Sheena & The Rokkets/Yellow Magic Orchestra -- Rocket Koujou（ロケット工場）

 

In the last number of days, I've been hearing some rather sad news about musician/producer (among other hats that he wears) Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）. Remembering a few years ago that he had been diagnosed with throat cancer, something that he eventually did beat into remission, it was heartbreaking news on reading that he has now been diagnosed with rectal cancer. He is undergoing treatment and on his website, he has left a message for fans to keep everyone's spirits up. Of course, I am hoping that The Professor will defeat this one, too.

One song that he composed was for the rock band Sheena & The Rokkets back in 1979 as the final track for their 2nd album, "Shinkuu Pack"（真空パック...Vacuum Pack） released in October. Titled "Rocket Koujou" (Rocket Factory), it's a brief robotic instrumental coda to wrap things up but although I can hear some of that New Wave among the bleeps and bloops, I think it was a bit of an odd way to finish "Shinkuu Pack" for a band of the mentai rock vein.

I mentioned in the article for The Rokkets' "You May Dream" which is also a part of the album that Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）, Sakamoto's bandmate in synthpop legend Yellow Magic Orchestra, had produced "Shinkuu Pack" and that there were some conflicts between him and the band about the direction that the album was taking. Perhaps "Rocket Koujou" was one of the points of contention. Still, it was also stated that any arguments were all for getting the best out of the project, and the song was in there at the end.

Sakamoto and YMO did a cover of "Rocket Koujou" as a track for their May 1991 album "Faker Holic" which consisted of their live appearances in London, Paris and New York City in October and November 1979 (which is why I threw in the two years in Labels). Considering the brevity of the song, the video above has the first two-and-a-half minutes devoted to who I think is Sakamoto introducing the band members through his vocoder before going into "Rocket Koujou". If anything, the YMO version isn't too different from the one for The Rokkets except for a sudden onrush of YMO-esque beats. I think especially for this version, there is a feeling that the factory isn't producing rockets but a robo-Frankenstein of Asian design. The album reached No. 50 on Oricon.

Once again, I'm wishing for Sakamoto's complete recovery.