Names of artists who declares influence from Gary manifestly are bold-faced.
A rock band consists of five guys formed in late eighties at Fujioka, Gunma (a city little bit south from Niigata). Buck-Tick (a pun for a japanese word "Bakuchiku" (name of a kind of firecracker looks like a miniature dynamite. Before changing the name into Buck-Tick, they called themselves "Hinan Go Go" ("lots of booing")) is one of the innovators of so called japanese "Visual Rock" scene along with X, By-sexual (NOT a misspelling) and Luna Sea. Although they love mild outlook lately, at their early stages they were famous by their too shocking costumes, make-up and hair style (the picture you see at the left still retains some remnants of their early period).
Musically their sound can be put under the category of new wave. As their former name tells, they have great influences from punk. However their songs are very melodious so that some of their songs sound like pop songs. Strong rhythm, colorful and effective guitars and lyrics full of decadence are their most evident characteristics.
Hisashi IMAI, a guitarist, main composer and musical leader of this band (right in the picture), is famous as a big fan of eighties new wave movement. Once a japanese magazine ask them to pick up their favorite albums. And Mr. Imai put Gary's "Pleasure Principle" among his favorites.
Until now they have released over ten full albums and other staffs. Among them there is a remix album for which Aphex Twin and Cabalet Voltaire worked. The singer Atsushi SAKURAI once worked with Clan of XYMOX.
(picture) Cover of their 2nd single "Aku no Hana" ("Flowers of Evil")
Without doubt he is one of the most bizarre japanese keyboard players (another example is Ken Morioka. See below). His real name is Daijiro NOZAWA. He graduated Gakushuin University (A pretty nice university in Tokyo. Until 1945 it was the university exclusively for students from japanese aristocratic families). Maybe it's hard to believe from the wicked picture you can see, but he was trained as a classical keyboardist. So he plays so well incredibly. I heard his acoustic piano in a show and it was amazing! (but he sings not so well...).
He became famous through session works with GLAY (NOT a misspelling: a japanese pop band) and hide (see below). And after the sudden and mysterious death of hide, he quit session career and turned into solo works. As far as I know, he released two albums.
As his strong background and bizarre outlook tells, his music is build from both musical maturity and sheer craziness. That is to say, in his works no one fails to find his talent in composition and arrangement. Also his works are full of industrial addictions.
Naturally he is a big fan of NIN, Marylin Manson and so on. And in a interview he praised achievements of Gary Numan.
A card included in a album of hide (see below). This picture may tell you everything :-)
Legendary japanese gothic act. Originally they formed a band called "Gille Loves" in Nagoya. After struggling almost for a decade they moved to Tokyo and changed their name into Fiction. Currently Fiction consists of the female singer Lucifer Lucious Violenue (of course she is japanese probably...) and the guitarist Gardie. [I've just found their slightly detailed personal data including their real name etc. in very old magazines. However, since I understand to reveal these data never pleases them, I keep silent about those.] Throughout their long career they have created almost depressively dark, deep but sensual world. Even it is said that so many fans took their music too much seriously so that they had to announce them that this is just a fiction and that's why they changed the name.
They are kind of mysterious persons and we can hardly touch them directly. Nowadays their show is very rare to see and interviews or anything like that are rare as well. However it is certain that they got a lot of influences from eighties' synth pop acts. One can easily see it on their works. I heard the singer declared the influence from early Human League.
Some of their early songs have very same atmosphere as Numan songs such as 'This Wreckage' 'Please Push No More'.
(picture) Fiction's Vocal, Lucifer Lucious Violenue
Another legendary bizarre musician from Japan. His real name is Hideto MATSUMOTO. Born in Yokosuka, Kanagawa (slightly south from Tokyo). After finishing his high-school, once he wanted to be a makeup artist (seeing the picture on the left, you can easily understand it, I suppose). Through several unknown bands, he formed a metal act "Yokosuka Sabel Tiger" (At that time there was another band with the same name so they had to attach "Yokosuka". As this shows In Japan the band name issue is not so strict as western world) and got a small success. Then disuniting this band, he joined to another metal act "X" and there he got incomparably big success.
Once "X" guys tried to get much more success in North America, but unfortunately they failed (Causes for their failure were, I think, language (the singer's english was far from perfect), main composer's bizarre perfectionism and too much high their pride). During these hard days of desperate struggle hide began his solo career and it was warmheartedly welcomed. Then along with X-japan (for legal reasons they had to change their name) he continued solo works even after the sudden disbandment of X-japan.
Sudden death of X-japan gave him plenty of time. Then along with his solo band (at that time it was called "Spread Beaver". I know what it stands for :-)) he began another band called "Zilch" with musicians living in US. Although his career seemed to go well, one day he was found virtually dead in his room. It was so sudden and so mysterious that it shocked every japanese. It was reported that his funeral ceremony gathered some ten thousands people.
Musically, his taste can be called a mixture from metal, new wave, industrial and pop. Most oh his songs are very solid and intensive but melodious and pop. Being fashion artist as well, his outlook was so shocking and sometimes bizarre but attractive. As I mentioned in a section for Buck-Tick, he and X was one of the innovators of Visual Rock. As a member of X(-japan) he joined in four albums, as solo artist he released three, and as Zilch one album released posthumously. In his first solo album Terry Bozzio and T. M. Steevens appeared and the cover art was created by H. R. Geeger.
Of course he was a big listener of eighties New Wave things. It is said that he praised Ultravox!'s "Systems of Romance" album so frequently that his hard core fans run to buy it and it contributed to sales of that album.
He started his professional career as a member of a japanese rock act "Pink" which got relatively rich success. After he disbanded the band for internal conflict, he run into solo career along with works as session musician and producer.
Actually other bizarre keyboarders I mention in this page are still bizarre, but they play in pretty normal stile. On the other hand Mr. Kamiyama plays bizarrely as well as looks bizarre! Once in an interview in the Keyboard Magazine he said "What I played is no use for an example of keyboard playing".
I'm not good at his works with Pink but at least I know they released no less than five albums. As a session musician and a producer, I have no idea about how many works he worked for (because they are too many to follow). Once he formed a rock act "Lael" with a guitarist Jun SHIMOYAMA, but I don't know where it's gone. I know only single album he released as a solo artist. He was involved in works with such guys as Zi-kill, Masami TSUCHIYA, Video Rodeo.
His another talent is writing. Surprisingly, he wrote a review for Gary's "New Anger" album and praised it. And there he revealed that he was big Numan fan and followed every Numan albums of Numa era which were very hard to get in Japan at that time.
A big and tall japanese guitarist/singer. Born in Gunma (same prefecture as Buck-Tick guys). He dashed into the music scene as a guitarist of a legendary japanese gothic innovator "Auto-mod". Along this band he formed another four piece band "BO¯WY" (reads as "Bowie" but it has nothing to do with David Bowie. It's a pun for a invented japanese word "Bou-i" ("Violent Threat"). Mysterious "¯" letter says "we belong to nowhere". In their early career they used chinese characters for naming their band.). BO¯WY got an amazing success and sadly disbanded itself. After a very short while after that legendary event HOTEI started his solo career. Through a brief period as a member of COMPLEX (a rock duo with Koji KIKKAWA (see below)), he still continues his glorious solo career. Although sometimes it came to kind of not a peaceful result, he has been involved in many session works domestically with Koji KIKKAWA (both as Complex and as a solo singer), Kumiko YAMASHITA (who was HOTEI's former wife), Miki IMAI (who is his current wife), Hiroyuki HANADA and so on, and world-widely with Sputnik Next Generation, Asia and Michel Camen. Recently he works as an actor as well. He was involved in all staffs of BO¯WY, and released at least 6 full albums as solo artist, 3 as Complex.
Musically his style can be said as a development of early Numan and Tubeway Army. For he adds Synth-pop/New Wave taste to basic punk sentiment. His music sounds sometimes as a simple Rock'n'Roll, sometimes as highly complicated digital rock with sci-fi addiction.
Once in a magazine he listed his favorite albums among which Gary's "Preasure Principle" was included. He said he formerly called Gary as "Oumi Numan" because the picture of Gary appeared on its cover looked like a japanese old singer Toshiro OUMI.
A young god of japanese rock scene. He was born in Hiroshima (roughly speaking, located between Osaka and Fukuoka). After finishing high-school, he moved to Tokyo just with his guitar and got the fortune to debut as a pop singer with his first smash hit 'Monica!' in quite early eighties. Since then he achieved considerable success and had many hit songs. Once in late eighties he formed a rock duo called Complex with HOTEI and had worked in this team until their sad split. Except a few years as a member of Complex, he has worked as a solo singer. Along with three albums as Complex, he have released no less than ten albums.
Although at the beginning he was considered as an idol singer, already since then he had musically far more avant-garde concept and we can easily see strikingly unique tunes and sound productions in his second album. He got infulenced very much from synth-pop and new wave things, and he is known as a big John Foxx fan.
Born in Tokyo. His father is a famous japanese arranger Ken'ichirou MORIOKA. In late eighties he formed techno/industrial trio called Soft Ballet with Ryoichi ENDO and Maki FUJII and had worked with them until their disbandment in late nineties. Neatly constructed hard electronic sound with pop sense and visually attractive show are their main characteristics. Although he always says he is not a gay (now he is a father), Ken's ultra-gay outlook and attitudes on their stages is shocking as well as attractive (one may compare him with Mark Almond). Soft Ballet released six official studio albums and also Ken released two albums as solo artist. His career includes collaborations with Buck-Tick and HOTEI .
He is the artist who most frequently refers to Gary Numan in interviews. And I found in a interview he called Gary as "my idol" along with (ex-)Prince and a domestic chanson singer.
(L2R)Ken and HOTEI. They are good friends.
Reads as "New Vogue". Unique "Rave Rock" act of five piece without keyboard player. They formed "Vogue" in western japan in early nineties. After several years of intensive activities and a member change, they moved to Tokyo, changed their name into this, and released a debut (sadly and the last) album "Sensual World". However, regrettably enough, since then their history was full of misfortunes such as conflicts with record company, legal issues and accidents on members until their disbandment in 1998.
They combined metal, new wave and rave/techno/industrial sound into an unique music. As you see they were visually fashionable and even weird. Then naturally many different kind of people came to their shows, such as hard listeners of new wave, fans of so called visual rock and above all ladies love dance club and rave.
A veteran japanese singer. He was born in Kyoto. I'm not good at his early career because it was too past for me. He entered in the scene as a singer of a so called "group sound" act "Tigers" (My parents were their big fan. By this fact you may imagine how long his history is). Immediately after its disbandment he begun his solo career and except a short period of extreme misfortune almost always he has enjoyed success. He released so many albums that I cannot count them anymore. He is famous as a actor and, sounds bizarre, a comic telent as well. I think for western people the most famous movie which he was involved in was "Mishima". Sometimes he dared to have musical experiment in some songs, say, 'Tokio'. In early eighties he pushed it into it's extreme with his back band at that time called "Exotics". At that time he and his fellows got greatly influenced by new wave/new romantic movement so that songs during this period of experiment were too avant-garde to understand for some fans. From this respect most important albums for us are "Stripper" "Miscast" and a compilation titled "Royal Straight Flash 3". And perhaps most striking tune is "Senaka made 45 fun" ("45 minutes to her back") which never fails to remind numan fans 'The Iceman Comes'.
Cover of his 80's best album "Royal Straight Flash 3"
A japanese famous session guitarist. I don't know virtually anything about his early career except that once he was a member of many bands such as King-show (see above) and Rebecca. In nineties he was involved in works with a japanese girls pop band "Go Bangs" and this made him famous. I heard that after these sessions he formed his own band "Liquid Blue". However I have no idea where this band was gone.
As other guitarists with addiction into new wave, his style is unique and effective, even weird. s