Japanese Security

Tokyo, Japan. March 10, 2014

Only in Japan.

Ebel Put Tokio Hotel Here

I'm God and you don't know

The cloud is my home

Black and white edits

Got a 'maginary band

Ebel put Tokio Hotel here

Bill Kaulitz is a queer

Ebel put Tokio Hotel here

No problem with fans - just fear

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...and that's the story of how Tokio Hotel's management team kept the band undead for more than a year without the direct collaboration of any of its members.

And nobody ever noticed.

There must be some kind of a moral to this story that I'm faliling to understand.

Guess I'll still have plenty of time to think about it before the circus is over.

The thing about Bill being gay is apparently some sort of inside joke they have. I don't really get it, but hey... they call them 'inside jokes' for a reason.

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PS. It should be noted that my photoshop collage was published before Ebel's version. I still think mine is cooler.

L O L

Too Good To Be Real...?

I almost had a heart attack when I saw that afro hair in Metallica's YouTube feed. I caught a glimpse of it in a corner of the screen for just a tiny fraction of a second, and yet I knew what it was straight away.

James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich interviewing Alice In Chains for almost forty minutes. Forty fucking minutes. That's an album-long Hell of an interview. And it happened - back in 2009.

Some things seem too good to be true, and this is obviously one of them.

It seems so good, in fact, that I can't possibly force myself to listen to it, because just the idea of it makes me way too nervous and scared.

Perhaps I'll find the courage to finally do it at some point in the next few days or months.

Or perhaps I'll never listen to it, just because the idea of what this is could turn out to be better than whatever the actual thing is for real, if that makes any sense.

Of course, there is also a chance (and it's not a small one) I would absolutely love it... which is also dangerous, because I don't think my body could take such an overdose of good stuff.

Whatever the case, I'm definitely not ready to go through this just yet. At this point of my life, I'm perfectly happy just knowing that this happened and that I might eventually get the chance to hear it... if I ever feel morally prepared.

You might call me paranoid, but for me people are like Japanese sweets: I'd rather see them on picture and fantasize about how delicious they are than try them and discover they taste of azuki... or something worse. Yikes.

In fact, I see the world like a huge minefield. Underneath every thing I don't know there might or might not be a landmine waiting to blow my whole world away. The more I appreciate someone, the bigger chances are the landmines are on their field, so I take very small steps and enjoy every breath of life... because I know it could be the last one.

If you thing that's exaggerated it's only because you haven't taken a walk with me down Tokio Hotel lane. I've blown so many limbs on that field I'm barely a human being anymore. And yet I'm still alive, which is already something. And the good thing is I'm no longer scared of going down there, because, even if there are still a few landmines left unexplosioned, they can't possibly hurt me anymore. I'm a bulletproof cyborg - like the fucking Robocop.

But we're still stepping on virgin ground with Alice, and I want to enjoy the trip as much as I can before things start getting ugly. That's if they ever do. But they always do, eventually. You just have to hope you'll be able to get back up and keep walking. 

That's pretty much the story of my life.

Quoting Metallica...

Landmine has taken my sight
Taken my speech
Taken my hearing
Taken my arms
Taken my legs
Taken my soul
Left me with life in Hell 

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Here's the actual video. Hit play at your own risk, but don't give me any spoilers.

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I realized today that I've been a fan of Metallica for ten years now. TEN solid fucking years, y'all.

It's been ten years since I first heard S&M and said "YEAH MAN". Ten years arguing with fans and haters alike about everything related to this band; struggling to play their songs with bandmates who apparently disliked them (like I could possibly take that in consideration LOL). Ten years since I first heard that record and decided I wanted to sing like James Hetfield... which I finally sort of achieved... even though none of you are here to hear it because you all suck.

Yes, I'm telling that to you - the guys not reading this; my firends.

You all suck.

Just so that you know.

Me wearing my Some Kind Of Monster T-shirt during a school trip back in 2004. Time really flies, man.

Australian Summer pt. II - Japanese Winter

"My guitar after the Singapore gig. March 7, 2014"

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I told you he was a vicious bastard.

Definitely not the kind of guy you'll catch spraying his fretboard with Finger-ease.


And take a look at just HOW great this picture looks under my blog header. You're an artist, Will. You already know it.

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"Rottnest Island, Australia. March 2, 2014"

Soundwave Festival is over, and the caravan of bands who can't afford to sit in their comfortable So Cal homes throughout the American winter (like KISS or Metallica do) starts slowly moving up from the cosy warmth of Australian summer and into the realm of the freezing Japanese winter.

Black T-shirts get covered with black leather jackets; jeans remain in place. The occasional scarf pops up to protect delicate throats from the dangers of cold air. At least, there's one aspect in which the life of a rock musician is pretty easy.

And the good thing about the freezing Japanese winter is that, like all things Japanese, it happens to happen in Japan.

It's precisely at this point of the trip where Dir En Grey put on their vicious bastard sunglasses and show a silent (and friendly LOL) middle finger to all the other bands who have followed them north from the Antipodes as they say to themselves:

"Welcome to the Land of the Rising Sun, gaijin bitches."

[Dir En Grey in full-on vicious bastard mode LOL]

Dir En Grey are obviously bigger than Alice in their homeland. Tangible proof of that is the fact that, on the two nights previous to Alice's tour-end concert, Dir En Grey played TWO SHOWS at the legendary Budokan (we could be talking about a total 28.000 people, if they sold out), while AIC had to do their thing at a 2.500 capacity club.

Yes, you heard that right: Alice In Chains play fucking theatres and clubs because... who needs justice anyway? Keep that in mind the next time you see One Direction selling out fucking stadiums or Kanye West doing fucking arenas.

It's even funnier if you consider that the next act to play at the Budokan after Diru was... Il Divo.

Il Fucking Divo, ladies and gentlemen.

How's that supposed to make you feel?

[Budokan vs. AgeHa. Not the most flattering comparison.]

Of course, it's remarkable that such an extreme band as Dir En Grey (especiall since they started turning the metal up and the visual down more than half a decade ago) can mobilize such amounts of people in their home country (just to make a comparison: 14.000 is more than Tokio Hotel ever sold on a regular show - excluding festivals, obviously -, and they were supposed to be a boy band LMAO).

This is just another proof that we still have a lot left to learn from Japan... probably.

 
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"Freezing in Tokyo post-show. En route to end-of-tour family dinner with band & crew. 3/10/14."

And so, this tiny little Pacific Rim tour has ended much earlier than I thought it would... and what a strange journey it's been.

A strange beautiful journey to the other end of the world.

And, like all good things in life, it ends with a Japanese (don't think they'll go looking for an American BBQ restaurant in Japan, right? LOL) dinner somewhere in the beautiful Tokyo.

Not bad, if you ask me.

 
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Like the coldest winter will

Heaven beside you... Hell within

And you know you have it still 

Heaven inside you

Australian Summer - The Two Faces of William DuVall

I

Image left: February 20, 2014 - William DuVall hangs out with a bunch of kangaroos in Brisbane, Australia.

Image right: February 20, 2014 - William DuVall plays his brand new guitar wearing a pair of badass sunglasses. The photo was captioned as 'rehearsal', even though it should have been re-captioned as "I need your clothes, your boots and your motorcycle". Or should I be the one saying that? Hmm... Still have to find out if he actually owns a motorcycle. Fortunately for him, the other two things are firmly in place still (LOL).

It's funny how he chooses not to wear his sunglasses while standing under the actual sun and then puts them on while being inside... probably because he's so cool he can't even handle it. Impossible to blame him for that.

And so, here you have him: one second he's the nicest guy ever, and the next one he's a vicious bastard who looks every bit as though he's going to kill you just by staring at you.

That's probably why he needs the sunglasses.

...I could do that all day long, but I think I'll just stop now LOL

Of course, you most probably have to be a vicious bastard to play in Alice In Chains. Fortunately for him, I think being the nicest guy ever is also required ;)

II

[Brisbane, Australia, February 18, 2014, also from Will's collection]

It's summer in Australia, right now, as we speak. This might sound extemely retarded, but I had never really thought about that before (LOL). It's not that I didn't know it - I'm not 'that' stupid (LMAO); I just never had the need to really think about it until now.

It's pretty hilarious how I spent a large chunk of last month wondering why all the musicians I know (by that I actually mean Alice In Chains, Dir En Grey and John 5 as part of the Rob Zombie crew LOL) seemed to have an urgent need to play in Australia at the same time.

And then, the answer came to me as a mystical revelation: because God, in his infinite wisdom, created a planet divided in two hemispheres with opposite seasons so that musicians would always have a festival season to play. Fall to your knees and praise the Lord, y'all!

That's basically the story of how Australia became my new Maldives - a tiny bit of Promised Land, thousands of miles away from everything, free from all the worries, the bullshit and the evil bastards that plague my everyday. I know it's not true - I just enjoy the fantasy.

And I like to think of Australia as that place where William DuVall hangs with the fucking kangaroos, Toshiya takes pictures in front of local landmarks as every Japanese tourist should do (LOL) and John 5... does whatever the fuck he does. I'm sure he still has a great time in my little fantasy world.

(That's a pretty interracial crew, now that I think of it LOL)

Just like Scorpions said...

Let me take you far away

You'd like a holiday

Exchange the cold days for the sun

A good time and fun

Exchange your troubles for some love

Wherever you are...

[Toshiya from Dir En Grey on top of the Eureka Tower, in Melbourne on February 26, 2014]

 III.

February 23, 2014 - Suicide Silence get interviewed backstage at Sydney's Olympic Park before playing their set at the Sydney stop of Soundwave Festival.

I don't really care about Suicide Silence, but I still found this video quite fascinating.

I wasn't looking at the guys, but I couldn't take my eyes off what was happening behind them: all those people walking around, doing their jobs without really caring about which bands are getting interviewed here or there because they're so used to seeing them all (or because they don't even care about music in the first place); all those unimpressive women (definitely not what Lemmy would call slutty chicks LOL) in tank tops and short summer dresses, casually talking to each other, going through endless checklists, revising the schedules or whatever the Hell they do - impossible to conceive them as part of a heavy metal festival... and yet they are LOL

Everything is sunny and beautiful; you can almost feel the warm summer breeze on your skin; you can see it blowing up the black cloth on the table, the leaves on the trees, Chris Garza's hevy metal mane...

And then, all of a sudden, stormy clouds take over; everything gets dark as Hell, and the summer breeze turns into menacing cold wind. It feels like it's going to start raining at any second - or like the world is just about to end right on the spot.

And then the sun comes out again... just to get immediately obscured by clouds. And the process just keeps on repeating endlessly... or it would, if the video lasted that long.

Beautiful summer afternoon.

Doomsday.

Beautiful summer afternoon.

Doomsday.

Beautiful summer afternoon.

Doomsday.

Nicest guy ever.

Vicious bastard.


Ah, Australian summer...

Like the coldest winter chill

Heaven beside you

Hell within

It's A Hard Business

I got nothing and no-one in my life
So how can I lose again
Got my feet in muddy water
But I'm gonna find that road again
So I'll be taking care of business
'Cause I know what I'm looking for
Oh I've been working every hour God gives to me

 But I still see the same closed door

...

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Now who does that lyric remind me of...?

SO*CAL

End of 2011, BTK App. Bill Kaulitz is standing in front of the camera with his iPhone in his hand, while wearing a Southern California cap. 

The symbolic value of this image is indescribable.

He's probably supposed to look cheerful, but instead he displays a weird facial expression that's impossible to trace... just like the reason he's wearing that cap in the first place.

Was he wearing it as a sign of love for his new land? Or was he wearing it as a bizarre form of silent protest that only he could understand? Perhaps it had just been given to him by his handlers and he was forced to wear it with advertising purposes. Or perhaps, at that point of his existence, he was too dead inside to even care.

Or was it just Photoshop all along? Given the size of his head and the apparent absence of neck, it's the most probable thing... but, at this point of my existence, I'm too burned-out to even care.

Thankfully for us, this is the closest thing we've ever had to a Bill Kaulitz mug shot. The only real difference is that, instead of holding a placard with his information written on it, he is holding that goddamn iPhone that displays the cover art for his (and his brother's) one-year sentence of LA imprisonment. 

It's all there. Everything you need to know, in one single image.

If you look underneath the So Cal cap, you'll see there is still a hint of eye-liner around his eyes (apparently, he kept wearing it during his first year of reclusion, before he stopped using make-up completely); still a hint of beauty underneath all the layers of LA mud.

Strange as it might seem, there was a certain feeling of presence in a few of the App's first shots (manipulated or not) that quickly started fading away, just as the people who starred in them kept drifting away from reality and into non-existence. That's probably the reason why those few first pictures still hold a strange kind of iconic value that was impossible to recreate in all subsequent Ebel-shots. He might own their words and their history, but he can never replace their souls (not that their fans need them, anyway). Even at their most damaged, their spirit was still a flame. But this room has been cold for more than two years already.

Now that I can finally see through the pain, things are becoming increasingly blurred in my head. I have a hard time preserving their memory; seeing them as living things while they are only existing as ghosts. Their history starts feeling like an ancient myth; a collection of hardly believable events that never happened in our conventional reality. What's left of their tortured bodies decomposes into legend, as the memory of all the dirt we had to dig through (and I say we because we did it together) during all these last years becomes the distant echo of a nightmare; the horror of LA fades into grey, as the reality of their existence inevitably disappears from my reality.

All of a sudden, I find myself able to dig through the paparazzi material that used to send me into panic attacks and heavy paranoid trips back in the day. Perhaps it's because now I know how much of that (and to which degree) was an act in front of the camera; perhaps it's because I'm no longer as emotionally dependent on them as I used to be. Perhaps it's because I've grown so used to living without them existing in my life I can't even imagine how things would be if they actually returned.

And, as I accept the fact that I might never see them again (or that they might not be the same them the next time I see them), I'm left feeling a strange kind of peace... and I just don't know how to feel about it.

I haven't given up my hopes for them. I guess I've just grown used to things being the way they are.

That's probably what happens when you've finally reached the stage of Acceptance.

...

California, I'm fine

Somebody check my brain