FUNKY MONKEY BΛBY'S -- Ato Hitotsu（あとひとつ）

 

From Oricon.jp

FUNKY MONKEY BΛBY'S is a band that I have heard from time to time although I never really got into them while I was living in Japan. But during their first time in the spotlight between 2004 and 2013, the face of FUNKY MONKEY BΛBY'S was always the fellow that you see above, DJ Chemical（DJケミカル）, in my opinion. Whenever I entered a Tower Records or an HMV in Tokyo, I sometimes saw that band member's comely visage on a CD case beaming widely at me. His real name is Tomofumi Tanokura（田野倉智文）.

I think that another trope regarding FUNKY MONKEY BΛBY'S is that the arrangement of the band during concerts has consistently been MC Funky Kato（ファンキー加藤）and MC Monkichi（モン吉）in front side-to-side while DJ Chemical is in the back in the centre behind his turntables. And yet, DJ Chemical doesn't spin anything in performance. From what I've read in his J-Wiki profile is that though he is indeed an experienced disc jockey, he feels that he gets a little too dour in his work so in the music videos and concerts, he doesn't bother with the equipment and just gets into the dancing and keeping the beat to get the audience all excited.

From YouTube

As you can see and hear in the video above, the song by the Tokyo-based band is "Ato Hitotsu" (Just One More), their 14th single released in August 2010. I got to listen to it in earnest for the first time last night when NHK's "Uta Con"（うたコン）was broadcasting from Osaka. Although FUNKY MONKEY BΛBY'S had broken up in 2013, the two MCs without DJ Chemical started things up again last year, and they showed up on "Uta Con" to play one of their most well-remembered singles.

Yet another characteristic of the group is that as far as their album/single covers along with their music videos are concerned, FUNKY MONKEY BΛBY'S bring in celebrities to have their faces and presences on them. In the case of "Ato Hitotsu", the face on the cover is that of former New York Yankees and current Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles pitcher Masahiro Tanaka（田中将大）; he also shows up in the video, too.

Used as the theme song for the 2010 edition of the annual summer high school baseball championships (a must-see for just about everyone in Japan) at Koshien Stadium, the band and singer-songwriter Yuka Kawamura（川村結花）fashioned "Ato Hitotsu" into this inspirational song of never giving up and crawling through all the muck to success. Not surprisingly, "Uta Con" had Kato and Monkichi on the show last night to perform "Ato Hitotsu" as part of the segment dedicated to all of those Koshien-friendly tunes. Its popularity led it to being used for a number of sports shows including the TV Asahi broadcast of the 2010 championships.

"Ato Hitotsu" was a hit on the charts, peaking at No. 8. It was also included on their fourth original album, logically titled "FUNKY MONKEY BABYS 4". Released in December 2011, it hit No. 1 and ended up becoming the 20th-ranked album for 2012. The band also performed the song during their second of four consecutive appearances (2009-2012) on the Kohaku Utagassen.

One more intriguing thing about the band is their name itself. Considering that the 1970s rock band Carol had come up with their hit "Funky Monkey Baby" (ファンキー・モンキー・ベイビー), I've wondered if Kato, Monkichi and Chemical had based their name on that particular song. As for how the now former member DJ Chemical got his nom de guerre, apparently when he was in elementary school, he had won the 2nd annual Chemical (Acid) Washed Jeans concert so his mates called him Chemical (another childhood moniker for him was apparently Meat Pie).