Oh FFS – purple SKY magazine & Jrock in America

That didn’t take long, did it?

No sooner does purple SKY magazine come out in the US than people do their utmost to undermine it with misplaced enthusiasm.

Please please, just buy the magazine. It’s quarterly and it’s six bucks. Give up your green tea frappe and you can afford this publication. For the love of all that is good and holy in this world, don’t post scans of every issue in its entirety.

Sorry if I sound bitter, but the fact that there’s a professional magazine for Jrock enthusiasts in the US that’s actually viable is amazing. This was unthinkable only 10 years ago. There really weren’t any fansites in English, let alone print resources with interviews.

Of course I’m totally biased here as I write for this magazine*, but I’m a Jrock fan above all. So yea, I get why people post mp3 rips or photo scans from FOOLS MATE. I was there once, in middle and high school, no money and no way to buy anything. Especially because in the past, it’s been really hard to get your hands on the music and the magazines.

In the past.

But Jrock is now, finally, gaining a steady foothold in the US. We’re finally getting artists to tour here and take the fan scene here seriously. We’re starting to show the producers and managers that there’s money to be made here. So let’s not completely mess it up by expediently smashing a good attempt to showcase the best of US Jrock fandom.

It’s not like we’re asking you to blow $90 on a Gackt Platinum Bible. It’s six bucks. It’s lunch money.

And it’s at your local Barnes and Noble or Hot Topic — you don’t even need to order it from Japan and wait three weeks for it to arrive. And best of all, you can actually read the interviews and articles, as opposed to just drooling over the pretty glossy photos. (I know how Jrock fans do, I used to do it too.)

On that note, I am interviewing Audrey Kimura, founder of Benten, this weekend. Somehow I completely missed the Japan Nite Tour when it passed through Cambridge—I even saw the posters at Porter Exchange, wrote the date down, and totally flaked.

Ms. Kimura, my apologies. It was an awesome lineup—GO!GO!7188 and Oreskaband are two of my newer favorite groups. Thankfully there’s a new East Coast tour soon in August, so I’ll be sure to ask her about it.

Also, if anyone has any good Jrock blog links I should add to my blogroll, hit me up. I’m on the lookout but I can only think of a few off the top of my head.

*for free, in my off-time

[edit] Strangely, I went to my local Barnes and Noble over lunch break and was unable to find a copy of purple SKY magazine on the magazine rack. In addition to wasting fuel and my lunch break to do this, this was a sad exercise in futility. Let’s hope it wasn’t available because local readers had already sold out stock?