Buck-Tick Zone

1987

On January 12, Buck-Tick did a show at Shibuya's La Mama. It was then that they met their future manager Yoshihiko "Joe" Masuoka. Joe had been a friend of Sawaki for 10 years. (In this picture from 1988, Joe is on the far right.)

January 21 - February 4 Buck-Tick recorded an album at the same Yamaha studio they had recorded their demo at. It was a grueling session as in so few days they spent about 100 hours in the studio. Toll remembers that it was a three to four hour drive to the studio. The members all stayed at Atsushi's and often got only three to four hours sleep each night. They recorded about three songs a day. U-ta had been attending administration/management school for 2 years but had missed about 2 months in that time and didn't think he would graduate, especially once they started recording the album so he just focused on the band and never graduated.

For the cover of the album they took pictures at Sawaki's house on February 15. At that time a full color jacket for an indie band was pretty rare and the band was told the cover could be two colors. They decided if it was going to be two it would have to be a black and white. The album was titled Hurry Up Mode and was released on April 1. The album was almost named "Koroshi No Shirabe" and so they left that on the artwork, almost like a subtitle. (They did release an album with that name years later in 1992.) The album was released on CD and vinyl, making it the first Indies album in Japan ever to be released on CD. The CD contained two extra tracks: "Vacuum Dream" and "No-No-Boy". Since this album was released on an independent label, there were only a few copies of the CD pressed and it is a saught after item for collectors.

To kick off the album's release, they played a show called "Buck-Tick Genshou" at Tokyo Toyoshima Koukaido. It was Sawaki's idea to promote the show with 3000 stickers that simply said "Buck-Tick Genshou April 1 Toyoshima Kohkaido" in white on black. These stickers were placed all over the streets of Shibuya and Harajuku. The band then embarked on a "Hurry Up Mode" tour. These shows paid off. Major label producers became interested in signing the band. They were now struck with the ability to move on but were panicing because they did not know how to deal with it. They asked Sawaki what sort of things to look for in a record contract. He advised them not to let the company have control over their looks, not to deviate from their established look, that session musicians should not record in the studio for their albums, and that they should have control in the production process, because without all five members it is not Buck-Tick.

As the buzz spread from their live shows, a producer named Junichi Tanaka from Victor/Invitation records became interested in the band. They held a meeting and decided they would sign with Victor. Their contract stipulated the following key points:

1. never change the image of the band
2. never change any of the 5 members
3. never use studio musicians
4. let the band self produce its output

A record label signing celebratory show was held on June 16 at Shibuya's Live Inn entitled "Buck-Tick Genshou II". There were 600 in attendence. At the show they announced their signing to a major label. This show was videotaped and some footage was released by Victor on September 21 as Buck-Tick Live at the Live Inn.

Before recording the actual album, Victor asked Buck-Tick to first record a demo tape. Thus, on July 18, Buck-Tick recorded a three song demo that contained "Sexual Intercourse!" (later known as "Sexual XXXXX!"), "Romanesque", and "Moon Light". Only one song from that demo, "Sexual Intercourse!", actually made it onto the album which they would later record and release. ("Romanesque" saw the light of day in 1988 when Buck-Tick released a mini-album, or as they say abroad, an E.P.. "Moon Light" would not come out of the closet until the entire Hurry Up Mode album was remastered and rereleased by Victor in 1990.)

From July 26 to August 18 Buck-Tick entered the studio and recorded their first major album. It was released on November 21 and entitled Sexual XXXXX!. The album did not have any singles released from it.

Victor worked hard at promoting the band and one way they did this was by creating a series of postcards to mail to the fans to inform them of Buck-Tick gigs. They are odd in their style of advertising. They feature a cartoon strip featuring Buck-Tick as a band from outer space who come to Japan and take over the music scene. There are 6 in all (pictured in reverse order). The first one is entitled, "Episode 1: They came from outer space". The ones that followed are, "Episode 2: Buck-Tick strikes back again", "Episode 3: Buck-Tick on the road", "Episode 4: Buck-Tick starts live tour", "Episode 5: Buck-Tick gets the "Seventh Heaven", and "Episode 6: Buck-Tick on the top of the world". Victor also kept Buck-Tick busy with a lot of gigs and "meet the fans" type of press conferences. The group also made some television and radio appearances. The group's schedule was so busy, that they were concerned that their rehearsal time was being eaten away at. For example, as the video Picture Product reports, at one rehearsal they had to sign autographs for 5000 fans. (That incident may have been in 1988 but you get the idea of how busy they were and how popular they were becoming.)

In September, Shaking Hands became the name of their management office. It must have been around this time that a new fan club was established, now that they were on a major label. The name of the fan club was "Buck-Tick Club". The first newsletter was published on November 21.

Video footage was shot on September 11 for promotional music videos. It was originally scheduled four days earlier but Atsushi was quite ill. Even on the day of shooting he was still sick and doesn't appear so healthy on film. (Atsushi's sickness is most prominently viewable in the music video for "Sexual XXXXX!" as he is quite sweaty with fever.)

On September 20, they began their "Buck-Tick Genshou" tour. They began to do interviews and the commonly asked questions were: 1. Why do you put your hair up? 2. How do you put your hair up? 3. What is the difference between the majors and Indies? Hide would often answer they started dying their hair, putting it up, and wearing make-up because they liked it and thought it was cool. They weren't doing it to try to get attention or sell records. They weren't even musicians to sell, they were musicians because that is what they wanted to do.

On November 2, the band appeared on the NHK show "Audition". On the 22nd the book Buck-Tick was released. It is comprised mostly of photos. The following day, the band appeared on Chiba TV. In December, Buck-Tick were on the cover of "Fool's Mate" magazine and I believe this was their first magazine cover.

On December 2, they appeared on the TBS show "Live Town". On the 5th they appeared on the Nagoya Chuukyou TV show "5ji Sat Magazine". (5 o'clock Sat Magazine) On the 11th they held a show called "Buck-Tick Genshou III" at Tokyo's Nihon Seinenkan. The band shot more video footage on the 15th and 16th. On the 19th they began a brief "Buck-Tick Genshou" tour. On the 28th they appeared on the Iwate TV show "Television". They also played a big event on December 31 called Rock 'N Roll Band Stand to an audience of 5000. The members think that the other bands that played were Hound Dog, Seikima II, and Bakufu Slump (big names in the Japanese rock scene at the time).

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. 25". The Captagon company held these video concerts for various bands and Buck-Tick was the main band for this edition. I'm not sure what was featured though.

[this page was last updated on Sunday, 16-Nov-2008 10:49:01 PST]