Dear ( insert his musical hero )
【 D E D I C A T E D T O @recusanse】
dear inspiration, this letter is not addressed to sid vicious, the one who introduced me to the relevance and the significance of bass and the rhythm to a song, nor is it directed to james dean, whose iconic image was transcending and reached me with encouraging words to pursue a dream i did not know i had until the first time the roughness of my fingertips meet the sharpened ivoried edges of my first script. this letter is not about david bowie, jimi hendrix, kurt cobain, john lennon or any other rockstar who has admittedly influenced myself and my band, in a personal or musical level, because although their geniuses is regarded in the highest level by my person and much admired, i feel like this is the right moment to address my very own musical hero, who was able to encourage me to write my first song even many years after his passing.
it was in the every depth of a japanese record store that i’ve first became part of the web he sewed, unfortunately, years too late to be able to experience the adrenaline flowing through my bloodstream, the excitement it would generate with every loud jump of my then hopeful and lost heart in the midst of a live concert, like the one presented to my ears through the heavy headphones around my ear as i listened to the first song of an album entitled “psyence”.
the song was called ‘erase’ and the lyrics were aggressively relatable, and perhaps, a bit too emotionally draining and empowering for a thirteen-year-old to fully understand, but it was enough to cause me comfort. it was then that i first experience the joys of a kind of sympathy and empathy that can only be found in the harmony of a voice and a melody – the one wherein your oxygen leaves the entirety of your lungs in the heaviest of the sighs, first because of surprise and then, astonishment of finally being understood, and your ribs become cages because your heart is encouraged to make itself present; wild and free, widely recognizing the comfort in the warmth of a stranger’s voice.
【 i’m neither happy nor sad, there is just not a story to tell. who are you? where am i? tomorrow was yesterday, then who am i? aren’t the sights pretty in the rush of vibrant memories? “you reap what you sow, but what a shame! you’re still so young.”】
by the time the album reached its eight song, i proudly admit that i’ve felt salty drops grace the warmth of my skin for the first time in years, that moment would be always imprinted into both my heart and my memories, for it was solely the first time i’ve allowed myself to express much more than just raw and untamed rage. it’s ironically how it was in the corner of an unfamiliar place with the comfort provided by a stranger’s voice that i’ve felt like i finally belonged to a place. it was through his words; the bittersweet melancholy and the unwinding need of freedom that i felt more comforted, more in touch with my own self. i refer to that period as the first soul searching moment i have ever had and the enlightenment that led me to who i am today, it is with conviction that i asseverate today that i would have never been myself if i had not come in contact with his music then. because it was this very one bridge that encouraged me to pursue music as a goal and it still reminds me to this day of the reasons behind my choice of the path i follow:
【 please, songs, tell them my truth. and i will keep playing you. wherever i goand even if i find myself somewhere lost and aloneif i sing you, i will be able to walk on with ginger steps. goodbye 】
and now, nineteen years after your death, i promise you to attempt my absolute hardest to keep your memory alive – i promise to carry on your word and your music to the younger generation worldwide who is in need of understating and the knowledge that in between your web there will always be a place to belong, and that there are a million of people that understand them and that can also relate to your words. i promise you that i will help, not only your band members, but every other band that admires your work to this day, to make you immortal in the only way it would be acceptable to you. in the hearts and in the souls of the misfits, underdogs and the youth beyond the threshold of time and its limitations and i want to carry your will to make the eastern rock spread widely across all seven seas. we are all x.this letter is addressed to a music hero who left this world too soon, and regardless of the mystery and the controversies that still surround his name, is still the one person that made me aware of the fact that rock and roll and all its subgenres shouldn’t be confined to the western hemisphere, that music is transcending and there are no barriers that could fence in a lion heart and a wild soul. this letter is for hideto matsumoto, better known as hide, the lead guitarist of x-japan, the representation against the rebellion of the youth towards the conformism in japanese society and whose death marked the end of an entire era.love, wu daeryong.