SEAGULL SCREAMING KISS HER KISS HER -- Coma

 

Welcome to August! I first came across the word "coma" from the 1978 cinematic adaptation of Robin Cook's novel "Coma" whose poster originated from the cover of the book: a chilling display of a naked body held up by strings. Until then, I'd though that the word was merely mistaken spelling of a punctuation mark but of course the meaning was far more serious. I was way too young and too much of a fraidy-cat to watch something like that at the theatre, but I've heard over the years that it made for a great hospital thriller with Genevieve Bujold, Michael Douglas and Tom Selleck (yep, some years before he was immortalized as the first Magnum PI).

Cue ahead a couple of decades and what we've got is "Coma", the lead track on rock band SEAGULL SCREAMING KISS HER KISS HER's "17" album from September 1998. It's quite the hard art rock song with vocalist and songwriter Aiha Higurashi（日暮愛葉）creating the first third of the song as a nonchalant almost child-like spoken-word approach to the lyrics against the background of a brooding electric guitar before things go thumping melodically along. 

Not sure how you feel about "Coma", but hearing Higurashi intoning and then singing the lyrics, I think it's either about someone who can't be bothered to get off the couch and relies on the significant other for various favours or the person really is in a coma with her still active mind in a locked body while a med tech may be taking some horrible advantage with her. It's not exactly Rammstein, but still...

SEAGULL SCREAMING KISS HER KISS HER -- Double Life

The temperature may be in double digits for the first time in several days, but it sure doesn't feel like it. Pretty chilly out there and I've shut the window in my room for it.

Anyways, there was a little promotional film made in 1965 for Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" which I've wondered whether it would be considered to be one of the very first music videos ever made. I'd thought that the clip for Billy Joel's "Piano Man" was perhaps the first of its type, but then I caught the one for Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots Were Made for Walkin'" and that was released back in 1966.

According to the Wikipedia article for "Subterranean Homesick Blues", a lot of other musicians in the decades since have emulated the video. One that I remember well is the video for "Mediate" by INXS which came right after "Need You Tonight".

The list didn't include it, but the rock band SEAGULL SCREAMING KISS HER KISS HER had vocalist Aiha Higurashi（日暮愛葉）putting her own clever twist on Dylan's video via her song "Double Life". The track was included on the band's 3rd album "17" from September 1998, and this time, it isn't the throwing of placards but the doffing of T-shirts. Looks like there was a pretty intense relationship going on considering some of the pictorial T's near the end. I do hope that Higurashi was at least able to keep the shirts.

One of the commenters for the YouTube video pointed out the way that Higurashi was sitting...in a rather frog-like style. To be honest, when I was much younger, I used to sit that way when I sat on floors. I really don't think that I can do that now but then again, I haven't sat on a floor in many years.

SEAGULL SCREAMING KISS HER KISS HER -- No Star

It's a Sunday night so it's time to get that sleep for another round of commuting and the rat race from tomorrow for another work week. Perhaps it may be some time to get some of that angst out of your system before realizing that the weekend is almost done.

Maybe some lively rock? I found this nifty music video for SEAGULL SCREAMING KISS HER KISS HER's "No Star". A track from the band's 4th album from 2000 "NO!NO!NO!", "No Star" is the type of bang-away rock that I had first expected by SSKHKH when I first wrote about them back in 2017 for what was a surprisingly more eclectic pop tune "Sister Sister" (1998).

Instead with "No Star", it's all guitars on full and set to fun. Plus, I like that video and all of the special effects gimmickry...nice apartment, too, may I add. The thing is though that "No Star" reminds me for some reason of the stuff that I used to hear in the early 1980s as a teen. Vocalist Aiha Higurashi（日暮愛葉）sounds a bit like Deborah Harry from Blondie, and altogether there is a bit of a Joan Jett feeling to "No Star" with even a refrain that has me thinking The Police's "Message in a Bottle" from 1979.

SEAGULL SCREAMING KISS HER KISS HER -- Sister Sister

Visiting the CD stores, big or small, major or independent, was a weekly routine. It didn't even have to be the weekend. If I had a goodly amount of time between lessons or if I had time in the morning or late afternoon, I would make my way to one of my regular haunts. Shibuya in Tokyo was, therefore, a must-visit target.

The 3 biggies for me were Tower Records, HMV and Yamano Music in Ginza. And I had those pegged with certain "personalities". Tower was the all-purpose guy and the one that, without fail, I always visited. Meanwhile, Ginza Yamano was the more elegant and old-fashioned gent with what I thought was a bigger storehouse for the old kayo albums although plenty of the contemporary stuff such as the Johnny's idols was also on sale. HMV which was just around the corner from the huge Tower flagship in Shibuya was the lean, mean and eclectic cousin.

So, perhaps it is no surprise that I first heard about the band SEAGULL SCREAMING KISS HER KISS HER (for the sake of brevity and my typing fingers, I will heretofore refer to the band as SSKHKH) at HMV. I picked up one of the store's weekly booklets and saw the name along with a photo of vocalist/guitarist Aiha Higurashi（日暮愛葉）on the cover. It was one of those incredible band names that I could never forget but could never quite remember with 100% accuracy either.

Nope, I will give my full confession and say that I never ventured to listen to anything by them while I was living in the country. However, now that I've been writing this blog for years and SSKHKH will never leave my mind, I decided to finally check out some of their discography. And the one song that popped up often enough was "Sister Sister".

This came from their third album "17" from September 1998. "Sister Sister" stood out because it was counter to my assumptions about SSKHKH. I think some of their other output fit my impressions of them being devoted to thrashy rock, but "Sister Sister" was totally different. It sounded like playful minimalist avant-garde pop and the official video above looked more like what I used to see in the post-midnight out-there music video programs back in the 1980s. It does have that quirkily cute hook.

Now, if I'm not mistaken, the other two with Higurashi in the video are bassist Nao Koyama（小山ナオ）and drummer Takaharu Karashima（辛島孝治）, both who have since left the band.

SSKHKH was first formed in 1992 and has had a number of ins-and-outs in terms of personnel. The band lasted for 10 years until 2002, but Higurashi brought it back out of mothballs in 2014. As for the name, it apparently came out of one of the tracks on an 1984 album, "The Big Express" by English band XTC, titled "Seagulls Screaming Kiss Her, Kiss Her". Higurashi was not only a fan of XTC but was apparently impressed by the length of the title so it was a done deal. Not sure whether the band has had to pay royalties.

Just for curiosity's sake, here is that XTC song. Personally speaking, I prefer their "Senses Working Overtime".