LÄ-PPISCH -- Magic Blue Case

 

One of my favourite movies of all time is "Ronin" (1998), which was one of director John Frankenheimer's final movies. A great spy caper movie starring Robert DeNiro, Jean Reno and Natascha McElhone, the plot and the characters all revolve around one little suitcase. What's in it? Who knows and who cares? It is the perfect illustration of that cinematic device known as the MacGuffin, and it was a fun two hours watching everyone stalk and kill each other over it.

For some reason, that was the movie that came to my mind as I listened to LÄ-PPISCH's September 1990 4th single, "Magic Blue Case". Written and composed by vocalist Kyoichi Sugimoto（杉本恭一）, the plot here revolves around a guy who finds a mysterious blue case one day, brings it home and finds himself rich beyond his means, only to find out that there is a fine print of sorts that doesn't bode well for the possessor. At the same time then, the song then reminds me of the tale of young Taro Urashima who brings home that forbidden box from his long time at the Dragon Palace, opens it and ends up older than the hills.

Speaking about the fine print, I should have read a bit more carefully about LÄ-PPISCH since all this time, I'd treated the band merely as a ska group, a la their light and nimble "Payapaya" （パヤパヤ）. However, according to their J-Wiki file, they actually have a much more varied resume as they have performed rock, alternative, New Wave, and funk. Listening to "Magic Blue Case", I get much more in the way of INXS than Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra.

Chitose Hajime/LÄ-PPISCH -- Wadatsumi no Ki（ワダツミの木）

 

When I first heard this song almost 20 years ago while living in Japan, I was scratching my head at it since I couldn't really figure out what genre it belonged to.

But man, was it getting a lot of attention on television and I gather radio as well (I was no longer listening to radio by that point)! I kept seeing it on the music ranking shows and although I was also not watching "Music Station" all that much, I assumed that she was appearing there and any other similar music performance programs.

What I'm talking about is Chitose Hajime's（元ちとせ）debut single "Wadatsumi no Ki" (The Sea-God's Tree) which was released in February 2002. The song was written, composed and arranged by the keyboardist of the ska band LÄ-PPISCH, Gen Ueda（上田現）, and at the time that I first heard the song, I thought that there was some very leisurely undulating reggae with the rhythm. But it was Hajime's voice that got my further attention with that distinct style and those brief falsetto moments in her delivery. Was she Okinawan?

Well, as it turns out, Hajime does hail from a smaller island but it's not Okinawa. Actually, she comes from Amami-Oshima, located between Kyushu and Okinawa and under administration by Kagoshima Prefecture. That distinct style of her singing is known as a form of shima-uta native to Amami-Oshima according to her own Wikipedia page. 

"Wadatsumi no Ki" became Hajime's biggest hit by entering Oricon right from the start at No. 19 and slowly heading up to No. 1 a couple of months after release. It went Triple Platinum and became the No. 3 song of the year, selling approximately 850,000 copies. The song also became a track on her debut album "Hainumikaze" (ハイヌミカゼ) from July 2002 (although she had released four indies albums prior). The album also hit No. 1 and ended up as the No. 16 album of the year, going Platinum and winning Best Album honours at the Japan Record Awards in 2002. As another feather in her cap, according to the local Nankai Nichi Nichi Newspaper via the J-Wiki article on "Wadatsumi no Ki", a newly discovered flowering plant native to Amami-Oshima was given the name of wadatsuminoki in tribute to the song.

In March 2008, songwriter Ueda succumbed to lung cancer at the age of 47, and in tribute to the keyboardist, his old band LÄ-PPISCH along with Hajime and other artists such as Tamio Okuda（奥田民生）and POLYSICS got together to cut an album "Sirius〜Tribute to UEDA GEN〜" which was released in September. Peaking at No. 45 on Oricon, the "Sirius" refers to what Ueda had supposedly said on his deathbed, "I will turn into the star Sirius and look over my family". One track on the album is the band's more subdued cover of "Wadatsumi no Ki".

INXS -- Need You Tonight

A few weeks ago, I was watching a film as a part of a series of documentaries for the annual "Bell: Let's Talk" project for putting a huge spotlight on mental illness. The movie was "Mystify" regarding the life and death of Michael Hutchence, the lead singer for the Australian band INXS. The style was very interesting in which the movie seemed to move forward based on mostly home movie footage (some by the late Hutchence himself) and interviews with the loves of his life, including Kylie Minogue. I got to hear excerpts of a lot of INXS' hits but this was by no means a feel-good movie; really, this was a slow path to a tragedy.

One of their biggest successes was "Need You Tonight", a September 1987 single that hit No. 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100, No. 2 on Canada's top singles, and No. 3 in Australia. The song was also memorable for its music video with all of that layered footage and Hutchence prowling around like a hungry panther. I remember seeing that video on heavy rotation on my nation's equivalent of MTV, MuchMusic, and then catching it one night at a pizza parlour right across from the University of Toronto where a bunch of us were having dinner after a volleyball game. But it was also the song's guitar riff, drum taps and Hutchence's stealthy delivery that also stuck with me all these decades.

As I did with The Go-Gos last summer, I will now provide that comparison between the release of this INXS single and a couple of Japanese pop tunes. However, unlike last time when I put up the Top 3 singles for June 1982 when "Vacation" had been released, the comparison with the September 23rd release of "Need You Tonight" will simply involved a couple of J-Pop tunes that were also released at around the same time.

1. Ayumi Shirota -- Koishikute (September 23rd)

2. LA-PPISCH -- Payapaya (September 21st)

LÄ-PPISCH -- Payapaya （パヤパヤ）

(short version)

Well, when it comes to J-Ska, it isn't necessarily only Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra. Back in the Gunma days, I used to see this Toyota commercial which featured this bouncy tune and in the corner was the name LÄ-PPISCH. I didn't even know how to pronounce this name, let alone know anything else about this ska group.

As it is, it sounds like repisshu according to the katakana（レピッシュ）name. The group was formed all the way back in 1983 but didn't make its major debut until September 1987, and it was with this same bouncy tune that I heard as a campaign song for the Toyota Starlet as the decade turned. "Payapaya". Vocalist and trumpeter MAGUMI wrote the lyrics exhorting all listeners to bop about and party as if it were 1999. Guitarist Kyoichi Sugimoto（杉本恭一）came up with the fun beat....love the intro trumpets, by the way.

The current lineup for LÄ-PPISCH is MAGUMI, Sugimoto and bassist TATSU. Up to this date, the group has released 14 singles and 12 studio albums.

And the above is the commercial where I first heard "Payapaya". I hope no one was injured.