music:::Spitz – Mizuiro no machi

What the heck’s wrong with people these days?
I never really had any problems with visual kei fans. Sure, there are a lot of shallow people who’ve never bought a single viskei CD in their live and obviously don’t have the intention to ever do so. Fine, I don’t care. I don’t care because all the fans I like, the ones I’m friends with aren’t dumb leechers.
But even among the so-called ’serious’ fans there’s been so much disrespect, it just makes me want to turn my back on the whole overseas fanscene. I stay away from big MLs and I’ve come to realize I should do the same with message boards, too, just to keep me sane.
Back when Becky stated on inertia’s BBS that Nightmare are her favourite band and that -to her- they are the best band around, people started freaking out and even insulted her o_O How the hell can someone get flamed just for their personal taste? Isn’t everyone entitled to have their one mind, their own taste including their own favourite bands? And if you have a favourite band, doesn’t everybody have the right to say that they like this and that band without getting flamed and insulted?
I shouldn’t even have corrected whoever’s post about Kizuki and k@mikaze because now there’s this sick ‘post your ‘I hate k@mikaze’ message here’ thing going on. I mean really, grow up. You may not like them, but others might actually be enjoying them. I don’t post ‘Oh I HATE that band’ replies to people posting about other bands. If you don’t like a certain band, can’t you find less insulting ways to voice your opinion? If you can’t, why don’t you just ignore that thread? How can you keep trying to convert people to like the bands you like when you show nothing but disrespect for the bands (and their fans) you don’t like? Criticism does not equal flaming. There are many ways to say you like or don’t like something…
Don’t ever come to me again trying to convert me to like your oh so talented but not really original new favourite bands please, because next time I won’t be able to keep my mouth shut about what I think of your favourite bands.
(…And when exactly did k@mikaze ever put out a hip-hop track? When you’re flaming bands, the least thing you can do is keep your facts straight because anything else will make you look anything but credible.)

*Sighs* Okay, I’m fine now, just needed to get that off my chest. Maybe I’m just over-reacting *shrugs* I’m really glad I have enough nice friends around me to prove that viskei fans aren’t always the type of people I described above; I’m so grateful to have a few I can trust around me, otherwise I would just try to stay away from online fans because 80% of them are simply irritating -_-

Oh and I fixed the links to the temporary files a day ago. Sorry for not noticing earlier that the downloads weren’t working just because I’d forgotten to insert a simple ‘/’ at the end of the URL -_-;;

music:::Radiohead – Talkshow Host

New files are up! I deleted most of the baro pics and the Aimai live mp3. To satisfy baroque fangirl needs, I’ve uploaded the small clip from the band’s Tower Records in-store event. Credits go out to whoever recorded it. The clip is just about 2-3 minutes long but the file size is just over the top (about 80 MB), I wanted to reencode it but I just don’t have the time for that at the moment. I’ll leave it long enough up there, so you people with slow connections don’t need to panic^^

Other files uploaded include ‘M’Aidez’ by the Sneaker Pimps, an absolutely beautiful song with nice female backing vocals from the band’s third album ‘Bloodsport’ which I highly recommend to anyone. You must download this songs. You must download this song!
…and 3 songs from the HYSTERIC MEDIA ZONE 3 omnibus:
ArucarD’s ‘Saiyuuki’ (I think that’s how it’s romanized… it’s �ʗV�L in Japanese), the band is from Sendai (like Nightmare) and look like a cross between baroque and Nightmare. Suprisingly enough, they do not sound like baroque at all, but more like (eh, you guessed it) Nightmare (especially their second track on the omnibus which I haven’t uploaded… yet), the guitar phrase on Saiyuuki is just so cool, the vocal’s aren’t that bad (a whole lot better than Yomi’s (from the omni-present Nightmare)).
Next is Gurimu’s (or grimm’s) ‘Usotsuki’ which has no lyrics that make you crack up like their other track on the CD. The song is beautiful, though. Even though I’m not too fond of grimm’s visual image (the singer looks like baro’s Ryo, the rest just looks terrible in their pink and orange kiddy clothes -_-;;), I really really like the vocals. The song is very melodious, melancholic but catchy nevertheless. Definitely a band to keep an eye on.
And last but definitely not least, the genius Porori with ‘Kakurenbo’. The HMZ 3 version is slightly different than the one on the Yougenkyou 2 omnibus. Whee, I love this band ♥ Reito’s voice is just so damn cute, Kakurenbo’s a very very cool song to sing along to^^
Enjoy~

music:::Number Girl – Samurai

Ah, I hate release politics in the visual kei indies scene at the moment -_- Exactly 8 hours after I pre-ordered my copy of gurimu’s first maxi CD at Third Stage, Brand X announces a second press of it >_< They say that the 'maker' (label/distributor) claims the maxi sold-out at pre-order, thus they'll issue a 2nd press. Which is a blatant lie because it's still very much available in every single indies shop in Japan! Liars! The first press is out September 21, has 3 tracks and costs 1575 yen; the second press comes out a month later (10/21), has 4 tracks and is 2100-something yen. Of course, I'll have to order the second press, too (just for that bonus track). Money-makers! Capitalists! You can’t do that! Kagrra can, they have already earned my support by putting out wonderful music every now and then. But this is your freaking first maxi ever, all you have is one lousy demotape and two tracks on an omnibus album. If you need money, go get some baito in a convenience store but don’t go bothering young girls who are even poorer that you!

Watching RahXephon is really really difficult. I always tell myself to watch one episode a day, in order not to forget what went on in the last episode. It’s all so complicated… I think that instead of the preview clip at the end of each episode, there should be some small clip at the beginning of each episode that gives a short rundown of what happened in the previous episode. I have absolutely no idea how the Japanese audience handles that series. With one episode a week, I’d be bound to forget what happened a week before and be totally lost. They probably all wait for the DVDs so they can rewatch all the episodes with the complicated content. But still… that show is great. On a totally different level than .hack (they’re just not comparable), but totally awesome nevertheless.

I’m encoding some tracks of the Hysteric Media Zone 3 omnibus. That means there’ll be a few new files in the temp section in a little while. You all have to check out gurimu. There not as great as Porori, their music’s definitely worth a listen, though. More on that later.

music:::Kagrra – shi,mi,me,yu,ki,sa,a

Okay, here we go. New layout. It’s a bit buggy I guess, tables are evil. I made it last night, after I had returned from my sister’s when my DSL wasn’t working because of whatever. I had been working on a different layout for this blog but I got stuck with it. And it featured Akiya and Shin (Kagrra)… I thought I just couldn’t dedicate 2 layouts to the redhead at the same time, my Akiya fangirlism would’ve been to obvious that way… ^^;; So instead of that I chose something that reminded me of him. Kaede.

There are a couple new things coming with this layout:
The daily reads feature blogs I’ve been reading on a regular basis for some time now. I really enjoy reading all of them because I and the respective authors have a lot of similar interests, I’m sure other readers of my blog will enjoy reading those blogs, too. Plus you can always go there whenever my layouts make your eyes bleed and you need something pretty to look at ^^; Oh and if you have a blog yourself, feel free to send me the URL. I might drop by every once in a while and if I’m interested in your musings, I’ll definitely link your blog.
The temporary files (that feature random baroque stuff at the moment) are now part of the blog itself. It’s nice to have a place to put all the little things I’d like to share with the readers of this blog.

There’s something that’s been bugging me for a while: I’ve already written about how happy I was that Zac of Monozacchari will draw something for coup d’etat’s new layout. He sent me a few pics, some of them are already up on his site. They are all really cute. Alright. Then jesse, a baroque fan from Chile, starts to send me a lot of fanart. Gorgeous fanart. The whole feel of them is exactly like I wanted it to be like for my layout. I had asked Zac to create some kind of ‘playful’ atmosphere and even though jesse knew absolutely nothing about that, one of her pics looks absolutely the way I want the pic for my layout to look like.
Now the thing is, Zac is spending his precious free time (he works 6 days a week) to draw pics for me (that, on the other hand, are being put up on his site even before I can make the layout… which is all right but I wanted something ‘exclusive’ for my site). But then again, when jesse sent me her pics, it just clicked, you know? So what shall I do? Can I use jesse’s pic for the layout without making Zac angry and disappointed? He allowed me to use all his baroque fanart in the gallery, so he wouldn’t have drawn it all in vain but I would not use them for the layout and that might disappoint him… Argh >_<

I’ve been listening to way too much Kagrra lately. They are the band I’ve been following the longest out of all the bands I like. Time passes so fast, it seems like obsessing over Nue back when it came out was just a few months away when in fact it’s been almost 2 years o_O I want to see them so badly, but I know I won’t be able to go to Japan before December or March. I should be okay with watching the live videos and listening to their CDs. There will be three new releases till December, which means more Akiya songwriting greatness to obsess over. Oh yes.
I’m glad you like the layout, Amy!^^ I was so damn nervous when I put it up because I absolutely adore Akiya and I didn’t want to create anything that took something from his beauty, that made him look less pretty than he is ^^;;
…I’m off to bed before more nonsense can escape my brain -_-;;

music:::Kagrra – Shiroi Mashu

Happy Birthday Akiya!^^

So here it is: yuukitenshi.net has been updated with a new layout. Finally. Yay me and my sudden productivity (not really). I’ll be back later today, for now I’m off to visit my sister. Ja~

music:::Aliza Marie – Murasaki Sanatorium

Okay, so here’s one thing that’ll make me forget that k@mikaze story for a tiny little while: Kagrra will release an album, a real album, a full album (that’s 10(!) songs ladies and gentleman) on December 11. December 11 ;_; That’s almost 4 whole months >_< Yeah, let's be a bit more positive: a bit more than 3 months. And there's the double-maxi release inbetween, so that'll make it easier. Brand X updated their information about the 2 maxis (heck, they're faster than Kagrra's official site) and stated they're titled Kotodama and Sakura maichiru ano oka de. Which means that out of the 6 songs on the maxis, only four will be new because Kotodama was on the demotape with the same title and Sakura... is a CROW song from the Hold your Key 2000 omnibus. I do expect some re-recorded versions though and I'm glad to have Sakura... on a Kagrra CD and not on some nerve-wracking Key Party omnibus.

I’m very tempted to buy Toushindai. It’s just that it’s so damn expensive even though with my points from the Third Stage card, I could get it a bit cheaper… but still I have a feeling that after I buy that damn thing, they’ll release it on CD or something just like when merry announced a second press of Haikarasan after I had just forked out a good fortune for the first press.

OCS was very late with sending me my Betsuma 8. In fact, I only got it today, together with the September issue. So now I have almost 1000 pages of manga to consume, plus I haven’t even started reading Asuka 9 except for X >_< But when I read a good book, I hardly find the time to read manga... and it's so hot here which makes it very hard to concentrate on anything for more than 10 minutes. That includes making layouts, btw >_< I'm stuck with the new layout for this blog and I wanted to make a new one for yuukitenshiNET too but nah thanks, not now. What makes it even more frustrating is that I have the whole blog layout in my head, it's just so difficult make it become 'real' in Photoshop. I guess it's something like the John Lennon syndrome who said that he had always failed to write the songs like what they sounded like in his head.

Oh, Hanako: Glad you liked the files. I think I’ll put up something from kannivalism too (live stuff) because they were just as cool as baroque are now…

music:::k@mikaze – Hanabitaikai

Do you know those little mood icons on livejournal? Well, right now I need one that says ‘very very annoyed’. Today was k@mikaze’s oneman with that important announcement… (I think there was a 2-page ad for it in Shoxx). *sighs* They announced that Yuchi and Hiroki will leave the band; their last show as a four-piece will be a one-man show at AREA on November 24. There’ll still be activities until then and I hope Kizuki and Arata will find a bassist and a drummer for the time after that. I don’t want Yuchi and Hiroki to leave! And what did I say about k@mikaze ranking very high on my ‘must see live’ list? Argh, I hope they’ll still be around when I finally get to go to Japan ;_; There will be a new maxi in October and I hope that won’t be the last release of k@mikaze!