VISUAL KEI BAR ZIN IN SHINJUKU, TOKYO. MALICE MIZER BEL AIR GACKT DANCE, DIR EN GREY, MARILYN MANSON & ABSINTHE JAPAN.
Hide your stuffed toys: G-suS has a lighter! In this side-splitting, rip-roaring new video I visit Bar Zin — a Visual Kei bar in Shinjuku — with my spookiest friends (Yukiro, Count de Sang, G-suS, Mistress Maya, Heidi).
Visual Kei bands often head to Bar Zin for a drink after playing a live. Dir en Grey and X Japan left memorabilia on the walls next to skulls, a devil mask, bondage goods, a giant axe, and stuffed Jack Skellington and Sally dolls.
As you may have predicted, we drank “sludgy” French absinthe. Bar Zin is open until 5am, with no table charge, and has special cocktails named Fetish Girl and Lady Camellia. I dare say it’s one of my favorite drinking holes in Tokyo. (For the address and info, check out the website.)
To top it off, you can request songs and watch music videos of your favorite J-rock artists. We requested Malice Mizer’s Bel Air… which led to vigorous Gackt dancing, evil commentary and scandalous behaviors! Naughty, naughty.
This is one of my favorite videos to date — so please watch it above and here! Be kind and subscribe to my channel, as we have more on the way…
Did any parts of the video make you laugh out loud? Where do you and your friends go — and what do you do — for fun?
Japanese Word of the Day: Kokan (股間) = Crotch
Song of the Day: Malice Mizer – Bel Air (the song we requested in the new video.)
SHARE & COMMENT
VERSAILLES ANNOUNCES BASS PLAYER REPLACING JASMINE YOU, NEW VISUAL KEI SINGLE. LONDON EBM NEW BEAT CLUB, ENDURANCE.
Blasting, flowing news! Versailles Philharmonic Quintet made two huge announcements at the tour finale on Saturday (at Tokyo’s C.C.Lemon Hall). Yukiro was at the Visual Kei concert, and reports…
† “Versailles announced that they have officially replaced Jasmine You with a new bassist! It will be the same guy (Masashi) they have been using on tour since Jasmine passed away. Black hair, black boring clothes: the new bass player is not even comparable to Jasmine.”
† “After, they played a new single that will be released in October. It was called “Destiny (…)” (something), a kind of X-Japan ballad with Hizaki guitars to it.”
Yukiro also witnessed the band’s glorious new stage costumes. “In the end, they came out in new, adjusted outfits. I’d never seen Hizaki look this good; he had a new red princess-ish dress with loads of red roses. Kamijo looked like a drag queen — he had the most sparkling cape I’ve ever seen; it was very delightful. And Teru had a nice cape sewed into his show-stomach.”
I am itching to visit London again, and hopefully will in the near future. (Camden Market’s Goth stores are whispering my name…) Cotton Bale was in London over the summer, and reports on a boss New Beat / Electronic Body Music / Aggrepo club night called Endurance. (All black/white photos by Mega Mega Mega.)
She writes: I remember trawling through London’s post-punk clubs in the early 2000s with DJ and musician Chris Flatline. He was a tough customer, and his complaints were two-fold. First, no matter what was on the flyer, the DJs always played the same Franz Ferdinand record. Second, people just stood around posing, and no one seemed to be having very much fun. Flatline thought that he could do better, and so he decided to start running his own clubs.
Flatline’s first foray into the world of party promotion was Tesco Disco: an art, fashion and music event. He ran it alongside Emily Strange (model, Stuckist artist and synth-pop group Client’s former bassist), and Kitten (of London glam rock nights Glam-ou-rama and Club Bohemia). He later went on, with one of the founding members of Tesco Disco, to start Future Brain, which became one of Shoreditch’s most popular Italo Disco nights.
Flatline’s current club is Endurance, a New Beat, EBM and Industrial night at a slightly seedy underground club in Dalston, which I recently attended. Flatline has achieved his goal: not only do they play the music that is on the flier, but it is great fun and everyone dances. Although guest DJ Matthew Stone of Boombox fame drew a fashionable crowd, I still thought the house DJs were better. Unaesthetic played mostly early industrial music. LVR played an impeccably mixed and superbly danceable set of EBM, while Flatline played his own brand of cheesy New Beat.
Endurance is held every second Saturday at the Alibi, 91 Kingsland High Street, London, E8 from 9pm. Entrance is free. For more info, check out the website.
Where are your favorite places in London to nightcrawl? What do you think about Versailles’ decision to have a permanent replacement bassist?
(Don’t forget to read my previous coverage of Versailles concerts, including videos. All of them are found here.)
Japanese Word of the Day: Uwasabanashi = Rumors
Song of the Day: A Split Second – Bend My Body Armour (The type of music you’ll hear at Club Endurance.)
LA CARMINA
