An Cafe : Biography

MEMBERS:

• Vocal : Miku
• Bass : kanon
• Drums : Teruki
• Guitar : Takuya
• Keyboard : Yu-ki

• Guitar : Bou [gone : 2007]

BIOGRAPHY

An Cafe was formed in May 2003, by the vocalist Miku, guitarist Bou and bassist kanon. Miku’s former band Revirii had disbanded two months earlier in April, and even though the band did not have a drummer at this point, the band started to perform at several events. By performing at these events next to other vague indie bands, An Cafe managed to gain a little publicity. The band released two demo-tapes; ‘Opu-ngu’ and ‘Uzumaki senshokutai/Hatsukoi’. Both were very limited and only sold at the early live shows.

Teruki was still with his former band Feathers-blue around this time, but he left them in August and he became a full member of An Cafe instead. An Cafe spent the remainder of the year giving performances at various events. Their cute image and upbeat songs soon garnered a small but very enthusiastic fanbase.

2003 seemed to be more of a ‘try-out’ year for the young members of An Cafe, but 2004 was really the start of their serious musical career. Through a record deal with Loop Ash (also the label of bands like Mask, and Scissor) the band released their first maxi-single, ‘Candy Holic’ in March. Within a week of its release the single was ranked as the second biggest seller on the Oricon indie charts. This was quite an amazing feat for a band’s debut single!

An Cafe‘s first one-man performance was in May at the Takadanobaba area, which was an important concert, just like it is for all bands. The concert entitled “Happy Birthday Tsuyu”,was a sell out event and the band distributed the single ‘Hatsukoi’ for free.

The following months were quite busy for An Cafe. They toured a lot, released the singles ‘√69’, ‘Cosmos’ and the live-only singles ‘Touhikairo’ and ‘Tourai – café-‘. In addition to those releases, the band were featured on no less than six omnibus albums. Shoxx magazine also released a DVD/VT special featuring the band.

In December, An Cafe closed their successful year by taking to the road for a short one-man tour which ended with performances at the Takadanobaba area and the Yokohama aka renga hall.

February 2005 saw An Cafe release their first mini-album; ‘Amedama rock’, which was a compilation of their previously released singles. The mini-album was shortly followed by the maxi-single ‘Karakuri hitei’ a month later.

In the summer of 2005 the band released a trilogy of one-track singles, ‘Tekesuta Kousen’, ‘Escapism’ and ‘Merrymaking’. They were released one at a time over a three month period. Fortunately for all the fans that wanted to listen to the songs but didn’t want to buy three separate singles with only one track on each, all the songs were also featured on their very first full length album, ‘Shikisai moment’ which was released in November 2005.

The new album showed a slightly new side of An Cafe. The songs still had the typical An Cafe sound, but it seemed they had matured a bit as the band experimented with new styles and instruments.

The successful album was followed by four new singles and another album in 2006 and the popularity of the band was only increasing.

In 2007, two important announcements were made: first of all, they would make an appearance on the American Anime Convention Akon, which made a lot of fans excited because for many of them, this would be a great chance to meet the members of their favorite band. Unfortunately, only a little later an announcement was made that guitarist Bou would leave the band, which saddened many fans. Bou's last performance with the band was on April 30th and its unsure whether the band will find a replacement and what his plans for the future are.

Though, we can be sure that such a successful band will continue to rock and we're sure that Bou will surprise us with his new musical activities in no time!

In mid-May 2007, An Cafe announced the new line-up for the band. Instead of simply replacing Bou's position with another guitarist, they added two new members: guitarist Takuya and keyboardist Yu-ki.