dog

hey dog on a post

that does not look too fun for you

already in nagoya

it's...

it's adorable D:

v-day

i get chocolate from fine ladies

being in a japanese band is full of perks like that

Nagoya again?

Yep, off to Nagoya again. Playin' with Sex-Android, Skull, Serial Number, Vanessa, Tokyoes Shitei and Michael, and Vanilla, the one with the semi-colon.

Band names are usually terrible.

Sorry I haven't written much. There's just not so much I feel like I can write about rehearsals and stuff without feeling falsely grandiose with nothing of substance to show yet. Also yes, I am pulling away a little bit, a small retreat of sorts as I evaluate what kind of life I want and how to get it. It's actually quite nice and I recommend it, although I owe lotsa people emails, like Ken and Crypto and such.

I cut my hair, though?! Man long hair is overrated.

Pictures later!

Gnomes

Ryo, the drummer that played with us when I first played with Steve, was back from Miyavi's world tour and it was great to catch up with him again!

There were tons of artists also there today.

-Leona Lewis has a lovely, lovely singing voice, and only when you talk to her does it remind you that she is British.

-AJ got along with us effortlessly and he's cool to be around and shoot the breeze with.

-Karasu, the VK superband composed of Mucc, Alice Nine, jealkb, Ayabie, and Sadie members, were also there. JJ had been in an A9 PV once and he and Hiroto recognized each other, and the three of us had nice chats during downtime.

-Kimura Kaela is TINY. Even in heels she was TEENSY. Also just uncomfortably and distressingly cute. We went on after her and when we passed each other we said our requisite otsukare's and she smiled and clapped for me and oih my freakin goodgness egbonjggnorgggurogdfsdffhtnbvwvrerth

-Perfume are very clearly good friends and have loads of fun being around each other, and I think that contributes to that something they have that makes them so infectious. When we greeted each other, I mentioned that we had both been on the same broadcast of Music Fair when I played with Tommy Heavenly. I'm 150% sure they didn't remember at all but they just seemed so pleased to hear this and looks of doubt or attempts at recollection never crossed their faces, and they were charming and adorable. Between meeting Kaela and Nocchi, I think I can die happy, like right now. Also, A~chan is much prettier in real life.

-Every single member of AKB48 was there, and while I can't say that I found a single one of them to be my type, each and every one of them exchanged proper greetings with me as we got ready for camera checks, and that was quite nice of them. Of course that means I had to respond 48 times as well. (Or more, because apparently there are actually more than 48 girls? I don't get it whatever)


tomorrow is some other stuff
also new cps schedule, i will write it out later

You Key Gah Foo' Roo

Just played bass at NHK Hall, which is huge, with AJ of Backstreet Boys. It was fun and I'm kinda fanboyin' bout other stuff so I will try to write when I get home. Meanwhile, it snows.

dudes

-the s.a. guys are just intensely interesting. I'm convinced Yudai is a 70-year old time traveler from the past and Junro is part gnome.

-Mine and Baku of Aaddies mentioned me extensively in their MC (°□°;)

-Nogod and us are way tight. Dancho said something early on and Shiun took mock offense to it so Shinno has a picture of Dancho dogeza-ing to CPS.

Dudes who don't play in flashy colorful mainstream vk bands are way cool and by extension I like this kind of music more.

DID I MENTION I RODE AN ELEVATOR WITH SHOKOTAN.

CORRECTION

HEY

so it's not called oboreru sakana

its called "Zugaikotsu Kurumi Wari Ningyou"

i dont care for either name but its a cool tune だよ

I've loved these bands that have been on this tour. Some great guys.

haha what

i just rode the elevator with shokotan

(shoko nakagawa)

good thing i look totally ridiculous today huh

Picasso's Fish

aw yeah we doin 2 new songs today

"Warau Picasso"
"Oboreru Sakana"

Can't shake the feeling that there's probably already a songwith the same title by someone.

oh well i will write ten songs all called 'sakura'

Ohio

Gozaimasu.

Today's the last one of the tour.

I just wanna thank everyone for your kind and sound words of support, advice, and encouragement, and that whether I continue with music or not, it's okay.

In the meantime, however, I shall continue to bring sufficient quotients of rock and adequate portions of roll.

wish me luck

Here we go!

Big Slope

In Osaka safe and sound.

I was done w/ makeup at 9am. (>_<)

I love you guys, seriously.
Got some other cool thing coming up and in Feb I should have more time and patience to write.

Osaka

Been super busy EVALUATING MY LIFE AND PURPOSE so it's been difficult to write.

On the way to Osaka for the next part of the tour. Stayin' in a hotel. Shiun's drivin'.

Quick thoughts:

-new year show
we were bad. crowd was great, even though we were playing an away game, as we are not undercode material.

-nagoya
getting better.

Things need to improve. Lots of work to do, though increasingly I find myself fantasizing about settling down for a normal life.

BUT WHO CARES NOW, cuz brb gonna stomp osaka in da face :)

lunch

oh man this is amazing

Rehearsals

Nogod is fantastic as usual, and the rest of the bands are quite nice. Sex Android in particular has that SOUND, just that right mix of guitar tone and drum power needed to make the simple songs transcend.

Our new flyer looks neat; will snap that soon.

self defence

in kobe, jieitai everywhere for some reason and we are pretending they are after us because we are six years old i guess

sf

Global Japan.

In Shizuoka now; pit stop. Watchin' Jelly and Kiyoharu DVD's in the backseat. So glad this tour is so spaced out, so I'll be back in Tokyo tmr morning.

Whee〜

Name Old Room

Tour starts today in Nagoya.

It's 5 in the morning and I got 2 hours of sleep maybe?

i feel like this combover puppy

recent life 4

Went into the studio w/Joe to test out various new gear we have acquired.

On the left is my new Fender Jazz bass, which seems to fit well with ChemiPi songs in general. I still use the 5 of course.

On the right is Joe's gift to me, a fretless bass. What a sound! Wish I had this when recording the g. solo section in Praparat! Still, I see myself using it in spots on future recordings.

recent life 3

aw yeah look at dis mochi

recent life 2

Outside the Egyptian Embassy in Daikanyama.

recent life 1

First off, one week late Happy New Year! Live report when I get home.

Yesterday saw Shiun's last live with MiU.

Saw this Resident Evil guy at Tea Water ("Ochanomizu" in Clever Japanese-speaking American parlance) and immediately wondered where I misplaced my Autobot t-shirt, because I am clearly five years old.

hny

happy new year ＦＲＯＭ ＴＨＥ ＦＵＴＵＲＥ♪

wasshoi

only awesome bands do trad. jpnese stuff together

toshikoshi

Gotta eatcher end-of-the-year soba!

C ar P enter S

We are listening to old music and singin' real loud

treasure!

Look what I found!

(Buggles' Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes joined Yes for 1980's 'Drama', which was awesome and had Machine Messiah and Tempus Fugit and a song making fun of Gary Numan.)

(Also Elvis Costello and Dead Kennedys and Clash and Sting and Tears for Fears records in our office for some reason)

towel

cps towels!

undercode event

Today's the Undercode event. We go on at 3 in the morning.

Support guitar today is Yukimura/Jun from Karakuri/Hibari.

No sound check today, so just finished last check in the studio.

We play in 12 HOURS ugh

i am the bassist

Here are some clips of Steve 'n' me at Liquid Room.

First we played "Rule the World" ...



"Seeing Stars" was somewhere in there...



Also a Michael Jackson cover...



And then a blues jam that turned into an Elvis cover.



That was a fun tour, with good memories and good new friends. :)

New pics so far

How was Christmas for everybody? Thanks so much for your comments over the last few days as I'm getting over whatever bug I had and getting the urge to write again, FINALLY.

I go pick out the rest of them tonight.

Oh I got a new bass and a new wireless so I'll have to show you that soon. :)

a short run

Almost Christmas!

If you've emailed me and I haven't responded, I've been busy but mostly deathly ill so I'll respond soon. Real sorry.

The real pics go up on Saturday. :)

sweets

Saw Up yesterday; very sweet and funny.

Also, yesterday Joe, Dancho and Shinno played an acoustic version of Nogod's 道 at a friend's wedding and that was also very sweet.

Colds are not sweet.

I AM

SANTA KURO-ZU

digest

hm what is this thing i put here i dont even



Lineup was me, Tenten, Joe, Schwarz, Masami.
0:31~2:05 = Reincarnation; you know this one
2:05~3:25 = Yamusora; an older version of this was floating around on youtube but I can't find it anymore
3:25~5:00　= Subarashiki Imaimashisa
5:00~6:58 = I wanna get away

drum

I guess I can say exactly who the drummer is.

CPS/Chemical Pictures' new drummer is Shiun, formerly of Scissor and MiU.

Whee〜

Some news

-From January 1st until March 13th, Trick Master, Strange Guitarist, Cosmic Boy (me) and Rhythm Geek will be performing under the name CPS. This is ostensibly a temporary measure as we're have activities and everything planned but we're not quite ready to be like BAM hey sup chem-pi is back

Check out the pop-up on the homepage to see the new doodles; pictures will be up at a later date.

-We're changing the venue of our 2nd one-man on 3/14, "Science", from Shimokitazawa Mosaic to Ikebukuro BlackHole.

-Tenten has a pendant and ring for sale on the fujipro website that he helped design.
 

That's all for now!

Recent images

Official pics from the BtSSB/AatP event

Rehearsal yesterday. Please note that Joe is standing right in front of our drummer, obscuring him from your view. You'll find out in 3 days.

swoonin' hard guys

You guys REALLY need to see the pictures of Meekster in next month's Cure. I cannot emphasize enough how much of your observance these images require. If scans one day showed up in my email randomly I would most likely not be displeased.

That's all.

Oh, the event went well; lots of people crammed into a tiny room, lots of Polaroids taken with lots of nervous girls. It was fun to dress up all gawfic, like the first batch of VK I ever heard way back, for one day (and doubly fun if you're sponsored!), but I'm pretty thankful that I'm not in a band that does that sort of thing.

I do have to say that Baby/Alice employees are some of the coolest gals I've worked with. Helpful, friendly, and magnetic.

So yeah. January Cure. O_O

uh what

hahaha oh geez

TV

-The Office remains awesome, shut up

-The kid that plays Kurt on Glee is from my hometown, and I like the show enough but you know what, I don't know that it deserves to be a whole hour long.

-30 Rock is spectacular. I really do think everyone is amazingly strong.

-On a whim, checked out some Community; haven't heard much about it but I'm enjoying that too.

-Daily Show and Colbert Report I have my minor complaints about, but sometimes they still manage to hit it out of the park.


-Tomorrow is our big Baby the Stars Shine Bright/Alice & The Pirates event, hahaha i will post a picture tomorrow

hahaha

Coupla new things

1. Chemical Pictures short message on J-Rock TV

2. Steve 'n' me (and Toma and JJ) in this month's INROCK Magazine.

ちっす♪

Re: ha

Me and Tenny in the studio.

We're writing a lot; at least six or so songs since last month, and lots of flotsam melodies and jetsam riffs.

There's really not much to report these days, so I'm sorry I've been so quiet. Iwill say that we've auditioned 5 or so guitarists recently, each worse than the last. It's really surprising and frustrating. I could do better. Heck, Tenten could do better. YOU could do better.

Can't wait to show you how I look on the 22nd. It is so un-cps, haha.

Zatsudan: taikutsu

This picture is a few weeks old but I like it:



I had an unexpected mandatory day off today thanks to lots of people catching flus and other horrible plagues. Me, just some minor cold symptoms and a cough. There's an apothecary (I just wanted to say apothecary) a block away but the old guy running it keeps wanting to sell me, um, love potions, so I just decline politely and ask for the Stona.

Mostly I wrote stuff, but also I got distracted watched a lot of fora.tv, ted.com, and 'How It's Made', and it just made me realize that even though I think we have this pop culture image of our nation and youth as unintelligent and fame-chasing for fame's sake, I think it's so amazing that in this day and age we have so many avenues, so many interesting avenues, to discover a lot of really interesting things, to engage our minds, and to have a community of others similarly committed to the tried-and-true pastime of just plain learning.

And then, because we all need to cool down with a bit of the mindless, I found out that the one season of Stella is available for free.


And I like that idea of the pleasant paradox; the chameleonic modern Renaissance Joe, who can, at various, temporally close moments, occupy both the high- and low- end of the brow, so to speak. And I think that more and more people are embracing this dichotomy wholeheartedly.


This has nothing to do with anything.


Yesterday, me, Joe, Tenten, and our drummer _ _ _ _ _ went to Liquid Room (again) to see Dolly's last show with Yuina. All of Hi:BRiD was there, as was Yura, formerly of Ghost and Gakido, Haru from Dog in the Parallel World Orchestra, who is a nice guy but it's a band whose name makes me kinda wanna scoff and smack someone on the arm, and the awesomely and proudly bald Misa, as well as others.

We're under the same management as Dolly and Hi:BRiD but we don't really see much of them, so going in to say hello to Dolly was more a formal matter than anything, and in fact the first time I'd even met Yuina. And last, probably.

Anyway, it was neat and all. Their MCs are quite long, but funny enough for me to let it slide a bit especially if I don't have to wake up particularly early the next morning. It's sort of like if a Japanese Mitch Hedberg and Stephen Wright picked up some guitars and just shot the breeze.

Still looking for a 2nd guitarist, but I'm enjoying the new dynamic of our current setup and the creative blitz we seem to be experiencing. I would like to talk about songwriting processes more in another post, actually.


Also I got this fanart, which is so, so cool:
Man I love you guys.

Ooh

Yesterday I was in the Yoyogi area, and I came across a totally non-descript black building. There was not even a knob on the door that I could see. On the outside wall was a black picture frame.


Written on it:

If I could bartend I'd be all over this.

Melmaga

Man, I just have nothing interesting to say lately! :-/

Drummer has been decided, and not just support. :)
Guitar auditions have been... going. '_'

To those of you who read Japanese, go to theChemical Pictures homepage and scroll down to the very bottom to sign up for the Official Chemical Pictures Mail Magazine!

Chuss~

Instore report

We weren't as nervous as we were for the Shinjuku event, so the talk went a lot smoother than last time. I still hate going first in a round of questions; I like time to think. Maybe it's just because the Shinjuku Zeal Link is in Marui One, but it's so much nicer than the one in Shibuya, which is in an older building. The white background just seemed a bit lonely, and it was dark and I couldn't see the back of the room, where my manager was standing, as well as the dude reading the questions! I have a hard time following along if I can't see the speaker's face. :(

That said, it went well, I think. Lots of new faces, lots of regulars we recognized... wanna give a shout-out to my California girls, who have already commented on the older entry, and the seriously cool-looking, really nice French dude who was the lone male in the crowd. There was one Japanese guy in the audience at the Shinjuku event, too, so that's neat.

The picture part of the event took a long time, and quite a few of the girls bought another ticket so they could go through two or three times, so it was quite tiring, but it was neat to be able to do that, and to see just how devoted these wonderful people are to these three silly guys. O_o

Looking forward to the 1-Day Alice and the Pirates Employee day!