Guitar Wolf Bassist Dead at 38

[Mulboyne]

[Mulboyne]

Pictures from March 25th gig in Atlanta on
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30459124@N00/sets/200313/

[djgizmoe]

RIP BILLY. Here's a link to my Guitar Wolf gallery; you may need to join my Yahoo! Nippon Underground group to see it.
[url]http://photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/nipponunderground/lst?.dir=/Guitar+Wolf+(Shelter+123000)&.src=gr&.order=&.view=t&.done=
http%3a//photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/nipponunderground/lst%3f%26.dir=/%26.src=gr%26.view=t[/url]

At least I have my pics, their CDs and my "Wild Zero" DVD to remember them by...

[AssKissinger]

RIP BILLY. Here's a link to my Guitar Wolf gallery]http://photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/nipponunderground/lst?.dir=/Guitar+Wolf+(Shelter+123000)&.src=gr&.order=&.view=t&.done=
http%3a//photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/nipponunderground/lst%3f%26.dir=/%26.src=gr%26.view=t[/url]

At least I have my pics, their CDs and my "Wild Zero" DVD to remember them by...

You know, I joined your group before FG. That's back in the day.


Guitar Wolf. What can I say? A very solid rock'n'roll band that I have respected for a long time. Sad news. R.I.P.

[Big Booger]

Is this drug related? The only reason I ask is 38 is quite young to be having a heart attack.

[kotatsuneko]

indeed a major shame. GW kicked ass, and their videos made interesting viewing. I hope his deal was good enough to make sure his family are properly looked after.

[Red Floyd]

Is this guy like the Japanese equivalent of Dee Dee Ramone?

[AssKissinger]

Is this guy like the Japanese equivalent of Dee Dee Ramone?

I don't know enough about his role in Guitar Wolf to say whether or not he contributed as much to GW as Dee Dee did to the Ramones. But if you're asking if Guitar Wolf is a Japanese equivalent to the Ramones I'm just going to come right and say flatly, 'No'. Guitar Wolf is a pioneering band in the sense that they are leaders in a new wave of Japanese garage punk. But both bands have international appeal so they can really only be compared globally. Even more so since it's a pretty fair bet that the majority of GW fans are not Japanese. Not to take anything away from GW because they are a damn fine rock'n'roll band with a firm place in r'n'r history but compared to the Ramones they're miniscule. The Ramones completely overhauled and reinvented rock'n'roll and Dee Dee came up with some of the greatest hooks of all time.

[mr. sparkle]

He was the only one in the band that could actually PLAY his instrument.

[Ol Dirty Gaijin]

Damn.

Was playing Rock 'n' Roll Etiquette last night to a friend in the bar.

RIP

[Thanatos' embalmed botfly]

a fuckin heart attack at 38?

very sobering... to us left behind living half the life that guy must've (hopefully) lived. "Life is but a flash, a thought, we're all part of it as the day rolls on..." as the Bad Religion guy said.


"I dont wanna live..
..to be 34..."

Not much consolation to his mum, this. Mum, if yer reading this, you may not know, but your son is a slight legend. He'll be going down to a better Treehouse to sit around with some suspect-looking guys called "Ramones." He might even sit on the stool marked "Angus" for awhile, and that's ok.

[Mulboyne]

Pitcforkmedia: Guitar Wolf Enlist New Bassist, Release Hits Comp
Not even the grim hand of the Reaper could halt the rockin' ragin' rampage of Guitar Wolf. The Japanese trio have been destroying the hearing of lowlifes all over the world since the mid-Eighties, with nary so much as a lineup change. But the party almost ended in March, with the sudden death of bass player Hideaki Sekiguchi (aka Billy Bass Wolf). "There was a big question" about whether the band would continue, Billy Nord of Narnack Records, Guitar Wolf's U.S. label, told Pitchfork. "Nobody knew. I don't even think (singer/guitarist) Seiji (aka Guitar Wolf) knew until he met UG and decided he met the criteria to step into Billy's shoes." Um, UG? Yes, UG would be Guitar Wolf's new low-end-axe man. "He's this 19-year-old hooligan who had never picked up a bass before he joined the band," said Nord. "He's going to add a whole new element to their sound. It's going to be a lot more raw."
...Nord added that the trio is "practicing as we speak" for a planned 2006 album and world tour. But first, a handful of Japanese shows:
12-02 Sapporo, Japan - Spiritual Lounge
12-04 Sakata, Japan - Music Factory
12-16 Tokyo, Japan - Unit
01-31 Tokyo, Japan - UFO Club at Shibuya-Ax
...Alas, Nord said the band's talks with the Cartoon Network about a proposed Guitar Wolf animated series have been put on indefinite hold. Guess our craving for a Guitar Wolf/Puffy AmiYumi crossover will have to find its outlet in Internet fan fiction.

[Mulboyne]

Pitcforkmedia: Guitar Wolf Enlist New Bassist, Release Hits Comp

Pitchfork Review: Guitar Wolf - "Golden Black"

Since their inception in the late-1980s, Guitar Wolf have blasted out a raunchy, raucous version of the American rock'n'roll of the 1950s. Following in the footsteps of the Ramones, the band injects punk attitude into its stripped-down rock and notoriously over-the-top live performances. All of that is represented on 26-track, fan-selected, best-of Golden Black...more...

[Captain Japan]

Is this drug related? The only reason I ask is 38 is quite young to be having a heart attack.

This one's for Billy
Japan Times

"Rock 'n' roll is scary. Rock 'n' roll can make a person die. Rock 'n' roll may kill," says Seiji, aka Guitar Wolf, last Sunday. And he knows all about that.

The last time I interviewed Guitar Wolf for this newspaper, in September 2004, I kicked off with this: "The worst [read best] rock 'n' roll animals never grow up. They act like idiots and we let them get away with it because they make great music. In rock 'n' roll it's always better to burn out than fade away into "maturity" -- i.e. making tame and crappy music. But some of these animals seem indestructible. Think Iggy Pop, Keith Richards and the rockers I'm meeting today, Japan's toughest and most hardcore hoodlum band -- Guitar Wolf."

Better to burn out than fade away. Indestructible. Those words often return to haunt me. Six months after penning that story, Guitar Wolf's bassist Billy, a good friend of mine, was dead. He upped the rock 'n' roll ante a little too high and aged 38 his body packed in.

Guitar Wolf's new album, their first without Billy and with new bassist UG, is called "Dead Rock." It's their eighth studio album, and it sounds just like you'd expect a Guitar Wolf album to sound -- clashing power chords and manic riffing with Seiji screaming over the top and Toru's solid drumming holding it all together. It's not their best album (that'll be "Planet of the Wolves" or "Jet Generation"), but it's not their worst. The most important thing about it is that it's Billy's album, even though he's not playing on it. "Dead Rock" is an exercise in rock 'n' roll exorcism.

Billy was the life and soul of every party -- a mad guy, but a cool guy, and it was always fun to hang out with him. In the old days, whenever I met Guitar Wolf, and especially with Billy, we'd be rolling around the floor mock fighting, puking up in bathrooms, drinking the beer machine in their office dry, talking dirty.

These days things have changed in the Guitar Wolf camp. The music is as hard as ever, the shows are arguably as exciting as ever, but on a personal level after Billy's demise they have sobered up....more...

I think it's pretty irresponsible to chalk up his death to "rock n' roll." Either say it was dope (I kind of doubt he had a heart attack as a result of drinking a beer machine dry) or tell us what really happened. But cut with the cliched bullshit glorifying the rocker lifestyle.