Masafumi Gotō (後藤 正文) is the lead vocalist, main songwriter and rhythm guitarist of the Japanese rock band Asian Kung-Fu Generation. Masafumi met fellow band members Kensuke Kita and Takahiro Yamada while attending a music club of Kanto Gakuin University. The three formed Asian Kung-Fu Generation in 1996, with drummer Kiyoshi Ijichi joining the band shortly after.
In 2010 he launched his own music label, only in dreams and produces records for other artists. The same year starts to publish a newspaper called THE FUTURE TIMES.
Gotch nickname refers to Masafumi Gotoh solo career which started in 2012. Influenced by the American indie style of the 90's with bands like Beck, Wilco, Bright Eyes, Neil Young etc, Gotch uses a range of different instruments to compose his pop songs. His lyrics are elaborated, each of them have their own univers, story and are easily identifiable. Gotch solo career isn't a break with the band Asian Kung-Fu Generation at all and has no influence within it.
On August 1, 2012, Masafumi release his first work under the name Gotch, called "LOST" as a 7 inch release. On April 20, 2013, "The Long Goodbye" is released. On March 12, 2014, the lead single "Wonderland / 不思議の国" from the first album was released. On April 19 of the same year, the album "Can't Be Forever Young" was released, which included the three previosly released singles on its. Later that year, on November 19, a live record of the "Can't be Forever Young" tour was released, called "Live in tokyo", the album was recorded in Tokyo at Shibuya, it features the whole "Can't Be Forever Young" album tracklist plus four new tracks : "Route 6 "; "Baby, Don't Cry " and two covers "A Shot in The Arm" from "Wilco" and "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" from "Neil Young". Weeks later, on November 28, the 4th single "Route 6" is released. On June 8, 2016, the 3rd gotch releases his 3rd album "The Good New Times" including the song "baby don't cry" which was previosly featured on the 4th single. On April 24, 2017, the 5th single "Taxi Driver" was released. Later that year Gotch released his 4th album "無謬 / Infallibility". This being a 46 minute long track which consist of only instrumental and ambient music for reading.
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