Yoshiki of X-Japan
If there is one band that truely changed my life,
especially my taste of music, it's X-Japan. X-Japan is, of course,
a japanese rock band from the 80s with Yoshiki Hayashi as a leader.
They are unique in their style, combining progressive-punk rock with
classical flavour. In a way, it's a dialectic synthesis of my preference
in rock and classical music. Beyond the musical style, of which I
interpreted to be similar to Rachmaninov's heaven to hell and back
approach, is the shadow side of romantic lyrics that are poetry in
its own right. In sum, their songs are the manifestation of elegant
beauty, romance and madness. Which again, is pretty much my general
attitude towards life.
I've come into contact with their music around the
year 1997. My ex-girl friend, still a best friend luckily, has introduced
me to the CD of its album. The first time I've listened to it, I fell
in love completely with the band. It truely combines hard rock, classical
beauty and romantic poetry together. All the songs are equally influenced
by Kiss, LedZ.., Bach, Beethoven. Yet, the songs are very much a baroque-influenced
musical style. It has openned the whole new world of romantic poetry
to me, and of music in general as I later form a band to cover X-japan.
My bands turned into the group of best friends I
ever had, sharing the same music dream. We've successfully throw out
the first-of-its-kind student-organized concert at the First Hotel
in Bangkok. More than 300 people attended, we then participate in
national broadcast of a popular live-music TV programme later in the
year 1998. My own NeoRomantic rock compotional development is heavily
influenced by Yoshiki's musical and poetical style. I've founded that
I share lots of those alienated emotion in a darker sense that yoshiki
must has felt when he wrote his songs.
I've become actively in music making since then
and never could live with out it. Yoshiki, as a leader of X-Japan,
forever changed my life. Because of him, I'm so much into the musical
imagination and try to put them into reality, because of him, I've
become close to my ex-girl friend, because of him, I've initiated
into the new world of romantic poetry, because of him, I'm convinced
that doing new things is possible with good planning and that there
can the the lasting effect (because the concert I've organized has
started a new fashion among the underground Japanese-music maniac
in Thailand to start organizing their own concert). Because of them,
I've the band I love as both musicians and best friends.
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