Hi from Los Angeles!

Let your fellow fans know who you are, where you're from, why you love DCT, etc...
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LosAngeles
DCTJoy Newbie
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Joined: Sun May 11, 2003 1:12 pm
Location: Los Angeles

Hi from Los Angeles!

Post by LosAngeles » Sun May 11, 2003 3:17 pm

Wow! How exciting to find an English DCT site at long long last! Kudos to a great site!
:)

My name is Chris and I've been a DCT fan since late 1993.
I grew up and continue to reside in the LA area. My main music interests are progressive & classic rock, jazz & blues, and classical music, plus some alternative like Tori Amos, or Pearl Jam. Other Japanese music that interests me includes Shonen Knife, Pizzicato Five, the brilliant green, and Utada Hikaru. I have studied Japanese language for over ten years, one year of which I lived in Chiba Prefecture, Japan. Not a big fan of anime, but I love the films of Hayao Miyazaki and the Macross series.

I first discovered DCT, when I heard the single "go for it!" on a Radio Pacific Japan broadcast. At the time I was involved with a Japanese girl at my university, but my Japanese was next to nothing, and so I didn't catch the DJ's intro of the song, but when I heard Miwa's pipes, over that intensely catchy groove - I was hooked - on a song for which I knew neither the song's title nor the band's name...

Fortuitously, LA is blessed with a thriving Japanese community, and it was only a few weeks later that I was doing some gift shopping for my girlfriend in a Japanese shopping center, when I saw a store poster of the cover of the "go for it!" single (blessed was I that the song's title was in English!) but the price of $11 for an import single gave me pause, plus I was as yet unskilled at reading Japanese, so navigating the music aisle was an impossibility and I was too shy to ask the clerk - and so I left empty handed, but empowered with at least definitive proof who this group was.

The next encounter with DCT came on New Year's Day, as our local international channel broadcast the music/variety New Year's shows from Japan. Unable to watch it when it aired, I had taped it for my girlfriend, and so when DCT appeared live, I was totally riveted... what a performer!

Well, January rolled on and one day I wandered into Tower Records looking for my usual rock cd fare, and I wandered into the international cd aisle, just to flip through the Japanese koto and shamisen music, since by this time I was also getting deeper into the culture of Japan as my relationship deepened, but then towards the back was this one, very different cd cover... hmm, a couple of grinning guys holding sunflowers and a woman in red with a cropped hairdo in the background and in tiny print "Dreams Come True" and that strange graphic that it took a moment to decipher as saying "MAGIC"... what was this? I felt electric as I picked it up to turn it over... sure enough it was THE CD. I didn't even know it had been released, having come out shortly before Christmas just a month before... and now the clincher was the price... I didn't have much free spending cash, since I was a full-time student working just one day a week... and a price tag of $20+ for a cd normally would've made me pass out, but in this case I just KNEW I must have it, NOW, or this one cd would surely vanish... this was no chance find, this was fate. I abandoned whatever disc I had gone to purchase (I cannot even recall what it was...)

Straight home I went. Directly to the stereo, peeling away the cellophane en route... Just hearing the opening track, I was stricken again by that pure soulful voice, overcome by a state of bliss the whole cd spun through over and over again. I was totally sucked in - without understanding anything but the odd English phrase here and there and the random Japanese phrases that I knew... I fell in love with it, with Miwa - her voice having the clarity of Karen Carpenter, and yet the soul of Ella Fitzgerald... man, oh, man!

As the years rolled on, even after my relationship with that girl ended, I tried to keep up with the happenings of DCT: rented the Wonderland tour videos, had my Japanese friends help me translate the song lyrics and show me magazine articles about the band. I kept up with the cds and occasionally sprung for the singles as well. With each new release I realize that they were on a musical journey that knew no limits...

Certainly "Delicious" was a good album, and though the moodier "Love Unlimited" took me longer to really warm up to I enjoyed it as well... and Miwa's Beauty and Harmony had me listening to nothing else for weeks! Then I bought "Seventh of July Sunny Day" one fine day, and it was the first time I had heard "Winter Song" sung in English, plus the other English tracks... while I could tell there were problems with the English lyric, Miwa could sing it, and it showed that the potential of the band was far beyond the confines of Japan, or of Asia... and then came "Sing or Die". Wow!

Sadly, I had missed the Japanese tour and was boarding a plane to Japan a few days before DCT would debut in LA. I would have loved to see that show!

Certainly the band has moved even further afield musically, creating music that sounds like nothing anyone else in Japan will touch, and maybe the last couple of relases have seemed more uneven, but I stil think that DCT are unmatched in Japan, for unbridled creativity and musicality.

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tachikaze
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Joined: Thu Oct 17, 2002 12:40 pm

hehehe

Post by tachikaze » Tue May 13, 2003 5:26 am

Lucky bast*rd getting into DCT with a fresh-off-the-boat Magic CD...

At that time I was in Japan, saw the Magic billboards up in Shibuya, but
was left with just the impression of a rather weirdo band.

Later, when I saw the Delicious billboards, I don't think I even matched them to the same group.
Miwa - her voice having the clarity of Karen Carpenter, and yet the soul of Ella Fitzgerald
I also compare Miwa to Karen Carpenter, and my mom, a big Carpenters fan, agreed when I played some DCT (Crystal Vine) to the family last weekend.

I also think their later stuff is "more uneven", but the top 6 of my 20 most favorite DCT songs are from 1997 or later... what would DCT be without:

1997 ai suru kokoro
1999 asa-ga mata kuru
1997 yorokobi no uta
1999 SNOW DANCE
1997 sou da yo
1997 PEACE!

?

(geez, is it already 2003?)

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Jei
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Post by Jei » Wed May 14, 2003 10:41 pm

Welcome LA!

*grin* Nice to meet another first CD 'Magic' DCT fan :)

I have to agree on "Love Unlimited"...as a whole it took me a while to jive with it (even with Love^3 and Romance). My re-discovery of it lead me to fall in love with "Sweet Revenge" (Love bassline songs ^^).

While I switch back and forth between 'Magic' and 'Wonder 3' as favorite CD, I think I'd probably list 'Delicious' as the CD I'd use to initiate newbies (Yeah yeah...I'm excluding 'The Soul' for this...). Excellent production values, very memorable songs, Miwa at her most powerful...(Suki...Sankyu...)...

Welcome again! :)

-Jei
-Jay
DCTJoy.Com - The Joy that is Dreams Come True
http://www.dctjoy.com/

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