Sunny Day Service -- baby blue

Way back in the 1970s, in terms of television coverage, my area had the two major Canadian networks, CBC and CTV, along with their affiliates, and then the original Big 3 American networks (CBS, ABC and NBC) via their Buffalo affiliates. Aside from them, there was the regional network for the nearby city of Hamilton, CHCH, and perhaps OECA which was the local educational channel. But that was it, and I realize that saying that probably has younger folks accustomed to their 1000-channel packages and streaming channels hyperventilating. My apologies. 

However, there was one local Toronto station, City-TV Cable 7 Channel 79 (or was it 57?), that was seen as this upstart among the big boys that began broadcasting in the early 1970s. Led by the enterprising Moses Znaimer, it took some unconventional approaches to get people to tune in including news reports that had their anchors just standing or sitting on stools sans news desks. Another interesting feature was that City-TV also used to feature something called "The Baby Blue Movie" late Friday nights which presented soft core pornography (with some old-fashioned saucy stripper music as the theme). Regrettably, I was too young at the time to even be aware of the concept of sneaking peeks at midnight in our old apartment.

Since then, I've seen that combination of "blue" and "baby" a few times, and one of them happens to be the title of a 1982 Ginji Ito（伊藤銀次）album that nikala covered several years ago. Then, I found this particular song recently.

"baby blue" is a track on an October 1997 album "Sunny Day Service" by a band called Sunny Day Service（サニーデイ・サービス）. I first heard about this group which dabbles in all sorts of rock such as alternative, folk rock and pop rock through another band that I'd written about earlier this month, The Chang, which apparently shared some things in common with Sunny Day Service.

With "baby blue" which launches the band's 4th album as a major act, there is a certain reassuring calmness in Keiichi Sokabe's（曽我部恵一）vocals and lyrics as he invites his significant other to simply accompany him on a journey without any specific destination. The journey is half the fun, after all. There is a fairly lengthy description given by Sokabe in the J-Wiki article for the album, sourced from a November 1997 article in the music journal "Rockin' On Japan" in which he admits that aren't too many concrete details in "baby blue" but the message of striding bravely out with these half-baked ideas and making something of them is there. Even when tackling Sokabe's melody, there were no particular instructions to the other band members; they were free to interpret "baby blue" in their own way. Sokabe felt that there was no judgement on whether the music going forward was good or bad; it just seemed as if all of the instruments were united and marching forward like an armoured vehicle.

I haven't listened to the rest of "Sunny Day Service" but from just hearing "baby blue", it looks like Sokabe's approach worked quite nicely. Along with the feeling that there was some of that early 90s Britpop in the arrangement, I want to also give my compliments to the poignant piano added. The album hit No. 7 on Oricon.

Up to 2020, Sunny Day Service has released 22 singles and more than 13 albums since their start in 1992. Even during an eight-year hiatus between 2000 and 2008, there were 5 albums which came out. There have been changes to the lineup but at this point, the band has Sokabe, bassist Takashi Tanaka（田中貴）and drummer Mikio Daikuhara（大工原幹雄）.

And just to finish this article properly, I give you the sign off for City-TV in 1984 when just about every channel signed off for several hours overnight (TV test pattern and Moses included at the end).