It featured 0:58 minutes of Back-on goodness (splashing water, an hour-glass and slow-motion have never seemed so magical!) but ended so abruptly that the rabid dedicated fans were left wanting more. Our prayers were clearly heard by someone, and who else but the one-and-only gangangan03!

He has uploaded the full Sands of Time PV on to Youtube (thank you!!) and you can watch all 3:21 minutes of it at the link below! (or below the ‘cut’)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYhkmXIRx7o

UPDATE 05/01/09 – We have just updated the link to the fansubbed HQ version of the PV as sadly gangangan03‘s video is no longer available. The new video is courtesy of Vanalovas and is subbed by Order of Zeronos.

If you fancy just looking at the screenshots instead, we’ve taken just over 100 stills from the mp4 version of the file. They are now all hosted on our brand new Flickr account! We’ve included some of the pictures below for your convenience, but it’s best to experience the entire ‘PV’ by viewing them all in one go (at the size ‘small’ for optimal quality)

What do you think of the PV? I personally think it’s one of the best the band have done so far, and it’s very arty in some parts! :) I do love everyone’s outfits (although I wish Icchan had a more ‘complete’ look!) and can’t wait to see some official photos!

UPDATE: With thanks to gangangan03, it turns out that the director of this spectacular PV is none other than Hideaki Sunaga, who also directed the PV for Chain, and has worked with artists such as Dragon Ash, Ayumi Hamasaki and Koda Kumi!

Only 10 more days until the big day of the single release! ^^

BACK-ON – Sands of Time PV (uploaded by gangangan03 & Vanalovas)

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It’s official! :D We are now a proud one year old website baby who has started walking on its own two feet! As mentioned in our previous post about our birthday celebrations, we will be spending the next few days:

• showcasing a series of special fan submissions (Thank you everyone!)
• bringing you unique multimedia never seen on this site (or anywhere else?) before
• giving you a potted history about the site
• posting more sites updates
• launching a brand new layout on the Forums (and later on the whole site)!

And well, before I started drafting this entire series, I was full of ideas about what I was going to write, but writer’s block decided to rear its dreaded head, and now I’m feeling a little stuck (especially with the server downtime less than an hour ago which decided to eat up my first draft!) so I’ll pause here and say: watch this space please!

Don’t forget you can always subscribe to our email newsletter, that sends you an email everytime there is a new post on the site. And as this is the birthday of our very special Forums, feel free to mosey over there for even more up-to-date posts!

p/s: And we’ve already launched the brand new forum theme with it’s brand new header by Sesshy! Take a look on the right! :D

The aim for us this year? For BOO to become better! :) We definitely have something to look forward to, as BOO will be celebrating its very first birthday very soon! It would be an understatement to say that it has been a brilliant time, where the definite highlight was the opening of the BOO Forums by Sowon in April 2007!

I’ve met some seriously amazing Back-on fans through there, and if you do have some time, I would really encourage you to pay a visit and have a look around! A big thanks must go to the members for their great support, and if you did have any questions about the band (and band members) this is the place to ask as there are lots of experts! :)

Because the new year is a time of reflection:

Finally, a big thank you to everyone who has supported the site in some way or another, whether as a fantastic fellow admin (Sowon) or by providing site content (MJtheOne for the wallpapers, funbari for the lyrics, and guitar chords by Avalonstar12) including the images found in the Gallery (particularly ichiban) and also the special Back-on videos provided by gangangan03, blueblueblue and SoundEX amongst others. Of course the thank you must extend to the many people (who I’m sorry to have not mentioned here) who have made the site so much richer by posting comments and writing about their experiences both on the Forums and the main site. THANK YOU!

And before I forget: THANK YOU, BACK-ON, FOR BEING SO EXTRAORDINARY!

Happy new year everyone!

p/s: And for some really yummy news, rumour has it that Back-on will be releasing a brand new single on January 30th 2008. We don’t have much detail to go by at the moment, but will definitely keep you posted! If you would like to follow the latest developments, feel free to read the forum thread about the new release created by slipknot240.

If you want to listen to the song online, feel free to mosey over to our Music page and scroll down for the radio, as it is currently featuring songs from both new singles as well as Hero!

ROMAJI

kimi to deaeta no wa kitto guuzen janai
itsu no manika sonna fuu ni omoeteta
dokomade mo tsuduku bokura no tabiji
futo kidukeba saitetanda na
bokura no aida ichirin no hana

arigatoutte sunao ni ienakute
sonna jibun ga daikirai de
tatta hito koto nano ni kuchi ni dasezuni
mune no oku de deguchi wo sagashiteru

makimodosu CLOCK AND PLAYBACK EVERYDAY
daikirai datte saken de mitatte
kage oikakeru DAY BY DAY
ARE YOU READY? asokomade
kakekko bakka iji wo hatteta na
WE ALWAYS MADE SOME NOISE EVERYWHERE

sono toki jaanette kimi ga tsubuyaita
saigo no kotoba yake ni mijikakute setsunakute
tere warai uka be
muriyari dashita kotoba ganbatte
tanemaite mizu wo yatte
hikari daite sakaseta FLOWER sousa
eien ni kareru koto wa nai

nanimo kamo ga barabara ni natte
kowaresoude kiesoude
soredemo bokura sugoshita hibi wo shinjiteru
kawaranai mono zettai aru kara FLOWER

te no hira kara kobore ochita kimi no kakera wo
hiroi atsume tsunagi awase
marude JIGSAW-PUZZLE no you da ne YEAH

UH WE MAKE A HARMONY
JUST LIKE A FLOWER’S MELODY
oretachi no kagayaki marude DIAMOND RING
SO I WANNA SAY TO YOU

arigatoutte sunao ni ienakute
hontou wa kimi ga daisuki de
itsumademo kimi to boku no omoide wa
mune no oku de zutto kagayaiteru
arigatoutte sunao ni ienakute
hontou wa kimi ga daisuki de
doredake toki ga sugisatte mo
kawarazuni saki tsudukeru
zutto kono basho de FLOWER

It isn’t all singing and playing – Back-on eat snacks prepared (by a very lucky lady) and have a little fun as a group too, so it’s quite an interesting video to watch, especially if you’re enjoying the music as well!

You can watch the video by clicking on this direct link, or scrolling further to watch it directly on BOO! Why not let us know what you think too in the comments section? :)

Update 28/12/2007: Thanks to TELO for letting us know about the video going offline! We have now updated the link with the same PV that has kindly been uploaded by dualimaen.

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The featured song for Round 2 will be Chain, the OP from the anime Air Gear and everyone is invited to participate!

So how will it all work?

We want to hear your rendition of Chain, so feel free to sing over the song in the background or even ‘a cappella’ style without the accompanying music! :) The rules are very loose here, so please don’t be bogged down by restrictions.

In terms of recording your voice, it’s quite easy to buy a microphone that plugs into your computer and works straightaway. If that option isn’t available, there’s always the web-cam or even your mobile phone! (info and demonstration courtesy of Sowon!)

The competition will run for a month, and submissions will need to be made by August 9th on the Forums. Voting will then start from August 10th for one week until August 17th. You are welcome to make an audio or even a video file for your submission! For an example, check out TsUbAmE‘s rendition of ‘a day dreaming…‘ on Youtube!

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For those who want to start from scratch: the Chain (TV size) mp3 audio file can be found at Japtard.com (thanks Frox!), and you can find the lyrics for Chain (kanji, hiragana and romaji versions) on Back-on Online by clicking here.

Minna Gambatte! So far we are expecting entries from the great Sowon-nii himself, TsUbAmE, Souryoku, and also myself. So hope you will all participate too by sending in your submission and voting!

This is actually sort of in-conjunction with Sowon‘s Back-on Music Competition on the Forums, where each time, participants have to sing one particular song (TV size version) from Back-on‘s repetoire. (Please consider entering the competition, minna! :D) Usually, it does help to ‘record’ with the song in question playing in the background, which brings me to the main topic:

where can I find TV size mp3s of Back-on‘s songs?

It would probably be helpful to first provide a list of the songs, so without further ado in the order of Anime Title | Type | Song Title :

Aside from Chain, most of the mp3s are available for download somewhere on Back-on Online, and since this is a summary post, you can find the direct-links to the posts in question below:

• ヒカリサスホウ Hikari Sasuhou (FK Metal ver.)
• BLAZE LINE
• a day dreaming…

But where can you find Chain? This only happens to be one of the most popular Back-on songs ever. The answer is simple: visit Japtard.com. Or more specifically,

view the post Air Gear OST – What a Groovy Trick!

You can the entire OST available for download (at 320kbps) – either as a zip file, or individual mp3 files. Chain (TV Size) is the first song on the 34-track album. The download has kindly been provided by Frox, who has credited Nipponsei for the original release.

Hopefully this post will be helpful to those searching for ‘that’ opening/ending theme by Back-on. Almost every single one so far also has their corresponding lyrics posted on the site somewhere, so take a look at the Lyrics section if you’re interested, particularly if you’d like to participate in the competition!

All the media can be found on the Forums, including more PV screenshots that you can see above (again provided by Sowon!) The direct link to the thread is:

http://www.backon-online.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=165

The video is unlike any of Back-on‘s previous PVs (the list currently includes Chain, New World, Kodou, and Nuts Tribe) and features scenic views of (presumably) Houston (it was filmed before their performance at Anime Matsuri) with some great closeups of all the band members, particuarly Teeda and Kenji03, although Icchan does win his arm wrestling match against a local(?) on the hood of their white truck! (Lucky guy! He gets to feature in Back-on‘s PV!)

What do you think about the PV? :D

So imagine my surprise when Sowon posted a link to this Youtube video from gangangan03 on the Back-on Online Forums. The song, タネウマ (Taneuma) or ‘Studhorse’ by the Japanese hip-hop duo G・F・S guest features Back-on‘s Kenji03 and Teeda, where Kenji03 does a lot of solo rapping, as well as another big name in the hip-hop industry – Mr. Blistah, and a Japan-based , Seattle-born American rapper Michael Barron.

Like Back-on, Japanese hip-hop duo G・F・S also hail from Adachi in Tokyo and consist of “A”- Proud (pronounced Ace-proud) the MC and trackmaker, and Yoshi, the DJ. You can see their respective pictures below from their official website:

Now that you’ve seen “A”-Proud‘s picture and read that he’s from Adachi, does it ring a bell? I really hope it does, because:

“A”-Proud is none other than Kenji03′s older brother!

I just had to state that fact in a very obvious place! :D It’s a very exciting piece of news, because this is the older brother that introduced Macchin to Back-on in the first place to complete their first line-up, and the best part is, it is evident (once you watch the video below and listen to more of their music) that “A”-Proud himself is a talented artist! Do we need anymore factual proof that musical talent does run in the family ;)

Now that I’ve got you all hyped up… we can move on to the key feature of this post – the MV of タネウマ (Taneuma) which translates into English as Studhorse. You actually see each rapper wearing a derby horse’s mask and play with their horse puppets in the monochrome music video! It’s a whole lot of fun and I definitely rate it 10/10, especially as a summer ‘choon’ (it’s going into my iPod-equivalent!)

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The lyrics are a mix of English and Japanese (yey for hiphop rap!) and Kenji03 takes on a more active rapping role here (than perhaps in Back-on) So, for kenji03 lovers, this is a chance to see him do those crazy-as-but-oh-so cool rap gestures (which I *loved* by the way)!

Teeda fans won’t be disappointed either, as the main MC of Back-on does his trademark gestures and you even get to see him topless towards the second half of the music video. For proprietary’s sake, we’ll include a picture of him *with* his white shirt on.

If you’re wondering where you’ve seen Mr. Blistah‘s name before, aside from being a part of MIC BANDITZ (a pet project founded by m-flo‘s VERBAL) he is also one half of the duo Clench&Blistah. However, Mr. Blistah is probably most famous for being the rapper in Koda Kumi‘s song ‘Candy‘. You can see a screenshot of the MV below:

Google didn’t throw up that much information about Michael Barron (マシュー・バロン), but from this article about aspiring actors from Seattle by Dave Bockmann, he is described as a “jack-of-all-trades in the entertainment world” and is known to “appear as a DJ with popular Japanese “hip-hop” bands”. If you want to find a more complete profile about Matthew (in Japanese) you can visit the Jstarproduction website.

Last but not least, our focus briefly returns to G・F・S, who cite:

JURASSIC 5, RAKIM, Ugry Duckling, AIR, OASIS, Blur, Jay-Z, Nujabes, SHINGO2

as their musical influences. This information comes from their Myspace, where you can watch the タネウマ (Taneuma) MV and listen to a selection of tracks from their ＥＡＳＴ　Ｔ．Ｏ．Ｋ．Ｙ．Ｏ album, which was released on December 22nd 2005.

At this point, I would like to say a very very big thank you to gangangan03 for being so wonderfully patient and helpful with providing the facts for this post (and uploading the video, of course)! Thankfully his excellent English skills more than made up for my poor Japanese linguistic abilities, so kudos to gangangan03! Arigato Gozaimasu!

If you’re interested in viewing screenshots of the MV, you can visit our brand-new Gallery! It’s still a work-in-progress, so expect to see some changes over the next few weeks.

I shall be writing alot more about G・F・S in the forthcoming week, where the focus will be on their music, their current work as well as their upcoming schedule. Why? Because I actually do like their music!

Hope you’ve all be happy with the site content so far, including the recent release of A day dreaming… ( Eyeshield 21 ED Version) lyrics. Its far from complete and with this break, it means I can tackle more with renewed vigour.  No promises about content releases during this ‘hiatus’ but if I do finish what I’m trying to do now, you may get a surprise in 2 days. ^^ WordPress has a wonderful feature called Prospective Posting.

In the meantime, please let us know your thoughts on Back-on‘s latest song – do you like it?  It would also be great to have some feedback about the site as well because its only through comments that we can improve your experience as a user!

Finally – just because I’m away doesn’t mean that the Dedicated BACK-ON Forums won’t still buzz with activity! Sowon will be there to cover all bases so please do come along and join in the fun!