Leaving Normal: Chelsea

Another death in the family. Chelsea, long-time guitarist from Japanese legends PaintBox, who actually came into global punk rock prominence back in the 80s via another legendary band Death Side (or DeathSide or Dethside; depending on what cheap wine you’re on) was found dead last Friday.

I’m not too familiar with PaintBox but Death Side’s Wasted Dreams LP had me by the balls for months somewhere in the middle of last year. Death Side (along with Gudon) are basically originators of the little known Japanese punk sub-genre now known as “Burning Spirits Hardcore” – basically Japanese HC Punk of the most incendiary, maturing into an an amalgam of fiery guitar playing (influenced by the sound of early British New Wave of Heavy Metal, especially Motorhead & Maiden), blistering bright production values, a unique sand-papery take on the more stormy end of early 80s American HC and also a propensity towards epic melo-dramatic parts in its speeding bullet-train delivery. Yeah, a mouthful that! My current favourite for that sound is another Japanese band called Assault, do look out for them.

Anyway, lets get back to Chelsea. A post on the Profane Existence forum board says, “He had been complaining about not feeling well the day before he passed. My friend also said the older Japanese punk community is really in mourning as they’ve been hit really hard the past few months–first Kawakami and now Chelsea.”

Another post: “They determined that the cause of his death was a heat stroke. He had been severely dehydrated and drinking alcohol for weeks. His A/C in his home broke and his lifestyle and party habits caught up to him.”

here’s a tribute, “Drunk Too Much” from Death Side’s 1987 EP Satisfy The Instinct:

[audio:https://thericecookershop.com/mp3_wp_rc/deths_drink.mp3]

note: When Death Side split-up, three great bands rose out of the ashes. Chelsea with his PaintBox, Ishiya and You went on to form Forward while Muka formed Judgement. All three bands tear off the roof anytime I put them on!

thanks to GoatKore for the post. read the breaking news and comments @ profaneexistence.net