Monday, September 10th, 2007
Tags:
articles,
flickr,
gackt,
greece,
j-rock,
japanese rock,
Journalism,
magazines,
Massachusetts,
media,
purple SKY,
s.k.i.n.,
writing
I’m biking for The Hub On Wheels in two weeks and have been preparing for it. I’m only doing the 25-mile route as I have something to do that afternoon (XKCD meetup!), but I was curious if I am physically capable of biking the full 40-ish mile route. So just for kicks a few weeks ago I biked the entire Cape Cod rail trail, which is about 44 miles round-trip. I’m still amazed that I did it. I’ve never been an athletic person so when I shared this news with my family and friends, everybody was pretty impressed. So yes, I’m proud of this and wanted to share it with you all. (And here is the photographic journal of that day!) (more…)
Monday, July 16th, 2007
Tags:
anime expo,
articles,
blogging,
gackt,
j-rock,
japanese rock,
media,
s.k.i.n.,
Travel
Vacation recap
Hi everyone—sorry for the lack of updates, ever since I got back from my *wonderful* vacation in California, I’ve been swamped with work. Same ol’ story, eh? (more…)
Thursday, June 21st, 2007
Tags:
greece,
Greek,
j-rock,
japanese rock,
Journalism,
media,
s.k.i.n.
This blog’s been quiet for a few days, longer than I’d meant. I do apologize—while trying to get things organized for my upcoming vacation, the work’s been piling up.
(more…)
Wednesday, June 6th, 2007
Tags:
anime expo,
gackt,
j-rock,
japanese rock,
miyavi,
s.k.i.n.,
sugizo,
yoshiki
Those of us who follow Japanese rock are all a-twitter over the latest news from Yoshiki (the man! the myth! the legendary J-rocker!)
Disclaimer: If you have never heard of Yoshiki or Japanese rock in general, the rest of this post will be utterly confounding. Apologies in advance!
Last year at Otakon in Baltimore Yoshiki announced he was teaming up with Gackt (my favorite J-rock artist). At the recent J-Rock Revolution festival in L.A. (which he produced) he finalized the line-up for his new supergroup S.K.I.N.
Now, not only is Yoshiki producing S.K.I.N., he’s in it. This man has some serious business acumen.
The line-up as we know it thus far is as follows: Yoshiki, the (de-facto?) leader of the band and pianist, much like he was in X Japan. (And perhaps not too coincidentally S.K.I.N.’s new iconography of sorts parallels X Japan’s a lot). Gackt on vocals. Sugizo and Miyavi on guitar. It’s a bit hard to compare or describe how big this is if you’re not already kind of a part of this scene, but this line-up is huge.
For one thing, all four of these men were once in bands and then split off to very successful (and ongoing!) solo careers. And all four of them have rabid legions of fans around the world.
So not only is there enormous name recognition with each of these artists, but there’s major appeal for both “old geezer” J-rock fans like me who have been in the ’scene’ for a long time, as well as younger and newer fans who are still learning about the artists.
(What did I tell you, Yoshiki is a smart, smart man.)
The formal announcement of S.K.I.N.’s first performance was also at (Yoshiki’s) J-Rock Revolution, and this group’s very first show will be at Anime Expo in Long Beach, Calif., which I am attending. And yes, I’m already salivating at the thought of seeing this group live, I admit.
The only taste of their combined musical sound comes from this official promo video, released less than a week ago: (more…)
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