Alice -- Espionage（エスピオナージ）

Wikimedia Commons from the employees at MGM

 

The above is a poster from the 1937 film "Espionage". I just hope the guy in the brown jacket wasn't searching for his gun. That would be rather embarrassing for a spy.

I've known the folk trio Alice（アリス）for sometimes coming up with some rousing stuff from their discography. But this 20th single from June 1981, "Espionage", also possesses some extra stuff such as an atypical synthesizer floating around in the intro, an Alfee-esque or even Queen-ish guitar solo near the end, and a boss key shift. All this is happening while vocalist Shinji Tanimura（谷村新司）is breathlessly singing about the lonely life of a spy who usually has to skip town in a hurry. 

Tanimura was also responsible for words and music in "Espionage" which reached No. 15 on Oricon. The song was also included in Alice's 9th original album from July 1981, "ALICE IX ~ Muhon"（ALICE IX 謀反...Insurrection） which hit No. 3 on the charts and ended up as the 35th-ranked album of the year. "Espionage" has been categorized on J-Wiki as a folk tune but I've also thrown in the rock and New Music labels as well.

Vapour Trails -- Don't Worry Baby

 

Maybe for this one, it isn't so much a Reminiscings of MY Youth as it is a Reminiscings of Youth for a lot of Japanese people my age back in the 1980s. As was the case with last week's ROY entry involving the "William Tell Overture", this was also a Western song that adorned a Japanese TV program of that magical decade but the fact is that I didn't personally know about the show or its theme song until many years later through retrospective programming.

I'm talking about "Best Hit USA", a TV Asahi late-night show that ran between April 1981 and September 1989. It was hosted by the very amiable and English-fluent Katsuya Kobayashi（小林克也）and it struck me as being a Japanese counterpart to Casey Kasem's "America's Top 10" as both featured the popular charting songs in the United States. The friendly theme song for "Best Hit USA" that played every time right from the start was only known for its intro and maybe some of that first verse.

Strangely enough, I got to hear the whole song finally many years after "Best Hit USA" had finished its run and it was the first full track on "BRIO AOR: Off-Shore", one of a two-CD set of all those groovy and laidback AOR tunes that populated the 1970s and 1980s. This is the 1979 "Don't Worry Baby" by Vapour Trails consisting of John McBurnie, Andy Dalby, and Phil Curtis, a British band that specialized in those West Coast soft rock songs, and it was known as "Surfside Freeway" in Japan. The song was also part of Vapour Trails' one and only album from that same year, "Vapour Trails".

That's pretty much all I could find out about this band. Apparently, there is a current Scottish band known as The Vapour Trails which provides jangle pop and indies. Of course, when I hear or read "vapour trails", I usually think of Yumi Arai's（荒井由実）famous "Hikoki Gumo"（ひこうき雲）. 

As for "Best Hit USA", it returned to TV Asahi's broadcast satellite service in 2003 where it has continued talking about the popular stuff in America for over twenty years.

Now, since I couldn't get more specific than 1979 as the origin for "Don't Worry Baby", I've opted to show what was at the top of the album charts for that year in Japan. Here are Nos. 1, 4 and 6. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to cover the albums so the links below will take you to their representative tracks.

1. Godiego -- Saiyuki（西遊記）

4. Satoshi Kishida -- Morning （モーニング）

6.  Alice -- ALICE VII

Shock and Awe (Japan defeats Germany, November 23rd 2022)

 

Well, that just happened! Last night, I was paying some tribute to the current World Cup in Qatar and wondered about any upsets to join the one in the aftermath of the Saudi Arabia-Argentina bout via King Gnu's "Stardom". And then, this morning, I found out that Japan did defeat Germany 2-1! Canada is playing Belgium as I type this, so will there be another shocker in the making?

Not surprisingly, Shibuya Scramble was scrambling with orgiastic fans lapping up the moment after the win. Yes, I realize that it's merely the first game, but every little bit helps.

As such, I've suddenly decided to put up an Author's Pick to commemorate this small but happy occasion with a few songs that have those certain words in the title and bring up those emotions in the byline...and joy and determination.

Alice -- Fuyu no Inazuma （冬の稲妻）

Dreams Come True -- Ureshii! Tanoshii! Daisuki! （うれしい！たのしい！大好き！）

Akina Nakamori -- I Missed "The Shock"

Maki Ohguro -- Atsukunare （熱くなれ）

Yellow Magic Orchestra -- Be A Superman （ビー・ア・スーパーマン）

Alice -- Kokuhaku（告白）

 

All I can say is that if any moony-eyed romantics took folk group Alice's（アリス）advice on making that confession to the loves of their lives, then they should have plenty of open space around them, preferably outside in a park rather than the intimate surroundings inside a restaurant.

The reason I say this is because Alice members Shinji Tanimura（谷村新司）, Takao Horiuchi（堀内孝雄）and Tohru Yazawa（矢沢透）released their first single in 34 years, "Kokuhaku" (Confession), earlier this year in March. With Tanimura on lyrics and Horiuchi on melody, the song has the confessor declaring loud and clear how much he/she loves their significant other. Hope the significant other doesn't get too embarrassed at the volume.

Even with the contemporariness of the production values with "Kokuhaku", the song does feel like an old Alice tune although there is quite a bit more rock n' roll infused with the folksiness. I first heard this when the band showed up on "Uta Con"（うたコン）earlier this year to perform this one, and I wonder whether this could mean that they could appear once more on NHK's Kohaku Utagassen for their fourth appearance and for the first time in a dozen years. The release of their 23rd single is additionally important since Alice has just celebrated their 50th anniversary in show business.

(cover version)

Blondie -- Heart of Glass

 

On this week's regular Reminiscings of Youth, I have this memory of a song that could have been the transition between the old disco and the New Wave.

This is going to sound so weird but whenever I hear Blondie's "Heart of Glass", my memories go back to a fishing trip that consisted of my brother, myself and a friend of mine from junior high school on Centre Island which was a five or ten-minute ferry ride away from Toronto's harbour over Lake Ontario. "Heart of Glass" was playing all over the park speakers and I thought it was an odd musical accompaniment to the attempts of getting successful at the trout pond. So, it hasn't been the fragrance of cologne and tobacco at Studio 54 but the smell of fish and lake water that has been my sense memory of this hit song from January 1979. 

Still, I'm never going to confuse rainbow trout with the beautiful visage of Deborah Harry who was the vocalist behind "Heart of Glass", a song that I think mixed the disco and New Wave and has become one of my early music touchstones. It was the first time that I had heard of Blondie so I was surprised that "Heart of Glass" wasn't the debut single but something like the 10th single by the band according to their Wikipedia discography although it was first heard on their third album "Parallel Lines" from September 1978. That album cover, by the way, with Harry looking rather stern in front of her smiling band is pretty darn iconic to me.

"Heart of Glass" hit No. 1 in several countries including Canada and the United States and has even made it onto Rolling Stone's list of 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. 

So, according to Showa Pops, what was also coming out in January 1979 in Japan?

Hiroshi Madoka -- Musoubana （夢想花）(released in Nov. 1978 according to J-Wiki)

Mariko Takahashi -- Anata no Sora wo Tobitai　(あなたの空を翔びたい）(released in Nov. 1978 according to J-Wiki)

Alice -- Champion （チャンピオン）(released in Dec. 1978, according to J-Wiki)

Alice/Miyuki Yokoyama -- Shuushifu（秋止符）

Some snow, some freezing rain, a lot of driving misery today, I'm sure. And we're all still heading out for dinner tonight. But alas, that has been our winter this year.

At least I'm not the poor protagonist in Alice's（アリス）17th single, "Shuushifu" which was released in December 1979 on the same day as the folk duo's 16th single "Utsukushiki Kizuna ~ Hand in Hand"（美しき絆〜Hand in Hand〜...Beautiful Bond）. The fellow in that ballad is going through some major blues. As for the title, I'm going to reiterate the kanji here「秋止符」which I think is a kanji pun devised by Alice since I couldn't actually find such a term in the dictionaries. However, there is the term「終止符」which is pronounced in the exact same way and refers to the grammatical period at the end of sentences. In fact, according to the J-Wiki article about the song, it has often been mistakenly written as「終止符」.

I think "Shuushifu" for the Alice song probably means "Autumn Full Stop" as in the romance is dead and buried. And as I've mentioned in past articles about kayo with an autumnal theme, that particular season is often the climactic symbol for the death of relationships. It's not a happy story by Alice member Shinji Tanimura（谷村新司）but his partner Takao Horiuchi（堀内孝雄）weaves a fairly jaunty folk melody around it. The song got as high as No. 4 on Oricon and became the 20th-ranked single for 1980. It is also on the duo's 7th album "ALICE VII" which was released in June 1979.

Some months before Alice's release of "Shuushifu", though, Miyuki Yokoyama（横山みゆき）had come out with the first version as made by Tanimura and Horiuchi. It was actually her debut from September 1979. Her "Shuushifu" has more of a European-sounding arrangement which perhaps would take her song into the category of those exotic kayo songs that were popular in the late 1970s.

I don't know if Yokoyama's version got up onto the Oricon charts but her time as a singer lasted into the early 1980s with 8 singles and 3 albums during that time.

Alice -- Tohku de Kiteki wo Kikinagara （遠くで汽笛を聞きながら）

Alice's（アリス）"Tohku de Kiteki wo Kikinagara" (Listening to the Steam Whistle in the Distance) only got as high as No. 51 on the Oricon weeklies after its release in September 1976, and the group was still more than a year away from their first Top 10 hit, "Fuyu no Inazuma"（冬の稲妻）. However, I really like this song by Shinji Tanimura and Takao Horiuchi（谷村新司・堀内孝雄）. There's something with the guitar and that piano that really gives this folk tune some anthemic oomph.

Tanimura's lyrics about trying to live through the trials and tribulations of each day and survive seem to be speaking to something that we can all relate to. The steam whistle that the band refers to makes me wonder whether Alice was trying to evoke that image of that manly man standing not too far away from a railroad track going to his small hometown as he remembered the good and bad times. The lyrics and delivery (with Horiuchi as the lead vocal) almost sound enka-like.

"Tohku de Kiteki wo Kikinagara" (Alice's 9th single) may have only done modestly on the charts originally, but some twenty years following its release, Horiuchi was able to perform it at the 1996 Kohaku Utagassen. And nine years after that, Alice was able to do it all again as part of a medley at the 2005 edition. By the way, the song is also on their 1976 release, "ALICE V" which peaked at No. 3.

If I ever end up drinking a beer outside on a hill when the sun is coming down, I know what the scene's theme song will be.

Alice/Woody-Woo -- Ima wa Mou Dare mo （今はもう誰も）

The first of folk group Alice's （アリス）big hits was "Ima wa Mou Dare mo" (Nobody Now) which came out in September 1975 as the group's 7th single. In any retrospective on Alice, this would be a must-show, and personally, this is my favourite song by Shinji Tanimura（谷村新司）, Takao Horiuchi（堀内孝雄） and Toru Yazawa（矢沢透）. I used to hear it whenever a music show did a piece on the folk music that was popular during the 1970s, and the song had that appealing galloping beat.

(I'm sorry but the music163 link is inaccessible.)

The above music 163 link is for the group's recorded version which peaked at No. 11. All this time until recently, I'd thought that "Ima wa Mou Dare mo" had been another Tanimura/Horiuchi collaboration, but in fact, Alice's rendition of the folk song was a cover of the original version by another earlier folk group by the name of Woody-Woo（ウッディ・ウー）. Led by vocalist Toshiro Satake（佐竹俊郎）, Woody-Woo only released 3 singles of which "Ima wa Mou Dare mo" was their debut, released in July 1969. It only got as high as No. 66 on the still-new Oricon rankings, but with the success of Alice's version several years later, the Woody-Woo version which was written and composed by Satake was given a second lease on life through a re-release. The original version can be found at the YouTube link below. Now as for the unusual name of this band, apparently the members derived it into a compound from the name of American folk singer of the 30s, Woody Guthrie and the "woo woo" sound that supposedly a lot of young people like to yell out.

Alice -- Champion （チャンピオン）

Another hit song for the folk/rock duo known as Alice（アリス）, "Champion" is a muscular song which has that cowboy twang and another English lyric that a lot of veteran karaoke singers of a certain age would know just like that: "You king of kings!"

Written and composed by leader Shinji Tanimura（谷村新司）, "Champion" was Alice's 14th single released in December 1978. The motif was boxing and that great match in the ring, and in fact, the model for the protagonist in the song was a half-Japanese/half-American boxer by the name of Cassius Naito (who also went by the name of Robert Williams Jr.) The song sounds like that all that training, running and warm-up towards the long walk towards the ring and the challenger thanks to the no-nonsense strumming and singing.

"Champion" definitely rung a bell in all of the listeners since it became Alice's biggest hit. It turned into a champion itself as it reached the top spot on Oricon and stayed there for almost a month between January and February 1979. The song eventually became the 8th-ranked song for 1979 and also got Tanimura and partner Takao Horiuchi（堀内孝雄） their ticket onto the Kohaku Utagassen.

And in the years since, it has also gotten shown on a lot of those Showa Era music retrospectives. There's nothing like a tune that gets you into that punching spirit.

Alice -- Fuyu no Inazuma （冬の稲妻）

My first Alice entry, "Fuyu no Inazuma"(Winter Lightning) was the 70s folk/rock duo's first Top 10 hit, getting up to the No. 8 spot, after being released in October 1977. Their 11th single is one of the more toe-tappingly uptempo folk songs I've heard, notable for the repeated lyric, "You're rolling thunder" and then a breathy exhalation. It probably brings a lot of smiles even now especially to folks in their late 40s.

Alice consists of Shinji Tanimura（谷村新司） (lead vocals, guitar), Takao Horiuchi（堀内 孝雄）(vocals, guitar) and Tohru Yazawa（矢沢透）(drums). Back in 1970 during a concert tour in the United States, Tanimura, who had been the leader of an Osaka folk group, The Rock Candies, first met Yazawa who had been the guest drummer of another touring Tokyo soul band, Brown Rice. The two struck up a friendship and promised to go pro and set up their own band when they returned to Japan. Some time later, Tanimura would meet his future singing partner, Horiuchi, through a Kobe music appreciation club. Horiuchi himself was a vocal for a band with the imaginative name of Foolish Brother's Foot. Alice was born on Xmas Day 1971 in a room at a business hotel known as the Osaka Imperial.

Tanimura took care of the lyrics for "Fuyu no Inazuma", while Horiuchi composed the song. Both would later have successful solo careers with the former specializing in ballads while the latter would go into a mix of folk and enka. Tanimura also has had a songwriting career for other singers as well, with probably his proudest moment being the artist behind "Ii Hi Tabidachi"（いい日旅立ち）, one of Momoe Yamaguchi's（山口百恵）greatest songs.

"Fuyu no Inazuma" can also be found on the album "ALICE VI", released in April 1978 and also a No. 1 record.