J-TRIPS -- Cherie ni Kuchizuke（シェリーに口づけ）/Merry Destiny（メリー・デスティニー）

 

As I've said a few times before, I always like coming across a song that begets a winding story. I started with this single's B-side and then found out about the A-side before finally finishing up with the song that the A-side was covering. We shall start from there.

I didn't know about him until just a few minutes ago, but French singer-songwriter Michel Polnareff came up with a song in 1969 called "Tout tout pour ma chérie" that I recognized as one that has been used in at least one Japanese commercial while I was living in the Kanto area. Didn't know the title or the singer; just accepted it as one of the number of French pop tunes that the Japanese had fallen for.

As an added bonus, I found this 1979 episode excerpt of Fuji-TV's long-running "Music Fair" in which Polnareff is performing "Tout tout pour ma chérie".

Over three years ago, I put up an article on this rather distinctive album by KEDGE, a duo consisting of composer Keiichi Tomita（冨田恵一）and singer/lyricist Naomi Sugimoto（杉本直子）, "Complete Samples" (1988). Tomita would go on at the turn of the century to become this songwriter and producer Tomita Lab（冨田ラボ）with his distinctive brand of stylish café-friendly soul and groove for various singers. But in his KEDGE days, he came up with some very different sounds, more akin to really happy and hooky and rapid-fire synthpop along the lines of PSY-S.

For KEDGE, I had thought it was one and done with "Complete Samples" in the late 80s, but apparently, he did provide one trio with a KEDGE-sounding single. And this trio was quite the interesting combination although J-TRIPS came and went with the wind. From the only information that I could get, J-TRIPS was actor Tsuneyuki Hasegawa（長谷川恒之）, model JUN and fashion coordinator Naohira Kameyama（亀山尚平）. The only one with a J-Wiki entry was Hasegawa, and there is no mention of any singing credits assigned to him. How they all got together is an unknown matter to me; maybe they all met at a party and decided to make a group.

Anyways, J-TRIPS released a 1989 single which was a finger-snapping synthpop cover of "Tout tout pour ma chérie" with the Japanese title of "Cherie ni Kuchizuke" (A Kiss for Cherie). For those who have heard the tracks from "Complete Samples", yep, it indeed has that KEDGE sound and speed. Looking at the JASRAC database, Michi Shibano（柴野未知）provided the Japanese lyrics.

(Sorry but the video has been taken down.)

Before I move on, may I say how Bubble Era and gorgeous the three members of J-TRIPS look on the cover? Anyways, the B-side and my introduction to J-TRIPS is "Merry Destiny" which really does cement the KEDGE link. It's bubbly and Tomita wields that synthesizer like a rapier, and there's something about "Merry Destiny" which hints at a futuristic economic utopia which ironically Japan was not heading towards as it entered the 1990s. As for the singing by this actor, this model and this fashion coordinator, it's not bad at all especially since there were no vocal acrobatics demanded of them. But as I mentioned above, it was most likely one and done for J-TRIPS.