Hi fellow YUI-Lovers!
I’ve decided to start a new monthly digest here for updates from Honey Bee Management. Most of you should already know what Honey Bee Management is, the people inside, and their role in YUI’s career, but for those who don’t, here’s a short introduction to kickstart this new series!
If you think this is going to be a bore and you don’t care, I think it’s going to be a pity because Honey Bee is pretty much responsible for all the YUI music that goes into your ears, maybe even more so than YUI herself sometimes. YUI writes her songs and sings them, but without the backing of e.u.Band and other supporting musicians, producers, engineers and staff of Honey Bee, her music could probably still be street music. So, spend some time to get to know the people behind the awesome music you love!
Contents
1. Introduction
2. Honey Bee Meeting 3
3. Chelsy 2nd Live @ Shimokitazawa MOSAiC
4. Honey Bee Bicycle Club
5. Upcoming Events in May
6. How you can get involved
Honey Bee Management (a.k.a. Honeybee Studios or Mitsubachi) is the direct managing and recording company for YUI. YUI does all her recording and music production with them, but promotions and events wise she is managed by Stardust Promotion, and all of these companies are under the Sony Music Japan umbrella.
Honey Bee Management was founded by Hisashi Kondo (You will see his name a lot in the credits for YUI’s CDs, he is the main producer for almost all her recent music and has played a vital role in YUI’s career ever since she debuted) and Takeshi Kaneko (The acting boss of Honey Bee Management).
They manage all of the e.u.Band members (Backy, MaiMai, ARISA, Sakura, kuro, and Chris) who provide the instrumentals for almost all of YUI’s music since post-hiatus, and also play in YUI’s Live Tours.
They have recently added a new female guitarist, RISA to their pool of musicians, a new vocalist MOSS GREEN, as well as a new all girls band Chelsy (previously known as MIO Band) which features ARISA of e.u.Band.
Honey Bee started a series of events called the Mitsubachi Kaigi or Honey Bee Meetings, and made an open invitation for fans to go to Sony Music Ichigaya for a meeting with the staff and members of Honey Bee Studios to discuss how to better improve and promote their artists. The first Honey Bee meeting in January this year gave birth to MIO Band, now known as Chelsy, and the fans helped decide the direction the band was to take and how their first live performance should be like (down to the way they dressed!)
The third Honey Bee Meeting happened on 21st April last month, and YUI-Lovers was represented by 3 members, Jun, Takachan and myself (cyclo). Note that YUI-Lovers has already established itself as a reputable and recognised (and largest) international YUI fan community in the eyes of Honey Bee Management! During the meeting, we were split into teams led by e.u.Band members Sakura, Backy, MaiMai, and the boss Takeshi Kaneko (from now on known as Top, that’s what they call him xD) to brainstorm how to further promote Chelsy.
At the end of the meeting, one simple request was made by Chelsy; they had already heard our suggestion (yes, our suggestion, by YUI-Lovers) to be more open with their music and promote it online via YouTube, but the view counts were not showing that the promotion was successful.
They set a target of 20,000 views before the next meeting on May 26th. Let’s show them that sharing music on YouTube is a good thing as more people get to know about them, and hopefully the success of Chelsy’s online campaign will lead to Honey Bee Management to reconsider their strategy with promoting YUI’s music. Help watch and share this video!
Do also check out their International Fan Page here if you like them: https://www.facebook.com/mioband.international
(it is run by Jun and myself, and also recognised directly by Honey Bee, Top is one of the people who liked it!)
This is probably the first time that Honey Bee Management is attempting to make a track they produced completely free and available on the internet. Please don’t let it go to waste!
If you want to read and know more about what happened at Mitsubachi Kaigi 3, you can read Takachan’s report in the forum here:
http://forum.yui-lover.com/topic/6695866/1/
Mitsubachi Kaigi 2 report by cyclo here:
http://forum.yui-lover.com/topic/6693239/1/
Chelsy 2nd Live @ Shimokitazawa MOSAiC
Chelsy successfully performed their 2nd Live at a small live house Shimokitazawa MOSAiC (YUI goes there often!)
The set list:
1. All My Love (original)
2. Sixteen Age (original, youtube PV here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzZa6_YUeg8)
3. JAM
4. Happy Birthday to you you
5. ????(Rocket)(new original)
Get a package with videos, photos, and some recording to have feel of the atmosphere and their performance here: http://ge.tt/5rKduvG/v/0
Read more about the event here in takachan’s report: http://forum.yui-lover.com/topic/6696274/1/
Yet another new initiative by Honey Bee Management to engage fans, Honey Bee Bicycle Club took place on a public holiday in Japan on the 4th of May, where fans cycled alongside Backy and Top for over 40km, braving the rain, cold, and a punctured tire, while receiving support from Sakura, ARISA, and Shizuka! Once again we are represented by cyclo, Jun and takachan, here’s a short video to show the atmosphere and events of that day:
Read more about the day in takachan’s report: http://forum.yui-lover.com/topic/6696903/1/
25th May – Sakura solo Live
26th May – Mitsubachi Kaigi 4
Don’t worry, we haven’t forgotten about the YUI-Lovers from all over the world who brought this community to where it is today. With YUI-Lovers interacting directly with Honey Bee Management and musicians, this is your best chance to speak your mind and send messages, because the chances of you being heard now is astronomically higher than before.
I have started a new thread in the forum for messages to any e.u.Band member, Honey Bee staff, or Chelsy (unfortunately MOSS GREEN is in Sapporo so we probably won’t get to meet her). Drop a message addressed to the person you want, and if you need translation help, we are happy to do that for you too. We aim to collect enough messages each month to convince Top that we can allocated a few minutes at each month’s meeting specially for messages from International fans. However, as the meetings are meant for improving things over at Honey Bee Management, we will only recommend messages that we feel are well crafted and relevant to the discussions.
Personal messages are fine too but no guarantees they will be delivered. We sometimes get the chance to speak directly with the e.u.Band
members and if the situation allows we might be able to deliver your messages to them directly.
Post your messages here: http://forum.yui-lover.com/topic/6697100/1/
If you are making a trip to Tokyo anytime soon, feel free to contact Jun or cyclo, and we will advise you on upcoming events you might be able to catch and arrange for your registrations or tickets.
cyclo – twitter: @_cyclo facebook: http://facebook.com/linuslimyang
Jun – twitter: @_JunAndo facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jtrax13
Have a great week ahead!
cyclo
