First of all, I've been a fan of zip.er since mid-2008 [and lived in Japan from May 2008-October 2009], so from that on it'll be with own experience ^__^
Does everyone know what a so-called
session band is?
It literally is a band, but one with exchangeable members. That means, musicians from different bands, with or without experience, come together and form a band for a certain period of time; the record labels mostly decide who goes with who in a session band.
zip.er started out as one as well.
In October 2007, 4 out of 5 later zip.er- members [towa, Sakura, Kento and Haruhi] formed a session band and started performing. zip.er as we know it started on January 11th 2008 at Loopash Records, still without a fixed drummer, always got support from someone.
Every member has been in at least one band before, so it wasn't a new experience for them although none of the former bands were really famous and we've often got no single CD.
On their first official live [as zip.er], they started to sell their first demo CD
Cinderella for a price of 500 JPY each. This live was a so-called event. It's kind of a festival, where many bands play after each other and the newest or most unknown bands often get to be te first ones or a guest place at the very beginning. zip.er wasn't an exception. So they continued playing on events and eventually got more and more possibilities to perform. Since they used to be a Loopash Records band, they mostly played with Loopash bands in their first year, such as v(neu) [still with NoNo] or ALiBi.
I became fan on July 5th 2008, an event where v(neu) told about their upcoming break.
At that time they maybe had 10,20 fans, at most.
Unknown and relatively unknnown bands in Japan distribute their flyers on their own, so you could often see them handing out flyers anywhere in Tokyo, but mosty Harajuku and Shibuya, since most of the live houses are around there.
End of August 2008 they released their first maxi single
Tokyo [Z] Park and Kaji, who was previously just their support drums, got a 'real' member, followed by an instore event at Like an Edison Harajuku branch. And slowly they ot more fans as well as their first oneman on November 1st at Ikebukuro Cyber.
In December, they got the possibility to play in Niigata for the birthday of some band and on Christmas Eve their 2nd single,
World [Z] Park, was released. Furthermore they played on two different events on New Year's Eve, one at Sunphoenix Hall Yokohama and one in the Takadanobaba Area in Tokyo.
2009 started out with another bunch of instore events, this time quite a few more than last time, and many events to play on in January. Valentine's Day and White day (Feb./March 14th) marked their 2nd and 3rd oneman, but Valentine's one, called Pinky Pop Park, started to be the last month for Haruhi, since he announced he'll be leaving after their next oneman on March 14th [Whitey Wonder World named]. As a special Valentine's gift for their fans, they had a secret handshake before their live and a special party for special fans a day later.
After some events and Haruhi's last live, zip.er continued to play with 4 people.
Their new guitarist Yua was announced in May 2009 with a comic picture on the homepage and on May 30th, in the Sunphoenix Hall of Yokohama, he got to do his first live. Eventually, the fans gave him a warm welcome and he had no problems. In summer, they went on the Loopash birthday tour, together with the newly formed v-neu-,ALiBi and -OZ-. Followed by some events, they had a two-months-release at the end of summer, which means one CD end of August and another one a month later (
Shukuai Reversible and
Glitter Days. Last one eventually landed on place 7 of Oricon Indies!!). And again they gave instore events and played at CC Lemon Hall for the first time, as part of a special event.
Finally, December 2009, they were able to release their first album
MiLKing and got to play on both New Year's Eve lives again.
This year started with their 2 years special oneman in Shibuya O-West [which is to be found partly on the
Loop of Life X DVD], the release of teir first PV
VOICE, instore events and many events they played on. On March 31st, towa's birthday, they had another special oneman at Ikebukuro Black Hole [also to be found partly on that
DVD]. In April, they released their single
dream catcher, which landed on place 5 of Oricon Indie Charts immediately.
They should have been on the 10 years birthday tour of Loopash an many other events after June 30th, but because of sudden happenings they weren't able to and their blogs and the OHP got deleted all out of sudden.
towa and Kaji are having blogs again and say that the others are alright, so let's hope they will be playing together again^__^!
