Machida
again. CDs!
Hadn't
been there for a month, so I was due for a nice haul; I ended up finding
Luna Sea's Lunacy NEW for $1. And there were four more also
selling for $1. And they're the "Made in Japan" version.
And even though I had the album already (the legal "For Sale
Outside Japan" version, which I nabbed for $20 in New York's
Chinatown), I couldn't resist buying another. It was only a buck!
At Oscar's this was, home of the $1 Tonight, Love Song,
and Gravity CD singles.
The
only downer: it's the packaging based around the neon green CD single-width
case, with the big booklet and the cardboard exterior, which I hate.
Just use a NORMAL FUCKING JEWEL CASE, for christ's fuck! So it opens
normally, and has a normal booklet, and fits on a proper shelf, and
doesn't spew bonus contents forth on me whenever I pull it out (haha,
no penis jokes thanks!) ...and legible binding and all the rest! It's
my one complaint against j-rock bands (aside from them not playing
gigs in at least New York and L.A.). The thicker jewel cases
(see Macabre, Dahlia, and Celluloid for examples)
are acceptable, barely, but the cardboard shit, ugh, just stop it.
All bands! Do you hear me?! Just stop it!
Then
I got two VellaDonna 5" singles, Caution and Sabotage.
As you can see from the pictures, VellaDonna have one foot firmly
in the visual kei gutter, but their music it heavily in the San Francisco
80's metal grave -- they'd easily fit on a bill with Exodus, Testament,
Anthrax (even thought they're from New York, I know I know!) and all
those other bands that aren't as good as "classic" Metallica
or Megadeth ("classic" as in "pre-sucktime").
VellaDonna's
guitars are distorted to tonelessness, the drums sound super-tight
(no reverb or nuthin'), the vocals are half yelling and half singing.
The singing is mainly during the choruses, and that's VellaDonna's
one concession to the genre -- la-la chorus vocals. Otherwise, I swear,
you'd hear 'em and think the songs were outtakes from Practice
What You Preach (great album, by the way...).
And
as a final note, the CDs have the radiation symbols on 'em, a la Rust
in Peace, which is enough on its own to get me to pay the Y200
they cost (the jewel cases are wrapped together -- like someone would
want to buy only ONE of the discs for Y100, but NOT the other...?!)
But
the coup of the day was finding Macabre. For Y1200. With the
Ain't Afraid to Die single beside it, priced at Y400, but with
a beige price tag... and today, the beige price tag means <checks
the price tag price list board> ...half-price! Woo hoo! (Macabre,
with its yellow price tag, is just "normal"; not 20% <green>,
not 30% <orange>, not 50%<beige>.)
I
also pick up Glay's best-of disc, Review. There's a dozen copies
for sale, most priced with pink labels at Y300 (There's seven or eight
colors, but only three of 'em are ever offering discounts at any one
time. I don't know if it's a timing thing ("Pink means we put
it on the shelf in June, so if it doesn't sell by next month, we'll
make pink CDs 50% off") or what, but the colors do change, and
there's many thousands of CDs so I doubt they change the price tags...
anyway... one Glay album is marked Y400 (the most expensive of the
bunch), but it's got a beige label. So it's only Y200. Today, at least.
So
the lesson for today is to be sure to check the prices on ALL the
discs. (I've seen the same albums selling at $10+ price differentials...
like, one's $5, and the one beside it is $15. Then the next one's
$8, and the one after that is $22.)
So
I got $130-worth of -good- discs today for $20. That's like an extra
day's pay! Ha ha ha ha haaaaaa!
|
Macabre
|
$30
|
$12
|
|
Ain't
Afraid to Die
|
$10
|
$2
|
|
Lunacy
|
$30
|
$1
|
|
Review
|
$30
|
$2
|
|
Sabotage
|
$18
|
$1
|
|
Caution
|
$18
|
$1
|
|
|
$136
|
$19
|
Feel
free to send hate mail to jrocknyc@hotmail.com. :p
On
a separate excursion, I unearthed a handful of L'Arc~en~Ciel posters.
Incredibly gay ones, but at only $1 each how could I refuse?! I debated
buying more to sell on eBay or something, but to buy poster tubes
and ship the bastards would cost the same $10 that normal retailers
charge. So I got on of each. On returning home, Kayo pointed out the
"Stop!" sticker on the clear-wrap. They're not authorized
versions, so I guess that's why they were in a decrepit barrel that
predates Noah's flood, in a dark corner of a used furniture store,
which itself is in a dark corner of a seen-better-days mall. All you
needed was some ominous music and you'd have sworn you're in the store
from Gremlins (where Fredo of Bilbo or whatever the fuck that
thing was called was bought... "Gizmo!" <Kayo finally
answers five minutes after I ask!>...)
Making
the poster purchase even more attractive is the employment of "Japlish"...
though I find the shorter ones ("Three words: Cookie Noise Pockets")
are more punchy, it's the long mazes of improper phrases that I enjoy
most. Proclaims one poster:
Personalities
combine to form one entity that is L'Arc~en~Ciel strong yet subtle
with an avant streak down the middle.
But,
their world is a profoundly gentle one. To be touched by one of their
sweet phrases, lingering like a fragrance around you, you become a
part of their world forever.
Actually,
not half bad, the Yoshiki-esque mega-poetry aside!
And
lastly-ish, I saw Sakura (the former L'Arc drummer -- who sucks! --
he plays too unheavily, and that's why L'Arc's earlier albums are
so lamedicky, in case you were wondering!) ...on TV a night or two
ago, with his new-ish band, Zigzo. It was a live show, broadcast out
of Osaka or something, so the reception sucked as much as the songs.
Not to be harsh! But let's face it, Yukihiro
(the current L'Arc drummer) is just SO much better. He propels Ken's
riffs, Tetsu's rhythms, and Hyde's melodies; some of their songs (everything
off Ray, and bits of Ark and Real) just give
me goosebumps, the parts merge so well. Like a fragrance, making me
a part of their world forever!
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