Artist Profile
Death Valley Flash
In 1980, the hard rock band "Death Valley" was formed by guitarist Saito "Tomezo" Shinichi, who was a high school student in Fukushima, Japan at that time, and his outstanding technique and original songs became a hot topic. Apart from this activity, Saito started a collaboration with his friend "Jesus" vocalist Hide (currently Hayata ) Akashi in 1982. The band is named "Death Valley Flash" to distinguish it from the original vocalist. In November of the same year, They participated in the "Fukushima Music Festival" and performed Akashi's "Goodbye This Town" for the first time. The following April, 1983, a limited edition of 100 self-produced single records "Goodbye This Town / A Blind Spot of Love" was released. In the same year, they entered the Shinseido Rock Contest. In July, they won the national tournament at Nakano Kokaido, Tokyo, and finally Saito won the Best Guitarist Award. This was virtually their last activity. This self-produced single became a hot topic on overseas Japanese metal sites in 2015, and rare records were traded at high prices, and suddenly it came into the limelight. Inspired by this, in 2021, instead of Saito, whose whereabouts are currently unknown, the original members called out to Hitoshi Ishii, who was also a rival at the time and is now a professional guitarist and started preparing for the "Death Valley Flash" reunion. They worked remotely in Fukushima and Tokyo and re-recorded "Goodbye This Town" and "A Blind Spot of Love" for the first time in 38 years. And on June 25, 2022, they finally performed a miracle triumphal live at "Outline" in Fukushima!