I had an interesting experience yesterday: recently saw the profile of a young woman on deviant art and she had some images of asian youths dressed in this neo-goth (as opposed to victorian goth or one of the other subsets) gear, i.e. cosplay. I’d seen some similar shots on FLickr and though I’d ask if there was a relation. Thus began my education on visual kei. Lain is quite young and lives in Germany. She wanted to IM rather than just try and answer me outright. It took us a few days (and me updating my IM, since my GAIM was gone wonky) to be on at the same time, but eventually there she was, complete with webcam, which in and of itself wasn’t such a big deal, but I don’t have one - so I’m ‘invisible’, talking with a girl less than half my age, and when you learn more about the subject matter, you might get the creepy vibe too. But this is about music education.
So after some introductions, she starts rapid firing images, songs and video links. I send some too, trying to explain my version of metal and darkness, but she isn’t digging it. I can forgive her the teenage attention span, after all she’s talking w/video to several other friends around the globe at the same time. But this basic difference in the way music and image have changed is what alarmed me. For me, Metal 101: Blue Cheer (’68, acid rock really but considered proto-metal) and Black Sabbath (’70) are the inital building block. I grew up in the 80’s and saw Maiden give way to Hair Metal. Then came mathrockesque neo-metal revival: Melvins, Breadwinner, Sepultura, The Fucking Champs, Mastadon et al. Sure there was always Slayer, and in truth, when mainstream metal went cheese there was serious underground splinter factions ‘keeping it real’ all along. See various Black Metal church burning, Thor whorshipping, lead guitarists commiting suicide so the remaining band members can wear pieces of his skull on chains around their neck, bands. Though I’ve never been one for that cookie monster voice/autistic drumming/arpeggio fest stuff. Out in Portland once trying to discuss it with a fan he explained to me what I’m into is ‘art metal’. But we were equally frustrated to encounter other fans who tried to relate by naming Tool, Metallica (yeah yeah yeah, ‘first few albums’ blah blah…but they went on to show their true colors…) or somesuch.
But she is of a different era. Image means just as much as the music. Rumors about pacts with the devil or what the acronym of your band name might stand for just don’t cut it anymore. The actual music she’s into strikes me as weak but I must say I’m taken by the imagery - after all I’m also an asian horror fan. And she had no interest in the ‘Honey Bucket’ video, as the guys had no budget and most likely shot it on some friend’s goat farm. Well, I guess you’d call that a ranch…
What can you do? The world is always changing. And in some ways it isn’t. At one point she typed ‘no one cares about the pain of the youth today’. *Ahem* I encouraged her to check out Nietzsche, esp. as she can read it in the original form (whoops, I mean ‘Prussian’). One thing’s for sure, alienated, pained youths didn’t used to have connectivity like this. A good and a bad thing on different levels.
This post could splinter in a variety of directions with discussions of ‘industrial’ (by which I’m talking Throbbing Gristle, Brighter Death Now school i.e. dark experimental music; not some sexy, whiny bitch dance music), or ‘punk’, whatever that means. But the fact is the tree branches just keep on splintering. There is good and bad in all genres, like always, and no accounting for taste. But personally I’d like to see the actual riffs and fills stay strong - keep striving for originality in the actual sound, not just the eye candy. But what do I know, I’m just some ranting geezer. So without further ado, here’s the Japanese band Dir en Grey-



I would also point out my American-centric and essentially hard rock shaped tastes when I go to complain about how fluffy the chorus of ‘Obscure’ seems to me, but when you consider the rich tradition of Japanese noise rock (see also Japanoise), there really isn’t much excuse for those boys. It’s marketing, slick and at root ‘mainstream’, despite some of what you see. Makes you wonder about future decades of hard music/image-

*also props to Sam Dunn for general research and info*