Buck-Tick Zone

2007

Hide's side project is finally realized. Dropz features Hide (guitars, programming, and keybaords), Kelli Ali (vocals), and Cube Juice (programming and electronics). Kelli Ali is formerly of Sneaker Pimps and Cube Juice wrote a song for Atsushi's solo album. The debut album from Dropz, Sweet Oblivion album was released on April 4.

On June 6, Buck-Tick released the first single from their new album, "Rendezvous". For the b-side, the band chose to re-record "My Eyes & Your Eyes". On the same day, the "Parade Tour" was launched. The opening band is different for each date and all comprise of bands who appeared on the Buck-Tick tribute album Parade ~Respective Tracks of Buck-Tick~. Opening bands included: Runaway Boys, J, Michirou Endo, Balzac, Kiyoharu, Masami Tsuchiya. The tour culminated with a special concert entitled "Buck-Tick Fest On Parade" on September 8 at Yokohama Minator Mirai with all of the openers over the summer dates as well as Balzac and Age of Punk who also appeared on the tribute album.

Over the summer, Buck-Tick also played at a few festivals. They were going to play in Okinawa on July 15, but a typhoon prevented the ferry from transporting their gear so the gig was rescheduled for early 2008. Buck-Tick played Hokkaido on August 17 for the "Rising Sun Rock Festival".

On August 8, Buck-Tick released the second single from their new album, "Alice in Wonder Underground". For the b-side, the band chose re-record "Tight Rope". The new album, Tenshi No Revolver was released on September 19. A tour for the album began on September 22 for 34 dates. The tour continued through December. Since 2001, Buck-Tick had annually held "The Day in Question" concerts around December 29 at Nippon Budokan. This time they played the venue on the annual date but as part of the Tenshi No Revolver Tour. Perhaps for the first time, several pieces of merchandise featured the English translation of the album/tour: "Revolver of the Angel".

On September 5, the remaster albums were reissued with cardboard sleeves but no extra tracks. In 2002, the remasters ended at Cosmos but this time they included Catalogue 1987-1995 and BT.

In December, SoftBank released Buck-Tick themed cellphones as part of their fan fun series. Needless to say, these 3G models are for use only in Japan. SoftBank notes that these phones are not compatible with global roaming service either. Given the price of ¥93,120, applying a Buck-Tick theme to your phone both on the outside and the inside will be much cheaper DIY style.

[this page was last updated on Monday, 29-Sep-2008 21:32:17 PDT]