Daisuke Asakura

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Daisuke Asakura
Birth name 浅倉大介 Asakura Daisuke
Also known as DA, Dai-chan (大ちゃん), Scorpion
Born November 4, 1967 (1967-11-04) (age 40)
Origin Flag of Japan
Genre(s) J-pop, Synth-pop with elements of Spacesynth
Occupation(s) Keyboardist, Producer, songwriter, musician
Instrument(s) Synthesizer
Years active 1990–present
Label(s) Various
Associated acts access, Iceman, T.M. Revolution, TM Network
Notable instrument(s)
Keyboard, Synthesizer, Keytar, Piano

Daisuke Asakura (浅倉大介 Asakura Daisuke?, November 4, 1967, Asakusa, Japan -) is a male Japanese popular music artist.

His childhood consisted of piano lessons and the expectations to follow the family trade of plumbing.

Asakura began his career with landing a job at Yamaha right after High School. While under Yamaha, Asakura worked on the EOS synthesizer; he was also featured in the home-instructional video for the machine. His talent was discovered by Tetsuya Komuro of TM Network and Daisuke was pulled from Yamaha to work under Komuro as his protégé. Daisuke played Bass Synthesizer during TM Network's 1990-91 Rhythm Red tour. Then Asakura met Hiroyuki Takami in 1990 following Rhythm Red and eventually in 1992 broke away from TM Network and formed access (or AXS) with Takami on vocals and lyric. The duo received enormous acclaim and a firm influence in Japanese popular music. Notably, access is also famous for their on-and-off-stage fan service.

Takami and Asakura's early musical relationship was often a rocky one, however. Both men are reported by even newer fans to have been "at each other's throats" constantly in Access' later years until finally the duo disbanded in 1995, much to the dismay of their fans and supporters.

Despite this blow, the infamous break-up left Asakura to pursue new ideas that included producing and composing songs for new artists; one of the most successful acts he created was with J-pop idol Takanori Nishikawa under the title of T.M.Revolution. In mid-1996 Asakura started a three-man unit titled Iceman which brought Kenichi Ito(guitar) and Michihiro Kuroda(vocal) to the spotlight. Iceman, although not as popular as Asakura's previous project with Takami, was met with considerable acclaim from Asakura's loyal and growing fanbase. After several years Iceman ended activity due to conflict between Michihiro Kuroda and Asakura, however. During and after his years with Iceman Asakura built his wealth and reputation as a composer taking after his idol and teacher, Tetsuya Komuro. He produced singles and albums for many jpop vocalists who now reside in obscurity. Examples of Asakura's past projects includes vocalists such as Sakanoue Yosuke, Kinya Kotani, Daichi Kuroda, Akiko Hinagata, Yuki Kimura, FayRay, Takashi Fujii and groups such as, Onapetz, Pool Bit Boys, Lazy Knack and The Seeker. He also composed a few songs for visual kei J-rock band, Shazna. Most of the above listed, as well as a group of school boys under the name D.A.N.K., were included in a project called Cherry Garden which amounted to literally nothing in the end instrumented the demise of Asakura's musical 'Family'.

The year 2001 was a great year for Daisuke, however. He produced his first solo album in seven years as well as working with Iceman guitarist Kenichi Ito in Mad Soldiers; a sort of comedic spin-off from Iceman in which both men's 'sinister' alter egos 'Scorpion' [Asakura] and 'Snake' [Ito] produced music for Kotani Kinya and performed officially unrecorded cover versions of famous songs such as 'Lemon Tea' by Sheena and the Rockkets and 'Hungry Like the Wolf' by Duran Duran, one of Asakura's speculated favourite bands. Much to the joy of Asakura's older fans, in 2002 he reunited with Hiroyuki Takami and reformed access. With the reuniting of Daisuke's favoured vocalist, Takami, T.M.Revolution was dropped from Asakura's projects possibly due to Nishikawa's rude comments towards Daisuke's true intentions as a musician, claiming that he had a 'black stomach' [synonymous with 'black heart']. In recent years Nishikawa has reportedly made efforts to contact Asakura and send him flowers, but such efforts have been ignored.

Asakura also went off on a solo project in 2004 titled "Quantum Mechanics Rainbow". In which he released multipule CDs for a year, and each CD title name had to do with a color and math property.

Currently, Asakura focuses on his career as Keyboardist and support vocalist for access; now celebrating their 15th anniversary in the year 2007. In 2006–2007, Asakura produced two singles for new jpop idol Kimeru, hit the road with TM Network for 2007's TMN TRIBUTE tour and is now currently creating new songs for the popular dance-step game, Dance Dance Revolution's newest version.

In November 2007, access released a memory/ discography book, alongside much coveted access plushies, to commemorate their 15 years together(the 7 year intervel apparently didn't count to them). It is said to be a continuation of another discography/memory book they produced titled "Sync-Beat."


Contents

[edit] Private Life

Not much is known about Asakura due to his private and closed personality. Most, if not all, fans are curious as to what his sexual orientation is. The truth being, there is no answer. Asakura has chosen not to let minuscule details such as his sexuality be the standing point of his fame which means that such a detail can only be left to fan rumor. Others, however, see it as a clever business tactic to generate scandal. As such, Asakura's sexuality is indeed a proportional aspect to his fame, much to his dismay. To add, Asakura has never mentioned a relationship publicly other than a short courtship of the Gravure star, Akiko Hinagata, which is said to have ended on terms of false propensity. He is not, and never has been, married, has no children and lives alone. His only family being his work and his dogs, Einstein (more commonly known as 'Annie') and 'Alex' (Twin Golden Retrievers) and 'Jon', a Burmese Mountain puppy named after the composer Johann Sebastian Bach. Daisuke's dogs are very important to him and photo books, toys, badges and even videos online featuring them are available.

Asakura has a visibly strong relationship with a vocalist and fellow member of access, Hiroyuki Takami. The two often go on trips together and cross what are considered taboo personal space barriers by Japanese standards, such as an impromptu hug, sharing the same fork to eat a cake, and even sharing cups. According to Takami, Asakura is the most important person in his life.

Asakura also seems to have great friendships with his 'sensei', famous producer Tetsuya Komuro, Kaoru Abe; Drummer for TM Network and TMN Tribute, Hiroko Abe; Asakura’s manager/Exec producer/assistant, Tetsuya Kusanagi; guitarist for TM Network who has worked with DA several times, and Takehito Shimizu; guitarist for Asakura and access for the past ten years.

Daisuke has high interests in video games, rewiring keyboards and synthesizers as well as his avid love for anything Disney related. It's heard that his favourites from Disney are The Little Mermaid, the character 'Malificent' from Sleeping Beauty and Mickey Mouse in general. Asakura is often seen wearing t-shirts with Disney characters on them and even remixed his own version of the 'Mickey Mouse March'. Musical projects such as Takanori Nishikawa have joked about his Mickey Mouse obsession in the past. For example: on the music television show 'HEY! HEY! HEY!' Nishikawa joked about Asakura's penchant for Disney by saying that he moans 'Mickey!' while with his lovers. Asakura's pastimes often interrupt his work, however. Daisuke [solo] and access albums are usually delayed due to Daisuke and Hiro spending their recording time playing video games. Videos are even available online of the two playing games such as Wii sports. Daisuke also has a large interest in useless, luxurious gadgets and loves to talk about them. As Daisuke and Hiro can be seen playing with different toys each time on their Talk Abouts at castella. He is also a dedicated fan of Formula One Racing in which he posts on message boards and has indepth discussions by e-mail with fellow fans. Daisuke is also rumoured to be a regular poster on 2channel, the Japanese BBS/Imageboard forefather of America's 4chan (It's also rumoured that he posts under the names 'Imiko' and 'Chelsea'.)

In April 2008, he got a driver's license at the age of forty.

[edit] Trivia

 Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.
  • His real eye and hair color are black.
  • Asakura refers to his fans and j-pop artists he produced music for as his “family” (“DA family”).
  • His zodiac sign is Scorpio, which is the source of his pseudonym, Scorpion, in MAD SOLDIERS
  • He is rarely ever seen without coloured eye contacts, which are also used for vision correction.
  • He is often described as a quiet, conservative and private person.
  • His inspiration is a mixture of history's great classical composers, the British 80's New Wave musical movement, Yellow Magic Orchestra and Tetsuya Komuro.
  • Asakura is known to hold quite a liking towards decadent, regal fashions such as items from the expensive clothing line 'Royal Order'. He is also thought to be a fan of Vivienne Westwood.
  • In a recent video released online, it has been revealed that Asakura can play the accordion.

[edit] Discography

[edit] Singles

[edit] Albums

[edit] DVD

[edit] Tour

[edit] External links