Showing posts with label Dokudanjou Beauty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dokudanjou Beauty. Show all posts

3.2.11

Utakata no Razzle Dazzle Live Report

BUCK-TICK
FISH TANKer's Only Tour 2011
Tour 2011 "Utakata no Razzle Dazzle"
January 22 & 23
Live @ Yokohama Blitz

With the growing visibility of hipster culture, irony is all the rage. Here on Not Greatest Site, we’ve been cultivating irony since long before American Apparel was able to charge $50 for a simple t-shirt, and handlebar mustaches came back in fashion (wait, handlebar mustaches were ever in fashion?) Really, I think we were cultivating that irony for our own amusement and the amusement of our lovely readers…I don’t think we ever expected that Buck-Tick was going to do the irony thing. But judging from the first two days of Buck-Tick’s Razzle Dazzle standing tour, I’m getting the impression that this time around, intentionally or unintentionally, irony is a part of their game. Imai even started the evening off with a little nod to all those kids over in North America with their sampling machines and big ugly glasses, by playing the Dandy Warhols’ “Bohemian Like You” first thing over the PA as the fans filed (or rather, ran like foaming wild dogs) into the venue.

Not that anyone bicycled onto the stage in skinny jeans and no socks, or that Imogen Heap showed up as a guest vocalist on “Dokudanjou Beauty,” or that Sakurai has decided to experiment with facial hair again (underage fangirls can be pleased to note that he’s still clean-shavenly pretending to be less than his 44 years). But when you try to take the big, brassy, Broadway bravado of the Razzle Dazzle live experience off a dressed-up theater stage and pack it into a rock club, you have to either take it down a peg, or poke some fun. For those of you who are not familiar with the touring conventions of Japanese bands: last fall was the hall tour, and the band played in auditorium venues, with big stages and assigned seating. But this winter is the live house tour, and now the band is playing in more intimate live venues that are mostly standing room only. The smaller stages can’t accommodate the big sets and stage effects of the hall tour, so the live house tour is more about direct interaction between the band and the fans, and the fans and the fans—boy do things get sweaty and hands-on in that mosh pit! But, Razzle Dazzle. There were top hats and scene changes and Hollywood lights. Without all the pomp and circumstance, wouldn’t the grandeur of the experience suffer?

Enter the irony. What the band wants to say to you is, “We’re Buck-Tick. We don’t need lights, or sets, or cool costumes, to dazzle you little pixies all the way to Solaris. All we need is our own strange, eccentric selves.”

On the first night of the tour, Imai seemed to be the one who was taking this idea the most seriously. He wandered onstage with his usual oblivious expression, but he shocked all the fans anyway—after Cher tresses for Kuchizuke, diagonal bangs for the Razzle Dazzle hall tour, and finally, for the Day in Question, a red and black two-tone bob that would have looked at home on a female My Chemical Romance fangirl just entering the 8th grade, Imai has finally simply given up, returned his hair to a neat dark brown, and cut it all off like a regular old salaryman. His businessman look didn’t stop at his hair, either—this time, he’d ditched the white satin balloon pants and elf shoes of last fall for a straight, simple pinstriped navy suit. At least the suit was velveteen, and he was wearing wraparound sunglasses, otherwise I’d have start to worrying that we’d all ended up working for Buck-Tick, Inc.

Sakurai, for his part, was employing another classic hipster fashion tactic—the “everything ridiculous and retro is cool” strategy. He appeared on the stage to wild cheers, dressed in a sort of re-interpretation of his outfit from the “SPEED” PV so many years earlier—broad-brimmed black hat trimmed with peacock feathers, ruffled wine-red shirt, and a loose, swishy black sarong, over a pair of lizard skin boots and skin-tight matte black spandex tights. “Noo, don’t tell me Acchan is wearing tights, that’s just terrible!” the girls immediately began whining, but seeing as the first thing he did when he got onto the stage was turn his back to the audience, hike up the sarong and run a narrow, black-fingernailed hand over one of his muscular buttocks, I’m not quite sure I can reconstruct the logic of the fangirl mind.

Hoshino, Higuchi, and Toll weren’t bothering to participate in fashion irony, and had instead chosen to appear in their usual minimalist suit-clad elegance, with Toll’s hair as razor-sharp and gravity-defying as ever, but perhaps this was some sort of statement in and of itself (actually I suspect they just don’t give a damn.)

Of course, as per usual, they made the fans wait for a good hour before coming onstage. But this being a fanclub-only show, they had extra special treats to entertain the eager crowd—footage from the Razzle Dazzle tour final, held on December 29th at the Budoukan, projected in tantalizing little snippets onto a good old-fashioned movie screen that had been set up in front of the stage. They went through two or so rounds of the Budoukan footage before hauling the screen offstage and, in keeping with the “we’re so over it” vibe of the evening, the roadies came onstage in full view of the audience to make last minute checks of the band members’ instruments. This happens quite frequently at small-scale indie shows, but Buck-Tick usually keeps it all out of sight behind a curtain. This time, I guess they were just feeling Bohemian like us! The roadie tuning Imai’s guitar, clearly not capable of Ziggy Stardust-style left-handing, had flipped the strap around so he could hold it right-handed. Behind him stood several sound techs with silver laptops that had been pasted over with large Buck-Tick tour stickers, one of them left over from Buck-Tick’s original “Buck-Tick Phenomenon” concerts more than 20 years ago.

They tapped the drums, thrummed the bass, and then, at last, took the lights down. But even before the lights went down, the crowd had already compacted violently and instantaneously into the railing, leaving the fans in the front row gasping and screaming in pain as elbows, shins, and the pyramid studs on leather belts dug invasively into their soft tissues.

“Please, calm down,” a venue security guard called into the crowd. “The fans in the front row are having trouble breathing, please, please, stop pushing and step back a little.”

It was nice that they even bothered saying that, but of course, it fell on deaf ears…though I might add that I really don’t understand why fans can’t be a wee bit more considerate of each other at shows like these. Twenty centimeters doesn’t make much of a difference in your ability to view Sakurai’s superhero tights (oh wait I forgot, you don’t want to see them anyway!) but it does make a hell of a lot of difference to the people in the front row…or more specifically, to their ability to breathe.

Since this first night was fanclub-only, the stage entrance music was “Theme of B-T,” in the same classical strings arrangement as the Day in Question 2008. The band members slouched onto the stage looking a little sleep deprived, like they always do at the start of a tour. Sakurai, in particular, had bloodshot eyes and seemed a little glazed, but this ended up being quite appropriate for the opening set, the point of which seemed to be “vampires ARE, they are not dreamed up by Mormon soccer moms.”

To capture this dark mood, the stage lights stayed very dim as the band opened with “Kuchizuke,” then continued with “Gekka Reijin.” Then, as if things weren’t dark enough already, they followed “Gekka Reijin” with a very beautiful rendition of “Yougetsu.” Sakurai stalked and swished across the stage, trailing his sarong behind him, as eerie lights shone up from the floor, making it appear that his skin had turned a vivid, acid green. On the instrumental break, the band members turned and looked at each other, jumping up and down and striking their instruments in unison while Sakurai just glared at an arbitrary spot on the floor. But just as they’d lulled us into the perfect intoxication of their dark world, the lights came up and Sakurai hailed the crowd.

“Fish Tank!!” he cackled, looking as always as though he wasn’t quite sure what he was saying, and was even less sure of what he was going to say next. “Our first concert this year, and it’s for all of you in Fish Tank! I love you all…Happy New Year…please come to the rest of the tour…now, let’s Razzle Dazzle!”

Toll clicked the drums, Imai whispered “one…two…three…ACTION!” And the band ripped into the eponymous song.

Though I was initially unsure about it, “Razzle Dazzle” has begun to emerge for me as one of the star tracks on the album. There’s something so glam rock and something so Broadway about it; part Chicago (yes Imai admits being inspired by Chicago the musical), part West Side Story, part Gypsy, with those sleazy burlesque brass riffs and Sakurai poking the round head of his skull cane through the round hole he was miming with his other hand, thrusting it a few times for good measure, just to make his meaning abundantly clear. Yes, he’s sure got a gimmick (if you’re wondering what the hell I’m talking about, watch this video). It was great to see this song with all the Hollywood lights but it doesn’t even need it. The band are more than in-your-face enough to carry it off without sets, and in the live house, the bass vibrated in a much more satisfying, full-body manner.

Likewise, with “Deadheat,” which the band played next, now that they have established a set of stage directions with the hall tour, they don’t even need the tech bits anymore to keep it going. Gone was the background projection screen and the computer-animated sperm along with it, but that didn’t stop Sakurai from miming swimming along with them as if they were still there. During the hall tour, his rendition of “Deadheat” had grown more and more explicit, including not only bouts of sperm-swimming but also a ridiculous move he kept performing on the line “Whatever could be left of love...” (here he rubs his hand suggestively between his thighs) “…it’s a one-way ticket…” (here he pulls his hand away, turns it over, and looks at it, scrutinizing carefully) “…no way!” (he pulls his head back as if surprised by what he has just seen, then tosses it away, turns to the audience, and grimaces). Hoshino, in this intimate setting, was even able to muster up a little attitude, strutting along the edge of the stage and wailing out his big guitar solo, but with an awkward smile on his face, he still seemed reluctant to make eye contact with the fans. This is another one of the best tracks on the album, mostly because it leaves the listener with the distinct feeling that the entire thing is a big, backhanded joke. If this doesn’t survive into the set lists of future tours, it will be a damn shame.

“Mugen” followed “Deadheat,” and then Sakurai addressed the audience again.

“Fish Tank! Since I love Fish Tank, I wanted to, you know…do all sorts of stuff…like this, or that…” he winked, and paused while the audience laughed. “But we don’t have much time, so…what I mean is…let’s…let’s tango, tango, tango …Tango Swanka!”

Watch out, Buck-Tick…if you keep this up you will already have played all my favorite songs before the encore. I know the most popular track on the album is “Hamushi no You ni” but personally, I’ll cast my vote to “Tango” for the catchiest. It’s clear the band loves to play it, and there’s something about its musical similarity to Lucy’s “Anaconda a Go Go” that allows Imai to show off a little more of his front-man style…though he still didn’t manage to do a high kick on the line “one, two, high kick!” I am still waiting! Come on, Imai, you can’t sing and kick at the same time?

But perhaps he was just saving his energy for the next song, “Hamushi no You ni,” the popularity of which indicates to me that Buck-Tick fans all secretly just wish Sakurai Atsushi were actually Kylie Minogue. Then, though there was no lowering of a special glittering curtain this time, the swagger in Sakurai’s step as he settled his hat back on his head let us know what was coming next—“Django!” They couldn’t not play it at the standing tour. Sakurai held the microphone stand out horizontally at arm’s length, shoving the microphone into the faces of random fans just in time to get them to scream “Django!” Imai, meanwhile, has added his own mouth to the song’s already robust percussion—during the instrumental break after the first chorus, he stuck his finger into the side of his mouth and pulled it out to make a popping noise that, with the help of electronic amplification, filled the whole hall (that’s right, hall, with “Django,” Imai’s got you all popping in his mouth…I didn’t say that yes I did.)

When “Django” had finished, the band members paused for a moment to sip some water, and Sakurai addressed the audience again.

“Since it’s a live house tour, after all…” he began, then lost his thread, and paused before starting again. “Since it’s a live house tour, there are some songs we thought we should definitely play…this is one of them.”

And all of a sudden, the band crashed into the violent opening chords of “love letter.” How fans manage to dance in such close quarters is beyond me, but it’s certainly painful. Luckily, “love letter” was followed by a more static, less violent, but no less anticipated song—“Madman Blues,” which I ought to add to my list of the best Buck-Tick songs you’ve never bothered to listen to. Lately Toll has been getting a lot of mileage out of playing up his “old man” act (he’s not quite there yet—Takahashi Makoto, who was the drummer of Boowy, is ten years older than Toll and still drumming up a storm.) Anyone who’s ever tried playing the drum part of a Buck-Tick song knows that the rhythms can be oddly stiff and unexpected. Toll hunched over the toms, striking them as if he was trying to surprise someone with his next move, but though his face may have looked tired, his rhythm never faltered. Meanwhile, his brother seems to grow younger with every passing year—in contrast to his stone-faced look from the Darker Than Darkness tour, Higuchi was now smiling and swaying while he played the “Madman Blues” bass line, which has got to be one of the best bass lines Buck-Tick has ever created. Sakurai fell back from the front of the stage, leaning toward the back curtain and letting Imai take center stage for these vocals, but vocally, the best part of this song is the end, with Sakurai singing the Japanese lyrics layered over by Imai’s calls of “Welcome to my Territory!” Those words never sounded better than when spoken by the one-of-a-kind strangeness that is Imai’s voice. Who would you sing along with?

They followed “Madman Blues” with another surprise—“Voo Doo,” in its first live performance ever. The recorded version of this song may have lacked a little something, but that something was there in the spark of the live performance. Not quite as psychedelic-rock fabulous as “Motel 13,” but edging in that direction and perfect for a live house tour.

Next came a series of (new-ish) old favorites—“Spider,” “Dokudanjou Beauty,” and “Baby I Want You,” before the band finished off the main set with a rousing “Memento Mori.” But coming back on for the encore, the band members were forced to play out the commercialistic fantasies of their hard-selling promotional manager. Sakurai still sounded confused as he made the announcement.

“Since it’s a fanclub show, after all…and soon, Yutaka’s gonna be THAT…” Yutaka ran past Sakurai, wiggling his behind. “I mean, we’d like to take a commemorative photo. And we have our photographer here.” Sakurai reached out his hand to the photographer, who bowed to the audience, then lined up the band so they were standing in front of the fans, facing the back of the hall. These photos of the band with the fans are being distributed in another completely pointless promotional lottery campaign, but I’m sorry, I didn’t bother to read the details.

Luckily, the photo-taking didn’t take long, and then it was back to the show. Now it was time for the real fanclub-pleasing. Time to play really OLD songs! First, the band played “Hurry Up Mode,” followed by “Empty Girl.” I couldn’t help but think about just how smooth and cool Sakurai was on “Hurry Up Mode,” as compared with his nervous, jerky dancing of 20+ years ago. “Empty Girl,” too, was so slick and smooth it was hard to recognize at first—Imai had ditched the clean guitar for a more fuzzy effect, punctuated by liberal use of the whammy. The old-song fun continued in the next encore, with “Sexual XXXXX!” (not quite as sexual as it could have been, but the band did seem tired) and “Physical Neurose” (clearly, Imai loves this one.)

Lucky Fish Tankers—they even came back for a third encore, with “Makka na Yoru.”

“We’re playing another show here tomorrow,” Sakurai said. “This is the last song now…but come back tomorrow for some more this and that. I love Fish Tank!”

And, in a slightly surprising but certainly not unwelcome move, the band ended the show on as dark a note as they had started it, with “Diabolo.”

FISH TANKer’s ONLY Tour 2011
January 22nd live at Yokohama Blitz
Set List

SE. Theme of B-T
01. Kuchizuke
02. Gekka Reijin
03. Yougetsu
04. RAZZLE DAZZLE
05. Kyouki na Deadheat
06. Mugen
07. TANGO Swanka
08. Hamushi no You ni
09. Django!!! –Django the Dazzler-
10. love letter
11. Madman Blues –Minashigo no Yuu’utsu-
12. Voo Doo
13. Spider
14. Dokudanjou Beauty
15. Baby, I want you
16. memento mori

~en. 1
Commemorative Photoshoot
17. HURRY UP MODE
18. SEXUAL XXXXX!

~en. 2
19. EMPTY GIRL
20. PHYSICAL NEUROSE

~en. 3
21. Makka na Yoru
22. DIABOLO

The next day, more or less the same crowd of fans was back in the windy wastes in front of Yokohama Blitz once again, huddled together against the cold but stripping off their outer layers anyway, in preparation to dive headlong into the sweaty tangle in front of the stage. The tour had only just started but that hadn’t stopped fans from decking themselves out in tour goods right away; the designs this time are based on vintage playbills and make obvious use of the Broadway/showbiz theme. So far, the item with the most unique design is the tour pamphlet, which comes in the form of a deck of oversized playing cards, each bearing the image of a band member, sometimes embellished with details from the Aquirax Uno album cover (most of the queens are close-up shots of musical instruments, but naturally, Atsushi Sakurai is the Ace of Spades.)

This being a general admission show, it could be considered the official start of the tour. This time, the stage entrance music was not “Theme of B-T,” but Imai’s new remix of “Razzle Dazzle Fragile,” which sounds more or less nothing like the original version, but which was hard to concentrate on between the ecstatic screams of the crowd as Higuchi bounced out onto the stage, followed by a more stately procession of the rest of the band members. This time, the band opened with “Dokudanjou Beauty,” again mercifully free of any female backing vocals—for the record, Lucy, the vocalist featured on the album mix of this track, is Japanese. Most of the Japanese Buck-Tick fan base seems to think that she’s foreign because she has an English name and sings in English, but actually she is the vocalist of Lazy Guns Brisky, a Japanese all-female punk band, and “Lucy” is a stage name.

Tonight, as well, Sakurai and Imai at least could arguably have been borrowing more elements of hipster fashion—this time Imai having ditched his “I’m so ironic” businessman outfit in favor of the hipster favorite “I’m so cool because I’m wearing a really, really ugly jacket.” The Jacket in Question was made of a thick, semi-rigid plasticized material patterned with narrow, horizontal stripes in black and tomato red. Sakurai, for his part, was trying out the “animal-themed costume party” look, in a close-fitting suit of sleek-furred leopard-print fabric, with high-heeled boots to match, accessorized with a red silk neck kerchief and a vaguely Spanish-looking black hat. It was a brave attempt; what broke it down partway through was that the suit with its matching boots was so designer-label beautiful that it made Sakurai look more like a runway model than a loft party leopard wannabe. And on mentioning runway models I might add that some close field inspection confirms my previous suspicions that rumors of Sakurai having developed a beer gut were unwarranted. He might have been a bit thicker at the beginning of the hall tour, but the Law of Conservation of Buck-Tick Mass states that while individual band members may lose or gain weight, the total weight of the band members must remain the same at all times—thus, as Imai has stopped looking dangerously anorexic (was it all those New Year’s gyoza?) Sakurai has gotten nice and slim again (but there never was a beer gut, only extra flesh and a lack of Mr. Yagi being able to outfit Sakurai with pants and shirts that actually fit him).

Maybe it was thanks to the warm-up period of yesterday’s live, or maybe it was thanks to that hot leopard print, but whatever the reason, the band were much more energized and engaged with the crowd this evening. Though the first half of the set list consisted largely of songs the band had also played the day before, the band members all seemed more animated and interested in interacting with the crowd. Sakurai, who the staff members had provided with a legion of pre-opened, label-free bottles of Volvic, showered the crowd liberally with water, often via the intermediary of disposable paper cups, which he used and then cast aside until they littered the stage.

With “Baby I Want You,” the second song in the lineup, the band was already revved up to full power; Sakurai playing his usual games of tag with the grasping hands of the fans in the front row, and Imai and Hoshino coming down front and center for guitar solos, but still not deigning to actually touch anyone. After “Baby” came the heavy drone of “Madman Blues” again, followed by “Razzle Dazzle,” “Deadheat,” and “Mugen,” even more up and kicking than last night. On “Django,” Imai kicked and spun all over the stage, repeating his lip-popping performance during the instrumental break, while Sakurai stomped the tall heels of his leopard boots on the floor to great effect. Throughout the hall tour, Sakurai had been pointing to Imai on the line “the bastard’s a trickster,” but now, instead, he wiggled his finger in circles at a spot near the front of the crowd. I guess we’re all tricksters, now.

As “Django” finished, the lights went down and roadies rushed onto the stage, furiously exchanging instruments and cables. Time for something different—Higuchi’s much-loved standup bass. This could mean only one of several things, but the jangling Spanish chords emanating from Imai’s guitar were starting to make things clear pretty quickly—time for “Zekkai,” one of Sakurai’s perennial favorites and so much better with that acoustic bass. When “Zekkai” had finished, the roadies didn’t even come on to take the bass away again…we were in for another treat.

“Alcohol?” Sakurai cooed softly into the microphone, as Imai began tapping out a few chromatic notes on his guitar. The audience giggled.

“Alcohol?” Sakurai asked again. “Come on…give me some…sake?” The fans laughed again.

“Oh…sake…” Sakurai repeated. “Oh…sake? O-sake?” he wandered in the direction of Imai, who was playing more chromatic chords.

“Oh…Sakurai?” he said at last. The audience roared with laughter, and the lights came up on Imai’s guitar as the band launched into “Lullaby III.” No cheap barstool this time, and (too bad) no skull-baby either, but this is a great song, another one of Sakurai’s favorites, and probably in a minority when it comes to popularity, so I was particularly glad they played it.

From here, they took the heat back up, with “Tango Swanka,” followed by “Hamushi no You ni,” and “Memento Mori.” After “Memento Mori,” as if bringing the album track listing to life, they continued with “Jonathan Jet-Coaster.” This time, with his physical performance, Sakurai made the second verse more about death than sex, singing “my body’s a honeycomb gushing flowing Virgin Oil” while miming shooting himself full of holes.

Then, unexpectedly, the lights went down low and silver, and the band struck up the second Tenshi no Revolver track of the evening, “RAIN.” It’s possible that they haven’t played this song since the album tour, and while it seemed a little bit cheesy and overblown in comparison to the rest of the album, in retrospect, it sounds sober and mature compared to the Hoshino faux pas of “Message” and “Mugen” (the latter redeemed by Sakurai’s excellent vocals, the former redeemed by just about nothing.) But in this context, the retro kayoukyoku style of “RAIN” blended elegantly with the dance and show tune elements in many of the Razzle Dazzle tracks. “RAIN” could just as easily have been the end of the main set, but the band chose instead to finish on a more violent, rock-n-roll note, with “Makka na Yoru.”

Almost as soon as the lights had gone down and the band members left the stage, the fans near the front of the hall began singing happy birthday to Higuchi. It was likely that some sort of public acknowledgement of the bassist’s birthday had been planned, but perhaps the fans were jumping the gun a bit. It took the band a long time to come back onstage, and when they did, it was with a cake with no candles, and Sakurai back in his sarong and tights, but with a tour t-shirt on top, as if he’d intended to make a full costume change but had decided to give up halfway. “Noo, Acchan’s wearing a tour t-shirt? That’s horrible!” the fans started whining again…but they were missing the point. Superhero tights, a sarong, and a big, sloppy, sweaty band t-shirt…how much more ironic can you get?

But naturally, it was Higuchi himself who ran onstage first, fairly bubbling over with excitement, going down the front edge of the stage from one side of the hall to the other, slapping the hands of the fans in the front row.

“Since, you all came here for the tour,” Sakurai began haltingly, standing over the unlit cake. “Thank you all for coming here for the beginning of the tour, and celebrating U-ta’s birthday. Happy birthday, U-ta!”

Higuchi smiled and waved again, coming over to the microphone. “Thank you all!” he called to the audience. “I’m…forty-four now!” He’s 44 and he still looks 15. Fans should be lining up for the privilege of genetic recombination with some of this miraculous age-resistance! In fact, it’s like he’s growing younger every year.

Without bothering to cut the cake or show its design to the fans, Sakurai carted the cake offstage again. Was the cake decorated with another one of Sakurai’s amusingly spot-on caricatures of the band members? We may never know, since Imai’s blog has yet to tell us. But back onstage once more, things weren’t going as planned. Imai was strumming his guitar, but no sound was coming out.

“Looks like we’re having some technical difficulties,” Sakurai said after a few minutes. “I guess we’ll just have to be patient…”

After five minutes or so of frenzied efforts from the guitar techs, Imai’s guitar was back online for “Kuchizuke.” But when they tried to follow up with “Gekka Reijin,” it lost its sound once more, meaning that the band played almost the entire song sans Imai. Too bad.

It was a Sunday night and it wasn’t a fanclub-only show, so evidently the band wanted to finish things up early and not bother to grace us with a third encore. Still, they had some tricks up their sleeve. When they came back onstage again, it was Toll who came out first, and stood in the corner of stage right, Sharpie in hand, meticulously autographing a single firm, yellow banana, which he then tossed into the waiting arms of the crowd. Imai wiped his face ostentatiously with a towel and tossed that in too, then Higuchi, not to be outdone, followed up with a shower of bass picks. Even Sakurai handed out a Volvic bottle or two before the band members took their places once more, and started up with a much-loved song they haven’t played in a while—“Zangai”!

“You make me so happy,” Sakurai said after the song was finished. “We only have one more song, but…” he paused as the crowd shouted that they wanted more than just one more song. “We only have one more song tonight, but we’re playing more shows soon, so please come! But before then…sing it with me, in honor of U-ta!”

If they’d played a rock version of “Happy Birthday to You,” with Sakurai singing in English, it would have been pretty damn ironic, but instead, they played “Rendezvous.” Guess they really are serious after all.

For more information on hipster culture, click here.

Tour 2011 Utakata no Razzle Dazzle
January 23rd live at Yokohama Blitz
Set List

SE. Utakata no RAZZLE DAZZLE
01. Dokudanjou Beauty
02. Baby, I Want You
03. Madman Blues –Minashigo no Yuu’utsu-
-MC-
04. RAZZLE DAZZLE
05. Kyouki na Deadheat
06. Mugen
07. Django!!! –Django the Dazzler-
08. Zekkai
09. Lullaby-III
10. TANGO Swanka
11. Hamushi no You ni
-MC-
12. memento mori
13. Jonathan Jet-Coaster
14. RAIN
15. Makka na Yoru

~en. 1
Happy Birthday to U-ta
16. Kuchizuke
17. Gekka Reijin

~en. 2
18. Zangai
19 .RENDEZVOUS

20.10.10

Razzle Dazzle Live Report!

Long report, but it was a great show.

BUCK-TICK Tour 2010 'Go on the RAZZLE DAZZLE'
10-15-10 Live at Saitama City Cultural Center

Ah, the first day of the tour. More exciting than any other day, except perhaps the tour final. So many questions anxiously await being answered. For example, will there be real fire on the set again this time? Will there be a high-tech opening sequence? Will Imai have taken a hack saw to his hair again? What will all these new songs sound like live? And most importantly, will the band have rehearsed and rested enough not to make ridiculous mistakes that prompt me to write a sympathetic but amusingly sarcastic live report that gets me branded as a poison-pen tabloid writer and slanderer of dear little U-ta? Well I’ll tell you up front, ladies and gentlemen: no worries. The first day of the Memento Mori tour may have been a demonstration of how the Buck-Tick members are loveably fallible human beings, but the first day of the Razzle Dazzle tour was a demonstration of how the lovably-fallible-human-being thing was actually all just an act, put on to make sure we didn’t accuse them of having sold their souls to the Devil, when the next tour came around and they were so spectacular that there might have been supernatural powers involved.

I tend to think that if Buck-Tick ever sold their souls to the Devil, they did it back when they were making Kurutta Taiyou, and that it’s a lot of rehearsal, moderation of drinking, and a good night’s sleep that wrought the wonders in their performance this time around. But, since I am a lovably fallible human being myself, I could be wrong.

For all the fans who lamented with the release of Tenshi no Revolver that they wished Buck-Tick would cut the baloney and return to their roots, Razzle Dazzle should be an exciting wish come true. Over all, Razzle Dazzle may be a fresh, surprising new sound for Buck-Tick, but at the same time, it contains many elements that were hallmarks of their music in the late 90’s yet all but vanished post-Mona Lisa Overdrive. I’m talking about the quirky, catchy synthesizers and programming that defined Buck-Tick’s music for a third of their career, and made them impossible to classify into any existing genre. No matter how fine their recent records are, to yours truly, at least, there has always been a little lonely place where all the blips, bleeps, and techno beats once were. With Razzle Dazzle, the electro is back with style, combined with a healthy dose of Seventh Heaven-era straight-faced retro humor. Just like Buck-Tick’s earliest work, Razzle Dazzle is full of musical jokes, and that deadpan musical mocking is just about the closest to Buck-Tick’s real roots as it might be possible for them to get, in this age of slick production technology and superior guitar skill. How could you be serious as a 19-year-old with your hair sticking up a foot in the air? How can you be serious now, as a 45-year-old with only half a set of diagonal bangs? It amounts to the same thing.

But return to the roots or no, the superficially light, glittering tone of Razzle Dazzle may have put off some fans longing for Buck-Tick’s signature darkness darker than darkness. How could any album with a misty pink cover yield a satisfyingly fanged, gothical, hip-thrusting, blood-sucking live tour? But if you worried about this, you are forgetting the most important thing: before anything else, Buck-Tick are a live band, and their live energy is propelled by the singular charisma and stage presence of Sakurai Atsushi. And he may be famous for having the capability to razzle-dazzle every woman he meets into a puddle of cream soda, but he is never, never pink and glittery. The power of his “so goth he shits bats” aura automatically dims the lights of any room he walks into, no matter how much retro pop rock and female backup vocals Imai pulls out of his basement. The result is the ultimate irony: Memento Mori may have been trashy death-themed rock-n-roll where Razzle Dazzle is smooth and shiny dance pop, but turn up the bass and add in all the Moulin Rouge and rotten speakeasy glamour hiding in the techno beats, and the Razzle Dazzle tour ends up being six shades darker. As you like it!

Last year’s tour kicked off in the bustling center of Kawaguchi, but this year Buck-Tick has moved a few stations over, to the Saitama City Cultural Center, located in the nowheresville of Minami-Urawa. An unbroken river of fans tottered in ten centimeter heels past the station bus terminal and down the narrow sidewalks, their black clothing melting into the darkness as the number of streetlights decreased and the shopping district immediately gave way to empty suburban streets, already deserted at the tender hour of 6:00PM. It wasn’t dark for long, however—soon, the fans were gasping and cheering as the growling hulk of the Razzle Dazzle Light Bus drove by at a crawl, with larger-than-life photos of the band members illuminated on one side and the album promo shot illuminated on the other. On the truck’s rump was a blowup of the album cover design. There was no music blasting into the night, but with so few cars on the roads, the driver of the truck could afford to be obliging as the fans chased after with their cameras and cell phones, calling out “wait, please wait!” when their stylish but pathetically impractical shoes prevented them from running fast enough to catch up. For a few minutes, the truck pulled over to the side of the road to “pose,” as the fans furiously snapped as many pictures as possible. Then it was on its way again, lighting the way, leading the parade onward to the venue.

As usual, the lobby was decorated with rows of Razzle Dazzle promo posters, bouquets of flowers from various music industry organizations, the requisite fan club application booth, and goods tables covered with all the tour goods that have been released so far, with the notable exception of the Gretsch Super Toll limited edition t-shirt (who needs Yoshiki and Stan Lee’s musical superhero when you have Super Toll?) Inside, the fans were given a window into Imai’s vision of the world of the album, as they listened to the pre-show set list that ranged from big band jazz to down-tempo industrial. And then the lights went down, and the show began.

The hall was plunged into pitch dark as Imai’s extended version of “Razzle Dazzle Fragile” burst out aggressively from the speakers, the frenetic motion of the music contrasting sharply with the scene that was slowly being drawn on the semitransparent scrim obscuring the stage. Line by line, the various grotesquely beautiful fairytale characters from Aquirax Uno’s album artwork began unfurling in ice-white laser projection on the blackness of the scrim, as if being drawn by invisible hands. As they expanded, they gave off curling plumes of white smoke like liquid nitrogen. The music raced ahead, but the drawings continued to appear slowly, character by character: here’s the exotic dancer, now here’s the cat lady in evening gloves, and now the unicorn princess. The slowness of the animation only added to the building tension. At last, as the band’s logo began burning onto the scrim, the band themselves came out one by one, to wild cheering from the fans. And the next minute, the bank of lights over the proscenium arch of the stage flashed bright white, and the curtain flew open.

“Action!” shouted Sakurai and Imai together, and the band ripped into “Razzle Dazzle.”

Initially, the stage appeared to be quite bare, with no ornamentations save the blue mosaic tile pattern on the front wall of the platform that supported Toll’s drums and Yutaka’s little wiggling butt. But as Sakurai’s voice vaulted up into the Broadway drama of the chorus, the light bank over the front arch of the stage came up flashing with an image of old-fashioned molding, like the proscenium of a classical theater. Broadway and electronics—clearly, the razzle dazzle was all here already. And if the band members seemed a little more focused on their instruments and reluctant to go gallivanting all over the stage right from the start, they made up for it by not making a single mistake.

After “Razzle Dazzle,” the band took the tone back down again. The lights lowered and they moved directly into “PIXY,” giving the audience the first inkling that this show might be heading in a dark direction. Heavy on the red and purple overhead spots, the lighting stayed very dim, with only one large white light illuminating Sakurai from below. It made him look just a little bit like a Puck or Pixy himself, as he cackled between phrases and spun a fey, magical atmosphere, playfully ominous and deeply sensual. He rubbed his thighs, throwing his head back with an expression of bliss, before crouching low over the light on the floor and grimacing at the audience, extending a goblin-like finger to damn his rival in love. The guitar delays and heavy drum beat reverberated through the whole hall, giving the song much more fullness of sound than it achieved on the album.

The stage stayed mostly dark as the band continued with “My Funny Valentine,” a little less meltingly romantic than it has been in some renditions, but still blending perfectly with the tracks from Razzle Dazzle. And if the show had started off a little dark and moody, it was all faster and hotter from here. If anyone was thinking that with the change of a few letters, “Django” would be “Goblin,” well, the band thinks like you—without a pause, they dove straight into “Goblin,” and the crowd went wild. Sakurai mimed the saxophone trills with his fingers, while Imai, warmed up by this point, started kicking and spinning.

With a little more light on the stage, the band members’ costumes became visible. This time, the band was presenting a far more unified look than on the Memento Mori tour, and they were keeping their costumes closely aligned with the themes of the album. Imai was razzling and dazzling in a pair of silver-spangled wide-legged white satin pants, sewn with the crotch down around the knees and balloons of fabric over the thighs. On top he sported a purple satin shirt with a ruffle down the front, surmounted by a gold-trimmed velvet jacket that eventually proved itself to be not black, but dark green. His ironed black hair fell over his shoulders and tossed as he played guitar, the jagged spikes of his angled bangs obscuring most of his face most of the time. Hoshino was playing up the Latin atmosphere with a long, fringed sweater in black and gold, paired with a large neck kerchief tied in a triangle over one shoulder, reminiscent of the “Miu” PV, and particularly flattered by his acoustic guitar. Higuchi has cut his hair surprisingly short, and wore a dark suit with spangled accents, while Toll, trendbreaker as usual, wore a smartly tailored khaki military uniform, with the sharp dandelion points of his hair exploding in all directions through the top of his fedora. Unsurprisingly, Sakurai was dressed in a version of his favorite black coat-vest-ruffles-shiny pants combination, this time with a Spanish twist—shiny, high-heeled boots flared out and folded over at the top, and a bright red rose embroidered on the back of his black vest. He also wore a pleated black kilt around his hips, which tried and failed to disguise the fact that his pants were too big for him yet again (he had to spend half the concert hiking them back up at regular intervals). Sakurai, too, has cut his hair shorter than it’s been since the Six/Nine tour, and wore it slicked back Peter Murphy style with industrial strength hairspray that refused to budge even after two hours of sweating and head-shaking.

But next up wasn’t head-shaking, so much as booty-shaking. For all that Imai claimed not to have enjoyed Lady Gaga, he’s certainly veering close to Gaga and Kylie Minogue territory with all the electro-pop glory of “Hamushi no You ni.” With this song, the whole hall might as well have been transformed into a giant dance club, yet the fans seemed confused, and mostly stood still and refused to get their groove on. I was hoping for disco balls, but it seems this is one of the songs the band will have to develop as the tour progresses. They played it straight, but didn’t take it further than the studio recording. All the members except for Sakurai, that is, who has recovered wonderfully from the vocal problems that plagued him on the last tour, and sang much more smoothly and beautifully than he did on the recording.

“Hamushi” was followed by “Bolero,” led by an enthusiastic Imai who urged the audience to join in on singing “da doo bee da doo bee da BEE da.” Behind the drum set, Toll was looking tired and low on energy, but it is a testament to his skills that he played perfectly anyway.

When the song finished, the stage went dark, and after a moment of silence, the hall was filled with a slow, bubbling electronic interlude, while flower-shaped lights shone down on the stage, changing from deep purple to sea green and then through silver, magenta, and blue, as the roadies brought out freshly tuned instruments and a metallic backdrop slowly came down behind the band members. The backdrop consisted of shiny silver beams, shaped to evoke the drapes of a curtain, and hung with rows of lightbulbs with mirrors dangling behind them, to reflect the lights outward. As the interlude music died out at last, the backdrop lit up with dazzling brightness and up came the infectious mambo beat of “Django!!!”

It’s a show-stopping number and they know it. Hide was fairly tearing the strings off his acoustic guitar as the backdrop lights changed colors along with the proscenium light bank. Imai’s expression never changed, but he kicked and spun enough to make it obvious he was having the time of his life. When the line, “he’s a trickster” came around, Sakurai put on an evil grin and pointed straight at Imai, snapping his fingers like castanets as the fans danced and counted 1-2-3.

After “Django!” came another break, the darkness filled this time with silver spots and eerie guitar noises. The glittering backdrop receded back into the ceiling, but was simultaneously replaced with a full-sized projection screen, just in time to welcome the videogame synth sounds of “Kyoki Deadheat.” And what kind of videogame is it? Just the kind that Sakurai likes, apparently. The lights were back down to their low level, leaving the band members except for Sakurai barely visible, and enabling the audience to concentrate on the 3D computer-animated video that rushed past on the screen behind: a school of shiny silver sperm, rushing down a twisting, cybernetic-looking red and black tunnel in a large cloud. The audience gave a collective gasp and giggle of surprised as the sperm first made their appearance, and Sakurai grinned at Hoshino, squealing “Usoo~” and sounding satisfyingly like an anime girl getting her skirt flipped. Though he had to flip his own skirt, as there was no one there to do it for him. The shots of sperm alternated with shots of clouds, and at last, as Sakurai sang “The goddess is smiling on you/In the crazy deadheat/You Win!” the sperm sailed out of the tunnel and gushed triumphantly into the clouds in a blaze of light. Maybe it’s not quite as good as the buxom Mona Lisa Overdrive mic stand lady, but it’s pretty far up there. Count on Buck-Tick to think of something new every time.

The show was getting hot and heavy now, and next up came “Sakuran Baby,” like an instant flashback to the One Life, One Death era with the heavy, driving bass filling the whole hall and vibrating deliciously in the floor. Higuchi shook his hips back and forth, grinning madly at being able to produce such a huge, intense sound as electronic glissandos poured from the speakers on all sides like meteorites falling from the ceiling. On recording, this song was catchy, but live, it’s stupendous, with the rumble of the bass paired with Sakurai’s perfect voice on the melodic chorus making it one part pop, one part hard club industrial.

Did I say industrial? For sure, Razzle Dazzle has the electronic funk and humorous weirdness that was also a pervading theme on Cosmos, but no one in the whole hall expected what came next. The stage went pitch black, and on the projection screen up came a low-resolution graphic of the folds of brain tissue, followed by a gray version of the Matrix—pixelated gray letters in Courier font, changing and shifting in tight-packed vertical rows all up and down the screen, spreading out over the proscenium light bank as Toll hit the drums and electronic bouncing and buzzing noises ricocheted around the hall, magnified to grandiose proportions by the huge space. The letters on the screen flashed and then up came more letters, giant and red this time, spelling out “SANE,” right over the drum set. The audience roared.

The stage stayed in near darkness as the song began, and Sakurai picked up a large red plastic megaphone wrapped in black tape. As he chanted the lyrics, the megaphone distorted his voice, and the blinking cursor on the projection screen spelled out the words of the lyrics in type, sometimes erasing them to type a new line, other times scrolling down to add more, and from time to time the words short-circuited, flashing and shooting back and forth across the screen at light speed, multiplying into infinity before resolving back into the blinking cursor again, then exploding into the Matrix once more for the chorus. The lights stayed down the whole time and Sakurai stood still, foot on the monitor, cackling into the megaphone while Imai spun through the darkness. Live, the song held much more menace and aggression than the recorded version. It buzzed in the floor, blasting with an artillery of sound, then pulling back again, strobing, pulsing, drawing the audience into its disturbing, world of madness.

When “SANE” was done, rather than breaking the delicious dark spell that had been cast, the band kept it going with “Uta,” blinding white lights flashing until everyone was dizzy. After “Uta,” Sakurai addressed the audience.

“We have a few more songs for you all to enjoy before it’s over,” he said. “I want you all to have as much fun as possible, all the way up to the second balcony!”

He held out the microphone, and the people in the second balcony screamed, sounding very high up and far away to everyone down on the ground floor.

“First balcony!” More screams, closer this time.

“Orchestra!” And the ground floor screamed, clapping, cheering, and shrieking the names of the band members.

“Now we’re going to play a song from about twenty years ago,” Sakurai said. “Imai rearranged it and now…it’s quite different. See if you recognize it!”

The lights went down again, and the projection screen came up with bubbles of eerie silver and green. Lights came up behind the rhythm section platform as Toll pounded out a hard, driving rhythm and Higuchi plucked at the strings of his much-admired standup wooden bass. The heavy rhythm grounded a wailing forest of dirgelike guitar chords in the harmonic minor. There was something distinctly cabaret-style about this arrangement, like Jacques Brel’s “Amsterdam,” infused with a heavy dose of gothic rock. But what song was it? And then Sakurai started singing “Still smiling like I’m freezing…”

Victims of Love!

If Sakurai had had skull-baby with him, she would have fit right in. This is the third time Imai has rearranged “Victims of Love,” and this version is by far the darkest and most full of despair. The graphics on the projection screen reflected the mood appropriately, displaying blurry images of the hands and face of a drowned woman, shining green with corpse-light like the faces in the Dead Marshes in Lord of the Rings. The stage was equally as dark and green, with the band members staying solemnly still, Sakurai crooning into the microphone as though in pain, reaching under the pleated kilt to stroke himself and shiver with an act of repressed, intense erotic feeling. It was just as persuasive as the shamelessly provocative “Climax Together” version, but much creepier.

“That was ‘Victims of Love,’” Sakurai said when the song had finished. He gave a long pause. “For anyone who couldn’t tell.” The audience laughed and cheered.

It was nearing the end of the main set, and it was time to turn the heat back up. Now the lights were coming up, and Sakurai crossed the stage over to where Imai was standing, putting his arms up behind Imai and cackling until Higuchi rolled into the heavy, retro bassline of “Tango Swanka.” Imai pulled out his Sid Vicious beach attitude for his first lead vocals of the evening, his rough spoken-word sections contrasting sharply with Sakurai’s velvet smooth melody. By the time the chorus came around, everyone was dancing and singing along with Imai, who spun around a few times, then came all the way down the left hanamichi. He shuffled back and forth in front of the crowd of women who had rushed up to the edge of the stage to greet him, tossing his hair and making an elaborate show of pretending they weren’t there, while playing a red-hot guitar solo. Sakurai, perhaps feeling a bit ignored, shouted “KISS ME” at the top of his lungs, then teased the fans in the front row.

“Don’t touch me!” he sang, darting up to the edge of the stage, reaching out his arm, then pulling it away as soon as they grabbed him.

After “Swanka” came “Mugen,” as big and cheesy and feel-good as Hide promised, and then the band finished up the set with “Dokudanjou Beauty.”

Okay, I asked for disco balls. And we may not have gotten any on “Hamushi,” but on “Dokudanjou,” they gave them to us, and how. One disco ball of galactic proportions rose out of the floor on the back platform and started twirling, while three more descended from the ceiling. The projection screen in the back came up with an image of scores more disco balls flashing rainbow lights across the screen, as the stage swirled in a dizzy cloud of lights from the real live disco balls, which were all turning in opposite directions. They razzled and dazzled, tangoed and djangoed to a fever pitch as the band played a wonderful rendition of the single mix of “Dokudanjou,” mercifully free of preposterous guitar solos and unnecessary guest vocals. Then, with a few nods and smiles, they were off, and the house was dark again, and unusually, the scrim was back in front of the stage.

It took the venue staff two tries to get the scrim on right—on the first try, they discovered that it was still tied together at the bottom, and had to haul it back offstage and untie it, before closing it for real. After a short break, the lights went up on the stage, and the band members came back out, but the scrim stayed closed. Blurred projections of cherry blossom petals and ocean waves came up on the proscenium light bank and spread onto the scrim, where they warped and danced and resolved into a giant full moon as Hoshino struck the first mournful sounds of “Yougetsu” on his guitar. Sadly, unlike “Dokudanjou Beauty,” the band had decided to play the album arrangement of “Yougetsu” rather than the far superior single version, but live, it hardly mattered. The floor spots were back, and traded off illuminating Sakurai, Imai, and Hoshino as the song focused on their various parts in turn. Sakurai was in his element, commanding every inch of the dark, surreally obscured stage. Once again, he crouched dramatically over the floor spots, calling to mind his brilliant performances of “Gesshoku” on the 13th Floor with Moonshine Tour, and “Shingetsu” at his own solo live at NHK Hall in 2004. The projected moon image sank lower and lower until it filled the whole scrim, whereupon it turned from pearly white to deep blood red, bathing the band members in a crimson glow that remained as the song ended and the scrim was drawn aside to reveal an octagonal lighting apparatus that slowly descended from the ceiling to hang in the air above Sakurai’s head like a gigantic cursed halo.

The other band members waited in the gloom while Sakurai stood majestically in the center of the circle of red light, and the repeated music-box tone of a high A began to drop from the upper speakers like little drops of blood.

If any song in the whole show required the live performance to bring out its full potential, it was “Kuchizuke.” Fans seem to have been quite divided on their opinion of this song, which also served as the opening theme to the anime series Shiki. But if the studio recording of this song was the tiniest bit lacking in gravitas, the live performance made up this lack tenfold. All the whimsy of stylized anime character designs, homely girls dancing on tables and inexplicable burning wheelchairs was gone in an instant, replaced with a thunderous, threatening aria of darkness. The bass resounded through the floor and walls and the guitars scraped through the shadows outside the circle of red light, which remained focused on Sakurai the entire time. It lit up the whites of his eyes as he leered at the audience, singing “I’m going mad in a vicious thirst.” He proves his authenticity by continuing to look convincingly creepy and dangerous in this sadly emasculated age when vegetarian vampire schoolboys dwell on every corner.

As “Kuchizuke” finished, the audience was silent for a breathless moment, before the loud, metallic beat of “Iconoclasm” roused them into dancing action—more joy for anyone who missed Mona Lisa Overdrive, because the band is back to a hard, industrial arrangement full of pulsing strobe lights and Imai making lewd, V-shaped gestures at the audience with his fingers and tongue on “2 for the X.”

The band went offstage again after “Iconoclasm,” to return a few short minutes later, without having changed costumes at all. After a few guitar screeches from Imai, they went straight into “Speed,” the only choice in the set list that might be considered a pointless crowd-pleaser, but at least it wasn’t “Aku no Hana.” It did give Hoshino an excuse to come halfway down the left hanamichi, grin awkwardly at the audience, then flee in terror as a group of girls rushed up under the glaring eyes of the security guards, reaching toward him and squealing.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you’ve been enjoying the show,” Sakurai said as the song finished. “Before we play our last two songs, I’d like to do some band member introductions…” His statement lacked conviction, and a few of the audience members laughed.

“There might be people in the audience who are seeing Buck-Tick for the first time, so…I’ll introduce the band members…on guitar, Imai Hisashi!” Cheers, and Imai struck a single, jarring chord on his guitar.

“On drums, Yagami Toll!”

The lights came up on Toll, and he stuck his tongue out and winked at the audience before starting one of his amusing drum solos—little tinkling drum rolls on the snare, then the cymbals, then a few big crashes, then the plunk of a cowbell. Assuming Toll had finished, Sakurai turned towards Higuchi and opened his mouth to speak again, but Toll drowned him out with a loud crash cymbal, then a few little taps on the bell of the ride. The audience laughed.

“Bass, Higuch—” Sakurai began again, but Toll cut him off again, and Sakurai turned around to look at the drum platform, giving Toll a look that said, “are you done yet?” Toll nodded contritely and Sakurai turned away, then crash crash crash went Toll’s drums. The audience was roaring with laughter now, and so was Sakurai, who tried again to introduce Higuchi but was now unable to speak, he was laughing so hard, so Toll just continued with the drum solo, Higuchi shaking his hips, waving and smiling until Sakurai recovered himself enough to introduce Higuchi, Hoshino, and himself, which he did in his usual embarrassed manner, mumbling “I’m…vocal…Sakurai.”

Then he took a deep breath, and the band started into their all-new fangirl favorite, “Gekka Reijin.” They played it through straight, without embellishment, but the song is more than strong enough to stand on its own and speak for itself.

Naturally, the last song of the evening was “Solaris.” Lyric-wise, this song is thematically related to “Kimi ga Shin…dara,” one of the great ballads of Buck-Tick’s experimental electronic golden age. The graphics on the projection reflected this accordingly, bringing up images of psychedelic butterflies followed by deep ocean blues and Nautilus shells, like a vision of prehistory, or perhaps, the otherworldly ocean the song’s title makes reference to. A little emptier and more solemn than “Heaven,” there’s a beautiful sort of hope in the freedom of loss that this song expresses. It may be Buck-Tick’s first real song, not just about death and the brevity of life, but also about growing older. There couldn’t be a more appropriate ending song, because this song is about endings.

This show, however, was about the beginning of the tour, and far from making the audience lonely, the end of this concert just built up the anticipation for the start of the next one. Another show exactly like this one would be more than enough for any fan, but in the coming weeks, the performance is bound to grow and evolve. And on his blog, Imai promises many new developments to come, so stay tuned!

SE - Razzle Dazzle Fragile
01. Razzle Dazzle
02. PIXY
03. My Funny Valentine
04. Goblin
05. Hamushi no You Ni
06. BOLERO
07. Django!!!
08. Kyouki Deadheat
09. Sakuran Baby
10. SANE
11. Uta
12. Victims of Love
13. Tango Swanka
14. Mugen
15. Dokudanjou Beauty

en1

16. Yougetsu
17. Kuchizuke
18. Iconoclasm

en2

19. Speed
20. Gekka Reijin
21. Solaris


4.10.10

Razzle Dazzle Self Liner Notes

Taken from the October issue of CD Data.

Self Liner Notes by the band members, translated by yours truly.

1. Razzle Dazzle Fragile

"We open the curtain with an instrumental, heavy on the keyboard and synthesizers. It's got a sort of beginning-of-a-movie soundtrack feeling to it, but I also made it as a kind of background music piece, for a bunch of bad-boy artists having a banquet in, perhaps, a basement somewhere." (Imai) Hmm Imai, this wouldn't happen to be you and Yokoyama Kazutoshi in your basement, now would it?

2. Razzle Dazzle

"I wanted a sort of rude, fun song. Something that pokes fun, with no guitar solos or anything. I think this song has a sort of beautiful melody but also a joking, rock-n-roll feeling. But the lyrics are still a little lascivious..." (Imai)

3. Kyouki Deadheat

"Although the framework is orthodox rock-n-roll, we played around a lot in the studio when we were recording it, and in ended up as this kind of...perverted techno thing. Maybe it's the balance of sounds, but it really comes across as sounding...not orthodox." (Hoshino)

4. Dokudanjou Beauty -R.I.P.-

"The mix is different from the single version and the guitars are also different, and sort of trade off with the synthesizers. Also we added the vocal duet with the vocalist of Lazy Guns Brisky. But if I had to say it in one word, I'd say, this one's more techno." (Imai)

5. Hamushi no you ni

"Before we recorded the vocals I thought this was going to be more of a heavy song that really fell down on you, but once the vocals were in there it turned into this light, airy pop tune. But Buck-Tick's signature darkness, melancholy and ephemerality is still all there, I think!" (Higuchi)

6. Yougetsu -Yougetsu no Utage-

"On the single version as the b-side for 'Kuchizuke,' this song had a rockabilly/big band jazz feel, but this album mix and sound is quite different. The rhythm and the backtracking are both different, so it fits much better with the balance of the album." (Hoshino)

7. BOLERO

"At first I though this song should be really American pop-style, you know, orthodox 8-beat, but I just couldn't make it come out like that. We did so many takes, and it ended up like this." (Imai)
"This is a rhythm pattern I've never played before, so it's a little strange!" (Yagami)

8. Django!! -Genwaku no Django-

"Latin style, based around a mambo beat. Personally I love this style, so I had no trouble working in it, but I was surprised Imai wrote a song like this!" (Yagami)
"I was surprised, too! I've never done a song with this sort of feeling before! But I like it!" (Imai)

9. Sakuran Baby

"This song has the most hard, repeating sound of any song on the album. But it really busts out the pop, too." (Higuchi)
"There is no theme to these lyrics...I thought I'd write a nonsense story...I guess you could say it's about 'live until you die!' But that's it." (Sakurai)

10. PIXY

"This was a song I made because I wanted to do a four-part arrangement of something with psychedelic chic." (Hoshino)
"With the lyrics for this song, I was looking for a drifting feeling, with something a little ethnic and something a little comical. Also I tried to use the chorus as much as possible. I want to express a feeling like the little scales on butterfly wings." (Sakurai)

11. Kuchizuke -SERIAL THRILL KISSER-

"We changed most of the synthesizers on this one, too, and gave it a more techno feeling than the single version. With the subtitle, I just thought, if this song is called 'Kiss' and the lyrics are about vampires, there is no other subtitle that could possibly be better." (Imai)

12. Gekka Reijin

"The first time I heard this, I thought, this is what 'PIXY' would be like if instead of being comical, it were completely the opposite and totally sexy...and something about it is very old-fashioned. It has this natural Japanese beauty and elegance. So I wrote lyrics that are monotone, but with hints of color." (Sakurai)

13. Mugen

"When I made it, it was supposed to be some sort of pop. But then it was like, I got my heart rate up, got too excited, and wanted to blow it up into a really big, huge, feel-good song." (Hoshino)
"Since Hide made it this big huge song, I tried to make lyrics that would match the expansive atmosphere, make you feel all that space." (Sakurai)

14. Tango Swanka

"I wrote the lyrics to the rap part I sing on the A-melody, and Acchan wrote the rest. We didn't confer at all when we were writing the lyrics about relating them in terms of meaning, and this was the first time we tried writing lyrics collaboratively from both ends, as it were." (Imai)
"In the end, it didn't match, but it worked well anyway." (Sakurai)

15. Solaris

"The image i had in mind while writing the music was something big, and something surreal. Not something violent or necessarily rock-n-roll exciting, but something that would be right for the last song on the album." (Imai)
"The theme of the lyrics is living, illusions, and the fact that everything ends somewhere. That's what I wrote about." (Sakurai)


PS: Someone out there, please beat the Blogger engineer over the head until he/she fixes this bug that prevents me from changing text colors. If you bring me the bloodied engineer and a fixed bug, I will give you cookies with tour tickets baked into the middle.

30.8.10

寿記 26.08.2010 Dokudanjou Beauty


Dokudanjou BEAUTY

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Electric, noisy, pop, punk, and disco.

I wanted to make a song with all those elements in it, and this was it.

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I thought of the bass riff that was the seed of the idea for this song during the memento mori tour.

I wanted to make something you could go nuts to for four minutes.

With a simple, simple rhythm.

Something bold.

But, with a sort of silly, joke thing going on.

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.

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The lyrics are "a requiem."

For my friend, who passed away.

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Death is a frightening thing.

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"It's gonna be all right Yeah Yeah
Nothing's gonna go wrong."

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R.I.P.

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Oh, and the day changed, but it was her birthday today!

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IMAI 2:24

He's talking about his friend with uterine cancer, who he mentioned in this entry. Puts a new spin on Dokudanjou Beauty, all right...(Dokudanjou Beauty translation available here.)

30.3.10

Voo Doo Lyrics




As a bonus, you can sing these English lyrics with the original melody! Translated by Cayce. As always, please link Blog-Tick and/or NGS if you repost these.


Voo Doo
Lyrics: Sakurai Atsushi
Music: Hoshino Hidehiko

Gonna sing, gonna dance, the flames are flickering baby
Gonna dance, go crazy, my eyes & your eyes making love now

Gonna sing, gonna dance, no meaning, nothing to say now
Gonna dance, go crazy, my heart & your heart beating love now

Angel/Devil, yeah, yeah I'm gonna sacrifice
Raise my glass, raise it high
Make a toast, it's for tonight

Yeah dance Baby
Come on look at me Honey
More & more & more yeah Baby!
Come on please

Gonna sing, gonna dance, your life is burning all around you
Gonna dance, go crazy, my heart & your heart beating love now

Angel/Devil, yeah, yeah you're gonna sacrifice
Raise your love, raise it high
Make a toast, it's for tonight

Yeah dance Baby
Yeah, yeah come on Honey
More & more & more yeah Baby!
Come on please

Dance dance the Voo Doo Dance
Yeah in the darkest night
Flickering flames, bonfire burns
Dance dance the Voo Doo Dance
At the end of the darkest night
Move with me, yeah I dance with you


Voo Doo
作詞:櫻井敦司
作曲:星野英彦

歌い踊れ 炎が揺れているんだ
踊り狂え 眼と眼で愛し合うんだ

歌い踊れ 意味なんて何も無いんだ
踊り狂え 鼓動で愛し合うんだ

天使・悪魔 俺はそうSACRIFICE
グラス掲げ この闇に乾杯だ

さあ踊ろうBaby こっち向いてHoney
もっともっともっとBaby! お願いだ

歌い踊れ 命が燃えているんだ
踊り狂え 鼓動で愛し合うんだ

天使・悪魔 お前もそうSACRIFICE
愛を掲げ この夜に乾杯だ

さあ踊ろうBaby だって何だかHoney
もっともっともっとBaby! お願いだ

踊れVoo Doo Dance 闇の中で 炎 揺れている
踊れVoo Doo Dance 闇の果てで ふたり揺れている


Voo Doo
Lyrics: Sakurai Atsushi
Music: Hoshino Hidehiko

Utai odore honoo ga yureteirunda
Odori kurue me to me de aishiaunda

Utai odore imi nante nani mo nainda
Odori kurue kodou de aishiaunda

Tenshi/akuma ore wa sou SACRIFICE
Gurasu kakage kono yami ni kanpai da

Saa odorou Baby kocchi muite Honey
Motto motto motto Baby! Onegai da

Utai odore inochi ga moeteirunda
Odori kurue kodou de aishiaunda

Tenshi/akuma omae mo sou SACRIFICE
Ai wo kakage kono yoru ni kanpai da

Saa odorou Baby datte nandaka Honey
Motto motto motto Baby! Onegai da

Odore Voo Doo Dance yami no naka de honoo yureteirunda
Odore Voo Doo Dance yami no hate de futari yureteirunda



24.3.10

Dokudanjou Beauty Translation



Beauty the Stage is Yours
Lyrics: Imai Hisashi
Music: Imai Hisashi

Yeah Yeah beauty the stage is all yours
Loneliness & despair Yeah Yeah
It's your freedom

Yeah Yeah beauty flowers & ashes
The wind & your life Yeah Yeah
Infinity & eternity

Oh my god
Not even God can use you, so just do what you want
We have wine and roses and cigarettes
Makes me laugh to see it

Yeah Yeah beauty make me fly
Up in the sky Yeah Yeah
It's your freedom

Yeah Yeah my sweet beauty
It's gonna be all right Yeah Yeah
Nothing's gonna go wrong

Oh my god
When God pretends he isn't watching, just go wild
Love & dance so much you could die
Makes me laugh to see it

Go Go beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop
Yeah beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop
Go Go beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop
Yeah beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop

Oh my god
Not even God can stop it, our life is in the moment
At the end, just eat it all
Makes me laugh to see it

Go Go beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop
Yeah beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop
Go Go beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop
Yeah beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop Yeah

Go Go beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop
Yeah beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop
Go Go beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop
Yeah beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop
Go Go beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop
Yeah beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop Yeah

Translation by Cayce, as always. Please credit me if you repost, and more importantly, link back to Blog-Tick and/or Not Greatest Site! Kanji courtesy of Yuu Tachikawa (Thank yuu! Oh that was bad...)


独壇場 Beauty
作詞:今井寿
作曲:今井寿

Yeah Yeah 独壇場beauty
孤独 絶望 Yeah Yeah お前が自由

Yeah Yeah 花も灰も beauty
風も命も Yeah Yeah 無限も永遠も

オーマイガッ
神様も使えないな それなら勝手にやっちゃえ
ワインも煙草も薔薇もある 俺が笑って見ててやる

Yeah Yeah 飛ばしてくれ beauty
あの空の上 Yeah Yeah お前の自由

Yeah Yeah 優しんだな beauty
もう大丈夫 Yeah Yeah 何も起きないさ

オーマイガッ
神様は見ないふり それなら派手にやっちゃえ
死ぬほど楽しめ踊れ 俺が笑って見ててやる

Go Go beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop
Yeah beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop
Go Go beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop
Yeah beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop Yeah

オーマイガッ
神様も止められない 思うがままが人生
最後に全部食べちゃえよ 俺が笑って見ててやる

Go Go beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop
Yeah beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop
Go Go beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop
Yeah beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop Yeah

Go Go beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop
Yeah beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop
Go Go beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop
Yeah beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop
Go Go beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop
Yeah beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop Yeah


Dokudanjou Beauty
Lyrics: Imai Hisashi
Music: Imai Hisashi

Yeah Yeah dokudanjou beauty
Kodoku zetsubou Yeah Yeah omae ga jiyuu

Yeah Yeah hana mo hai mo beauty
Kaze mo inochi mo Yeah Yeah mugen mo eien mo

Oh my god
Kamisama mo tsukaenai na sore nara katte ni yacchae
Wain mo tabako mo bara mo aru ore ga waratte miteteyaru

Yeah Yeah tobashite kure beauty
Ano sora no ue Yeah Yeah omae no jiyuu

Yeah Yeah yasashiinda na beauty
Mou daijoubu Yeah Yeah nani mo okinai sa

Oh my god
Kamisama wa minai furi sore nara hade ni yacchae
Shinu hodo tanoshime odore ore ga waratte miteteyaru

Go Go beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop
Yeah beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop
Go Go beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop
Yeah beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop Yeah

Oh my god
Kamisama mo tomerarenai omou ga mama no jinsei
Saigo ni zenbu tabechae yo ore ga waratte miteteyaru

Go Go beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop
Yeah beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop
Go Go beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop
Yeah beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop Yeah

Go Go beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop
Yeah beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop
Go Go beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop
Yeah beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop
Go Go beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop
Yeah beauty round round Nothing's gonna stop Yeah