I don't really get the "non-visual" tag. During their heyday, they definitely had the extravagant looks, appeared in every magazine imaginable (Fool's Mate, zy/[zi:], SHOXX, Band Yarouze, Arena37ºC, Vicious, you name it), played in tours and festival with other visual kei bands (SHOCK WAVE ILLUSION, stylish wave COUNTDOWN, V-ROCK FESTIVAL, etc)... So, why non-visual?

Wikipedia is not really a reliable source, since it can be edited by anyone at any time and traditional heavy metal fans have a prejudice against vkei. Particularly overseas...

I get what you are saying, but judging by their looks, the magazine they appeared and bands they played with, they shouldn't be tagged as non-visual here. I mean, their CDs had a slogan calling them "VISUAL SUPER HARD sex MACHINEGUNS", and their ties to the scenes are so strong to this day that Anchang even was one of Raphael's support guitarist during their revival.

It's not like they appeared in one magazine or two, I wouldn't build a case for calling VOLCANO a vkei band, for example... But, SEX MACHINEGUNS had the strong looks, toured with mostly vkei bands, were active in the scene and still play vkei festivals nowadays. Would you say these dudes are not a vkei band? C'mon, they definitely are (or were! haha).

The fact they played heavy metal shouldn't be a prejudice, since visual kei itself is not a music genre. These dudes were touring with Plastic Tree and LAREINE, they dressed as pompous as PENICILLIN or Raphael... They even had VHS tapes teaching their fans how to do furitsuke. An average metal band damn sure wouldn't do that hahaha. That is some Psycho le Cému type of shit!

AmazonCDJapanRarezHutwishlist

2000-09-27

SEX MACHINEGUNSSEX MACHINEGUNSBakuzan Sensei Furitsuke Kouza莫山先生振付講座

1. Ai koso Subete (愛こそすべて)
2. Esthetician (エステティシャン)
3. Mikan no Uta (みかんのうた)
4. Yellow Card
5. KISS

Never heard of them beign perceived as punks, but that would not be a problem. THE DEAD P☆P STARS were punks too.

And, sure, I get what your saying about "former vkei" but I think that itself is such a grey area and would make things so confusing... Like, pretty much every 90's band dropped their heavy imagery after a couple of years, just like they did. That would mean calling LUNA SEA or X JAPAN former vkei too, and it doesn't seem right to me. If they were vkei once, they'll be forever. At least for vkgy's database interests and how bands are tagged here now.

Maybe it was planned as a gimmick to get a bigger an audience, but I doubt it... They already looked like a vkei band years before the major debut and kept like that for years before eventually toning it down, like pretty much every major band does. Here's Anchang talking about it himself, after beign asked by ARLEQUIN (アルルカン)'s Aki: "We are former visual kei too (laughs). [...] I don't have any problems with it, but I wonder if the audience care more. About 20 years ago, when SEX MACHINEGUNS was working in a visual kei framework...".

It seems he's talking about how they were a visual kei band playing with a senpai normal band, and now they are the ugly guys playing with the nice looking ones, because of their two-man with ARLEQUIN haha. So, yeah, they were a visual kei band, as he said himself. I think tagging them as non-visual would mean tagging X, LUNA SEA, KUROYUME, L'arc~en~Ciel and everybody else non-visual too.

Also, just remembered their debut, MADE IN JAPAN and HEAVY METAL THUNDER (their last album before dropping the crazy clothes and make-up) are all in Akemi Oshima's VISUAL ROCK PERFECT DISC GUIDE 500, in The Golden Era of VISUAL ROCK chapter. Noriko Shouji also included them in some omnibus releases.

I disagree. Let me elaborate:

• As much as they may have been forced to use the term "visual kei", Sex Machineguns dressed the part. No-one can deny that the band had a visual style. What the current style is, is irrelevant - visual kei is an artificial term, initially designed as a moniker by other non-musicians to describe a particular look, which makes it a subjective term too. This renders the marketing argument moot.

SEX MACHINEGUNS went visual kei because they HAD too.

Yes. They also dressed the part, which made them visual.

• Bands now being non-VK, or bands that only were VK for a short while are still VK. The point of vk.gy, in my opinion, is to preserve what once was - not to whitewash what has been. If we were to treat every band similar to how we have treated Sex Machineguns, that would include marking LUNA SEA, L'Arc~en~Ciel, and X JAPAN as non-vk bands because of their eventual change in visual style. I find this idea preposterous, because all of these bands have obviously (to me, at least) not only been visual bands in the past, but also influenced later bands. Sex Machineguns is no exception.

• Heavy metal can be visual kei. Visual kei is a visual term, and Sex Machineguns have had the looks. The genre of music is inconsequential.

• They have heavy ties to the visual scene Sex Machineguns not only have used a visual image, but also participated in many, many visual event lives. Whether people like it or not, whey were definitely part of the scene.

Do you know what I call bands who dressed visual, called themselves visual, and participated at visual events? Visual kei.

(Sorry about this - I don't mean to be inflammatory or condescending, I just have a strong opinion about this.. :P )

Totally agree.

And also, X played speed metal and are one of visual kei progenitors. DEAD END played heavy metal too. Gargoyle played thrash, DEATHGAZE played nu metal, every band HIZAKI forms is in debt to power metal, THE PIASS is sometimes as noisier as a grindcore band... All visual kei bands, much like SEX MACHINEGUNS.

They had the looks from their early days, the band was founded in 1989, up until HEAVY METAL THUNDER, released in 2005. And sort of came back to dresssing the part again after. So it was not "just a short area".

Anchang said it himself, they were a visual kei band.

Very well, I'll eagerly await the following discussion. Thank you.