I've been a fan of Japanese popular music for 40 years, and have managed to collect a lot of material during that time. So I decided I wanted to talk about Showa Era music with like-minded fans. My particular era is the 70s and 80s (thus the "kayo kyoku"). The plus part includes a number of songs and artists from the last 30 years and also the early kayo. So, let's talk about New Music, aidoru, City Pop and enka.
Credits
I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.
Showing posts with label Elephant Kashimashi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Elephant Kashimashi. Show all posts
It was just last night when I posted Issei Okamoto's（岡本一生）"Moon Magic"（ムーン・マジック） as part of the Urban Contemporary lineup for Friday. And then, today I noticed that it was September 13th. For anyone who's into science-fiction, that date should be notable since it was on that day in 1999 when the Moon was blasted out of its orbit through magnetic radiation via the show "Space: 1999". Heck, I even devoted one ROY article to the theme song!
Well, in honour of September 13th 1999 (and thank heavens, we still have the Moon out there [although no Moonbase Alpha😢]) and the fact that all those moon-based traditions are happening this month, I've got another Author's Picks...this time, honouring all those songs that have something to do with the moon, and these definitely only represent the merest of a fraction because as I recall, kayo kyoku do love their moon tunes.
Hope all of you are having a good weekend. It's been refreshingly cool and not cold today and the rain has let up so I could go out and grab a newspaper. Speaking with my Skype student last night, it seems like there was an unusual amount of snow falling on Tokyo earlier today...probably all melted by now.
This morning after breakfast, I was lounging about watching TV Japan and the NHK documentary series "Mokugeki! Nippon"（目撃！にっぽん...Witness! Japan）came on about a group of middle-aged fellows putting on the gloves and learning how to kickbox. Halfway through the show, an Elephant Kashimashi（エレファントカシマシ）tune came on called "Ore-tachi no Ashita" (Our Tomorrow) as an appropriate theme for the fighters.
Released as the band's 34th single in November 2007, and created by raspy-voiced vocalist Hiroji Miyamoto（宮本浩次）, I learned that it was the singer's shoutout to all of his buddies, past and present, to see if they were doing OK. It was actually used as a campaign song for an energy drink, but under the current circumstances, I believe that "Ore-tachi no Ashita" can now be used as a tune of encouragement for everyone on the planet.
The single peaked at No. 18 on Oricon, and as for the music video higher up, that was apparently filmed on a building rooftop somewhere near Yokohama Stadium. "Ore-tachi no Ashita" was also a track on Elephant Kashimashi's 18th album"STARTING OVER" from January 2008, and that release broke into the Top 10 at No. 7.
After a long time, I got to see the rock band Elephant Kashimashi（エレファントカシマシ）again. First it was through their performance on the 68th edition of the Kohaku Utagassen and then this morning, I saw the Friday night broadcast of "News Watch 9" on NHK in which the co-anchor had an extended interview with the vocalist for the band, the iconoclastic Hiroji Miyamoto（宮本浩次）.
As I pointed out in my very first mention of the band when they did a cover of Yuming's（ユーミン）"Kageriyuku Heya"（翳りゆく部屋）, the lasting memory I had of Miyamoto was that he had a habit of just messing about with his hair. The comedic duo Downtown didn't fail to make hay out of that during Elephant Kashimashi's many appearances on "HEY! HEY! HEY! Music Champ". Miyamoto himself could have been become one of those ippin geinin, a comedian who becomes known for a particular shtick or catchphrase. He soon came across as quite a character.
I couldn't find this morning's particular interview but I did find a recent appearance by Miyamoto and company on the NHK morning show "Asaichi"（あさイチ）, and the lead singer comes across as this coiled spring with really active arms. My impression through the interview was that in the early days of Elephant Kashimashi in the 1980s, Miyamoto was even more intense and perhaps scary in that he yelled at the audience to sit still and listen and not scream and dance about. I also remember one scene where he cut down one audience member at the knees for daring to shout out something while on stage. Seeing those early performances, it seemed like any remaining punk essence from the UK all went into him.
He's mellowed out considerably since then and he comes across as quite humble although he is very expressive when he talks. It's like watching a Japanese Robin Williams in how restless he is. Another thing I got out of the interview was he and the band finally realized that it wasn't enough, in his words, to bludgeon the audience with the truth and that a more softly, softly approach was better. Still, seeing that coiled spring stance of his, I think that he can be pretty intimidating if crossed.
One of the goals for this blog has been to reminisce about the songs that I remember and find like-minded fans out there. Another goal that slowly bubbled up over time was unearthing songs that I had forgotten about in the folds of my brain, and it seems like a lot of those songs were made in the 1990s and perhaps into the early years of the 21st century.
Sure enough, when Elephant Kashimashi performed "Koyoi no Tsuki no You ni" (Like The Moon Tonight) on the Kohaku Utagassen, I internally went "Oh, right....I remember this song!". This was actually released in July 1997 as the band's 15th single, written and composed by Miyamoto. As you can hear, it's not a thrashing rock piece but more of a sweet ballad with Miyamoto's soaring vocals about getting back on one's own feet after going through a tough time.
I also vaguely remember that "Koyoi no Tsuki no You ni" was a theme song for a Fuji-TV drama, and indeed it fronted "Tsuki no Kagayaku Yoru dakara"（月の輝く夜だから...Because It's The Night of the Shining Moon） which was originally broadcast during the summer. At the time, I was starting to drift away from J-Dramas generally speaking and I wasn't a fan of the band so the song didn't especially hit me at the time although its hit status meant that I did hear parts of it often enough through a number of channels, literally and figuratively. As has been the case for a number of songs I've re-discovered over the past few years, my attitude has also mellowed for this song. It's not a type of song that I've heard in quite a long time.
According to J-Wiki, "Koyoi no Tsuki no You ni" is the band's biggest hit as it hit No. 8 on Oricon, going Triple Platinum and becoming the 81st-ranked single for 1997. The producer for "Tsuki no Kagayaku Yoru dakara" had asked Miyamoto to come up with a theme song for his project, and the singer did so by finding out about the synopsis of the drama. It was the band's first tie-up song with a drama and their very first Top 10 hit. The song also helped in raising Elephant Kashimashi's profile to the country.
Long ago, I'd bought a 2-CD pack titled "Super Best of Yumi Arai" which of course held a good chunk of The Queen of New Music's musical output from the early to mid-1970s.
At that point, although I had already collected quite a few of Yuming's（ユーミン）works (80s and 90s) since she changed her last name to Matsutoya（松任谷由実）, I hadn't really known too much about her early discography when she was still an Arai（荒井由実）. So these two discs were pretty eye-opening. In particular, the final song on CD 2 had as much impact on me as her 12th single"Futou wo Wataru Kaze"（埠頭を渡る風）from 1978.
"Kageriyuku Heya"(The Darkening Room) starts off with this regal pipe organ which I found out was located at St. Mary's Cathedral Church in the Mejiro district of Tokyo (don't bother tracking it down, it was replaced by a new instrument in 2004). That introduction made me wonder whether there was special significance about this particular tune.
As it turns out, "Kageriyuku Heya" was not only Yuming's 7th single from March 1976 (the B-side is the gentler "Velvet Easter") but it was additionally her final single asYumi Arai. So without looking at the lyrics, I had always wondered whether the song was meant to act as a coda to that first era of New Music or to commemorate the fact that she was about to get married. Well, the answer to that was...no. According to the lyrics' translation that I found at "Misa-chan's J-Pop Blog", the elegiac ballad is a pretty epic aftermath description of a romance which has gone down in flames. I guess if a relationship has to die, let it die hard.
I have to admit that I didn't like the song at first but then again, my ears and mind took their time to get used to and then enjoy Yumi Arai's entire catalogue of music. Now "Kageriyuku Heya" stands out as one of the more interesting songs that I have ever heard from Yuming. It hit No. 10 on Oricon and ended up as the 43rd-ranking single of 1976. Although it was never placed on an original album, it was placed on Yuming's very first BEST compilation, "YUMING BRAND" which was released some 3 months after this single, and then a much later collection of her hits "sweet,bitter sweet〜YUMING BALLAD BEST" in 2001. Of course, there is "Super Best of Yumi Arai" that came out in 1996.
Elephant Kashimashi（エレファントカシマシ）is a rock band that I had heard about for years but only because the lead singer, Hiroji Miyamoto（宮本浩次）, had a penchant for scraggling up his hair constantly whenever he showed up for TV interviews. Medicated shampoo was my usual suggestion for him.
But I have to say that Miyamoto and his band give a rousing rock n' blues version of "Kageriyuku Heya". And the vocalist reminds me quite a bit of Masamune Kusano（草野マサムネ）from Spitz in the quieter parts of his delivery. Elephant Kashimashi's cover of the song was recorded on their 18th album"STARTING OVER" from January 2008 which peaked at No. 7 on Oricon.
