It is very true what they talk about MSBR's influence in Japanese scene being like glue. Locals told it was him, who managed to connect everybody together. New, old, different styles of noise. When MSBR was alive, euro PE/heavy electronics names frequented in Japan and pulled pretty damn good crowds. That era seemed to end when he died. I did play bunch of times after the first visit where got to see Koji Tano and visit his home, store, etc. Magazine did one number after he died. Store and labels ended. Gigs did keep happen, but I was told that people were more in their own circles rather than able (or having contacts) to get everybody there. I suppose anyone doing gigs may know that there can be massive potential even locally. Like I could probably mention 30-50 people in Lahti who COULD theoretically be into coming to noise show. It would need to send them direct invitation since might not be actively following "scene".
We had been in touch since c. mid 90's when MSBR guest book was one of the first places in the internet where people without home page could leave messages. You would find people like Ames Sanglantes, Prurient, etc. Grunt too. You'd just type in short message, contact address and post it and people would read the entries of guest book and send email or snail mail. This was mentioned in Fernow's Noisextra interview.
In late 90's MSBR was distributing GRUNT vhs and Freak Animal VHS live comp. He could get NTSC VHS made. In trade, he sent me PAL VHS masters of Noise Progressions 1 & 2 VHS. I didn't make many copies of those releases. I might even still have the covers for them, hah... but ain't dubbing VHS copies. Whole series of 1-6 is pretty rare. Seems like about dozen people at discogs has them, indicating not many copies circulating anymore. If someone has Freak Animal Festival VHS on NTSC format, its made by MSBR and already copy of a copy (of copy?)... Original master super-VHS exists, but I don't have super vhs player anymore.
