Who is NEVER MIND anyway?

Terry

Takkun

Tony

Jido

Boubou

NEVER MIND is the band GLAY under a different name, with the members playing different roles. When GLAY do secret lives, they play as NEVER MIND. The members of NEVER MIND are:
• Vocals: Tony (HISASHI)
• Guitar: Terry (TERU)
• Guitar: Jido (JIRO)
• Keyboards: Takkun (TAKURO)
• Bass: Toshi Boubou (Toshi Nagai)
However, they switched back to their roles in GLAY when they recorded their second demo tape, "I love N.M" (I love NEVER MIND). But the pictures which coincided with the members' identifications showed each member's real position in NEVER MIND (see pictures above) which is the same as the roles mentioned above, with the exception of Takkun. In the pictures, Takkun clearly plays the drums, not the keyboards. Maybe he started out playing the keys, but now he plays the drums.

NEVER MIND's first demo tape, "Ai love Nyuu Yoku" (a pun for "I love New York"), was distributed freely to the first 30 anonymous people who attended their secret live at Sendai Macana on 15 September, 1998. I am not certain about how many lives NEVER MIND has played altogether. It is believed that their first gig was on September 26, 1997, at Umeda HEAT BEAT, during the last stage of GLAY's ~HIT THE WORLD September~ (Arena) Tour. Although the image of NEVER MIND was certainly spawned from GLAY's late '97 concert activities, I am not really sure if the 1997 secret live at Umeda HEAT BEAT was their first concert because NEVER MIND said that they were established in 1998. On April 6, 1999, NEVER MIND had another secret live at Hakodate Delight.

"I love N.M" was released on 26 May, 2000 (Takuro's 29th birthday!), but only 30 000 limited copies were sold. Since I was lucky enough to get an original copy, I have translated the little bit of information that NEVER MIND presents about themselves in that tape:

We established our band in 1998. Our members haven't changed. The regular members are about 10 people. It's like the early style of "Gyoza Daioh" ("great king of fried dumpling"). This recording consists of 5 select members. It's a kitsch and violent type of rock which came directly from 5 songwriters instantaneously and powerfully. NEVER MIND have only had a few guerilla lives because they refuse to have an ordinary concert. We try to keep our freestyle of music. We released demo tapes which were free and only a few times. Some of them are hard to possess now. This tape ("I love N.M") is an analogous recording cassette tape due to our strong will. This was recorded in Hawaii, partly for business and partly for pleasure. The members enjoyed recording and spending time in Hawaii (on the beach). We don't know what we will do next. Guitarist "buta gorilla" said, "People who watch our guerilla lives are very lucky."

The only problem I have with "I love N.M" is that it is neither GLAY nor NEVER MIND. It is a GLAY VERSION of a NEVER MIND album. I can't really say that it's NEVER MIND because NEVER MIND are NOT supposed to sound like that (HISASHI doesn't sing like TERU and TERU doesn't play the guitar like HISASHI). But I can't really say that it's GLAY either because those songs were written for (and should be played by) NEVER MIND, not GLAY. So I conclude that neither band was really justified in this album. The music is pretty good but I wish that GLAY had released the album and played those songs as GLAY, not as NEVER MIND. The same way I don't feel that the real NEVER MIND was revealed in this album. One would have to attend one of NEVER MIND's secret guerilla lives to see the real NEVER MIND.

GLAY Discography · NEVER MIND Discography

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