During my time on the JET Programme, I was helping doing the usual team-teaching in the junior high school and I asked some students who their favourite singer or band was. Miss Fukuda answered "BUCK-TICK". Of course, I've heard about a buck and a tick separately but I never heard them together so I didn't quite understand and when I asked her to repeat a couple of more times, I knew that she was starting to get frustrated as was I, so I let it go.
Ah, BUCK-TICK...so that's who it was. During my two years in Gunma Prefecture, I came to realize how Japanese music was diversifying in myriad ways from the late 1980s. There was R&B to a certain extent (although I think it would take another decade before it finally came to full fruition) along with ska, but it was more about the rock music going into the 1990s and some pretty way out rock music for that matter in both music and presentation. I was seeing some of these bands pop up with some garish makeup and hair that threatened to tickle the stratosphere.
BUCK-TICK was one of those bands, and I guess that there was some regional pride within that student when she answered me since this particular band was born in Gunma Prefecture, specifically from the cities of Fujioka and Takasaki in the southern part of the province (I was situated up in the north, in the Japanese Alps).
Their 2nd single overall and their first major single was "Just One More Kiss" released in October 1988. Written by vocalist Atsushi Sakurai（櫻井敦司）and composed by guitarist Hisashi Imai（今井寿）, according to a 1990 interview in the music magazine "Fool's Mate" via J-Wiki, the latter really wanted to show the worth of BUCK-TICK and whipped the melody up within a day although at the time, he didn't think that this would ever get out as a single. However, with Sakurai's lyrics coming on board as ones for a "decadent love song", Imai gradually got sold on it as a worthy candidate as a single.
Now, as someone who's never been a huge rock fan and as someone who initially saw those rock bands in the late 1980s with a feeling of old-man dread, I have to say that I actually like "Just One More Kiss" thanks to that arrangement by the band and Tsutomu Nakayama（中山努）, especially the refrain. If I hadn't been such a tense stick-in-the-mud back then, I would have been more appreciative of rock back then and maybe my music collection would have been even larger (along with the eventual shipping costs back home). I think that even the sky-high hair as depicted in the music video is actually rather quaint now.
"Just One More Kiss" peaked at No. 6 on Oricon and earned BUCK-TICK a Best New Artist prize at the Japan Record Awards that year, and it was included on the band's 4th studio album "Taboo" which came out in January 1989 which hit No. 1. As for the other members, there are rhythm guitarist/keyboardist Hidehiko Hoshino（星野英彦）, bassist Yutaka Higuchi（樋口豊）and drummer Toll Yagami (ヤガミトール...the older brother of Higuchi).
According to J-Wiki and Wikipedia, the members got together initially in the early 1980s as a band called Hinan Go-Go（非難GO-GO...Criticism Go-Go） while in high school, and apparently they went to the same school as one Kyosuke Himuro（氷室京介）, the vocalist for another rock band BOOWY. In 1985, the group changed their name to BUCK-TICK which is a fanciful way of expressing the word bakuchiku（爆竹）, Japanese for firecracker (yet another mystery has been solved in my mind).
Up to 2020, the band has released 41 singles and 23 albums including their indies output, and has been seen as one of the pioneers for visual-kei. Apparently, they have covered pretty much every form of rock and on J-Wiki, their genres even include Showa kayo.
I'm super into Buck-Tick, I just wanted to point out that Hidehiko Hoshino is the band's rhythm guitarist, he just happened to play keyboards on just a few songs, but that role usually falls into the lap of session keyboardist Kazutoshi Yokoyama.
ReplyDeleteHello, IkariDC. Thanks very much for the correction. I'm still kinda new with BUCK-TICK.
DeleteBTW, any BUCK-TICK stories in terms of concert attendances?
DeleteI've been lucky enough to see them twice! The first time was in my first trip to Japan in April of 2009, I saw them at the Gunma Ongaku Center in Takasaki, not a very big venue, it's like a theater. I cannot forget the face of the guy at the information desk at the station when he handed us a map and we asked where was the venue. He was sweating bullets because the venue was further away than what was in the map! I also remember some interaction with Japanese fans, I guess it was rare to see foreigners at a concert in a city like that. The concert was great, the only bad thing is that I was in the last row so I almost couldn't properly see them, so when they released a photobook of that tour, I purchased it as a memento.
DeleteThe second time was on December of 2019 at Yoyogi Daiichi Taiikukan in Tokyo. This time I had a very nice view, I was on the second floor at one side of the stage. It was also a great concert, it wasn't a tour for an album so they played songs from many different ones so that's always interesting.
It's a very interesting band, they've been around for quite a long time, always releasing new material and trying different styles. They have several "best of" compilations, you could give one of those a try if you are curious about them!
Thanks for the blog, I enjoy reading and discovering artists and bands I didn't know about!
Hello again. I hope that fellow who was trying to help you out at that first concert didn't end up having a coronary. I feel your pain about being in the last row; that was indeed the case for me when I was at Yokohama Stadium to watch a Misato Watanabe concert. I could only see Misato as an ant bouncing around on the stage since the big screens wouldn't show her. Great vocals, though.
DeleteIndeed, that's quite unusual for a band to play a whole bunch of their songs from throughout their era. I take it was a mix of their hits and some of their album tracks?
Thanks for enjoying the blog and also your tip on taking a look at their BEST compilations for any more interesting BUCK-TICK tunes. Also, thanks for relating your concertgoing experiences...the personal stories are the ones that I always enjoy hearing about.
An ant bouncing around, that sounds about right! But it being a stadium I bet it was worse than what I got at that time.
DeleteThey play concerts almost every year called "The day in question" (it was one of those the one I attended last year) and they do just that, play hits and some other songs from their huge repertoire.
Thanks to you again!
Hello, I recommend you to listen to their song "Dress". Very smooth and atmospheric. Years later it was used for the anime "Trinity Blood".
ReplyDeleteThanks kindly. I can always use recommendations on where to go next in the BUCK-TICK exploration.:)
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