1988
The band keeps growing. They are able to play almost double the amount of shows in 1988 as they did in 1987. Being on a major label really helps to get things going.
In this year, the red begins to fade out of Hisashi's hair and he dyes it fully blonde. Then in October he added back some red and dyed it back to black at the end of the year. Atsushi continues to lighten his hair until it is blonde by the end of the year but it's mostly in the front to middle section. Hide settles on reddish brown hair.
I'm not sure exactly when it occurred, perhaps towards the end of 1987 or the beginning of 1988, but there were a series of "Buck-Tick Special" video concerts AKA "Captagon Vol. 23" and "Captagon Vol. 25". The Captagon company, run by Buck-Tick's record label Victor, held these video concerts for various bands and Buck-Tick was the main band for this edition. In Vol. 23, footage from Buck-Tick performing at Nippon Seinenkan on December 11 was shown. I'm not sure what was featured though in Vol. 25. At some point in the year, Buck-Tick was also featured in "Captagon Vol. 30".
In January, (5, 7-9, 11-15, 19-20), Buck-Tick were in the studio recording. They were left pretty much to their own for production, which meant a lot of fun in mixing. The result was a mini-album as they say in Japan, or an E.P., released on March 21 called Romanesque, which ranked number 20 in the singles chart although the band often list this as an album in their discography. [It's an endless source of frustration for me when I try to categorize the band's releases.]
For television and media appearances, there were several throughout the year, but in January alone, Buck-Tick appeared on the TVK show "Live Tomato" on the 6th. (This show is also known as "Pati Pati Live Tomato", "Pati Pati Tomato", "Music Tomato", and later "Mutoma Japan" so I may use the names interchangeably.) For this appearance, Atsushi and Hisashi were interviewed and live clips were shown from their performance at Nippon Seinenkan on December 11 last year. Atsushi promoted the band and their debut album on the television show "Cafe City Yokohama" on the 10th. The band was also interviewed on the 10th but I am not sure for what. On the 13th, they appeared on the radio show "All Night Nippon Rock Jam". They played at Meguro Rokumeikan on the 17th for broadcast on the TBS program "Live Town". The songs "Empty Girl", "Future For Future", "My Eyes & Your Eyes", and "Fly High" have made it to the internet but I'm not sure if additional songs were broadcast and I do not have a setlist for this performance. The next day on the 18th, they recorded another television program appearance for NHK's "Young Studio 101" (misprinted in a book as "Young Stage") and performed "Future For Future". That episode was hosted by sax player Malta and actress/singer/idol Miyoko Yoshimoto. The band were amused when Miyoko flubbed the introduction and started to say pakuchiku (Puck-Tick) instead of bakuchiku (Buck-Tick). On the 23rd, they recorded an appearance for NHK. It is important to note that inbetween all of those appearances, the band was in the studio so their schedule was quite hectic. I am not sure of the exact date, but at some point in the year, Atsushi appeared alone on "Rock TV".
On January 24, the band held a secret gig at Shinjuku's Loft and played as the group Bluck-Tlick (misprinted in a book as Bluck-Trick). This show was the first time they played on U-ta's birthday. Partway through the gig, perhaps after playing 6 songs, the band changed costumes and played as Buck-Tick. Later in the year, as described below, a comic book was released based on the band but in the comic the band is called Bluck-Tlick.
The fan meet and greets (also called campaigns) continued with appearances on January 27 in Sapporo, January 28-29 in Sendai, January 30 in Yokohama, February 1 in Osaka, February 2 in Nagoya, February 5 in Tokyo, February 11 in Fukuoka and Kumamoto, February 12 in Hiroshima, and on July 2 in Kawasaki. Atsushi thinks he and Hide may have been the only ones at the Sapporo and Sendai campaigns but he may have appeared alone at the February 11-12 campaigns. He recalls being asked often if Hisashi and Hide have girlfriends.
All the work the band had been putting in to playing and promoting was rewarded with a party given by Victor at a hotel on February 16. The exact amount of rock 'n' roll debauchery at this hotel party is unknown but it must have been quite epic.
On February 18, the band appeared at "Rock and World Class Music Convention" at the New Otani Hotel. I have no details about this appearance.
On February 21, a video entitled More Sexual!!!!! was released. It contained the promotional music videos for "Sexual XXXXX!", "Dream Or Truth", "Hyper Love", "Empty Girl", "Illusion" and credits rolling along footage against the song "My Eyes & Your Eyes". These videos were recorded in September and October of the previous year.
From February 13 to March 11, Buck-Tick again entered the studio. This time they recorded their second major label album entitled Seventh Heaven. The album jacket photo session was on March 3. The album was released on June 21. In a strange move, no singles were released off of this album either. Though the absence of singles meant a lack of the usual promotion and airplay, Buck-Tick became quite popular through touring. In fact, a magazine survey from 1988 reveals just how popular they were getting. (I don't remember which magazine this was from but I think it was from the end of 1988, possibly published in January 1989.) In it, Buck-Tick ranks in the top 3 for everything good, such as best group, best live, etc. The only categories which Buck-Tick didn't make the top 3 were best keyboard or other player as they did not have one, worst dresser as they dressed super cool, and biggest news because well, this was in 1988 and not 1989. (See the history for 1989 to see what big news happened.)
On February 25, they were on a television show in Fukui. On March 19, Buck-Tick appeared on the Iwate tv show "Television". They appeared on "Pati Pati Tomato" several times throughout the year on May 5, July 16, and December 31. The May 5 appearance was a live performance at Shibuya Koukaido. The July 16 appearance was a live event at Yomiuri Land East, an open air venue at Yomiuri Land amusement park. Other bands that appeared included Unicorn, Princess Princess, Up-Beat, etc. The December 31 appearance was a live performance at Shinjuku Koma Gekijo.
Buck-Tick played at the Shiodome Pit on April 1 to an audience of 3000. The tickets for the concert sold out in two hours. Please try to keep in mind that this was before the internet so most likely all ticket sales were done in person, quite a feat!
On April 19, the band appeared on Osaka OBC radio.
In between the recording and release date of Seventh Heaven, Buck-Tick held many concerts. The pamphlet sold at the "Buck-Tick Shock Tour" lists 34 dates in total. However, the books Hyper and Love Me break this down into "Touhoku Rock Circuit" for 14 dates starting on March 15 and "Buck-Tick Shock Tour" for 20 dates starting on April 13. The "Touhoku Rock Circuit" tour began on March 15 and consisted of the bands Laughin' Nose, Rogue, Personz, Lä-Ppisch, Angie, and Ziggy. This tour was nicknamed the 'Rock Caravan' and the order of the bands was not the same at each show. During the "Shock Tour," Buck-Tick played at Ishikawa Kyoiku Kaikan for 2 dates, the first time the band played at the same venue for 2 dates in a row during a tour. Touhoku literally means the northeast region and it consists of 6 prefectures to the south of Hokkaido. They played each prefecture for the tour, which makes the Touhoku region the first region in Japan that Buck-Tick played in its entirety. They had played 5 Touhoku prefectures previously in 1987 but now they played Iwate for the first time. Incidentally, they appeared on Iwate TV in 1987 but do not appear to have played a gig.
Besides the "Touhoku Rock Circuit", Buck-Tick played shows with other bands (mini festivals if you will) throughout the year but mostly over the summer. Some of these concerts include Rock Wave, Sound On Wave, Kids Alive (with De-Lax, etc.), Kirin Sound Together Pop Hill, and Pop Rockets (with Mika Kaneko, Show-Ya, Up-Beat, etc.).
On May 1, Buck-Tick were one of the bands performing at Rock Wave held at the Nagoya Shounai Ryokuchi Rikujou Kyougiba, an athletics stadium located in Shounai Ryokuchi Park. Other bands that appeared include The Heart, Personz, Seikima II, Hillbilly Bops, Kojiro Shimizu, Ingry Mongry, Laughin' Nose, etc. When the Hillbilly Bops performed their song "Vacanes," they were joined by Buck-Tick, Kyoko (Barbee Boys), and Magumi (Lä-Ppisch). Attendance was approximately 46,000.
Video footage was shot on May 15-17. They were apparently able in this short period to film the music videos for "Physical Neurose", "Victims of Love", and "...In Heaven...". The influence of Bauhaus is undeniable in the "Physical Neurose" video. It is reminiscent of the video Bauhaus made for their cover of "Telegram Sam" in 1980.
By my estimates, at some point between signing to the major label and spring 1988, Hisashi and Hide became officially endorsed by Fernandes Guitars. Fernandes probably started developing custom model prototypes in the spring or summer and then started selling the models by the end of 1988 or early 1989.
On June 3, they appeared on the NHK radio show "New Sound Special". On the 13th, they were on the NHK television show "Just Pop Up", performing the song "In Heaven", and also performed on the radio show "Hitachi Fan! Fun! Today". They appeared on Fuji TV's "Sound School" on the 23rd. They performed "Physical Neurose" and "...In Heaven..." on the show "All Night Fuji" on the 25th. On the 30th, they appeared on "Donto Radio" show.
On June 20, the band did a live recording for radio broadcast on FM Tokyo at the Nisshin Power Station in front of 600 winners (out of 12,000 contestants). On June 22, Atsushi appeared on FM Tokyo.
On July 7-8 and 12-14, Buck-Tick were again in the studio. This time they recorded their first major label single. The cover photo session was on August 11 and a video was shot on August 23-24. It was called "Just One More Kiss" and was set to release in October.
A comic book entitled Hearts was released on July 15. The comic was written by Kumi Himeno and released by Princess Comics. The characters were a struggling band that were modeled after Buck-Tick. The band in the comic were called Bluck-Tlick and each coinincidentally had the same first name as the members of Buck-Tick. The second and third in the series were released on January 10, 1989 and May 15, 1989, respectively.
On July 18, the band appeared on NHK radio. On the 21st, they performed "Memories" and "...In Heaven..." on the TBS television show "Super Weekend Live Doyou Shinyazoku". (Could be translated as "Saturday Night Owls".) The 21st was a Thursday so their appearance may have actually aired on Saturday the 23rd. On August 29, they appeared on the radio.
On July 30-31, Buck-Tick shot video footage in at Haneda Airport for a commercial. They endorsed a portable stereo by Victor/JVC called CDian. (Their label Victor/Invitation was owned by JVC, which is short for Japan Victor Company.) The song used in the commercial was "Just One More Kiss". Several different print ads ran and I saw two different commercials on television. The commercials were quite similar, the difference was mainly a matter of editing. The slogan was "Oretachi juteion ihan" ("we violate the deep bass") but it quickly changed to "Juteion ga bakuchiku suru." ("The heavy low sound will firecracker" or "The deep bass will firecracker" or even "The hyper bass will Buck-Tick." I believe this deep bass feature of the stereo was sold as hyper bass in Western markets.) Another early slogan on print ads was "non-age sound modern by Victor." In the image above, you can seen the various print ads and a screenshot of the commercial. In the second row, the second from the right image had two versions where Atsushi is not holding the stereo so I believe they added the stereo in later when they realized they need to show off the product. This type of marketing proved quite fruitful as exposing mass audiences to Buck-Tick's music via television catapulted the band towards mainstream popularity. Not to mention the fact that their music was also being given away with purchases of the product. The first people who bought the stereo received a 3 song sampler 8cm CD containing: "...In Heaven...", "Romanesque", and "Sexual XXXXX!". [Webmaster's note: despite the heavy marketing campaign, I could not find this stereo nor pamphlets for it with Buck-Tick's image in my area at the time. Perhaps I looked too late or it never made its way to the poorest prefecture.]
About CDian: the stereo featured the G-Horn Ex subwoofer, which they called a 3-D system. It could play one CD, two cassette tapes with auto reverse, built-in radio, and a 3-way clock timer. This was a common set-up but integrating the CD player was a newer feature. Sony first started doing that in 1986. There was even a remote control. (Though the remote wasn't that big of a deal in my opinion as my uncle's car stereo even had a remote control because Japan.) There were three versions sold but the most common ones in print ads and the one Atsushi is seen holding was the median model RC-X70, which sold for ¥56,800. It had a 10 button remote and the radio included UHF/VHF so you could listen to tv channels as well. The cheapest model was RC-X3, which sold for ¥45,800. It did not have the juteion aspect, (no G-Horn Ex), lacked a remote control, and the radio was VHF/FM/AM. The most expensive model was RC-X90, which sold for ¥87,800. It had a 39 button remote (fancy!), digital spectrum analyzer display, station presets, and other programming features. To be portable, the RC-X90 required 3 AA (Japan size 3) batteries and 10 D batteries (Japan size 1)! The RC-X70 and RC-X3 models required slightly less power at 3 AA batteries and only 8 D batteries. All models also had power cords so batteries were not required to use it.
It should be noted that when Buck-Tick would play "...In Heaven..." live, halfway through the song fans could expect for Atsushi and Hisashi to have an intimate moment that evoked the gentle feelings of love. Often Atsushi would caress Hisashi with one arm while he played guitar, notably touching his chest or face. Sometimes they were standing, sometimes they were sitting on the stage. Notably in late 1989, it escalated to Atsushi inserting his hand underneath Hisashi's clothes when he was touching him on the chest. Especially given that the English portion of the lyrics have "I love you in heaven," "I kiss you in heaven," "I can't do," and "I can't stay." It reads like one cannot give into desire now but perhaps in heaven the love can happen as well as sexual contact. With the visual context of the live performance, it feels like this is the moment when heterosexual women in Japan realized that they can be aroused by male homosexual desire. There was one performance that aired on tv where Atsushi laid down on the stage floor, put his legs in the air, allowing Hisashi to come into Atsushi's personal space, and then Atsushi sits up so that his legs are likely on top of Hisashi. Needless to say, these moments were quite homoerotic and perhaps helped paved the way for the much more gender bending bands that were to come out of Japan, often labelled as visual-kei.
Buck-Tick played at Hokkaido Rock Circuit in Sapporo on July 24 (other bands included RC Succession, Ann Lewis, Red Warriors), where they were the first band to hit the stage. They also played at Rock Wave 88 at Kawaguchiko Fuji-kyu Conifer Forest on August 3 (other bands included Bubblegum Brothers, Ginji Itoh, Masayuki Suzuki, Kiyomi Suzuki, Kumiko Yamashita, etc.). Conifer Forest is a venue during summer and an outdoor skating rink in the winter operated by the Fuji-kyu amusement park. Buck-Tick also played at Pop Rockets 88 on August 15 with various musicians, including Mika Kaneko. Pop Rockets was held at Yuzawa Chuo Kouen Baseball Field, a public park. This is the first time they played at a baseball field, though it wasn't a proper pro baseball stadium. The band remembers this show as being incredibly hot, with the stage reaching around 37C. Hisashi wrote a song entitled "Watashi No Teki" for Mika's album Kick which was released on September 21.
Sound On Wave 1988 was a 3 day event at the Sports Valley in Kyoto, a multi-sport park. Buck-Tick played on on August 18 at the with Lä-Ppisch, Teen Age News, and A-Decade-In Fake. The show was plagued with rain and by the time of Buck-Tick's encore, their hair was so soaked that it wasn't up anymore, an 80s hair band tragedy. It was at that show that they announced: "Kore kara Buck-Tick wa kami wo tatetai toki ni shika tatenai kara na." ("From now on Buck-Tick will only put up their hair when they want to.") They were beginning to go against Indies big man Sawaki's advice, they were deviating from their established look by letting their hair down. Incidentally, the lineup for the 19th had Toys, Der Zibet, Rogue, The Collectors, and Shady Dolls. The lineup for the 21st had Sheena & the Rokkets, Teardrops, Mad Gang, and Trickster.
On August 20, Buck-Tick were one of the bands performing at Kirin Sound Together Pop Hill '88 held at Ishikawa Shinrin Kouen, a national park with many activities that perhaps is better thought of as nature's amusement park. Other bands included Bubblegum Brothers, Red Warriors, and Seikima II. Rehearsals were held the day before in the rain and they were afraid that once again they would be playing at a festival in the rain but the weather was good on the actual day of the festival. They also performed at Lawson Music ING on August 26 in Osaka and at Ginza Ongaku-sai festivals on October 10 in Tokyo.
Buck-Tick embarked to London on September 1 to record their next album at Master Rock Studios in Kilburn. Whilst recording, the band roomed in two flats. Hisashi forgot to bring a demo tape and had to rewrite one song. That song was the acoustic "Silent Night" and Hisashi says the version he wrote in London is much better than the original. Recording began on September 2nd, rhythm parts laid down on the 3rd-5th and 8th-9th, guitar tracks were dubbed on the 10th-15th and 17th-19th, synthesizer recorded on the 16th, percussion recorded on the 20th, and finally the vocals were recorded on the 13th-15th, 17th-20th, and the 22nd. The album was mixed from September 23-October 1. While they were in London, they even played a gig at the Greyhound in Fulham on September 21, with Fabulous Me opening up. The band's name was incorrectly published in one paper as Buck And Tic. Tickets were only £2! (Issay from Der Zibet claims to have been at this show as his band was also in London to record an album.) The band left London on October 2 and returned to Japan the next day. Atsushi enjoyed abroad so much that halfway into it he didn't want to leave. (Incidentally, Boøwy, one of the most popular bands in Japan at this time, had played in London 3 years earlier. Please note also that Boøwy broke up this year and it is said that many of their fans then went on to support Buck-Tick.) 2 years after Buck-Tick played the Greyhound, it closed its doors and has been changed over the years. [As of 2013, it is a food serving pool hall with karaoke. In 2000, Master Rock Studios closed and has since been demolished. It was opened in 1986 by Steve Flood and Stuart Colman. Among the albums recorded there include Deep by Peter Murphy, Violator by Depeche Mode, Dog Man Star by Suede, and Orgasmatron by Motörhead.]
On October 10, Buck-Tick appeared at the Ginza Ongaku-sai [music festival] and received an award for best newcomer. They also appeared on the radio show "Hitachi Fan! Fun! Today" on the 12th. They made more radio appearances on the 17th, 19th, and 24th.
Buck-Tick may have just recorded their third album, but they had not yet toured for their second, so it was tour time again! The "Seventh Heaven Tour" began on October 11 with a show for fan club members in Saitama and ended on December 27 in Gunma for a total of 38 dates. The first date was at a venue of around 1,200 and the last date was at a venue of around 2,200. A key stage feature of this tour was that U-ta and Toll were on a second tier above the rest of the members, which is something they would continue for many years. It wasn't just an ordinary stage riser but decorative. Buck-Tick would become known for their live production value over the years. There were also a lot of red flower petals that would fall to the stage. During the tour, they played Kagoshima for the first time, the southernmost prefecture in mainland Japan. The members were burnt out on touring and some days before the start of the tour they did not even feel like playing. Toll said they were in a slump. Incidentally, Saitama is a neighboring prefecture of Tokyo and since all of the members live in Tokyo, it has become standard to start tours in Saitama or another neighboring prefectures.
Shortly after launching the "Seventh Heaven Tour," the band's major debut single "Just One More Kiss" was released on October 26. The irony is that in this point of the band's career, their releases were ahead of their touring schedule. The new single was from their upcoming third album but they had just started touring for the second album. The song's lyrics were written by Atsushi and the music was written by Hisashi. The B-side was a re-recording of the Indies single "To-Search." Though it may have only made it to number 6 on the singles chart, "Just One More Kiss" catapulted their career to stardom as it was used for a commercial and songs used in commercials in Japan often lead to huge hits.
On Ocober 30, Buck-Tick performed for the first time at the Nippon Budoukan (also spelled as Budokan) in Tokyo for a guest apperance at Band Explosion '88. The Budokan is famous to non-Japanese as many big Western acts perform there. [For example, other non-Japanese performers at Budokan in 1988 were Bryan Adams, George Michael, Pink Floyd, Tina Turner, Kiss, Toto, Stevie Wonder, Bananarama, Aerosmith, Boz Scaggs, Yngwie Malmsteen, Foreigner, A-ha, Whitney Houston, INXS, David Lee Roth, Bryan Ferry, Eric Clapton, and Cheap Trick.]
As if the band weren't already exhausted, throughout the tour they made several radio, tv, and magazine appearances. If it wasn't playing a show, then it was a radio or tv appearance, or a magazine interview/photoshoot, etc. On their days off, they were supposed to write songs but those days were few and far between. The band truly had a full schedule.
On November 4, Buck-Tick made their first appearance on the popular music show "Music Station". (The show is commonly known as M-Station, M-Sute due to Japanese pronunciation, and to a lesser extent MS.) The episode was hosted by comedian Tamori and co-host Yasumasa Matsui. They performed "Just One More Kiss". Hisashi's guitar is noticeably giving him trouble in the beginning as the sound is not coming out. That was part of the Buck-Tick tv curse. In their first appearances, someone's instrument was bound to not work and so they began to hate tv. The first time was U-ta's bass not making a sound, then Hide's guitar, and finally Hisashi's guitar. The next day on the 5th, the band appeared on "All Night Fuji" and performed "To-Search" and "Just One More Kiss". They appeared on "School's Out" on the 19th.
On November 10, Buck-Tick played a show in Hiroshima and their performance of "Just One More Kiss" was broadcast live on the television show "The Best 10". It was a weekly show with performances by the artists of the top 10 songs of the week, just like "Music Station". The episode was hosted by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi and co-host Kenji Matsushita. The hosts asked such intelligent questions as how long does it take the members to put up their hair and how many bottles of hairspray does it require. After the band's performance, the male host of the show announced they would be going into commercial break wearing a huge wig mimicking Buck-Tick and said in Japanese, "I am boxing promoter Don King. Oh, you don't know who that is." (Probably referring to the viewers of the show being young kids into pop stars, too young to know who Don King is.) In Hide's book Simply Life, he mentions that all the kids watched "The Best 10" when he was growing up and it was often be the topic of conversation at school. I'm sure he and the rest of the band were quite pleased to appear on the show. [I actually remember watching it as I used to watch this show regularly but I was still a couple months shy from being a fan so I did not record it at the time and had to dub it from a friend a couple years later but it was poor quality and what has surfaced online is poor quality as well.]
On December 2, the band appeared on the radio. On the 3rd, they were on Fukushima television. On the 11th, the band made an appearance on the radio program "Kettei! Zen Nihon Kayou Senbatsu". (Means something like, 'It's Decided! All Japan Popular Song Selection.') On the 12th, the band had a photoshoot for the upcoming Hyper and magazines "Pati Pati" and "Pati Pati Rock & Roll." On the way home, Hisashi claims that is when he first bought LSD. He took multiple pills at once and ended up in the hospital overnight. This LSD would get him into trouble in the following year.
During the second half of December, (continuing through January 1989), there were a series of "Buck-Tick Special" video concerts AKA "Captagon Vol. 31". The Captagon company held these video concerts for various bands and Buck-Tick was the main band for this edition. Vol. 31 featured footage of Buck-Tick recording in London, live footage, as well as messages from the members.
On December 24, Buck-Tick performed "Just One More Kiss" for the NHK television show "NHK Live Special", also known as "NHK Xmas Special". This show included many other popular bands of the time, such as Checkers, Barbee Boys, Princess Princess, Unicorn, Red Warriors, Up-Beat, The Street Sliders, TM Network, Rebecca, Bakufu Slump, etc. It is likely this was recorded at the "Just Pop Up" studio set on November 28 as this entry is noted in their schedule in official books while December 24 is noted as a day off; that combined with how Hisashi's hair appears, one is able to pinpoint that the "live" special was recorded earlier.
New Year's is a very special time in Japan. There are many television programs reserved for that time of year. The big Japanese music awards show is called Nihon Record Taisho. Buck-Tick appeared for their first and probably only time on Record Taisho on December 31. Buck-Tick were amongs the groups that received the Best New Artist award with the song "Just One More Kiss" and thus they performed it but they did not win anything else. (The grand prize winner of the show was a boy band if that gives you any indication of how awards shows go in Japan. But to be fair, that's how it goes in other countries too and the boy band that won were unprecedently huge, the most popular ever at that time in Japan.) After appearing on the Record Taisho awards show, they also appeared on the TVK television show "Pati Pati Tomato" for an all night live special broadcast from Shinjuku Koma Gekijo. [Japanese culture note: the other big new year's musical show is "Kouhaku", where men and women battle each other in performances, hoping to win votes. It's pretty much mandatory that every Japanese citizen watch this and judging by the type of performers on the show, Buck-Tick will never appear on Kouhaku.]
Continuing the count of prefectures played, this year the band played these prefectures for the first time: Ehime, Ishikawa, Iwate, Kagawa, Kagoshima, Kochi, Kumamoto, Nagano, Nagasaki, Tochigi, Toyama, Yamaguchi, and Yamanashi. After playing all these gigs, the band now has played the Touhoku and Kanto regions in their entirety. Japan has 8 regions but as the Hokkaido region is only comprised of Hokkaido prefecture, it's safe to say there are 7 regions plus Hokkaido. Just 5 left to go!