On the evening of May 2, 1998, as most of Japan was basking in the annual Golden Week holidays, a few dozen young women had gathered outside an apartment building in Tokyo¡¯s Minamiazabu neighborhood.
Earlier that day, the musician Hideto Matsumoto, better known by his stage name hide, had returned to his home there after a night out drinking with members of his band at the time, Spread Beaver. An hour later, his girlfriend found him slumped with his head hanging from a ripped towel tied to a doorknob. He was taken to a nearby hospital, but pronounced dead just before 9 a.m.
Although there was no note, police announced that they were considering the death a suicide, and that¡¯s how the media reported it. The Japan Times printed a small item on page two of its Sunday edition, under the headline ¡°Guitarist for ¡®X Japan¡¯ kills himself at home.¡±
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