- The energy of the live was fantastic. None of the underlying anger/frustration/sadness of 2000's Final Act nor the sometimes nervous trepidation of their younger days. Everyone is happy to be back, having mellowed and matured in the past 7 years, they are in top form and ready to kick ass live.
- The sound quality is excellent. Unlike the crappy clips that surfaced on YT, this one is tweaked very nicely to perfection. Quote from friend, "I didn't know their songs could sound so good"
- Excellent editing that gives an overall great representation of the live. Plus those great little close-up touches, which fans will love and undoubtedly pause and rewind again to catch just that bit of OMG INORAN MAKING A CUTE FACE! and other fun moments.
I encountered the advertising truck outside Harajuku station (with END OF SORROW playing at full volume) just as I was contemplating between charging 1000 or 2000 yen to my Suica card. This lead to a loud exclamation of "OMG!!!", therefore drawing attention to the many ordinary folk around me that I am indeed a silly loud-mouthed foreigner. As much as I would like to be not easily persuaded by such advertising tactics, it still made my day.
To all X Japan fans who trusted us & lent us their understanding and support despite some initial difficulties;
To all those who believed in us, who have assisted us one way or another throughout this project;
We did it. All of us — together — made this a possibility, and a success.
Finally, JRR 2.0 is out. It's in Beta, and there's a lot more work to be done, but at the very least, it's released — and that's a small load off my shoulders.
I have not slept very much recently, when I do it's in small snatches of 2-hour naps. About once a week, I crash out and sleep for 10 hours at a shot, ignoring all alarms, sounds, phone calls even.
It's funny, when I was younger in high school I used to think pulling all nighters were crazy and a Big Deal. Now, I find myself doing it so often out of necessity, it doesn't seem unusual at all. 2am isn't really late, it's when I start to feel more lucid and ideas hit me. I've always liked working at night as it's quiet and the weather is cooler.
X Japan's concerts are next week. I can't wait!
...when I complete things ahead of schedule and am left with extra free time. However, lesson learnt: never post about having actual free time. Because not long after I wrote that last post I was swamped with new tasks and important urgent stuff to tend to. I'm currently working on so many different projects at the same time I lost count. It's as if the Powers That Be saw me feeling oh-so-slightly smug about it and zapped 37492450725 things to happen to me, pronto.
I bought this book last week (only paid $5! cheap books are great) but
I have not been able to get past the first few pages because I usually zonk out before I get around to reading it before bed. It's rather different from what I've read of Woolf previously; her tone is so much lighter and playful and humorous.
In other news, it makes me heartened to read this:
(italics mine) ; sourceKAMIJO: I think that lately, there are unfortunately many bands who care only about the look. But there’s also still many bands who care about both the music and the look. I think the latter is how it ideally should be. Versailles is a band like that. But I'd like every band in the visual scene to give their best. We're really not in a position to give advice to others (lit: to look down on others). I want everybody in Japan's visual scene to work together, so we won't be made fun of.
I feel weird when I am not immediately swamped with work from the moment I open my eyes till I pass out.
What do I do with my spare time?! Maybe I should work to keep myself occupied...?
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Back in 1999, I came across this poster in a comic books & game shop. I didn't know about Final Fantasy then, having little chance to play computer games when I was younger. This was my first contact with the Final Fantasy games.
3D computer games with characters in realistic proportions was a very new thing back then. FF8 was all the rage, both guys and girls, gamers and non-gamers played FF8.
I was really interested in the game, being quite impressed by the graphics. (Fine, the effeminate men had something to
do with it too... *cough*) Sadly, my cheap computer was too outdated to support it. I bought the game anyway, but my computer ran it so slowly I gave up on playing it.
Recently, I suddenly recalled having the game discs with me, and installed in on my current computer, which is way over-qualified in the hardware department for this.
It's funny how low-res it looks compared to other games today, but I still find some of the art very attractive, for example, how they combine art nouveau and fantasy styles with more technological aspects of the FF world. A good nine years after the game was released, I've finally completed it. What it triggered was more than nostalgia, but a desire to play catch-up with the games and toys I never got to play with when I was younger.
Yesterday I had only 2 hours of sleep and it was scary how dangerous this can be. I was crossing a traffic junction when an SUV beat the red light and I didn't notice it coming towards me. Luckily, there was a kind man who warned me in time. Stayed up all throughout the night yesterday to work on projects. Surprisingly I was still able to hold myself together today, somehow -- was extra careful when crossing roads today.
I took a 2 hour nap when I came home. Now I'm back at the computer again to work.
I think I've gotten used to being busy that I feel uncomfortable when I don't have anything to do.
I'd heard about this new story arc set in the 1950s last year, and felt a little apprehensive, not being a great fan of the '50s. I should have known never to doubt Alan Moore; as usual, does not merely meet expectations, he exceeds it and blasts it into little twinkling pieces.
Right. Time for dinner now. Stopping by IKEA too to pick up some frames...
It's become a common occurrence: something exciting happens, and we'd ask each other “WTF? Did we ever think this would happen back in June '07 when we were having fun with fractals and gradients?” I never expected this to go so far. Which is not to say I don't want it – but I just didn't think all this would happen when I first got in touch with Kuri. I never expected anything except to have a good time making fan-sites for SUGIZO/S.K.I.N., and make some friends in the process.
I was very disillusioned about design several months ago. By and large, the most lucrative sources of income for a graphic designer come from the advertising industry. A lot of designers spend their entire careers producing commercial work, or focusing on winning design awards to gain recognition. While I enjoy the design process greatly – solving problems and providing solutions, I felt trapped. I could not foresee myself taking the same path as what some others have done; this is not something I want out of life, definitely not what I want to do with my career.
Within these months, I felt like my perspective of the world has just completely been turned on its head. The world is huge, but we can make connections like never before. I actually feel quite hopeful.
Recently, there has been an increasing awareness amongst of the greater need to move towards applying design to more meaningful causes. I'd like to think that I am doing this too in my work with EMG and Jrock Revolution.
Maybe you think that producing work for Jrock artistes is nothing special, how can it be something meaningful? – That I am just another person out to earn money. But what you may not know is how much Jrock means to me and how it had such a big impact on my personal development. When EMG did not even exist, before we were even being paid for anything, we were already working such crazy hours with seemingly-impossible deadlines, fueled by little else but a great sense of honor to give something back to the artists.
Although I have been interested in graphic design ever since I was 8 years old, it was LUNA SEA and subsequently, Jrock, which gave this interest a focus. I bought a LUNA SEA cd because I was captivated by their cover art. When I listened to their music, I found that their cover art and visual images were the prefect visual representations of their sound. It was a very beautiful feeling. I don't think it'd be an exaggeration to say they have changed my life.
When I started out learning Photoshop and HTML, my subjects were Jrock artists. (More specifically, SUGIZO.) I used to make wallpapers and layouts with their pictures for fun. It wasn't just the look that fascinated me, it was the whole unique package, and how the band is costumed to match their sound and concept. You never only listen to the music; you get an experience of being taken to a different, very imaginative world.
I've taught myself sewing simply because I wanted to replicate the awesome costumes that I've seen these bands wear. I've even learnt how to manipulate and style wigs and hairpieces to achieve some of the extreme hairstyles. It may just be a type of music but there were so many related creative activities I could do.
I would never be the same person I am today if I hadn't listened to Jrock; if I hadn't gotten in touch with a group of local Jrock fans and got to know some of my closest friends. I was not this confident person who likes to wear odd clothing and doesn't gives a damn about what people say. I was an awkward, quiet child. In middle school, I never felt like I belonged anywhere. I tried to listen to pop bands and watched idol movies to fit in, but it seemed like I was always wearing a mask. Jrock music and the community gave me a 'home' to go to, brought me out of my shell and opened my eyes.
I've made fan-sites promoting bands that I thought deserved more attention overseas. I felt disappointed that a lot of people download mp3s but didn't know how to go around buying CDs, so I wrote a rather extensive guide on how to go around buying Visual Kei CDs from Japanese indie stores. Eventually, the lack of time to maintain these meant I had to shut them down, but my interest was always there. .
I know of people who treat “Jrock” like a dirty word – they think its crap or music for oddly-dressed losers. I hate it and I don't want it to be so. I've gone to countless local gigs supporting bands inspired by Jrock, even though some people thought they were rubbish. I want to see Jrock become a force to be reckoned with in the music world. There was a time when I've tried to stop listening to it because I felt so affected by some of the negative comments, but I couldn't. I went back.
I love to do design work... Now I have this chance to marry these two loves. The overall uneven quality of design for Jrock bands had always bothered me; I want to make my contribution to Jrock in terms of design and visuals, to promote these bands, ultimately to grow the community worldwide. To let others listen and get to know of these bands that I feel so strongly for. Everything has come to this point where we really have to make a stand for ourselves now, for what we believe in, for the community we belong to. We've already started. There's no turning back now, but to push forward 100%.
When I was 12 or 13, I would spend time pouring over the racks in little suburban CD shops or reading all the music reviews I could find in magazines and newspapers. I didn't like the pop music my peers listened to, so I did all that in hopes of finding some other type of music I would enjoy. I might have come across the name Pink Floyd this way, I don't remember. But it stuck with me because it sounded so odd, the words Pink and Floyd usually don't go together.
At my previous job, my boss was really shocked by my music taste. He would make guests or older new colleagues go through the CDs on my desk for kicks.
"Pink Floyd! ...Iggy Pop! The Clash! ...The Shadows. Oh my god."
"Are you in reality 45 years old?!" he would ask me. Fun times. When there were no visitors we'd sometimes put on some David Bowie, or Wish You Were Here and turn up the volume really loud.
A
lot of people love Wish You Were Here or The
Wall. Not that I don't like those, but my favourite song has always been Echoes, and album, Meddle. Every time I listen to the opening strains of the song, I
can almost see the albatross soaring across a bottomless ocean... Meddle isn't as
polished as their later work, but it has a certain rawness about it
that I love.
Echoes
Overhead the albatross hangs motionless upon the air
And deep beneath the rolling waves
In labyrinths of coral caves
The echo of a distant time
Comes willowing across the sand
And everything is green and submarine.And no-one called us to the land
And no-one knows the wheres or whys
But something stirs and something tries
And starts to climb towards the lightStrangers passing in the street
By chance two separate glances meet
And I am you and what I see is me
And do I take you by the hand
And lead you through the land
And help me understand the best I canAnd no-one calls us to move on
And no-one forces down our eyes
And no-one speaks and no-one tries
And no-one flies around the sunCloudless everyday you fall upon my waking eyes
inviting and inciting me to rise
And through the window in the wall
Come streaming in on sunlight wings
A million bright ambassadors of morningAnd no-one sings me lullabies
And no-one makes me close my eyes
And so I throw the windows wide
And call to you across the sky
