waiting he showed us old Jakura video tapes and talked about old times. We made Shota guess which one he was.

We're mentioned in a little blurb in this month's Shoxx, aaaaand maybe today I can announce something? lemme ask my manager real quick

mph

where did my face go

OOP

We're playing with born, skull, oz, nega, and lulu tmr and I'm worried about fan reaction. We're no crazy heavy band and we either play with those or light cute bands. I think we stick out but not necessarily in a good way yet.

If Sugar was still around, or Moran weren't pausing, that might be a better fit, but their atmosphere is much more confident.

Hope we hit a stride sometime!

着うた

hahaha

From today, you can download the Praparat ringtone.

hahahahaha

well not you non-Japan-living peeps :(

Seems silly to me! Ringtones.

CM news, Despa at AX

Here is the spot in Tokyo where our commercial is playing; the Donki in Kabukicho, Shinjuku. It plays once every 15 minutes, all day. (click for big)

It is nice to have something out there being promoted that I am actually a part of, that I get credit for, as opposed to the stuff I do for Tommy or Steve or Becca, which, while loads of fun and I love doing it, isn't about me at all. :-P


So on James and I headed to AX to see D'espairsRay's FREE 10-year anniversary live. James had been hired by them to go on their Europe tour and take the tour document video; James is actually a video guy by trade.

When Tommy decided she was going to keep using me as guitarist after letting the other guys go, we were getting ready to do the February video. James was on the production crew for that one, and when she found out his name was James, she thought it would be funny to have two Jameses in the video. sure whatever just pay me

But we hit it off and then she added a 3rd James, in JJ, and we're set, but he didn't come so he's not a part of this story, I'm just tellin' you how James and I met. Wow, I am not on point this morning.


ANYWAY AX. Flowers from Marilyn Manson.

OH so before the doors opened up, James and I were walking toward the desk to give our names for the passes, and this girl came up and said "hey are you Jimi from Chemical Pictures?"
why yes i am
Seriously, I couldn't have been more tickled, or humbled, and she was super-nice and had a good head on her shoulders and was rockin' out in the Kanto plain and I thought she had had some neat Japanese adventures. We've been in the country for similar lengths of time so I think we were in the same mental place. I forgot her name but she was really nice and cool, so thanks for saying hi, and if I hadn't had to go to work early in the morning we shoulda stayed out for drinks!

I never thought I'd be found out just walkin' around :| ... :3
(so if you see me say hi)
(or if youre gonna be in the area hit me up and i will do my best to hang out with you)
(its fun)

So the set. For some reason a lot of their newer material sorta blends together to me, but then again I'm not as familiar with it as the old stuff. A lot of it does have to do with the fact that DRay's hit upon a songwriting formula and a solid, yet unadventurous playing style, that works for them. They played "Fuyuu shita Risou" and "Tatoeba Kimi ga Shindara" and "Facism" I think but I wanted to hear more stuff like the Garnet or Born stuff; that time period. That's just nostalgia talking though, and I understand that.
Stuff I remember: "Horizon", "Yozora", um

I really liked their first full album, and they played "Infection", and "Forbidden" was the final song of the encore, and those were really nice surprises for me.

They have great stage presence; Tsukasa is solid as a rock, and with a huge stage Karyu and Zero were running around and spinning around for nearly the entire set. They were so energetic during the very first song, in fact, that I bet myself they wouldn't be able to keep it up, yet they did.

For the encore, Tsukasa came out on vocals. He has a very interesting manner of speech, and a lot of his gestures and posture remind me a lot of my buddy Yumeji, but he was very funny. Karyu sat at the drums, Zero at the guitar, and Hizumi on bass.
Hizumi is funny to watch because he really does not come across as a rock star vocalist. He sort of shuffles around, slouches, and sorta seems like an old man.
After meeting him after the show, though, I think it is more appropriate to compare him, in looks, mannerisms, personality, and thought process, to L from Deathnote.

Think about it.

Anyway, with the bass on, he struck no poses, he made no faces, just looked at his fretboard.
Zero, on the otherhand, could be Dray's guitarist if he wanted to. He did not seem out of place at all and everything sounded great. Karyu was also surprisingly skilled. And Tsukasa really can sing.

Anyway, this shifting of members, he said, was called Sparking D'espairsRay, and everyone's name now had 'Sparking' affixed to it. They then played "Hollow" which is easily my favorite song they've written in the last few years.
They did these little silly solo breaks: Karyu pretended to suck at drums but at the end he was actually impressive; Hizumi stopped and started over a terrible bass solo several times, Zero did his best Yngwie impression, and Tsukasa sang this gorgeous enka tune, and he was very very good. He has the style down pat. He should be the first VK enka singer. :|

Anyway, after the show met up with the guys, all very cool. James had already told them all about Chemical Pictures when they were in Europe and Karyu seemed interested in that; Zero and I talked about gear and he was very fun.


All that said, though... this was the FIRST concert I've been to where I thought "ow too loud!"

AX

At Shibuya AX right now with James, bassist from the Tommy band.

(Picture is Shota
n me from Narciss)

Seein' a band I saw in San Francisco in...'04? Riz was there! And the back of me was briefly in the subsequent DVD.

More later, very, very thankful you guys like 15 seconds of Praparat. :-P

CPSCM

tee hee

Visual Detective

i have no idea what this is for or when we agreed to this

(our clip is from ikebukuro cyber, judging by ten's hair)

(Thanks, Shizuka!)

Hisashiburi no Narciss

Good show at Narciss. To this day, still my favorite. No complaints to report.

Jacket

Here it is, the cover for our first single, Praparat.

It's funny; over the recording process I got very familiar with the lyrics to the lead song and it's neat to see some of those ideas reflected on this jacket.

I also saw a mock-up of the whole CD case--the pictures printed on the discs themselves, the booklet, the back--man. I did something. Well, I mean, I didn't do anything; just, someone realized our silly little ideas and made it into something we can hold.


We are working hard on a way to make this available for purchase overseas and we're pretty close!

Also, today I previewed the music video, and maybe I'm biased but I think it looks really awesome, considering the constraints we were under for it. :3

CP cocktail

I forgot to mention.
Cyber does this thing sometimes where each band or certain members create a unique cocktail for the bar to serve. They give us this big list of spirits and stuff that they have, ask us what sort of taste we want it to have, what color, blah blah blah... here's how that went.

Staff: "Have you made your way through the options?"

Joe: "Do you have pint glasses?"

Staff: "Pint glass?"

Joe: "Yeah. The Chemical Pictures cocktail is a cold beer. ^_^"

Staff: "...just beer?"

The Rest of Us: "..."

Joe: "...you can put in a little tequila I guess. o_o'"


cp cocktail is the best cocktail out of all the band cocktails that have ever been cocktailed

Alphabet Soup

Daaaaang LDP got rocked in the clock with a sock full-a rocks! DPJ with a 300-seat upset ending like 55 years of stagnation.
If you are one of those who believe that the Dems and Repubs are pretty close to the same thing (I don't), then you should see the LDP and DPJ; not really a lot of difference in policies. So it'll be interesting to see if Hatoyama is able to pull things together and get things moving.

SA, DF, MF

(Thanks to Ethan; hey Ethan can i give you a hug and hold it like two seconds longer than you are comfortable with; thanks in advance)

Rage

Grrrrrr when we were in the studio i found the music station performance on youtube and meant to put it up here but now i cant find it at all graaaaaaaahhhh

Yesterday's Cyber performance was pretty bad but the crowd seemed into it. Other than Misa from Babylon asking my manager "Is that Jimi guy half or something?", it was fairly uneventful. He is real nice though.

I'm still really tired; I have the weekend to try to FIX THIS though.

I bought a baseball cap yesterday, the first I have ever bought on my own volition and worn.

I'm looking for music/bands that sing in English that have memorable, ear-wormy vocal melodies. So, since none of you have ever steered me wrong yet, if you'd be so kind to help a brother out, I would be eternally grateful.

Mixed and Mastered

I can't take a schedule like that for too long. It didn't help that I had Music Station in the middle of it all.

The day we laid down vocals for the other song, I was sort of a bit overambitious and wrote out these layered vocal arrangements for certain songs that looked good on paper and sounded fine in my head but sometimes you need to go the more minimal route.

Another scary thing: on the day of mixing, one of us had another one of those only-cool-in-your-head ideas. We tried it out in mixing and to be honest it was terrible. No one seemed okay with it, and usually we're very open to being told our idea is stupid, but for some reason none of us spoke up. Eventually we finally just said oops that is a dumb change so we changed it back to the first idea. Truthfully, it would have been atrocious.

Mastering was this morning, and mastering was handled by Naoya Yoshida from Valentine D.C. Then into the studio to throw together a setlist for a live we have tomorrow at Cyber with SuG and thanks to those jerks the place will be packed and crowded oh wait that is a good thing from a band perspective :3


So the single will look like this:
1. Reincarnation
2. Praparat
3. SE
We just turned in the name of the 3rd track; this will be the full version of the guitar song that plays when you go to the CP website. A lot of people seem to like it a lot, and people have told me they like it, so I'm really proud that we get to offer this. Don't let "SE" fool you; I don't want this to be viewed as a few seconds of throwaway noise.

Anyway. I really think we've put together a coupla nice little ditties.
It's funny; I always hate it when bands or artists say that they're unable to fit in any genre or that they're doing something different--that is not for them to decide, that is for the listeners to decide. If you as a musician want to defy genre or do something different, you do it with your music and not with your spoken words.
That said, when our engineer told us that we had brought him two decidedly un-VK-ish songs, I smiled. I couldn't tell if he meant it in a good way or a bad way. I'm going to assume good because that's what I do. Even with a question of genre out of the picture, and even though these songs do not sound like In My Dream, or really sound like each other, I hope everyone listening finds something about them to appreciate.

We're currently looking for a way to hopefully make this single available to overseas customers, but I can't promise anything yet. I hope we can. >_<

5 straight days of midnight to 8am; hoping my sleep schedule is okay tonight...

\(゜▽゜)/

Studios 1, 2, 3ish

Last time we recorded "In My Dream", I recorded straight through my Sansamp. Also, on the whole, the recording process was difficult and left a slightly bad taste in my mouth. So I sort of had this idea that I don't enjoy recording. But now that we're recording the songs for Praparat, I find myself enjoying it actually.

We're not using Masami or Shota for drums this time; Okachin has drummed for a lot of people, most notably a particularly Kamen Rider and Gundam-obsessed singer. :-* He was great. It took a bit long, and admittedly that's because we didn't do as much pre-pro as we should have, but he did his own thing, asked for feedback, and did most of the stuff we asked him to do and was able to tell us what wouldn't work. It was surprisingly easy.

As for bass, I was able to do both songs in an hour. All in all it was painless compared to In My Dream, but that's probably because we're far more used to these songs. I made a basic sound through Sansamp and laid down the bass.

Then I went to Music Station, and came back.

Day 2 started with me running the bass tracks through an Acoustic head. There were a few bass amps to choose from but when I saw they had an Acoustic I knew I wanted that. I only have one bass, but with these two songs, it would have been nice to have, say, a J-bass and a fretless for certain sections. Still, I was able to emulate those sounds surprisingly well. To make a sort of garage-y picked J-bass tone, I also went through a Boss Blues Driver modified by Weed.

Then we laid down the majority of Schwarz's guitars, and at the end of the night/early morning, Joe put down the acoustic guitar parts. I wish I was more well-versed in guitar amps and stuff or I'd love to tell you guys what we used, but lots of different guitars are also coming in and out of play here and yeah.

Today we started with Tenten's vocals on Praparat, and I am really quite pleased with what he did here tonight. He sang my usual chorus parts for better blending purposes as I worked them out on keyboards and we added some other vocal bits that worked quite well.

Now Schwarz is finishing up some other stuff, and most likely Joe is going in with his parts soon. Tomorrow will be mostly mixing or taking any little bits we couldn't finish today if any, and then mastering, and then hey when do i get to sleep at all seriously

Music Station

Music Station was a lot of fun, and I absolutely love getting cool work opportunities like this.

We did our first day in the studio, from midnight to 8am. I finished my basic tracks in about an hour and finished right at 8, then went out to Roppongi.

Steve rolled in and Ryo, Tomas, JJ, and I headed into our first of a few run-throughs of our 3-minute song.

The first thing we noticed was that the set seems so much bigger on TV. We were also really impressed with the staff and the speed with which they were able to tear down and build sets for each act. Given that it was a live broadcast, they had to have it all done within two minutes, which is no small feat.

We were treated very well, and we took advantage of the downtime we had. Everyone but me and Tomas have iPod Touches or iPhones, and Steve, JJ, and Ryo had drum and keyboard apps. We did a nice little Web 2.0-ish jam session with those apps and a couple guitars.

I wore my Chemical Pictures T-shirt. :-*

In the hallway I passed a very pretty girl and she said hello and I realized it was Yui Aragaki and I sort of turned into a pile of embarrassed jelly.

Anyway, once the actual broadcast started, it felt like we got on stage and then stepped off. It was over just like that.

Steve gave me his new album, and I have yet to really listen to it because other than that taping I've been in the studio all this time.

So hopefully that'll be up on Youtube soon in some fashion! I have to say that I'm VERY lucky to be able to do things like this for freelance work and for a new artistic perspective, and then go back to where I want to be in Chemical Pictures. I like the attention I get as a member of CP during shows and stuff but I like the anonymity when I'm on stage with Steve.

I must have received well over 50 messages on my Japanese blog that day, and I had like over 4,000 unique visitors. Before we went out to do our bit, I read the 15 messages that had built up, and we couldn't have been gone for 5 minutes when I came back and saw there were 30 more in the inbox, and more trickled in. Some of these girls watched with their families and recorded it; some have supporting mothers who have also found things to like with CP. One girl told me her mother jokingly threatened to complain to TV Asahi because she felt the camera wasn't on me enough; another girl told me she was getting her nails done at the salon and asked if they could switch the TV to Music Station! Everyone at my label was watching too; Tenten called me afterward and Joe called as well. Schwarz slept through it and mailed to apologize. :-P

After it was all over, I then went right back to the studio for day 2. (On day 3 now)

That was humbling--I get that Music Station is a very big show and certainly not many people can say they've done it, but for CP fans to watch, even though it wasn't CP, and even though I wasn't the focus at all and didn't show on camera too much, they still made a big deal out of it and watched and let me know that they did. These people were so excited to see me there, and seeing them that happy just to see some random dude off to the side on some music show... that is so, so sweet of them. They're just darling people. Gotta admit I got a little emotional. :)

6 Trees

Drums and bass done.

As morning broke, came to TV Asahi in Roppongi.

how do i get into the building D:

Live Report 8/18/09, Shiuya Boxx: Chemical Pictures, Downer event: Cellt, VelBet, DOG in the Parallel World Orchestra

I really like Boxx. I mean I like the venue. It's got a big area outside that you can chill in, the drink bar is separated from the main hall so you don't have to see a band you don't care about... I mean, from a band perspective you want to keep as many new people to see you as you can, but I totally get the need to escape from a group you're not interested in.

I did not like the sound or lights, though. We were a little bit frustrated but we sort of figured we'd just roll with it. We know we need to stay positive, so we just approached it from the aspect that Shibuya is sort of our "away" game.

But otherwise the show went well. Another reason I like the place is that there are 3 dressing rooms, which are very small but there are actually separate rooms instead of a general "backstage". Also, there's a large central backstage lounge with a fridge and freezer, an ice-maker, water cooler, couches, rice cooker, sofas, and a huge TV and sound system connected to the stage cameras which made observing the other bands so much easier.

Yomi (Nightmare) came and saw us and he spent some time complimenting my singing, which was an honor.

Some other potentially neat things in the works? There were some suits there for non-music-related things who started talking to me about the obvious jazz and blues influences on our playing styles and I like it when I seem to have bamboozled people over 30 that I'm any good! :-P

Next is RECORDING gah this week is going to be crazy.

shota n me

Today is Boxx. First live in awhile with a soundcheck and a nice long set!...where 'long' is 30 minutes, since Shikkoku Symphony was 20. We could only do 3 songs!

Shota and I are groovin' to Sikth right now♪

Live Report 8/15/09, Saitama Kaikan: Chemical Pictures, FIFTEEN OTHER BANDS

When unexpected or unplanned stuff happens on stage--if I get a wire wrapped around my leg, or I bump into Joe, or my mic stand falls over, or Tenten tickles me onstage, what have you--I laugh it off and move on, try to recover well. After all, part of the measure of a good band is how well they can play off of that blip.

And honestly, all in all, things went fine last night, but I don't think I've ever been so embarrassed on stage!

First of all, it was really cool seeing a lot of the old Narciss staff again, and they remembered me and 'welcomed me back' with open arms and big smiles. So great to see Hidetora again, and I also had a great reunion with Kuma, now in Gizel. He's a friend of Joe's too, which just goes to show how dang small this VK world is.

Zero, formerly of Ghost, is now in Hi:BRiD and we hadn't actually spoken in almost a year or so, so it was cool to catch up with him too. And Leo from Cinema Strip. Yuri from Rubik has been a great friend to the band and he was there, as was former beaU bassist Kino, and Soan from Moran. He's been around a lot lately and he has the most calming effect.

Now, after each band's performance, a member or the whole band goes out to the front to do a short talk session with the Zenit Music Factory boss lady, who is admittedly a cool old lady. The idea Tenten wanted to do was, since he was going to jump off the front of the stage and run to the back door after our last song, he wouldn't be able to do the talk. So they were going to send me out there. All I really had to do was announce our single, our 3-man with Otogadead and Juliette, and that we'd be playing at Narciss in October.

Tenten thought it would be funny if I went out there and put her on the spot and say "I don't speak Japanese". I would be speaking Japanese the rest of the time anyway, so I wasn't put off by the idea for the schtick.

I hope I'm remembering this right, because it was sort of a blur.
I get out there and play it Steven Wright-ish, and I get laughs, but I realize that suddenly I have to be committed to this gag. Because she kept asking me questions, when she had assured me that she would keep it short! So I had to come up with these short English answers that Japanese people would understand.

FINALLY, she gets to the question about upcoming activities for CPs and I switch to Japanese, and I got HUGE cheering and applause.

And then it was over and all, and by everyone's account it went fine, but I was SO embarrassed for some reason!

And apparently people were really confused as to whether I can actually speak Japanese or not. Now, she was asking me questions in Japanese and I was answering them in easy English, so I don't know how I could have answered them if I didn't understand. Or how I could wing the tail end of the talk session in Japanese if I couldn't speak. Oh, silly people.

Man, this is why I quit being the singer in bands years ago!

Anyway. Next is

-Shibuya BOXX on the 18th, with VelBet, DOG in the Parallel World Orchestra, Cellt, and Downer

-Ikebukuro Cyber on the 27th, with Canzel, Cult Fiction Club, SuG, Toon Factory, DragonWAPPPPPPER

-9/18 O-West, with OZ, Nega, Lulu, born, Skull

-9/23 Meguro Rokumeikan, Chemical Pictures (with Otogadead and Juliette), release date of 'Praparat'

-10/4 Omotesando FAB, with Inugami Circus Dan, Hana Shounen Baddies, Monokuro Cinema, Hitotsume, and comedians Gorgeous and　Jaa Takeya (Gorgeous is a space pirate with a globe who does jokes that end in country names, and Jaa Takeya sings about awkward situations, I guess comedians warm up VK shows now)

-3/14/10, Shimokitazawa Mosaic, 1st birthday of Chemical Pictures

and some in-stores?? I think those scare me the most!

Mステ

Les Paul will also be missed; everyone says he was just the nicest, most helpful person in the world, and an incredible innovator and musician, performing regularly up until he left us.


So, next Friday. August 21st. Music Station, 8pm, broadcast LIVE.
Steve Appleton w/ JJ and yours truly.

:D

JY

Jasmine You passed away, and I don't really know what to say or how to say it but I've gotta say something.

He was always a lot of fun, definitely a unique guy. The first time I went out to dinner with him he tried to help me talk to women, and while it was a bit embarrassing, there was a sweetness to his attempt all the same.

The last time I spent time with him was on the Ascendead Master shoot. They say hindsight has 20/20 vision, so I don't know if this matters at all, but I remember him not being as conversant and thinking he seemed like he deserved a rest, considering the other four were in relatively high spirits and spent downtime in lively conversation not only with myself but some of the other foreigners on set.

The very last thing was when he had me play his bass, as the other guys were interested in actually hearing me, which they'd never been able to. I played a little bit for them, and they said I was good, and Jasmine You said I was good, and I thought, that was very nice of him to say. I'll miss him.

Zeus

It is RAINING and LIGHTNINGING super hard and basically God is pretty mad probably at something you did.

I was Skyping with my parents, wanted to go out shopping for some food, took one step outside, got pummeled by sky bullets, and gave up. No way. No. Way.


Rain in the summer is pretty nice actually. This is just... a bit much.

Also, no weather outlets are giving me any information on this storm. They insist we are merely 'cloudy'. I insist they are merely 'severely stupid'.

um what

I am watching women's volleyball on TV right now, and the background music they've used so far underneath all the clips are some of the more obscure Yes songs, Vince Di Cola's instrumental tracks from the 1986 Transformers animated movie, one of the more ridiculous System of a Down songs, and Maximum the Hormone.

I know that all might not be too obscure but there are other times when I seriously think, "hey, I know this song, why the heck would they use that"

Joeday

So on the 4th it was Joe's birthday as well as my president's birthday, so that's pretty cool I guess.
I got him that Kimura Kaela photo collection that I made a huge deal about a couple of years back. He loved the thing. It might be one of the best reactions I've ever gotten from a birthday present I've given someone.

Mom sent me a package in the mail with some American goodies, some music they liked, and a copy of The World is Flat. She also sent me a sizable photo album she made, and it's lovely and very well-done and carefully crafted both in a material sense and a pull-my-heartstrings sense. There's a particularly great image of my grandmother on the steps of the church where she got married and she is clearly moved. And then of course just seeing the requisite family, extended family, friends, old friends, and NEW BABIES.

I really don't like being so far away from NEW BABIES in the family. ;_;

Ｘ marks the West

Schwarz took this of me on the stage after all was over. :D

That was fun!

also you guys are seriously funny with your suggestions for next goals

oh man

Shibuya is Chaos right now. Vans and bands everywhere, girls in unrealistic numbers, hilarity... wow. More later, almost go time-- Hime Ichigo just went on and we're next♪♪♪♪♪

next goal

Ever since I'd joined Laverite, my goal was to someday play O-East or West. Then, I'd be fine.

Today is West, so now I need a new goal.