OK's -- Sei Go-gatsu ~ Hikari ni Koi Shite（聖五月～光に恋して～）

 

I think it would be especially appropriate on a Friday going into the dog days of summer to crack open a beer with friends (no drinking or driving, though) whether it be at a patio restaurant or by the backyard barbeque. I selected the above video from the uploader OLD DAYS since it has a wealth of Kirin Beer commercials ranging from the 1980s into the 2000s. I even saw Sylvester Stallone and Sting in there.

Unfortunately, I don't think the above song is in that video although it has also been pegged as one of the many commercial jingles used for Kirin. OKAYS were a rock band that had a short shelf life of around two years between 1987 and 1989 and halfway through their time, they even truncated their name down to OK's. The band consisted of Katsuhito/Katsuyoshi Tsuji（辻克仁）, Hironari Koshigaya（越谷浩成）, Takayuki Ohtake（大竹隆之）, Shouzou Iwase（岩瀬昇造）and Kouji/Yasushi Tomita（富田康士）.

Their 2nd single from 1988, apparently after the name truncation, was "Sei Go-gatsu ~ Hikari ni Koi Shite" (Holy May ~ Fall in Love with the Light). An appropriately summery and upbeat song to drink beer to, there's something about the performance and the delivery that has me reminded of a lighter version of funk band JADOES, another outfit which was around at the same time. Yoko Aki（阿木燿子）took care of the lyrics while Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）and Kazuo Otani（大谷和夫）took care of music and arrangement respectively; my compliments to whoever came up with that whirling dervish of a keyboard riff that comes up right at the beginning. 

Although J-Wiki lists OK's time together as between 1987 and 1989, their final single "Believe"（ビリーヴ）was released in 1990 for a total of four singles. Two albums also came out of the group with "Sei Go-gatsu" being placed onto the 2nd mini-album "1/2 Blood" in 1988.