Through the eyes of Merry (メリーの目)
Playback Part 10 - "Remember Rockmaykan"
written by Tetsu / translation by eurydike
This is Tetsu, one of the artists who write down this story for you. First of all: Thanks to Ken who stood in for me last month when I came down with a high fever. By the way, to come back to last month’s topic ‘first recordings’...I mostly just showed up in the studio to record my bass parts, there is nothing more to write about it than to say thanks again.
Well, as the recording for "Haikarasan ga tooru" was over, we focused on our first Oneman called "Harenchi Gakuen" [Note: Infamy Campus] at Meguro Rockmaykan and rehearsed and worked on our stage appearance over and over again.
Exactly two years ago…… [Note: The Oneman took place two years prior to the time he wrote this.] Two years ago my hair was shorter but I didn’t feel well, so I barely cut it. Nevertheless, my fighting spirit still didn’t seem enough, so "Harenchi Gakuen" became my motto.
Until now Merry are artists that remain aloof from others, but back then we didn’t even have staff people to settle everything at the location, so that whole gig was handmade. Therefore, despite our preparation the day before, the live rehearsal went fairly slow and our week points stood out. Then, for example, right before the actual performance Gara spit ink at the curtain from behind it and we had put paper onto the curtain so that the ink gets soaked up. When the whole band came on stage and was supposed to be seen as shadows on the curtain before it dropped, there shouldn’t have been any stains. But the ink didn’t get soaked up at all and made the silhouettes of the five people look pretty much disjointed……
Naturally, we all wanted to deal with the concert with all our might, but the irritation we had felt during the rehearsal took its toll and we couldn’t stand there proud and say: "This is Merry!".
As a result of this, the manager of Rockmaykan awarded us with "Harenchi Gakuen, graduation failed".
For "Tokyo Telephone", Gara used a telephone set. In fact, it was mine. We had taken off the screw so that the voice could be heard through the receiver. A few days after the concert, the phone was completely out of order. But destroying gadgets on stage seemed to be a much too selfish act for us, so we didn’t find satisfaction in this.
Back to the subject. If I now think back on all the lessons we learned on that one day, I know we have taken them to heart. If "Harenchi Gakuen" shouldn’t be, maybe "Revenchi Harenchi", which we created about three months later, wouldn’t be a success as well.
After we had been thoroughly dented at our first oneman, it was time to record "that famous music" and to start moving towards "Revenchi Harenchi"……