Kaya (Japan) Live in Los Angeles

Minty Boi Presents: Kaya (Japan) Live in Los Angeles 1720 Doors 8pm / All Ages About: Tokyo-born visual kei icon Kaya (Japan) brings his gothic dark-wave world to 1720 — elaborate costumes, androgynous theatrics, and a vocal range that hits hard. A rare LA appearance from one of Japan's most boundary-pushing performers. The success of Kaya, an openly bisexual, fabulously flamboyant cross-dresser, was a wake-up call for Japan's notoriously conservative music industry. Born Tatsuya Kasei on July 17, 1983 in Tokushima, he started out in music in 1999 under the name (Princess) in the short-lived visual kei bands Meties and Isola, but his career really started to take off when he met Hora, keyboardist of the band Velvet Eden. In 2001, they formed the gothic electro-industrial duo Rudolf Steiner, named after the 19th century Austrian mystic. They attracted the attention of famous producer Mana -- former guitarist of the massively successful Malice Mizer -- who signed them to his own label, changing their name to Schwarz Stein (pseudo-German for Black Stone). At the same time, changed his stage name to Kaya, after the name of the legendary bird karyoubinka. Kaya's clear, pure, yet powerful tenor was especially suited to Hora's dark electronic music, and the duo's two albums, New Vogue Children and Artificial Hallucination, acquired cult status both in Japan and around the world, especially in Europe