Flipper's Guitar -- Winnie the Pooh Mugcup Collection

 

I had never thought of the late 80s-early 90s duo, Flipper's Guitar consisting of Keigo Oyamada（小山田圭吾）and Kenji Ozawa（小沢健二）, as anything but Shibuya-kei. Usually I remember their "Koi to Machine Gun"（恋とマシンガン）which sounds like the trademark tune of the genre.

But in J-Wiki, Flipper's Guitar is not only listed as Shibuya-kei, but also as an alternative rock and an indies pop band. Certainly, Shibuya-kei is not what I got when I first heard "Winnie the Pooh Mugcup Collection". The song hails from their 3rd and final studio album "DOCTOR HEAD'S WORLD TOWER" released in July 1991. Apparently, part of the title was derived from 60s rock group The Monkees' movie "HEAD".

According to J-Wiki, Oyamada and Ozawa worked on this album attempting to reflect the sound of the UK rock bands of that time including Stone Roses, Primal Scream and My Bloody Valentine. But before I came across the previous statement, I had thought that "Winnie the Pooh" was very much along the lines of some of those 1960s psychedelic rock groups. Right from that screeching guitar intro, I certainly got the hint that I was no longer in a Parisian street-side café but in some grungy apartment with a raunchy bunch of long-haired teens and their well-worn guitars.