Friends -- NIGHT TOWN

 

Perhaps things have improved a bit since the early days and nights of my time in the Tokyo area when the transit system in one of the world's largest metropoles shut down just shy of midnight. Yes, as crazy as it might sound, Tokyo wasn't and isn't a 24-hour city...well, it could be, provided that one didn't mind staying up at an all-night café (regular/Internet/manga) or got a taxi that charged a whole lot more overnight. At least now it seems as if Tokyo Metro and the JR are at least closing down at around the sinful time of 1 am, and that is for the very latest trains. My student told me that during the pandemic, things were shutting down even earlier to get folks to not carouse all that much in the big city. So, the moral of the story is...always check your schedules if you want to paint the town red in Tokyo.

But for those who are OK with a relatively early evening, try "NIGHT TOWN" by the pop band Friends（フレンズ）. I wrote about this Tokyo-based group right in the middle of the pandemic with a 2016 song titled "Yoru ni Dance"（夜にダンス）that probably had a lot of KKP viewers swooning back then about being able to have a night out on the town. Well, several months later, the fun continued with a November 2017 mini-album "Petit Town"（プチタウン）that got up to No. 33 on Oricon.

I don't know whether a lot of Friends' discography revolves around nocturnal activities in the big city. However, "NIGHT TOWN", which was written by band members singer-songwriter and vocalist Emi Okamoto（おかもとえみ）and keyboardist/rapper Hirose Hirose（ひろせひろせ）, has taken the baton from "Yoru ni Dance" with another copacetic melodic trip through the trendier areas of Tokyo in both the song and the music video. Would like to know exactly where everyone was tripping the light fantastic.

The current official membership of Friends is around four to five including Okamoto but Hirose took a leave of absence at the end of 2020 and then announced his official departure from the band in April 2021.

Friends -- Yoru ni Dance（夜にダンス）

Well, I just wrote about Emi Okamoto's（おかもとえみ）"Bokura Truth"（僕らtruth）so I was curious about her band Friends（フレンズ）since just by its name, it sounded rather welcoming.

I found the first of their seven digital download singles, "Yoru ni Dance" (Dance in the Night) released in April 2016, and though Friends is categorized as a J-Pop band, I think that there is some of that happy-go-lucky funk, soul and certainly rap in this number. Written by Okamoto and composed by Friends keyboardist/rapper Hirose Hirose（ひろせひろせ）, it has both songwriters in the video accompanying a trench-coated lady wishing to literally trip the light fantastic. I was wondering where they were filming since I saw that McDonalds (and I haven't had a Big Mac in over 3 months), and I just briefly caught that JR sign denoting that it was Ebisu Station in Tokyo. Perhaps until recently, that may have been the tony Ebisu district at 8pm. In any case, I'm hoping that once COVID-19 is done with us once and for all, a lot of folks will be willing to have that dance-a-thon in the evening.

Along with Okamoto and Hirose Hirose, Friends also has its leader, bassist Ryohei Nagashima（長島涼平）, guitarist Taro Miura（三浦太郎）and drummer Rui Sekiguchi（関口塁）with support keyboardist Kenta Yamamoto（山本健太）with the band getting its start in 2015. In addition to those seven digital download singles, Friends has also released one CD single in 2019, three singles only available at concerts and a number of albums. "Yoru ni Dance" also has a remix version on its March 2018 EP album "Bedside Music ep" that peaked at No. 73 on the charts.

Emi Okamoto -- Bokura truth（僕らtruth）

Another sunny Sunday out there and a little unseasonably cool, but that's perfectly fine with me. I was never a huge fan of heat and humidity, and seventeen summers in Japan taught me that.

I'm completing a covering of a trilogy of recommendations that I was given from a commenter on the Kirinji（キリンジ）article for "Ai wo aru dake, Subete"（愛をあるだけ、すべて）. The connecting thread among all three of them is the composer Yasuyuki Horigome（堀込泰行）, formerly part of the band itself. The first couple of songs were for seiyuu-singers Saori Hayami（早見沙織）and Maaya Sakamoto（坂本真綾）, but this third one, "Bokura truth" (Our Truth) is for singer-songwriter-bassist Emi Okamoto（おかもとえみ）who is also the vocalist for the pop band Friends（フレンズ）.

"Bokura truth" is a calming mixture of soul and dreamy pop by Horigome with a lot of appropriately calming blue in the video, although that bass synth does come in with a stomp sometimes. Okamoto provided the lyrics which seem to speak of a love that hasn't quite come to fruition quite yet but at least one of the potential pair is fairly hopeful. You know...when I heard this for the first time, my impression was that this was Kirinji in its current form: cool, contemporary and spacey at the same time. Going back to that video, I think that it could also be used for a psychoanalysis session.

The song belongs to Okamoto's first solo album "gappy" which was released in October 2019. As some trivia, Okamoto was responsible for naming her band Friends. In addition, both of her parents are illustrators, Hideo and Yoshiko Okamoto（岡本英郎・美子）, and she has a love for pickled plums and zombies. Yes, she loves zombies.