Shopping Service: Birthday Special

It's now been over a year since we first launched This is NOT Greatest Shopping Service, and to celebrate, we're providing a new selection of fabulous fangirly items for you to covet (and, ideally, purchase)...including a first press copy of Buck-Tick's Singles on Digital Video Disc, pristine copies of your favorite photobooks, and two sets of promotional flyers, carefully collected by Cayce over years of tour-following! These flyers were never available for purchase, and with the exception of the Anarchy tour flyers, they're all by definition out of print.  If you ever wanted to wallpaper your room in Buck-Tick, this is your chance. Scroll down for details.

SOLD

Buck-Tick Singles on Digital Video Disc (Limited Edition)

Released in 2006 as part of Buck-Tick's 20th anniversary promotions, this limited edition DVD set contains the music videos for all of Buck-Tick's singles from "Just One More Kiss" through to "Romance."  Housed in a deluxe LP-sized box, it also comes with a bonus disc containing lots of sexxxy making-of footage, a jumbo booklet full of promo photos from all the single releases, a keychain, and a huge and really awesome poster. Fun fact: Cayce has had this poster hanging on the walls of various apartments for approximately five years.  Anyhow, I can personally say that watching all these music videos in DVD quality is a lot more fun than watching them on YouTube.  You can put them on the big screen and see them in all their crisp glory, delectating over all kinds of details you'd never be able to see on the YouTube screen!  Highly recommended, rare and out of print. Region 2. Perfect condition. Loads of PV screencaps available on BT Zone.  7000 yen. 

The LP-sized box.

Opening the LP-sized box!

A peek inside the LP-sized booklet!

A glimpse of the two DVDs, and the bonus keychain!

The awesome, giant poster. Seriously, it's really big (that's what she said.)

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Rock and Read #42

Volume 42 of Rock & Read magazine, with a 32-page cover feature on Sakurai Atsushi, including a long interview and 13 pages of full-color photos. Also includes a bonus postcard. Other artists featured include Inoran of Luna Sea, Gara of Merry, Asagi of D, Akihide of Breakerz, Bansaku of Baroque, and others. This was one of the best selling issues of Rock & Read magazine and is very difficult to find for sale compared to the other issues. Perfect condition, out of print. 1700 yen.

Front Cover

Back Cover

Bonus Postcard

Gawth glare. Wow! Much gawth!

And....GIANT BUTTS.

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SOLD

'SACRIFICE'

Sakurai Atsushi Solo Photobook

This gorgeous, giant hardcover photobook was released as part of Sakurai Atsushi's solo project.  Contains 158 pages of sexy, arty photographs of dear Mr. Sakurai. Most of the photos are black and white, but a few are in color, including that one that all the fangirls love to make into livejournal icons. This is a must have for any fangirl, though you'll have to take care not to stain the lovely glossy pages with your fangirl juices. Rare and out of print.

This is a pristine, PERFECT CONDITION COPY. Fangirls, you will not see its like again for a very long time. Also, includes the large-sized bonus clear panel that was included as an extra with the original print run. 9000 yen. Special shipping rates apply (this thing is so heavy you could use it as a weapon.)

Bonus Photo Panel!

Front Cover

"Smoke my ciggy baby~~~~~"

Look, it's a glass of "vanilla" vodka!  XARASHO.

ARMPRONZ (see livejournalers I'm learning to speak your language too!)

Slurpee. With me oh yes. (PS for a narration of this photo click here)

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SOLD

'YASOU'

Sakurai Atsushi Solo Poem Book

This poem book was released in 2004 as a part of Sakurai Atsushi's solo project.  It contains the text of the lyrics for 52 songs, including most of Sakurai's solo works and many Buck-Tick songs from Kurutta Taiyou, Darker Than Darkness, Six/Nine, Cosmos, Sexy Stream Liner, One Life One Death, and singles. Full list of songs available on request. The book includes numerous photos of Mr. Sakurai, as well as polaroids of his cats which he snapped himself. In addition, there are photocopies of his notebooks, and the text of an additional poem, "Subarashii Ashita," which has been published nowhere else besides this book. The book comes with a bonus DVD with scenes of Mr. Sakurai reciting his own poetry in various artsy settings. This book is very rare, by which I mean, extremely fucking rare! The copy I am selling is in perfect condition and the DVD has never been opened.  13000 yen.

Cover Detail

Lyrics notes.

The rain makes Acchan-chan wet ;)

Balls. I mean, eyeballs.

Who took this pic of Sakurai's feet, eh? Get jealz fangirls. Get real jealz.

"My hair is still wet. From the rain."

For a narration of this picture, click here.

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Flyer Set A

These 15 promotional flyers were hand-collected by Cayce over many years of tour following. They're not for sale anywhere and they're out of print by definition. Paste them on your walls, paste them on your toilet, photocopy them and paste them all over your town! 2000 yen.

Arui wa Anarchy foldout flyer, A5 size.

Arui wa Anarchy Tour Goods pamphlet A6 size.

Love & Steppers/Love & Media Portable foldout flyer, double A4 size.

Lingua Sounda flyer, A4 size.

At the Live Inn DVD reissue ad flyer, A4 size.

Love & Media Portable flyer from Tour 2013 Fish Tanker's Only, A5 size.

Love & Media Portable flyer from the Yumemiru Uchuu Tour 2012, A5 size.

Love & Media Portable flyer from the Razzle Dazzle Tour 2010, A5 size.

Yumemiru Uchuu album release flyer, A4 size.

Razzle Dazzle album release flyer, A4 size.

Razzle Dazzle print-on-demand photobook flyer, A4 size.

Buck-Tick DVD reissues ad flyer, A4 size.

Yumemiru Uchuu Tour flyer, A4 size.

Parade 2012 Festival DVD ad flyer, A4 size.

Bonus: a piece of notepaper illustrated by Sakurai Atsushi. This was part of a fan club membership renewal gift in 2009.

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Flyer Set B

These 6 promotional flyers were hand-collected by Cayce over many years of tour following. They're not for sale anywhere and they're out of print by definition. These are rare ones and this set I am selling is the only one I have available. This is a completely unique collector's item. 1200 yen.

Dedicate to gang 451 flyer, A4 size.

Miss Take foldout flyer, A4 size.

Hide and Imai guitar flyer, A4 size.

Buck-Tick: The Movie flyer (double sided), A5 size.

(reverse)

Love & Media Portable flyer, A5 size.

Love & Media Portable flyer, A5 size.

Bonus: a piece of notepaper illustrated by Sakurai Atsushi. This was part of a fan club membership renewal gift in 2009.

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All inquiries should be sent to themadaristocrat at gmail.

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Tour 2014 Arui wa Anarchy Live Report

A comprehensive live report of the tour so far is now up over at Not Greatest Site.  You can read it here.  Once again, we're sorry it took so long and we hope you'll find it worth the wait. If you'd like to make any comments on the live report, please leave them here.

In the meantime, we'd like to apologize in advance for stealing those Buck-Tick matryoshka dolls. We're sorry, but we just couldn't resist.

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Also, it has recently come to our attention that a friend of ours has been mistaken for Cayce several times by slightly confused fans. Since we do happen to be personally acquainted with her, we can vouch for the fact that she's a charming lady, but she's not me, folks. Guess again!

Coming Live to a Buck-Tick Near You!

We're sorry we haven't gotten the Arui wa Anarchy tour report up yet.

If it's any comfort, we were working on it...but the fact is, no one expects the Spanish Influenza!

However, it's been nigh on a week that's we've been stuck on the couch at home to drift in and out of sleep, watching cat videos and waiting for the pain to go away, so it's high time we were on the road to recovery and I assure you once we are good and recovered the first thing we will do is finish that live report.  In the meantime, we're going to offer you a spoiler.

The spoiler concerns "Victims of Love, ver. 3.0."

And the spoiler is this: aside from the very first few stops on the tour, Buck-Tick have not been playing this song live.

Why, you ask?

Well, if I had to take a guess, I'd say frankly, because it's boring.

Yeah, you heard me. I really never thought I'd say that about "Victims of Love," considering that in previous incarnations, it's traditionally been one of Buck-Tick's big show-stopping numbers, rich with narrative tension. But this time, not only were the light cues and stage effects nothing special (a big disappointment for a hall tour, where the dramatic staging is half the draw, especially if you're stuck in nosebleed seats so far from the stage you can't see the band members, which Cayce was not, but that's another story for another day)...this time, not only were there no special effects or cool light cues, but also, Sakurai spent the entire song sitting in a chair. Somehow he managed to make sitting in a chair while performing work for "masQue," probably because it seems that "masQue" is one of his favorite songs off the new album and therefore he retained his usual energy level, even while sitting down. But it did not work for "Victims," not at all.  With the other band members standing still onstage playing their instruments, it was on Sakurai to carry the drama all on his own, and to do that successfully he should have stood up and acted out the song, at least a little.  As it was, though he sang the melody beautifully, he didn't succeed in making us feel the eros of the song, not over all those canned violins piped in through the PA.

And since Mr. Sakurai, when he wants to, does eros better than just about anybody, I have to assume that if he didn't succeed this time, it's because he wasn't trying.  And I have to assume, if he wasn't trying, it's because this new version of "Victims" wasn't particularly successful even on recording, and played live with half the instrumentals pre-recorded only made it sound more impotent (see what I did there?)

The band members are far too intelligent not to realize when one of their songs isn't working, and such it was with "Victims."  Early in the tour, they gave it up as a bad job, and axed it from the set list...or so we thought.

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But then...Lolitas to the rescue!

That's right folks. Lolitas are perfectionists by nature, and this fall, they're coming in to finish what they started - performing "Victims of Love" with Buck-Tick, live on stage, the right and proper way.

Yes, that means what you think it means: Kokushoku Sumire will be making that dreaded guest appearance on the Arui wa Anarchy Tour.

So you didn't know that part of the money was going to Kokushoku Sumire when you bought those tickets, and now you want your money back?  Too bad. Kokushoku Sumire will be appearing as live guests at the following shows:

September 14th at Orix Theater Osaka
September 15th at Orix Theater Osaka
September 21st at Nagoya City Forest Hall
September 25th at NHK Hall
September 26th at NHK Hall

Looks like those tickets to the tour final you were hoarding to sell on auction just got a lot less valuable.  But if you're ever in doubt about who to sell them to, you can always sell them to a yakuza ticket scalper. It's a well-known fact that yakuza love lolitas (and lolitas love them back! See below. For those of you who haven't been keeping up with this blog, this is Maria Anastasia Hisashiyevna Sakuraina, erstwhile Russian citizen, now a dual citizen of the Autonomous Republic of Buck-Tickistan, and Japan. And it was the yakuza who made the magic happen.)

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In other news, Buck-Tick will be releasing a special live album, recorded at the Arui wa Anarchy show held at the Shibuya Kokaido on July 31st, 2014.  The live album will be a two-disc set containing 23 tracks, that is to say, all the songs the band played that night.  And between you and me, that includes "Thanatos," "Gesshoku," and "Mona Lisa." [Highlight the text to see the song titles.] Smart of them, to know that the way to a fan's wallet is through the uncharted back catalog and not through yet another "Muma"!

The album will only be available for purchase through Tower Records, Tower Records Mini, and Tower Records Online.  Reservations are open as of today, August 24th.  The release date for the album is set for October 22nd, and the price will be 3564 yen including tax.

If you would like Cayce's help in reserving a copy of this album, send an email to themadaristocrat [at] gmail.  

This Buck-Tick Fangirl Flew to Russia, and You Won't Believe What She Found There! My Mind was Blown!!!11

It's no secret that Blog-Tick has a lot of readers in Mother Russia.  In fact, according to our statistics program, after the United States, Russia is where the largest percentage of our audience is located.

We also continued to have a strong suspicion that Buck-Tick based most of the imagery for the Arui wa Anarchy album and tour on Russian Constructivist art and Soviet iconography. But some of you readers took issue with this idea.  Soviet Pioneer scouts? Red flags of revolution?  More like dreams and blood, you cried...but you got us thinking.  How could we settle this question once and for all in a way that would be believable to our readers?  We realized that the answer had been staring us in the face the whole time.   "Pics or it didn't happen" is a generally accepted Rule of the Internet.  Clearly, what we needed to do was buy ourselves a nice camera, and pay a fangirl to fly to Russia to investigate.

It wasn't hard to find volunteers.  After paying off the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Tokyo to give us an expedited visa as an Official State Envoy of This is Not Greatest Autonomous Republic of Buck-Tickistan (an honorary member of the CIS doncha know?), we put this girl on a plane and sent her off to Russia to do our dirty work for us.  Isn't she cute?

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Now, let's take a look at what she found.

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First, here's the silver bracelet from Buck-Tick's Arui wa Anarchy tour goods collection.

Aaand....here's a silver star on the top of a tower in Moscow. Note the Soviet hammer & sickle insignia, for good measure.

And here's a similar star in a Moscow metro station!

And here's the same star on the wall of a metro station in St. Petersburg!

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Now, remember those groovy squares and lines from the Keijijou Ryuusei PV?

Well, here they are on the floor of that same St. Petersburg metro station (note the stars in the background.)

And again, in Moscow this time!

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Now what about that plane in the Arui wa Anarchy promo photo?

Here it is in a mosaic on the ceiling of that same metro station in Moscow! (Russia wins at metro stations, apparently.)

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In fact, our dear fangirl saw red and white lines just about everywhere.

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...but what about stripes? Stripes could come from anywhere, right?

Maybe Imai just pulled those stripes out of his ass?

...or maybe he stole them off the gates of the Peter & Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg. This fort was built by Peter the Great to defend the Neva River from a Swedish invasion. It's about 300 years older than Imai!

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Here are some more of those stripes, pictured with the Russian flag, for extra realness.

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These shadows on Hide remind us eerily of the shadows on the headquarters of Ivan the Terrible's Oprichiniki.

In fact, Russia seemed to be full of suggestive shadows.

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But what about that final shot in the Keijijou Ryuusei PV?

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Isn't that what this tour t-shirt was inspired by?

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Maybe it was. Or maybe it was inspired by this secret passageway in the Peter & Paul Fortress wall.  I dunno about you guys, but for me, this picture certainly raises a lot of red flags!

Here it is in black and white, for good measure.

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Those of you who've been keeping up with the tour goods may have noticed that Buck-Tick have just released a new tour t-shirt. The name of this t-shirt is "Pioneer."

It's named after the Pioneers, the Soviet Union version of the Boy Scouts/Girl Scouts (pictured below. We do not own the rights to the below image.)

Do Buck-Tick's red scarves make more sense now?

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Pioneers were the subject of many Soviet promotional posters.

Acchan-chan wants in.

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All right, that's all well and good, you say.  Your lolita friend got a nice Russian vacation and maybe possibly exchanged star charts, drank vodka and ate selodka and pickled beets with Lyudmila Putina (here at NGS, even the lolitas drink vodka!)  But we still refuse to believe that red flag symbolizes anything other than dreams and blood.

I mean, just look at that bloody melancholia!

This is totally definitely not a flag.  This is SYMBOLISM, man.

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Well, we can't disagree with you there, and neither can Russia.

Red flags: symbolizing revolution in Russian politics since 1917. What have your Bolsheviks done for YOU lately?

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(For those of you who've been living a quiet sheltered life under a rock all these years, in 1917, the Bolshevik revolutionaries overthrew the Russian tsars after centuries of autocratic rule. This mosaic in Baltiskaya Station, St. Petersburg, depicts the successful revolutionaries hoisting the flag over the city. Look familiar?)

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In conclusion: this has been a Not Greatest Visual Historical Retrospective Photo-Essay. Special thanks to our Russian-speaking lolita-for-hire Maria Anastasia Hisashiyevna Sakuraina for her willingness to travel to Russia to make our dream a reality. We couldn't have done it without you.