2007/05/31＊12:40＊Kamijou
『Caravan』
Yes yes. It’s Chihiro.
I thank you for your time today.
The tour is now underway.
First off was Chiba LOOK yesterday.
We got to have fun.
To everyone who participated, you have my deepest barrage of thanks.
We were playing seriously giving it our all, but you guys didn’t look like you were losing at all.
You made the show high voltage as hell.
We received all of it for sure.
Before we noticed, our blood was boiling and our bodies were dancing on their own.
We only came to as all of us members took turns in diving into a sea of moshers.
Apologies to anyone we got our sweat on. (Attached picture: vocalist reflecting on our actions)
But really, it was crazy awesome.
So this is what it’s like from the very first day…
Guys, I smell danger for sure.
We have to go buy deodorant spray.
Yep yep.
In what was a violently funny turn of events, I forgot mine back home.
Well then. Bye byyye.
2007/05/30＊00:10＊Kazuhiko
『World Tour』
Yes, good evening. It’s Kazuhiko.
I went to Shimokitazawa to get a haircut. They cut quite a lot of hair so my head feels light, even though it’s not really short or anything. Taki, who got his hair cut at the same place, came out looking really stylish I thought.
Now then, our “The World tour” starts tomorrow. It’s a really long tour compared to our previous ones so I’m nervous but also really excited. I want to eat lots of delicious food.
I thought I’d have to do some packing but then realized we’re playing Chiba tomorrow. That means it’ll be just a day trip. That’s a relief.
Well then, good night.
2007/05/29＊Takuro
「Coin Gondry」
It looks like the rainy season is upon us. This is Takuro.
Passing time in a coin laundry is one of my hobbies. I went to one yesterday, too. Of course, I had but one thing to do there: wash and dry off my laundry. This is just a guess on my part, but I think laundromat lovers are more common than you might think.
The buildings seem even more sterile than convenience stores do when, in fact, there’s actually a sense of real daily life to be felt there along with all kinds of people coming in each day and passing one another by…… it’s really kind of a strange place to be.
For me, the most pleasurable is the time after the washing has ended and I’ve switched to the dryer. I like when I don’t have to do anything, see. I’ve dedicated that time entirely to reading. Even if it’s books I’ve read several times before, if my soundtrack is provided by the motors of the washing machines and dryers, I can be happily flipping through the pages and still find new expressions within them. There’s also piles of magazines there, but I try to keep myself distanced from them as I just can’t stop reading manga once I start. (I think they have lots of Morning there. All of us in 9mm like both manga and books.)
Nowadays I can go in enjoy myself even without bringing anything to keep me entertained. If you can’t quite sort out your thoughts, just thinking about what’s troubling you there, surrounded by the sound of the washing machines and dryers, it has this strange effect of calming down your mind and letting you think efficiently. I come up with lyrics there, too, but usually the dryer stops just as I’m about to get to the good part.
Yesterday, interrupting me there in mid-thought was this grandma who came in and looked around restlessly.
“I’m good, I’m good, don’t worry about it!” she said as I turned to help over.
“Oh, well I’m fine, oh I see, I’m glad.”
Luckily, I only uttered this unfortunate response inside my head so I avoided any problems.
I’ve no idea what exactly I was glad about, but at that time my thoughts were something along the lines of “So Michael Gondry came up with a new movie, huh? I want to see it. Oh, and Pirates of the Caribbean was released too, huh? Ah, they’re showing Spiderman too, Venom’s looking pretty good huh, Venom… Hmm? There’s a Pedro Almodóvar as well? Ah man.” Basically, I was thinking about movies I want to go and see. However, even though I already got this excited about it, I’ll unfortunately be off on a tour starting tomorrow.
“What the hell! I won’t be able to see any movies if that’s the case, I have a show like every day!! This sucks!!“, I was saying to myself. “Ahh! Need to put my thoughts in order, I have to go visit the laundry…“
・・・・・・going out・・・→・・・→・・・returning home・・・・・・・
Now then, “The World tour” is finally starting!! I’m really looking forward to seeing how it goes. 9mm-movie.com¹ is online (←I think this is really funny) and the tour goods are also wonderful. After this I’ll start packing. Everyone, please listen to our CD in preparation.
Right then, we’ll meet at the live house. This was Takuro.
※The picture² is from an izakaya in Hanamatsu where we’ll play our tour final.
¹ No longer online, was probably some PR for the tour?
² Translation of the signboard: “Hey, party organizers! Try our expensive and shitty party at least once!“
2007/05/27＊AM04:16＊Taki
『There’s an ominous yellow pagoda erected up in a forest at the outskirts of Tokyo.』
This is Taki.
We played a live today in the basement of Tower Records Shibuya. For some reason, lately people aren’t getting angry at me anymore even if I’m not constantly playing my guitar. Thus, we were able to play a fun live.
I injured my finger by letting it get caught up in a string. My finger hurts so bad I can’t go take a bath and my guitar is so bloodstained it just looks pitiful. By tomorrow the blood should be dried up, so scratching it off with my nails ought to be a nice waste of time.
After the live I was staggering around inside Tower Records. There were CD’s of my band on sale but I found that if I don’t really think about it, I’ll soon catch myself thinking it’s got nothing to do with me, it’s just someone else’s CD. It’s like, when your surroundings are changing so rapidly, it’s like when you’re having a bad dream where something amazingly surreal happens and changes around you. You lose sense of where you are or what you’re doing.
I’m troubled by this.
Am I really Taki?
To be honest, there are still lots of things going to happen from now on which I won’t understand. Ahh, I don’t understand, I don’t understand, but I can at least try to make this journal something comprehensible. I’ll write everything in hiragana or something, at least that’s easy to understand. Ohh. This looks good. Even a 5-year-old could read this.
My dream is to become a cool guitarist when I grow up.
(Please don’t lie.)
Nice to meet you. I’m Taki of 9mm Parabellum Bullet.
This was Taki.
Aim high, Richbone.
It’s an honor to make your acquaintance.
I’m Chihiro Kamijou, I play the drums in 9mm Parabellum Bullet.
I’m suffering from bone fracture. I broke the metacarpal of my right pinky.
(The picture attached above is an illustration)
I always make sure to have a daily intake of milk and I thus have some confidence in my bone density. Yet, it fractured with no difficulty whatsoever, this little guy did. The human body has around 206 bones I believe. You’d think it’s no hindrance to playing the drums if you break just one. However, because it’s wrapped in cast, it’s actually a major pain in the ass.
Thus, my days of relying on nothing but good old Ca will continue.
Ahhh, won’t it hurry up and heal soon?
The reason for my fractured bone…
“I stole a motorcycle, took off to make my escape with it and fell.”
Let’s just pretend and say it was something like that, alright?
… “At 3 o’clock at night” or something.
Because, really…
“I fell on my bicycle.”
Putting it like that makes me look way too uncool. I’m so not going to say that.
That is ridiculously lame.
If I publicly announce the truth, I can already see with my mind’s eye how they’re going to start calling me “Bicycle Kamijou” or “Bike Bones” or some other ridiculous nickname such as those. I’m not exactly in the mood for something like that.
But, my cast will be removed soon which means I’m safe.
…summer’s already come that far, huh?
Keeping you company was Chihiro.
Well then, laterz.
Hooray
Hello and good day.
My name’s Kazuhiko Nakamura, I play bass in 9mm Parabellum Bullet.
The me who hardly ever speaks up in interviews or on the radio having to come up with things to say at a place like this feels kind of both new and embarrassing, but I’ll do my best.
Yesterday, we had an interview and photo shoot with ROCKIN’ON JAPAN. It was warm yesterday so all the members were just ignoring their sweaty armpits as we went on with the photo shoot. I was wearing long sleeves so it felt even hotter to me than everyone else. Painfully hot. The season around this time can be pretty tough for me.
But I love my long sleeves.
Oh yeah. Before the photo shoot with ROCKIN’ON, we randomly met up with everyone from Chatmonchy. Though they’re our elder sister band within the Ishiwatari¹ family, it was in fact our first meeting. We didn’t have any shared acquaintances with us there so it was a little stiff. For now, we just exchanged greetings.
Now then, I wonder who’s posting next?
Is it that guy? Or maybe that guy?
With that, I’ll end here.
¹ Junji Ishiwatari, sound producer of several 9mm releases.
「Via radio」
Hello everyone, it’s Takuro.
We recorded a radio appearance yesterday.
When you’re doing radio, you feel like you really need to say your band name like you mean it.
There’s a saying that the number of times your heart beats during your lifetime is limited. Likewise, you could say the amount of times you get to say a particular word in your lifetime is also limited, right? If you don’t say it at least once or twice a day, you’ll start feeling like something’s off. So what even if you screw up and fumble with your words? You want to say what’s on your mind enough and not be left thinking “so time’s finally up, huh…” at the end.
The show will be broadcasted in Miyagi and Aichi on separate programs.
We’re in Miyagi together with Taki. I think we’re finally starting to get used to doing radio.
It might still sound like we’re nervous to the people listening though.
I think it didn’t really come across in this post, but me and Taki were both raised to love the radio. There’s nothing as fun as doing this. Even if it’s a day when we just have to read aloud a message or something, we’ll be all excited going “Yeah! Let’s do this!!” Generally, though, our conversation was pretty laid back so I wonder if you can actually hear that excitement over the radio waves, but do try straining your ears and see if you do.
Well then, it looks like the other members might start posting as of today, too…? It seems it’s that guy up first.
With that, I’ll talk to you later. This was Takuro.
『devilock1』
Kazuhiko spilt some blood yesterday.
It happened as we were playing The World it seems.
During our solo live at Osaka on 4/28, Taki broke his front tooth, also during The World… Thanks to this tune, I think we’ll just keep steadily getting injured and end up having to cancel the rest of the tour or something.
I guess the song has a good tempo, eh?
Everyone, take care not to injure yourselves please.
The venue, performers and staff were all in very good spirits yesterday.
Performing with us were
BEATCRUSADERS
KEMURI
FRONTIER BACKYARD
So, a bunch of bands who’ve already been around for 10 years. Needless to say, it was a wonderful stage. There were heaps of divers, too (I wonder if the guy who looked like a flying fish was okay?).
Thank you very much to everyone who watched 9mm play yesterday. It was really fun. It was a good night, wasn’t it?
By the way, on my way back home, I ran into a friend for the first time in ages.
My excellent day even had a lovely finish, right?
Well then, this was Takuro.
“The World e.p.” goes on sale today
Hello, this is Takuro of 9mm Parabellum Bullet.
“The World e.p.” goes on sale today on May 16th.
At around noon, the band + staff all headed towards CD shops.
It was in order to write some nonsense on comment cards and signs, see.
Today we went to Shinjuku, Shibuya and Yokohama (Tower Records, HMV, TSUTAYA, etc).
It got pretty extreme every place we went to. The signs and comment cards, as well the shopkeepers’ enthusiasm, you can sense this kind of energy from it all.
I feel pretty confident about them but I wonder how you all think. Definitely go see them with your own eyes please.
As we were at the shop, we saw several people giving the album a trial listening and buying it there on the spot.
I know, spying is bad… sorry about that.
A friend sent me a picture from another shop and it was pretty great there, too.
It seems the tickets to our Shibuya Tower Records event are sold out as of yesterday.
Also, I think some of you might already be aware, but “The World e.p.”…
Entered at 10th place (!!!!!!!!!) on the Oricon album chart today.
That really feels incredible to me.
The people who bought the CD, the shop employees, thank you very much everyone.
I’m still in awe thanks to all of you guys. I’ll keep working harder and harder.
First off, it’s tomorrow’s live at ZEPP Tokyo.
Well then, I’ll end here today. This was Takuro of 9mm Parabel– whatever.
Don’t call me a blogger.
How do you do!! We’ve at last started a blog!!
I’m the vocalist and guitarist of 9mm Parabellum Bullet, Takuro Sugawara!! Pleased to make your acquaintance!!
Right, that was my attempt at doing a much too over-enthusiastic introduction.
The first impression people often have when they see our name is “I can’t read this shit.”
I think there are some among you who can’t either. I’d like to have furigana on here to show you, but for now I’ll just write that again in katakana.
I think its destructive power will remain in any case.
I’m the vocalist and guitarist of Kyuumiri paraberamu baretto, Sugawara Takuroo.
That’s how you write it. It’s too complicated, I know.
To avoid accidents, us members as well as staff like to just say kyuumiri.
When talking about us with friends and family, definitely call us kyuumiri please.
(By the way, thus far the one who’s been having the most accidents is me. I suck.）
Well then, 9mm Parabellum Ba…t’s new CD “The World e.p.” is just about to be released!!
We’re excited about the fact that the music we created is going to be made into CD’s and be put on shelves for sale. It’s quite difficult to put the joy we’re feeling into words but damnit, I’ll try. Quite simply put, yeah: it’s the best!!
The band’s all excited, happily going “Won’t it come out already?“, “Is it really coming out?“, “If it’s coming out, then when? (May 16th)” and so on. The other day this actually went as far as one of us asking “Wait, didn’t it come out already?” Quite an obvious case of the May Blues.
However, there’s been an incident going on that completely blows those kind of thoughts away, an example of which you can find in the picture above.
Before the entrance to the Tower Records store in Shibuya, they have this poster put up as kind of a prank. Blocking the way to the escalator is this news about the in-store performance we’re doing on the 26th. Moreover, it’s not just that, but it seems this kind of prank phenomenon is occurring at several other CD shops as well. There must be people who’ve seen this picture in several places and are thinking “Who the hell are these guys? Don’t block the way to the escalator!“, but I can with confidence say that we’re the most surprised out of anyone. I think there must be several gates blocked by our posters. It’s not our doing.
We plan on taking peeks at CD shops all over Japan after we embark on our nation-wide tour at the end of the month. And of course, before the tour even starts, we’ll continuously keep you updated via this blog, lots of pictures included. I ask that you look forward to it.
I think I’ll end the first post around here. Starting from the next one, it’ll be nothing but “what we ate today” kind of posts (maybe), so please keep reading everyone.
Well then, I bid you farewell.
This was 9mm Parabellum Bullet’s Takuro Sugawara.
