First of all, I should mention that I’m a fan of the American rock band KISS (have been since the late 1970s), and that’s why this interests me.
On the 1976 KISS album “Destroyer“, there’s a song titled “Detroit Rock City” (although the band hails from New York City, their first sold-out headlining show was in Detroit, Michigan…this song is a tribute (of sorts) to the city).
In 1999, KISS released a movie also titled “Detroit Rock City“. It starred Edward Furlong (best known for his part in Terminator 2). This movie is basically about the adventures of four teenagers trying to get tickets to a sold-out KISS concert in 1978.
(This was actually KISS’ second movie. In 1978, they released a not very good television movie titled “KISS Meets The Phantom Of The Park“. This movie was about the band battling a disgruntled amusement park employee who kidnaps people to create evil robots in their likeness. Seriously.)
So what does any of this have to do with a blog about Japan? (Besides KISS’s 歌舞伎 (Kabuki) style make-up and their use of Japanese written characters (especially 「力」 (Chikara = power))).
Well, a new Japanese movie is being released here about a timid teenager from the countryside in Japan who moves to Tokyo to become a pop-star, but ends up leading a heavy-metal band that wears 歌舞伎 (Kabuki) style make-up.
The title of the movie is 「デトロイト・メタル・シティ」 (“Detroit Metal City“).
(The writing on his forehead says 殺 (murder)).
Due to the make-up and the similarities in titles, of course I immediately thought it was KISS inspired.
But I didn’t know, until I saw on TV today, that Gene Simmons (KISS’ bass guitarist) was in the movie 「デトロイト・メタル・シティ」 (“Detroit Metal City“).
(Here’s Gene Simmons in KISS make-up)
(And here he is on the set of “Detroit Metal City” in Tokyo)
Here’s a video of Gene Simmons performing a song in the 「デトロイト・メタル・シティ」 (“Detroit Metal City“) movie:
Tokyo Five 
If you’re in Japan and you want to watch the “Detroit Metal City” movie (in Japanese), it’ll be on TV tomorrow evening.
(Saturday, 2010 January 23 at 9:00PM on Fuji TV).
I’m gonna watch it.
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I watched it today.
It was fun.
I might get the soundtrack.
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Detroit Rock City is an awesome movie… although i have not seen it in like 5 years…. and ill def have to check out the DMC movie
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Did you like the KISS movie “Detroit Rock City“?
It’s honestly just a so-so movie. I liked it…but I’m a fan of the band KISS.
And if you like the “Detroit Metal City” anime, then you should definitely watch the live-action film.
By the way, I notice that your avatar is “Luffy” from the Japanese anime “One Piece“…have you seen this post I wrote:
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I did not know Gene Simmons appeared in that movie. I saw it a couple of weeks ago, shame on me!
I love DMC anyway, the books are so funny! There is even a TV series (animation), I’ve not seen it yet. In France, the book n°5 has just been released. Hope it’ll last!!!
About that last comment, it is so full of mistakes, either it is someone from Belgium (ha ha lousy French humour) or someone trying to speak French. .. Either way you got the translation right.
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Maybe only a KISS fan, like myself, would notice that that’s Gene Simmons. 😉
And does that comment above in French have many mistakes?
How strange!
Must not have been a French person then who wrote it. But why then would they write in (bad) French (especially since I don’t understand French)?!?
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Il est trop trop trop HORRIBLE tous ceux qui aimes c’est qu’ils ont des mauvais goûts je ne vois pas ce que vous lui trouvait de beau.
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Sorry, I can’t understand French at all.
But I used an online translator to get the gist of your comment.
According to Yahoo!‘s translator, your comment means, in English:
I’ll assume “beautiful” isn’t the best equivalent to what you said. And I’ll also assume you’re referring to Gene Simmons where it says “It“.
So, if you’re saying that you can’t understand how anyone could like Gene Simmons (or do you mean the movie “Detroit Metal City“?), and anyone who does like him has bad taste…well, maybe so. There’s no accounting for taste. It’s all a matter of opinion.
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I changed the YouTube video in this post.
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Sir Pent….
I heard that KISS will record a new album of new material with Tommy and Eric this year.
(And if anyone wants to buy the soundtrack to the Japanese movie “Detroit Metal City” (the subject of this post)…I added an Amazon link to it on my main website:
http://www3.ocn.ne.jp/~tokyo5/books.html#cd )
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>KISS hasn’t released a new album is that it would just be “stolen” online.
But the real reason is probably that it likely wouldn’t sell so well. (Of course, us KISS fans would buy it! 🙂 )
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And that seems to irk Gene Simmons quite a bit. He claims the whole reason that KISS hasn’t released a new album is that it would just be “stolen” online.
It’s another thing I take issue with him on.
I think the fault lies mostly with the Record Companies. When the downloading revolution/frenzy was taking place, instead of doing ANYTHING…they did…nothing. Just sat around and complained that Napster was stealing everything. They had ample opportunity to build a business model that would have offered online service that people would buy. Nothing.
It took a COMPUTER COMPANY to develop a successful revenue stream for online music sales.
Now Gene says that’s bad because the people that manufacture, transport and sell CDs are going to be out of work. Well, I hate to tell him but that’s been the way of business since eli whitney invented the cotton gin. If the world followed Gene Simmons sterling view of the business and technology, we’d still be paying people to hand pick farm crops…otherwise those poor laborers would lose their jobs.
He just disagrees with THIS particular technological advancement because it directly impacts HIS pocketbook.
…and thus ends today’s rant on Gene Simmons. (I should flesh this out and make it another Gene Simmons blog post.)
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>Only with the internet could yahoos like us get this kind of exposure.
It seems that the internet is changing the music industry.
>And only on the internet could someone like me strike up a conversation with an American in Japan.
Yeah, it’s making the world smaller.
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