cluppo -- PEACE & LOVE

 

The burning question from you KKP readers, I'm sure, is whether J-Canuck has ever been to a maid café. Well, since you asked politely, I am obligated to answer yes. In fact, during my time living in the Tokyo area, I've been to a maid café three times. The first time I was there, it was actually my former students-turned-friends who introduced me to what the leader of the students stated was "a beginner's-level maid café".

I had no idea that maid cafés came with training wheels. In any case, this establishment in Akihabara occupied part of the second floor of some building on the main drag of the pop culture area, namely Chuo Dori. The place had all the ambience of a gutted warehouse because that's what it looked like: all concrete and pipes. The waitresses were all dressed up in those frilly maid outfits but there was none of those saccharine-sweet greetings, the request for the moe-moe song, and high-pitched voicing that are known in the higher-level maid cafés. Simply put, it was just the dresses; otherwise, the ladies took our orders and brought the food as requested. But that was fine with me. Baby steps and all that.

Our next singer here is singer and guitarist cluppo, aka Miku Kobato（小鳩ミク）, who came by her musical career straight out of a maid café. She was once employed at such an establishment but her ambitions didn't stop there; instead she set about to pair the maid experience with rock music instead of the sweet aidoru-ish stuff. Afterwards, she was able to recruit four other women to form BAND-MAID in 2013. From what I've read, the band is still going strong. You can also check out their own website.

But from 2021, the leader of BAND-MAID also decided to start a solo act with the name cluppo. In April, she released her debut digital single "PEACE & LOVE" for which she provided the lyrics (she loves her drinks apparently) and a person named Crow created the rumbling rock melody. As the title indicates, this might be the first Zen rock song by a former maid ever made since cluppo is encouraging listeners to take the quiet path to calm and happy relationships. Incidentally, 3900 copies of the CD version of "PEACE & LOVE" were released a few months later in August.

There might be some similarity between cluppo and one other rock singer that I wrote about yesterday, Little Black Dress, because of their genre and also because cluppo is also a big fan of the kayo kyoku, namely enka. Kobato has stated in her J-Wiki article that she's a big fan of Yoshimi Tendo（天童よしみ）and is also an admirer of fellow rocker Ringo Shiina（椎名林檎）and her band Tokyo Jihen（東京事変）.