MC5 Japan Archived

In the summer of 2015, when the highly controversial Security-related Bills passed the Lower House in Japan, I decided to archive the entire MC5 Japan website. Here, by "archive", I mean that there will be no updates on the website from now on and it is going to drift unnoticeably in cyberspace in the current status. I may occasionally add some pages in English or revise some links, but basically no new information will be posted (as the last update, I've uploaded the information about Wayne's new album, Lexington, in his section).

The MC5 Japan website was founded with a clear vision to pass down a legacy of a rock band that existed briefly in the 20th century to the contemporary Japanese, which, I feel, has been fully accomplished. After more than 13 years since the website was opened, everyone can now obtain as much information as they want about the current situation of the existing band members. Not knowing how many of you are engaged in creative activities, I am one that believes in dynamism generated by chaos. In any domains, nothing remarkable comes out of a 'mono-' or single faceted scope. MC5 Japan has been developed over years hoping the viewers to notice that the music of the MC5 was created harvesting diverse music styles and chaos of life, hoping them not to end up in a mere kick-out-the-jams-mother-fucker individual if they are in bands respecting the MC5, hoping them to get inspired by literature, paintings, politics, and many others, staring firmly at the innumerable people existing in front of them, to discover their own unique ways of sound. Even how outdated and ancient this website may look after it was archived, I'm absolutely confident of the quality of the information presented in MC5 Japan. So, the humble webmaster will be pleased if you will return here sometimes.

Having long contemplated making the website archived, I decided now is the best time ever to make the action, displaying a poem written by Mick Farren---who wrote many lyrics for Wayne---in the year before his death in 2013, to end in a grand finale expressing my objection against the Security-related Bills. Some may wonder, why Mick Farren to conclude a MC5 website? I'm afraid I cannot help if they don't understand it after reading this poem.

The black dogs circled
Silent and coordinated pack-shapes
Fleeting furtive forms
And hot-coal eyes
Against the blue
Of the moon-shadowed snow
And I counted
More of them than I had rounds
In my revolver

Obviously some people who are reading this in Japan support the idea of the right of collective self-defense, some don't give a damn about it, or think it has nothing to do with them. They'd better be careful, though, not to get cheated later because

it's extremely easy for the black dogs to fabricate the clear risk that Japan's existence is threatened and that's exactly what they did as they made their way to Pearl Harbor 70 years ago.

The Security-related Bills combining two bills---one for a new law and the other as an omnibus bill to amend the existing10 security-related acts altogether---was submitted to the Lower House as a single set of bills with an obvious intention and pushed through a parliamentary committee without deliberated individually. We have no idea what conspiracy is hiding, smirking secretly, between the lines of the complicated sentences of the articles included in as many as the 11 laws.

However, 55 years ago, the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between Japan and the U.S.A. was signed despite the peace and anti-war protest in Japan of THAT magnitude. There can be no way to stop the Bill this time from going into effect.

Therefore, from now on, what we must continue over our short lifespan is to threaten the black dogs; to frighten them telling they are watched, getting them scared with their tails tucked.

So, we must never cease sticking out WHY and shouting NO---even if no rounds are left in the revolver of the gunfighter.

Tokyo, August 2015

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