JGoth.com :: Japan Goth and Industrial Music

Agent Murder, Vexation, Aural Vampire and Kokusyoku Sumire can all be found with interviews and pix in a “horror sound” special in the current edition of Presenter (プレゼンチE, a nationally distributed music magazine in Japan. Whenever the Goths in Japan get coverage IN JAPAN it is always something worth screaming about.

The Horror edition also includes Claudio Simonetti, Dario Argento, Lana Lane, Freudstein, Rob Zombie and other local and international artists. There is also a disc guide, an interview with the owner of Trick or Treat restaurant and other extras spanning fifty plus pages of the magazine.

There are also two sample Cd’s for local indy bands, but I couldn’t find any for the bands above. Not sure if this means there will be no samples, or if the samples will come in a later edition.

The distribution is through Family Mart convenience stores throughout Japan and the price is 780 yen.

Another victory for the darker souls of Japan. I got mine, Jack!

Art Communication homepage (English)
Presenter summary page (Japanese)
Family Mart

[Electro Industrial – Live & DJ] CCC comes out twice a year from DJ SIN and offers a smorgasbord of live industrial-electronic acts. While not Goth (only Euthanasie and possibly Red Mecca would be toward the dark side), it does provide a lot of variety for those looking for some digital thump music. Six live acts, a remix performance from Morioka Ken along with SIN’s DJing.

Club Cybernetics Code # 14
When: Saturday, 20th May 2006
Open/Start: 16:00
Where: Shibuya Vuenus (nr. Shibuya station)
Address: 1-8 Maruyamacho Shibuya-ku Tokyo :: Map :: Another Map
Tel: 03-5458-5963
Price: 2,500 yen adv. :: 3,000 yen @ door
Live: Euthanasie, Sredni Vashtar, Burst Head Lollipop Honey, Black Love Fantom, Hexaman, Red Mecca
Live/DJ-style: Ken Morioka
DJ: SIN
VJ: Masami Inaba

[Gothic-alternative – Live] A stylish event mixing a range of bands and performances that you might not have seen at other Goth events in Tokyo. Along with the live shows there are various art exhibits in the lower dungeon level of head power. Daybook’s Taroo has crafted something uniquely cool in Tokyo that is the closest thing I have seen to Gothic (or alternative in my case) pub scene back home. A number of popular alternative underground bands have their roots or some long-term connections with Taroo’s events so it is always interesting to see each event’s line up. Toge Toge Tokagee usually takes place twice a month on Fridays.

The live highlight for the May 26th show would be Goth rock-fetish act Shingguapoura. Other performances includ Opera and Propper669 and a visual show from Girlie.

Toge Toge Tokagee by Daybook
When: Friday, 26th May 2006
Open: 18:00 :: Start: 18:30
Where: Head Power Shinjuku (nr. Shinjuku stn.)
Address: B1, 1-34-13 Shinjuku Shinjuku-ku Tokyo 166-0002 :: Map
Tel: 03-3354-7727
Live: Shingguapoura, PROPER669, Opera and 刹那.
Visual Show: Girlie
Exhibition: Godchild, Sailen, Smash it Time and others.

[Massive Art Festival] Design Festa is a huge event with some 6,000 exhibitors, 50,000 visitors and… kick ass concerts throughout both days. At 800/1,000 yen per day it is also one of the best deals around. While the principal reason for this scream is to metnion some of the underground bands (most notably Nicht and Suicide Squad) that will be there, almost anyone with any appreciation for the avante guarde artistic spirit will find lots of reasons to turn up.

Saturday :: 20th May
Saturday’s outdoor stage line-up is the hottest with a bevy of rock, hardcore, blackcore, metal and punk bands to make you scream.

Stage list is:
VAV :: 12:00-12:40 :: Hardcore
MOVING STAR :: 12:40-13:20 :: Rock
Nicht :: 13:20-14:00 :: Industrial loud
CRUCIFIED :: 14:00-14:40 :: Slash metal
Korosuke :: 14:40-15:20 :: Blackcore
STOCK MAN :: 16:00-16:40 :: Hardcore punk
BURGLAR :: 16:40-17:20 :: Funka metal
Logistics :: 17:20-18:00 :: Underground punk
TENSEI GAKUDAN :: 18:00-18:40 :: Textile performance group

Sunday :: 21st May
Sunday’s outdoor concerts are moving more towards the pop, rock and groove directions, but looks to light up around 16:00.

Stage list is:
MARIACHI :: 12:00-12:40 :: Rock
Dolphin’s Echo :: 12:40-13:20 :: Instrumental
DiceGame :: 13:20-14:00 :: Progressive pop
.WAY :: 14:40-15:20 :: Funkaful latin groove
Chikyu Gakudan :: 15:20-16:00 :: Rock
Nue :: 16:00-16:40 :: Progressive rock
Suicide Squad :: 16:40-17:20 :: Whiteface deathcore
Koorogi :: 17:20-18:00 :: Psychedelic
inSECT :: 18:00-18:40 :: Psych-trance

Design Festa @ TOKYO BIG SIGHT
When: Saturday & Sunday 20th & 21st May
Open: 11:00 ~ 19:00
Where: Tokyo Big Site
Price: (1 day) 800 yen adv. :: 1,000 yen @ door
Live: See above.

[80’s Dark Alternative – DJ] Club Walpurgis, the resurrected Goth/Punk club in the 1980s, has moved its regular monthly event to the third Saturday of every month. Largely DJ’d, but usually featuring a live act, Club Walpurgis offers the fun of 80’s alternative clubbing without having to go back in time!

The music styles on offer include new wave, Gothic, Neo-Goth, glam, punk, EBM, elektro, industrial and more.

When: Saturday, 20th May 2006
Open: 24:00
Where: Aoi Heya (7 min. walk from Shibuya station)
Address: B1F, Yachiyo Bldg., 2-12-13 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo :: Map
Tel: 03-3407-3564
Price: 2,000 yen adv. :: 2,000 yen w/flyer :: 2,500 @ door :: drink separate
Live: none listed this time.
DJs: Zinney Aerinamica (Zeus Machina), Nariki, Sato M., and Nero.

You heard it first (in English) on JGoth.com!

The pink mutant rabbit is PWNED! After trading finished on May 12, major English chain, Nova Corp., announced it had revised earnings from a net profit of 250 million yen (US$2 million plus change) to a net loss of 3 billion yen. That’s about US$25 million dollars lost! Before you say chicken feed, consider that Nova’s shareholders’ equity is 9 billion yen – this one-year loss is one third of that amount. Why did they lose so much? The company failed to meet demanding sales targets, so despite expanding the number of branches/schools, sales declined from 75.40 billion yen in FY2004 to 69.81 billion yen in FY2005 (that is April 2005 – March 2006).

Investor sites (Yahoo! Japan Nova discussion board) went ballistic after the company released its revised earnings forecast. Why? Official release is at the end of next week so there is little doubt the figure will be correct – so investors thinking 200 million yen net profit until Friday evening when checking their nightly Yahoo! Japan news.

Teachers should not panic (or burn their Nova bunnies in celebration). This really just burns investors. The company is not going FOOM and firing someone in Japan is actually very difficult to legally do. Maybe a few teachers will be moved if a branch closes, and less positions will be available for new recruits for a while. Even in the odd occasion when an eikaiwa company has disappeared, there are others ravenous to pick up the students and teachers. So don’t sweat it.

Stock trading in Japan begins Monday at 9:00. Nova’s chart can be found here.

While Jude’s nursing the hangover from hell after bashing about Osaka, Nagoya and Tokyo scenes, I better get into some Kansai stuff. First up is a late scream out for Switch BladerZ where Mina Spookycat (Satanyanko) is currently grinding his ax. From the band’s two tracks on the Kobe Underground Festival, Switch BladerZ are a wild punkabilly-unholy metal outfit with healthy helpings of psycho to the soundscape.

They will be playing at Osaka’s Pipe69 along with four other bands that sound just as hellacious (this means I haven’t researched the others yet!) – Mad 4 Sex, Bloodshot Fangria, Pretty (プリチE

Japan’s tactical industrialists 2 Bullet have released their album, “Democratic Violence” on iTunes.

Born in Tokyo in 2003, the 2 Bullet refers to the balance of power – two opponents “pointing a gun at each other” like the MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) scenario of the cold-war era. Their style of industrial is hard and fast like a machine gun, but with underlying themes examining militarism, totalitarianism and revolution adding a grittier connection to the world. Featuring Dee Lee (Agent Murder) on lead guitar gives 2 Bullet an extra edgy sound.

To the best of my knowledge this is the first band from the Japanese Goth-industrial scene to take the step into online music distribution. The band has been working with a number of overseas projects that have seen them featured in a German Goth magazine, involved in cooperative remix projects, distributing their album overseas (Wreckords.com in the U.S.), and more.

If you don’t know the band, then now is the time to take a look at them with some samples available on 2 Bullet in MySpace and more information on their official site.

You should be able to jump straight to the album here on iTunes – if not, just search for “2 Bullet” from your iTunes page.

http://www.2bullet.net/
http://www.myspace.com/2bullet
2 Bullet’s Democratic Violence on iTunes

[Goth – DJ] Club Inferno takes place in Shibuya’s Shifty this month. Inferno is organized by Khimaira, the force behind Danse Macabre, so this permutation of the event is kind of a resurrection of the Vertige evenings that took place from on Sundays. I only got to Vertige once, but it was quite a delicious way to spend a Sunday evening. Soundscape is Gothic, death rock, positive punk, dark wave, dark electro, technoiz and more.

Club INFERNO @ Bar Shifty Shibuya
When: Sunday 14th May
Open: 18:00
Where: Bar Shifty (near Shibuya)
Address: B1F, Pearl Bldg. 3-15-5 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo :: Map
Tel: 03-3407-0725
Price 2,000 yen (2D + Khimaira’s Mixed CD) – I think that means 2D is included in the price, but I’m not sure.
DJs: Khimaira, Satsuki

Another shout out from JGoth.com. It is going to be a short shout this month, but a shout it shall be.

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:: Monthly blah ::
Thanks to all for keeping things bubbling over while I was laid flat in April. Special props to Jude from Sins of the Flesh for being the perfect moderator/host and putting up news like a navvy Also special thanks to Zaibatsu_Zombie for pushing buttons on the admin screen and sundry for a few weeks. It would have been a very quiet month indeed without these two guys. I am back for more slooking online, but will be less adventuresome for events for a while…

:: Golden Week madness ::
There are still a few days left in Golden Week and Tokyo will be enjoying its dose of Tokyo Dark Castle as well as Electrock Circus with Sino on the 6th, while Osaka will be unVeiling the long-awaited return of Black Veil on the 5th. Check out Jude’s Golden Week round-up.

:: April Highlights ::
Pix :: Murder TV (Agent Murder, 2 Bullet, Aural Vampire, Destruct System & Mamono)
Pix :: Ferrets (Cinnamon and Truffle)
News :: Agent Murder’s short set @ TDC Vol.18 :: OFFICIAL STATEMENT
News :: JGoth.com turns two!
News :: Satanyanko: The Split, The Past, The Future…
News :: Agent Murder video podcast on Dark-Horse.net
News :: Golden Week Event Round-Up

:: Listening stuff :: Samples & MySpaces worth snarking
Geeks (with gadget.’s Kenzo AND Despair’s Ana!)
http://www.myspace.com/geeksfromjapan
http://www3.to/geeks

Euthanasie
http://www.myspace.com/euthanasiecult
http://antimass.cool.ne.jp/

Speed-iD
http://www.myspace.com/speedid
http://www.speedid.com/

:: Live Stuff… ::
As always, this is just the events that I know of AT THIS MOMENT. Expect more to be added during the month. If I have missed out any events or screwed up anywhere let me know.

:: JAPAN GOTH EVENT LISTINGS FOR MAY 2006 ::

May 2 (Tuesday)
:: Cut the Crap in 6th Anniversary @ Urga, Shinjuku TOKYO

May 5 (Friday)
:: Black Veil 6th Anniversary @ Club Neo, OSAKA

May 6 (Saturday)
:: Tokyo Dark Castle #19 @ Marz, Shinjuku TOKYO

:: SINO in Electrock Circus #17 @ Urga, Shinjuku TOKYO

:: Calmando Qual in Honey Club @ Area, Takdanobaba TOKYO

:: Baki-sho-ji (Kenji Konishi and Momo) @ Vuenos, TOKYO

May 7 (Sunday)
:: 4-D Mode1 @ Hatsudai DOORS, Tokyo

May 14 (Sunday)
:: Club Inferno @ Shifty, Shibuya TOKYO

May 20 (Saturday)
:: Club Walpurgis #9 War Danse @ Aoiheya, Shibuya TOKYO

:: Euthanasie in Club Cybernetics Code #14 :: Vuenos, Shibuya TOKYO

May 26 (Friday)
:: Toge Toge Tokagee @ Head Power, Shinjuku TOKYO

May 27 (Saturday)
:: Iszoloscope in Midnight Mess @ Marz, Shinjuku TOKYO

That is all from chaos central.

:: Igor
:: Web slave
:: www.jgoth.com