2007/06/07＊04:50＊Kamijou

『Your blood is red, you bastard!!』

Yes Sir. This is Chihiro.

We had a show in Sendai today. This is just my personal opinion, but I thought the town was full of beautiful girls. But we’ll keep that between you and me.

After our show, we were at an izakaya holding a proper closing for the evening. Bacchus, the god of alcohol, descended upon us and possessed me, so I drank violently. Theeere, there there. Please do your best, dear liver of mine.

We’re now around 1/4 through the tour and everyone has wounds all over their bodies.
I’m hurting all over from muscle pain. (Attachment: two rascals plotting the restoration of their physical strength.)
And I freakin’ hate milk acid.

I thought I’d write this blog as Yamada (manager #1) is getting angry at us for getting dead drunk to the point of nausea, but I just can’t seem to think of a good punch line to end it with.

Sorry. Too bad.

But, I’m the kind of kid that can probably get something done if I really put my mind to it.
From now on, too, I’d feel truly blessed if you’d continue to watch over me lukewarmly.

Complaining about this and that, just kill me already.
Until the day I’m revived back to life just let me lie dead, Takagi (manager #2).

With that, I’ll be making my entrance to the next world now.
Then, I shall be on my way.

2007/06/06＊24:51＊Kazu

『Noodles』

Hello, Kazuhiko here.

The real pleasure of touring and visiting different cities is eating the local foods. Due to various circumstances we haven’t really gotten the chance to do that on this tour. However, today we’re in Morioka and the chance has finally materialized for us to do just that.

Pictured here is the drummer eating reimen.

Basically right around after we’d formed 9mm, Kamijou treated us members to a mad feast he called “Reimen Party“. Ever since then, I’m always reminded of those times when it comes to reimen.

Ah man, those were good times.

Tomorrow we’re playing in my home town of Sendai. Seriously can’t wait. We’ll do our best.

2007/05/31＊00:15＊Takuro

『I’m OK』

Takuro here.
I sustained a little injury at Mito SONIC. After the live, I went to the the hospital, got treated, had my X-ray taken and I’m alright now. Sorry to have made you worry.

Right now the 9mm team is commuting to our next location.
The tour is going on as planned and we’re playing Takasaki tomorrow!! Wait for us!!

Lastly, thank you to everyone who came today.
It was a great evening.

Well then, talk to you later!!

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.