Daizo Koshiba & Elephant -- Tokyo Night

 

When I was writing up the ROY article on Spoons' "Nova Heart" last week, I used Showa Pops to track down what the newly released singles for May 1982 were because "Nova Heart" was indeed released in that month. It's been fascinating to read all of these hitherto unknown singers or bands that may not have gone beyond that one single listed on the page.

One such band that I discovered that had a release in May 1982 was Daizo Koshiba & Elephant（小柴大造&エレファント）which formed in 1979. Koshiba, who hails from Yamagata Prefecture, and his band released a total of 9 singles, five of which were released on the same day of May 5th 1980 as their debut quintets: "One More Night", "Wakare no Scene"（別離のシーン...Break-up Scene）, "Touring Bus", "Sanmon Opera"（三文オペラ...Threepenny Opera） and "Tell Me". Under that same name, four studio albums were released, but not getting a hit during all that time, Koshiba & Elephant broke up in 1983 (although that fourth album, "Dear", was released in 1987).

That last single, "Tokyo Night", was the one that my eyes came upon when I was browsing through that May 1982 list. It does have some of that City Pop atmosphere in there but underneath it, it's also got that lone wolf rock feeling, and it's too bad that none of those singles became particularly successful because I think Koshiba possesses quite a good voice in my estimation. Plus, there's something in there that reminds me of Eikichi Yazawa（矢沢永吉）.

According to Koshiba's J-Wiki profile, he's been weaving in and out among reunions with Elephant, another group called Water Club Band, yet another unit Bikkis, and his own solo work. He has also collaborated with folks including Toshinobu Kubota（久保田利伸）, Rebecca（レベッカ）and even the veteran actress Yukiji Asaoka（朝丘雪路）.