Japan seems to be cracking down hard on all things American. First it wanted to arrest the cheerleader from Heroes, and now it's banned the thing that America holds most dear – rubbishy old-man hard rock groups.
Or, to be more specific, one rubbishy old-man hard rock group – Velvet Revolver. According to a posting on the Velvet Revolver website, the band have had to cancel their imminent tour of Japan because immigration officials wouldn't let them have visas. Apparently the ruling may have to do with the drug-heavy background of some of Velvet Revolver, although chances are that the band's ban might be in some way be involved with the Japanese government's new legislation outlawing whiny skinny idiots who dress up as scruffy Nazis for a living. And awful 1980s widdly-woo rock music. And top hats. So, in that respect, it's been a perfect storm for Velvet Revolver.
In the coming years, Japan's falling birthrate will ensure that it will become a country entirely comprised of dribbling old people. And, even then, we suspect that the Japanese still won't be old enough to enjoy Velvet Revolver's music.
Oh, you know who Velvet Revolver are – they're the band that's taken the worst parts of Guns 'N Roses' sound, the worst parts of Stone Temple Pilots' sound and mixed them together until something inexplicably worse than both appeared. You know, the band who were so bad during Live 8 that even Jonathan Ross took the piss, even though they were sharing a line-up with The Stereophonics. The Stereophonics!
With the exception of the time that Scott Weiland’s wife set fire to all his clothes, we haven't paid much attention to Velvet Revolver in the past, partly because the only people who like them are the fat kids from school who live with their nans, wear Megadeath T-shirts on non-uniform days and have managed to develop both BO and a bumfluff moustache one full year before anyone else.
But this time is different, because this time an entire country has banned Velvet Revolver. And that country, if you haven't worked it out, is Japan. Velvet Revolver were due to go on a four-day tour of Japan starting next week to promote their current album Libertad, but Japanese officials have decided to deny the lot of them visas, prompting this explanation on the Velvet Revolver website:
The increasingly tough Japanese immigration officials are taking exception with the backgrounds of various band members, which have included arrests. The band is appealing the decision of the officials — which is ironic given that Libertad is Spanish for "liberty" and "freedom" — but this process will unfortunately take months to sort out. "We want to apologize to our fans in Japan that we won't be able to perform our scheduled concerts," Velvet Revolver said in a group statement. "We don't understand why the authorities won't give us visas when they granted them for us in 2005 for what was a successful tour and a great experience. We love Japan and look forward to our return there."
Yeah, how ironic – even though their album means 'freedom', Velvet Revolver totally aren't, like, free at all, man. And it's a shame, too – if only the Japanese immigration officers spoke Spanish, they'd realise that Velvet Revolver were actually free all along and they'd have no choice but to allow the band to breeze right through customs, even though one of them went to jail for a year over heroin possession charges. It's a shame because, had this act of unflappable logic worked, Rose West was planning to record an album called I'm Free Too! that would have forced prison guards to see their mistake and let her out through the front door as well.
But all joking aside, if Velvet Revolver use the free time they've gained from the ban to tour Britain, we're going to see it as a direct act of aggression from the Japanese, and appropriate retaliatory measures will be taken. And just to prove how serious we are, we've dispatched Kate Nash to take up a holding pattern at the Japan Airlines check-in counter at Heathrow until this crisis blows over.
OMFS says
You people are SO…
FREAKING…
FUNNY.
You need to be investigated. whew. Omfs. ‘I’m free, too!”