The band that will “headline” this post is called Despairs Ray. They play something called j-rock (j-metal sometimes) and belong to the visual key movement. J-rock is generally based on European music like nu metal, industrial and punk but with incredible J flavor. The result is a combination of vocals raging from harsh screams to melodic singing, no to melodic Japanese singing because this is what really differs from all the others, and highly energetic and melodic music.

Despairs Ray as for me are one of the best representatives of these music. They toured the world only twice and I managed to catch them live in 2006. They were just incredible; I came for like “watch the j-dudes for 5 minutes” and stayed for the whole show.

If you are interested you can easily get their albums “Coll Set” (2005) and “Mirror” (2007) on Amazon.

But this part won’t be about the history it will be about one of the most interesting thing that came out of it. A New Orleans Jazz Funeral! Even if you’ve never been to NOLA you can see one of that in James Bond “Live and Let Die”. An old tradition that was later almost banned by the catholic church and is practiced now only by black protestants.

The procession is divided into two parts. First part is walk to the funeral when the marching jazz band performs slow and tragic jazz part (mostly the gospel song “Just a Closer Walk with Thee”) like saying goodbye to the deceased. The Second Part or also called the Second Line is walking away from the graveyard. In the Second Line the melody is changed to hot jazz, symbolizing a joy of the fact that the deceased now joined “A Better Life”.

Actually this is one of the most interesting traditions that I ever encountered.