WHAT IS PILLOW FIGHT!

My friend told me about this while I was talking to her about the hide memorial concert the other day. She was lucky enough to be able to attend that event, and at the time I had been asking her why the fuck DJ Ozma had been there…but anyway, X Japan in New York City! In the fall apparently. Would I go to NYC to see X Japan live? Yeah, that’s pretty much a no brainer. On the one hand, I don’t listen to them as much as other bands. On the other hand, it’s fucking X Japan. That’s huge. And they were some of the first Jrock I heard, too.

Getting to New York City is entirely possible for me. Friends of mine will definitely be wanting to go to this, so I can likely go along with someone who’s driving, instead of having to take a Greyhound. (My best friend had to Greyhound to LA for SKIN’s debut and he really hated the traveling, so we’re probably going to want to go in a car.) The whole thing will be absolutely huge and amazing and something that I’d really hate to miss. I mean, did I ever think I’d get to see X Japan live? No way. It’s amazing news! I’d be an absolute fool to let an opportunity like this pass me by. So, I’ve got to do whatever I can to go to that concert.

…Ahhhhhh. =D

I’m always in need of some new Jrock, to expand from the same artists I always listen to. Last winter, my best friend sent me a couple of songs he’d just found and was impressed by, one of them being “Fall To U” by xTRiPx. The song’s sound reminded my friend of some of the American bands we listen to, and he really liked the song itself. I was pretty impressed by it, too, when I listened to it, but it’s taken me until now to actually search for more of the band’s stuff and see if I like their other songs, too. The results? Well, I’m definitely still impressed. Read the rest of this entry »

Dir en grey was the first Jrock band I got into, in the fall of 2005. A friend from school said she wanted to “turn me Asian,” which is a pretty ridiculous thing to even say, but I humored her and let her send me Jrock songs, which she figured would work since I mostly listened to assorted genres of rock music at the time, anyway. None of the things she sent me at first - I don’t remember them all, but Asian Kung Fu Generation was in there somewhere (and I actually like that song she sent me by them now) - appealed to me much, until she sent me Diru’s “Dead Tree”. She didn’t even like that song, but a friend had sent it to her, so she facepalmed a little when that was the only one I liked. I searched out some more Diru on my own after that, and particularly liked “Pink Killer” and “Umbrella” at the time. I eventually found a picture of them and thought that they looked really cool. It was a few months later that I got into a lot of other Jrock artists, but Diru will always be particularly important to me since they were the first.

So naturally, being able to see them live twice within the space of a year was a pretty big deal to me.

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Firstly, yesterday was International Pillow Fight Day. WHAT IS PILLOW FIGHT! Check the pillowfight clip on the Radio.blog to your right for elaboration by Kyo. Also, happy Easter today to those who celebrate it!

Before I take a look at their new single, which I have not yet listened to, I want to take a look at the An Cafe releases that I neglected to pay attention to before. I only watched the PV for their first post-Bou single once, and it took quite awhile before I remembered to look up the single after that (and I only watched that once, too). Neither of those are the worst part: I still haven’t listened to the band’s last album with Bou. At the time, I was waiting to buy it before I listened to it, but then I never got around to buying it. I think this is highly overdue.

I was pretty upset when Bou announced that he was leaving the band, but it was his decision, so I was able to come to terms with it. At least the band wasn’t disbanding! I was surprised when both a new guitarist and a keyboardist were added to the band, but I hoped that they would do well and I was willing to give them a fair chance. I still haven’t seen much of them today, so it would probably be best for me to look up live clips in order to get a better feel for who they are and how they play and perform. For now, though, I’m just going to watch their last couple of PVs and catch up on what I’ve missed with the band.

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Miyavi is one of those performers who I just have an unconditional love for. His talents are amazing, and he’s a pretty amazing person, too. He often acts like he’s about 10 years younger than he is, and for some reason it’s not annoying with him, but incredibly endearing. While I’m okay with never meeting a lot of musicians I listen to, he’s one of the ones I really want to meet, because just being able to talk to him would be amazing to me. I could listen to him sing and play guitar all day, and his lyrics and blog entries alike have often made me smile.

When I first started listening to Miyavi, MYV Pops hadn’t yet been released. I fell in love with his indie albums and his first major album immediately. Today, most of my favourite songs of his are still from those albums, though he’s released some wonderful songs since then. But after “Kimi ni negai wo,” which was gorgeous, I found that I had trouble getting into a lot of his new releases. I’ve had mixed feelings about the neo visualizm style he’s been doing since the fall; some songs, like “Sakihokoru hana no you ni” and the covers of his own songs on 7 Samurai Sessions, were pretty nice, but others just didn’t do it for me.

But here we have it: his best release since Kimi ni negai wo.

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I tried having one blog that would encompass Jpop, Jrock, and Kpop entries; it didn’t work. I had so many things I wanted to write about Jpop that a lot of Jrock entries I wanted to write never got done, and when I did write something about Jrock, few people who actually care about Jrock would ever see it on my pop-centric site. My regular audience is more the wota crowd, and the only Jrock-related entry that seemed to get a great deal of comments was the one about Bou leaving An Cafe (which I still get comments on, for some reason…). It started to feel like Jrock entries just didn’t fit in at Wings of My Heart, though Jpop and Kpop could coexist pretty well there. Add to all that the fact that I slowly, then almost completely fell out of touch with Jrock over the course of 2007, and my desire to get caught up, and my decision to start this blog should be pretty understandable. This Jrock-centric blog is an extension of my music blogging experience, and I think I’m going to enjoy it a lot.

The name of this blog comes from a misheard Dir en grey lyric. That concept might seem completely tiresome to some of you, but being the hyper person that I am, I’m all for the amusement. In the song “Disabled Complexes” on Diru’s most recent album, The Marrow of a Bone, the line “The world is full of psychos” sounded like “WHAT IS PILLOW FIGHT!” to me when I first heard it, and I’m still entertained by that. Dir en grey are important enough to me that the line seemed good for the blog’s name. Diru are also the only Jrock band I’ve seen live (so far). Meanwhile, the current header picture features Miyavi, another of my first Jrock loves. Aside from them, I also listen to a lot of Gackt, L’Arc-en-Ciel, HYDE, An Cafe, the Gazette, and alice nine. I tend to get really into certain bands/artists and listen to a lot of them and not much of anyone else, but there are always a few songs here and there that I like by a lot of different bands; a few bands that I want to listen to more of are MUCC, Kra, and Kragrra,. In some ways I’m still a bit of a Jrock n00b, I guess, despite having listened to the genre for a little over two years now, but I mostly just know what I like and stick to that. I think that’s okay.

As for those of you who don’t know me as a blogger already, hi, my name’s Julia, nice to meet you! I’m 17 years old and Canadian, and writing is one of my passions, along with singing, music, and performing. Aside from music blogging, I also write a lot of stories, and basically whatever a person can write. Allow me to plug my Youtube channel, where you can check out some of my singing (though it’s mostly Jpop that much of the audience I’m hoping this blog will reach probably doesn’t care about). I’m really excited to be starting this blog - I’ve been wanting to do this for awhile - and I hope that you’ll enjoy what I’ve got to say here!